Sixteen Years

Advertisement

There weren’t many armed forces aboard on this train.

Liu Ruosong didn’t know how the subsequent rescue and evacuation had been arranged, but from what he saw at the moment, the effective force available on this train was clearly far below his expectations.

The scattered cries from inside the carriage grew fainter, and with insufficient light at night and inadequate rescue equipment at hand, they had to rely on manual labor. Liu Ruosong probably had a mild concussion from the fall; if he took a few more steps, he would likely faint. So, he stood a little farther away and helped transport the wounded.

These people were all civilians who had escaped from S City. They had luckily survived the initial peak of infection, and miraculously, none of them had been injured or mutated. They had taken great risks to board the evacuation train out of the dead city, but they hadn’t expected this disaster.

Fate was unpredictable, Liu Ruosong thought to himself.

He helped for a while, but as he was also injured, he couldn’t contribute much. In the end, he could only sit on a large rock, gasping for breath, and stare at the distant flames.

Actually, Liu Ruosong had a vague understanding in his mind. They had no vehicle, no equipment, and were stranded in this remote area. With so many wounded and no follow-up rescue in sight, it would be a pipe dream to think they could all be evacuated.

Follow-up rescue… his thoughts suddenly paused at this term, followed by a bitter smile.

He had no idea what the situation was like outside. Forget about rescue; it would be good if everyone could save themselves.

The glance he took through the glass window before leaving S City had caused quite a mental shock to Liu Ruosong. He found it hard to imagine what the city had become by now. Whether the so-called “evacuation” was an effective containment measure or just self-deception.

While Liu Ruosong was lost in thought, the chaotic sounds around him mixed together. No one heard the extremely faint sound of steel breaking hidden in the background noise.

The twisted metal couldn’t bear the weight, and thin cracks began to appear. The massive train began to slide slowly downhill, sparks flying at the joints, eventually falling into a deeper crack in the pipeline.

Advertisement

Liu Ruosong was contemplating how to get this thing into Yan City when he suddenly felt dizzy, his ears ringing loudly. His reactions were slower than usual, and it took him a while to hear someone calling his name. By the time he realized what was happening, a powerful force had thrown him out, and he tumbled several times before being pinned down on the soft grass.

For what felt like a long time, he couldn’t hear anything.

The buzzing ear ringing seemed to penetrate his brain, blocking his ears like a barrier. He was in a daze, completely cut off from the outside world, as if he were the only person left on Earth.

Liu Ruosong’s vision alternated between black and blurry, and it took him a while to react – the train had exploded a second time.

It might have been due to contraband on the train or a train malfunction, but Liu Ruosong didn’t have time to think about it right now.

The soft body that had landed on top of him seemed unusually heavy. He tentatively pushed it away, but there was no response from the person.

With a bit of effort, he turned the person over, shaking his head in frustration. He wanted to check on the person’s condition, but when he glanced at the person, he noticed that their lower body was nothing but a blur of flesh and bones.

The person’s back was covered in extensive burns, and their spine had broken into several pieces from the impact of the fall. There was no sign of life left in them.

Advertisement

In the midst of the stars in his vision, Liu Ruosong struggled to identify the person’s face and was surprised to find that it was someone he had encountered before – the young man he had found earlier.

Perhaps it was because he had seen too much death in just one day, but Liu Ruosong found himself strangely numb. His mind was blank, devoid of grief or reflection, leaving only a vacuum of shock.

Liu Ruosong didn’t know if the young man had thrown themselves at him or if it was a chance encounter. But it didn’t matter. He didn’t think too much, just sat silently for two or three seconds in the same spot, then reached out and closed the young man’s eyes.

Thank you, Liu Ruosong thought. Although these two words sounded casual and insincere, they were the most he could offer right now.

………………….

Because he had previously smelled the scent of the zombies.

Right now, his sense of smell was the only fully functional sense he had left, and fortunately, the smell of zombies was something he would never forget after encountering it once.

Unlike the smell of blood, the infected zombies would rot rapidly, deteriorating from the inside out, turning into hollow shells. Their organs would decay into a bloody mess inside their bodies, and the stench would emanate from them, like a corpse that had been rotting in a trash can for days under the scorching sun.

The stench suddenly wafted over with the wind and was nauseating.

Liu Ruosong could smell it, and there seemed to be quite a few of them – he just didn’t know if they were attracted by the smell of blood or by the fire.

Advertisement

In any case, staying in this place was no longer an option. Liu Ruosong looked up and realized that the hill he had rolled down was quite high. With his current unsteady state, there was no way he could climb back up.

So, he gritted his teeth, forced himself to forget the option of “going back to check the situation,” and turned in a random direction. He started walking, one step at a time, in the darkness.

He had no flashlight or source of light on him, and it was a cloudy night. There was no moonlight to be seen. Liu Ruosong had to move forward in the darkness.

His experience of evading wild animals in the wilderness had made him cautious. He followed the moisture in the air and gradually found a drainage ditch. He was lucky; this area was a farmland, and the early maize had grown over a meter tall, forming a dense thicket around the ditch.

Liu Ruosong crouched down between two rows of maize and sat down awkwardly.

He didn’t dare to go too deep fearing that he might encounter unexpected situations and not be able to escape. So, he only set up a shallow shelter and breathed a sigh of relief for the time being.

During the journey to this spot, he had encountered two lone zombies. With obstructed visibility in the darkness, Liu Ruosong was afraid that a missed shot might attract more of them, so he held his breath and waited for them to approach closer before reluctantly pulling the trigger and shooting them both.

Fortunately, the makeshift training with Fu Yan had proven useful. Liu Ruosong didn’t waste any bullets, but the recoil caused his entire shoulder to ache, throbbing with pain.

Liu Ruosong thought with a wry smile – he hadn’t expected to end up in such a sorry state just one day after parting ways with Fu Yan. He had no idea how things were going on Fu Yan’s side or whether he had encountered any unexpected situations during his journey.

He leaned against a corn stalk, counted the remaining bullets, and reached into his bag to touch the two blood samples, finding them still intact. He breathed a sigh of relief.

“Pretty resilient,” Liu Ruosong thought. “It’s a good thing I wrapped them in several layers of cloth.”

After checking, he began to worry again. After a night of overturning and explosions, almost being pushed into a drainage ditch by two zombies, and not resting for a moment, he suddenly remembered the “important task” he still carried.

What should I do? Liu Ruosong briefly fell into doubt for the first time: what if I die here?

But immediately, he dismissed this thought and thought humorously, “No, that won’t do. I promised Fu Yan that I would safely deliver myself and the blood sample to Yan City.”

So, he briefly made a “three-sided” agreement with himself, playing the roles of both the “second party” and the “valuable person.” He mustered up a bit of strength from deep within himself.

Advertisement

Wait a little longer, Liu Ruosong thought. After a night of turmoil, it was probably close to dawn. He decided to take a rest here for a while, and when it got light, he would try to find a main road. Finding a vehicle would be even better.

He thought drowsily, his mind becoming increasingly unclear. His head gradually leaned against the cornstalk, and he fell asleep almost without struggling.

He didn’t know how much time had passed, but a faint line of white light appeared on the horizon, and a gunshot abruptly pierced the tranquil morning light. Liu Ruosong jolted awake with his whole body, sitting up reflexively.

It was either almost dawn or not yet dawn. The surroundings were still shrouded in a gray haze, and Liu Ruosong was both shocked and suspicious. He couldn’t tell if the gunshot was real or if he was dreaming.

But soon, more gunshots rang out in the vicinity, this time they were rapid and dense. Liu Ruosong could tell that these were numbered, organized forces.

He hesitated briefly and then adopted a risky approach.

Liu Ruosong gritted his teeth, loaded his gun, and fired a shot into the air as a warning signal.

The nearby gunfire stopped briefly, but the zombies wandering in the vicinity had evidently also heard the commotion and were slowly turning around, taking slow steps towards him.

After firing the shot, Liu Ruosong quickly retreated, circling around in the drainage ditch twice and reaching the other side of the forest. Then, he fired another shot.

The direction he moved in was consistent with the direction where he had heard the gunfire earlier. As he had estimated, two minutes later, a powerful searchlight beam swept through the cornfield, almost forcefully scanning the area.

Liu Ruosong emerged from the farmland, exposed under the bright light.

Ironically, after an eventful night, he found himself strangely comforted by the sight of a strong flashlight.

The searchlight quickly moved away, and from the direction of the slope, several young men and women in unfamiliar uniforms, well-equipped and moving in an orderly manner, rushed out onto the intersection of the small road within a few minutes.

Liu Ruosong subconsciously reached for Fu Yan’s identification on his body to prove his identity. However, the group of people suddenly stopped before they could approach him, exchanged strange glances within a very short time, and appeared to have exchanged some kind of unspoken message.

Among the group, a very young-looking boy couldn’t stop himself and slid over to Liu Ruosong. He stared at him for two seconds, as if his brain had stalled, and hesitated as he called out, “Sister-in-law?”

Liu Ruosong: “…?”