WS - Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Thick smoke, blazing flames.

Song Shiyue rubbed her head with one hand and clutched the front of her clothes with the other. She awoke groggily from the bed. Before she could see anything clearly, the dense smoke stung her eyes. She took a single breath and nearly coughed out her lungs.

Yet even that violent coughing could not suppress the burning, itching torment in her throat.

Cough, cough, cough... Damn Central City!

They conned, robbed, and snatched top-tier female special ability users from so many small and medium bases around them. Did they really think that in the apocalypse everyone's brains had been eaten by zombies, and people would sacrifice everything for their so-called human repopulation plan?

Song Shiyue struggled to suppress the coughing and propped herself up. The flames on the floor not far away, the billowing smoke — it made the groggy Song Shiyue tug the corner of her mouth into a self-mocking smile.

Those ability users, tempered by slaughter and survival in the apocalypse, would never yield so easily. Central City was tasting its own bitter fruit this time; half the city was burning... It only pitied people like her, innocent bystanders who had entered Central City for supplies at the wrong moment, only to get caught in the lockdown and swept up in this carnage, doomed to be buried alongside what was once the largest human base in the apocalypse.

Fires across half the city, smoke filling an entire city, every kind of ability, near-indiscriminate attacks — the battle outside was already beyond what a simple strength-type like Song Shiyue could withstand. She had barely found this warehouse to shelter in temporarily, but it seemed it couldn't hold much longer.

Wait...

Warehouse?

That half-filled warehouse — wasn't it blown to pieces?

I... I...

A violent headache shot through Song Shiyue's skull, cutting off her memories. But the way her hand clenched the blanket — the pain forcing her fingers tight — made her aware that even more was wrong.

Where had this soft bed and blanket come from?

Where had... these clean clothes come from?

Seven years in the apocalypse — where was the ever-present... stench of corpses?

Song Shiyue inhaled deeply by reflex. She didn't smell corpses, but she got a face full of the denser-than-ever smoke.

This time, she really felt like her lungs were about to be coughed right out.

Unlike when she first woke and still had the mind to curse at Central City, Song Shiyue instead fixed her gaze on the patches of fire on the floor. No matter how she looked at them, they seemed far too orderly.

It was as if... several fires had been confined within fixed boundaries.

Song Shiyue was about to get out of bed for a closer look when she discovered that her legs could not move freely.

Could she be paralyzed?

Alarmed, Song Shiyue yanked the blanket aside and saw two long, snow-white, perfectly straight legs bound tightly by layers of cloth strips; so tightly it was painful just to look at. Only someone as smoke-addled and muddle-headed as she was right now could have failed to notice such an abnormality immediately.

What the hell?

These weren't the legs from the apocalypse — crisscrossed with new scars layered over old, long past being presentable.

Where was this place?

Who am I?

Song Shiyue's mind quaked. She inadvertently choked on another mouthful of thick smoke and nearly lost consciousness.

What this body was like was no longer the most pressing matter.

Song Shiyue urgently wanted to examine those fire piles on the floor nearby, and even more, wanted to flee this strange place as fast as possible. She had no mind to carefully sift through the memories suppressed by the pain in her brain, let alone the dozens of knots binding her legs.

In just two or three tugs, the cloth strips were ripped to shreds and scattered on the bed.

Who knew how long these legs had been bound; they were so numb and limp she could barely command them.

Song Shiyue endured the burning numbness in her legs. Supporting herself with one hand on what looked like a desk next to the bed head, she forced herself to stand. Relying on the strength of her hands, she painstakingly dragged herself a few steps. Because both hands were needed for support, she couldn't cover her mouth and nose, and the smoke made her head spin and reel.

After great difficulty, she managed to inch forward a few paces. Leaning against the far end of the long desk, she finally got a clear view of those fires.

Yes — several piles.

Fire, braziers, charcoal...

No wonder the flames were so large, the smoke so thick, yet they burned so orderly. It was charcoal fire.

Bound-tight legs, burning charcoal braziers — and several of them... It was truly hard not to think of a rather unfriendly possibility.

The breathable air was growing thinner. Song Shiyue became increasingly dizzy. Although she could still brace herself with both hands, her sore, heavy, numb legs were unbearable. She had no choice but to slide down the desk and sit on the floor.

Once seated, her body lower, the smoke thinned just slightly. She saw, not far beyond the charcoal braziers, what seemed to be a messy pile of odds and ends. Judging by the silhouettes, it ranged from wardrobes and cabinets to trunks and boxes: a whole wall of clutter. Behind that clutter, tightly sealed, seemed to be the door of this room.

If anyone else had come upon this situation, they would have had to spend ages moving it all. In this environment, even if they managed to put out those charcoal braziers, the person would probably collapse before finishing moving that heap of stuff.

Song Shiyue recalled that when she'd gotten out of bed, near the opposite wall of the bed, there had seemed to be quite a pile of things too — hard to see clearly through the smoke. By the logic of this room's layout, that side was very likely a window.

What was going on...

Was this a suicide... or...

She leaned against the desk, severely dizzy. She had just pressed her aching, pounding brow — stabbed by smoke for who knew how long — when the question surfaced in her mind, and an answer appeared in her brain.

Slender, pale, soft hands, trembling slightly — strip by strip, the cloth in those hands became the knots that bound the legs tight...

Those very same hands, laboriously shoving wardrobes, cabinets, trunks, and boxes...

It wasn't just these images. A massive torrent of unfamiliar scenes flooded into Song Shiyue's mind all at once, dealing a hundredfold assault on her already agonized head.

I really don't want to know this much right now, okay? Song Shiyue's head felt like it was splitting. Her body couldn't help trembling slightly. It took everything she had just to temporarily suppress those alien images stabbing into her brain.

The choking, thick smoke. The thin, scarce air. The suffocating near-blackout. The piles of clutter. Plus that unsolicited assault of mental attacks — Song Shiyue was on the verge of losing what little composure she had left.

Suicide, was it?

Made plenty of fail-safes to prevent any regret during the suicide attempt, did we?

Pretty clever.

Too bad the one you ran into is me!

A Strength-Type Ability User — sure, no match for those late-stage fast-growing ability users with their flashy techniques — but I'm no pushover either!

Song Shiyue didn't know how much charcoal gas this body had already inhaled. Judging from her consciousness starting to blur, her temper becoming harder to control, and her legs still limp and unable to stand on their own, she'd better move quickly.

Once again, she braced herself against the long desk behind her and stood. But Song Shiyue headed neither for the blocked door nor the blocked window. Instead, she returned to the bedside and sat down. Then, gathering what little remained of her already-scattered focus, she hoisted the roughly two-meter-long metal desk and smashed it directly against the wall the desk stood against.

One blow. Her chest felt like it was being crushed under a heavy weight; her breathing grew short and rapid.

Two blows. Her mind went utterly blank, but darkness began creeping into her vision.

Three blows...

At last, more than half the wall at the head of the bed collapsed under the desk's final impact.

A surge of fresh air rushed in. Her consciousness already fuzzy, Song Shiyue instinctively wanted to draw a deep breath, to get a moment's relief. But she discovered, to her terror, that no matter how hard she tried to breathe deeply, her chest remained tightly constricted. Every inhale and exhale was faint as gossamer.

Victory was right before her eyes — vast quantities of fresh air, even a slight breeze, dispersing the smoke in the room.

Yet she could not breathe it!

The more unwilling to accept it she grew, the more she panicked, the less strength Song Shiyue could summon.

This powerlessness had nothing to do with possessing a strength-type mutation ability. It seemed simply connected to a body that had already reached its final breaking point in the smoke.

By the second blow, Song Shiyue had already been running on strength alone — her vitality was gone. Now, she was half-collapsed against the bed. One hand clenched the clothes at her chest, yet the other still held the pose of propping herself against the bed.

Time, and fate.

Even Song Shiyue's consciousness, which she considered fairly tenacious, was now shattered, fragmented. Her vision dimmed, nearly shut — plummeting into darkness was but a single step away.

After the darkness, would there still be light?

Song Shiyue didn't know...

In seven years of apocalypse, no one had enough confidence to give a definite, positive answer to that question.

A strange world with no stench of corpses — a clean, tidy room, soft bedding, light clothing, two smooth, unblemished, snow-white legs — it was all like a dream.

A dream where only she existed, struggling alone — no zombies, no mutated animals or plants — yet still a struggle between life and death.

Truly — even dreams were this arduous, this lonely?

Song Shiyue gave a bitter smile. She had just resolved to give up this painful persistence — the near-total inability to breathe — and let herself faint into unconsciousness, when suddenly, her eyes flew wide open.

Before, the doors and windows of this room had all been sealed, leaving only the charcoal fires burning — a bewitching crimson in the gloom. Then the desk had smashed half the wall down, revealing bright daylight from the adjacent room — and a window, ventilated, it seemed — a land of life, yet unreachable for Song Shiyue, who could not even draw breath.

But now, at the edge of that ruined wall, broken bricks piled between life and death, a celestial fairy appeared, arriving from the land of the living, gazing toward the land of the dying.

The woman's skin was like congealed cream; her willowy brows like mist; her eyes, limpid as water — cool and clear, yet not without a trace of warmth. Her robes were white as snow. Her hair was half-pinned up, and the loose strands cascaded down, gently swaying in the breeze. Against the lingering smoke in the room, she seemed to take on an even more celestial air.

Just how much do you have to despise the apocalypse to dream this dream of a normal world?

Just how habituated to the apocalypse must you be to still seek survival in the dream by carrying your strength ability over?

Just how... lonely must you be to dream in the end of...

Song Shiyue took two difficult, forceful breaths, but it barely helped. Even the stunning sight of a celestial fairy only granted her a brief, dying flash of lucidity.

Her consciousness scattered once more. Her vision began to blur again.

It seemed that celestial fairy was lifting the hem of her skirt, climbing over from atop the pile of broken wall.

Hmm... what were those things she was treading over the brick pile in?

Little cream-colored bunny slippers?

Ha... kind of cute.

Song Shiyue slumped crookedly against the head of the bed. Finally, she closed her eyes.

Yu Nianbing bent over. It took a great deal of effort before she could climb over the heap of broken bricks.

When she had peered inside earlier, the person had looked fine, but the moment their eyes had met, the person had slumped over.

The person had lost consciousness, but what was the deal with that faint smile left at the corner of her lips?

Yu Nianbing, already irritated by the smoke for some time, couldn't help coughing a few clear coughs. Without delay, she reached out to check Song Shiyue's breathing. Then, after roughly scanning the smoke-filled room, she activated the StarNet port on her wrist.

"Search for: emergency first aid for charcoal-burning suicide. Then dial Ciming Hospital Doctor Zhou's number." Yu Nianbing's voice carried a trace of nervousness and worry quite at odds with her calm exterior.

A rapid series of electronic, mechanical sounds soon filled the room.

A pair of fair, slender hands reached for Song Shiyue's waistband.

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