Chapter 22.1 – Mu Yanshen

Late at night, on the vast grasslands.

A group of people sat by the campfire, a rare moment of rest.

Somehow, the topic of what they were going to do after they headed back arose.

He Ziyue always delighted in these conversations. “The first thing I’ll do when I get back is to visit my mother’s grave. Damn monsters, eating the offerings I prepared for her anniversary…but they would’ve eaten me too if I hadn’t run. That was the only time I’ve broken my promise to visit her..”

She paused, then continued in a soft voice, murmuring to herself. “I don’t even know if the graveyard is still there.”

Hua Jin’s answer was curt, a complete contrast. “I want to cure Xiao Yu’s illness.”

The group carries on discussing the same topic.

“The first thing I’m going to do when I get back is to eat a good meal! I swear, raw or rotten meat are the only two things we’ve been eating in these worlds! I’m gonna be sick the next time I smell them.”

“I’m going to find my game console and play for three days straight!”

“I haven’t finished my thesis…”

“I don’t know if my sister is still alive…before this we had such a hard time finding a suitable surgeon for her.”

“Damn, my situation’s so much better than yours! I dropped dead at my wedding and got sucked in.”

When it came to Chu Chenli, his wish was equally brief.

“I want to see him again.”

Everyone knew the “him” in question. Who else but the boyfriend he still held so much fondness in his heart for?

The person sitting next to him stiffened slightly at the statement, but no one noticed except Chu Chenli.

Mu Yanshen leaned his head against Chu Chenli’s shoulder.

Chu Chenli tilted his head slightly, taking in the exhaustion lining his face. In the flickering firelight, he looked pale and worryingly weak. He’d been wounded some time ago.

Chu Chenli doesn’t push him away, listening quietly to the topic of discussion, occasionally glancing at the captain sitting across the campfire.

A voice chimes out, “What about our captain? What’s his wish?”

“It’s definitely to save the world!”

“Or world peace!”

“The captain’s a person with broad aspirations, he must have great ambitions!”

“If he hadn’t been sucked in, the captain might have already found a way to end the calamity out there.”

–

The group throws out a few jokes about the captain. Chu Chenli politely abstained from the conversation, but couldn’t help laughing.

The captain laughed good-naturedly, adding a few branches to the fire. In a steady voice, he admits, “I hope that everyone can return alive.”

With that sentence, the atmosphere completely stills.

The captain had shattered the carefree atmosphere with his blunt statement–but he had dared to speak aloud the desire hidden in their hearts.

For a moment, the air seemed to turn bitter.

The captain looks up at Mu Yanshen, the only one who hadn’t spoken yet, an attempt at easing the tension. “What about you, Xiao Mu? If you could go back to the real world, what would you want to do?”

Mu Yanshen lifted his head up ever so slightly, but made no move to move from his comfortable position nestled on Chu Chenli’s shoulder. He drawled out his next words lazily, eyes half lidded, sluggish with fatigue.

“I’ll marry Li Ge.”

The tension from before only thickened.

An awkward silence fell, the crackling sound of the fire and the distant wind the only sounds audible.

The gazes on them were torn between shock and surprise.

Even Chu Chenli, who had been smiling, couldn’t help but turn his head to gaze at Mu Yanshen.

Mu Yanshen shifted a little, unwilling to let his free pillow escape. In the same lazy tone, he continues, “Just kidding.”

He had always liked to run his mouth. It’s been a while, and his teammates still found it hard to decipher truth from lies, coming from him.

The awkwardness in the air dissipates, and everyone moves onto a new topic, leaving only the captain’s thoughtful gaze lingering on them for a moment.

Chu Chenli turned his head abruptly, eyeing a certain spot in the darkness.

The spot seemed to be empty, but his gaze met another pair of eyes, causing the other to flinch in shock.
The figures of his teammates behind and beside him gradually began to blur, their fading silhouettes merging with the night breeze that swept over the dark wilderness.

The scene suddenly shifted—

Chu Chenli, who appeared to be of a similar age, stood in an old school building.

The dilapidated school was deserted, a canopy of red clouds covering the tree-lined path. The fiery maple leaves were so bright that they easily overshadowed the traces of damage on the surrounding walls.

The autumn rain dampened the red leaves, the plinking of raindrops echoing through the silent campus.

Chu Chenli stood in the corridor, leaning against the wall, gazing absentmindedly at the red maple leaves, a strong feeling of loneliness blending in with the autumn rain.

A voice rang out through the corridor. “Ah Li!”

Eighteen-year-old Ye Lanzhou ran over, hastily pulling up his coat to cover what he held in his arms.

When he reached Chu Chenli, he carefully opened his coat, revealing several round persimmons and small wrinkled pears.

They were coated with a layer of mud, freshly picked from the hillside.

There were a few leaves still stuck to Ye Lanzhou’s head, and he looked up, smiling somewhat foolishly, brimming with pure joy and happiness.

Chu Chenli smiled at him, and his eyes seemed to sparkle.

After wiping his hands clean on the hem of his clothes, Ye Lanzhou reached for Chu Chenli’s hand and led him towards an empty classroom.

In the instant they turned around, the empty classroom setting had transformed into a forest nestled in the cradle of tall mountains.

A young man with long hair and elaborate traditional Chinese attire stood beside a monument. The deserted village hidden among the trees behind him was empty and lifeless, resembling a long-abandoned ruin.

The young man watched a group of people gradually disappear into the distance.

Another boy, slightly older than him, kept glancing back. Seemingly losing his internal battle, he pushed through the crowd, ran up to him, and pulled out a black dagger, forcing it into his hands.

“This is my favourite knife. It’s a gift for you,” the older boy said. “When we meet again next time, remember to return it to me.”

The boy with long hair gripped the knife tightly.

The other boy backed away, catching up to his companions ahead.

He couldn’t help looking back, calling back with a yell, “Ah Li! You must live well—”

His voice cut off abruptly, a jammed disk, screeching to a halt with a hiss of static.
The boy left behind suddenly turned his head, his eyes cold—

That face, it was unmistakably Chu Chenli.

“Ah!”

Xiao Bai clutched his head, falling to his knees in the infirmary.

A sharp pain stabbed through his skull. Cold sweat dripped down his temples.

The pain wasn’t severe: it subsided and he slowly stood up, grasping tightly onto the door frame.

Chu Chenli, lying on the sickbed, opened his eyes and glanced at him.

Xiao Bai instinctively took a step back, hitting the door panel behind him with a dull thud. A twinge of pain shot through his head.

“Don’t wander around in other people’s heads,” Chu Chenli said. “It’s a very impolite thing to do.”

Xiao Bai smiled awkwardly, looking a bit weak. “Sorry…I can’t control it sometimes.”

Being exposed to others’ thoughts randomly was quickly becoming rather troublesome for him. To make it worse, passer-bys often didn’t resist, allowing him to casually touch their memories and thoughts as if he was strolling in a public square.

Most of the content, Xiao Bai would rather not see.

Usually, he could only withdraw once the fatigue accumulated and proved to be too much.

Chu Chenli was the only one who actively “ejected” him out of his consciousness, refusing to let Xiao Bai continue peering into his memories.

Xiao Bai hadn’t come over to intrude upon his memories, instead merely to inquire about his condition.

After they left, the medical building was eventually destroyed.

The teammate named Jiang Liao had not even traces of his bones left, likely eaten by the mutant. That left only two survivors— Nurse Peng and Chu Chenli. The injuries Nurse Peng had sustained were minor, easily fixed, but most of the damage was psychological. She was currently undergoing therapy.

Chu Chenli was admitted to a temporary ward. His condition proved too much for his fragile body.

The medications over the past two days were personally prepared by Dr. Du. He was in charge of changing his dressings, measuring his temperature, and recording data. He was more fervent in his tasks than even Xiao Bai.

Apart from that, everything seemed to have returned to normal.

Except Ye Lanzhou hadn’t come to visit Chu Chenli at all.

Of course, he had several reasons to be busy— conducting internal checks for mutant remnants in the base, working overtime to rebuild the lab and protective shields, and now, there was an additional task of repairing the medical building. To top it all off, Huang Shuyin was still missing.

But Xiao Bai didn’t want to make excuses for Ye Lanzhou anymore.

He chose only to mention Huang Shuyin’s situation.

After spending a few days together, and despite Huang Shuyin’s provocations at the beginning, she was generally polite and easygoing. Xiao Bai didn’t dislike her, and he was concerned about her disappearance.

Concern aside, they were both struggling; one useless on the battlefield, and the other still recovering from a lingering injury.

They would be of no help, and all they could do was to express a vague wish for Huang Shuyin’s wellbeing.

Xiao Bai felt powerless, overwhelmed by his insignificance.

Unable to protect people or be of help, he could only drag others down.

Now he was awakened— but his half-baked special ability appeared close to useless, and backfired spectacularly, affecting him as well.

Bothered by his roommate’s dreams, he had a terrible night;s sleep, and could only experience a moment of peace as he sat here with Chu Chenli.

Chu Chenli sensed his plummeting spirits and tried to offer some semblance of comfort. “You’ve already saved me once.”

Xiao Bai forced himself awake. He knew Chu Chenli was referring to when he unintentionally controlled the medical building’s monster. Try as he might, he couldn’t muster any happiness from that.

“That was just a coincidence…” he muttered, “If I were really that powerful, I wouldn’t need a patient like you to come and save me.”

While the two discussed abilities in lowered voices in the ward, Dr Du was in his temporary office preparing medicine.

The printer beside him was spitting out printed reports one after another.

Just as the examination reports were freshly printed, there was a knock on the door.

“Come in.” Dr Du casually gathered the reports, responding as he looked up.

“Dr Du.” Nurse Peng peeked her head in from the door. Noticing Dr Du’s serious expression, her shoulders subconsciously tensed. For a moment, she remembered crushing fear as the shadow of the mutant leaned over her.

“What’s the matter?” Dr Du spared her a glance. “Speak up, I’m busy right now.”

Only then did Nurse Peng push open the door and hand another stack of reports to Dr Du.

“The self-service test machine downstairs in the medical department was broken. The tech department exported the data, and they released the test reports from the past few days today.”

Dr Du thought for a moment. There was indeed a self-service test room downstairs in the medical department, mainly used to check the awakening factor values.

After all, there were still many people in the base, and occasionally, there were signs of awakening. It was hard to say, and they couldn’t bother the higher-ups for every little thing. Therefore, a self-testing machine was set up in the medical department.

Numerical values were the most accurate.

These reports would eventually end up in Dr Du’s hands, but he usually couldn’t be bothered to look at them, leaving them to his interns.

However, even the interns were now swamped.

—Except for Xiao Bai.

Xiao Bai claimed he had been feeling unwell recently, down with headaches and fever. He was unwilling to venture into crowded places.

In the past, Dr Du would have thought him a slacker, providing feeble excuses to escape responsibility.

After surviving a few harrowing near-death experiences together, his opinion of Xiao Bai had been altered dr

Xiao Bai wasn’t the type to abandon his companions and run away alone. On the contrary, he had a stronger sense of responsibility than the average person. If it wasn’t for a serious reason, he wouldn’t turn a blind eye to the current situation.

Moreover, Dr Du had crossed paths with him a few times. From what he could see, Xiao Bai did look ill.

Dr Du refocused. Taking matters into his own hands, he quickly flipped through the stack of reports.

After glancing over a particular page, he suddenly paused, hastily flipping back—

[Awakening Factor Value: 0]

Looking at the name above, Bai Yansheng.

It wasn’t Chu Chenli.

It looked somewhat familiar.

Dr Du suddenly realised—

Wasn’t this Xiao Bai’s full name?!

He quickly went through the remaining reports. One of them had exceeded the normal value range, so he picked it out and set it aside. Apart from that, there were no other abnormal cases.

Then, he picked up the stack of examination reports again, found Chu Chenli’s report, and turned to the column for the awakening factor—

Still zero.

Two reports with a value of zero.

Coincidentally, these two individuals had recently displayed signs of awakening.

Could it just be a simple coincidence?

Dr Du thought it best to keep this under wraps for now.

He pulled Xiao Bai’s report out and placed it to the side, face down on the desk. He called over Nurse Peng, who had been about to take her leave.

“Xiao Peng, aside from you, has anyone else seen these reports?”

“No.” After thinking for a moment, Nurse Peng replied, “The tech department is quite busy. They made me print the reports myself, and I brought them over immediately after I was done.”

She paused for a moment, then tacked on, “I haven’t had the chance to look at them myself. Is there a problem?”

Apprehension pooled in her stomach.

“No, nothing’s wrong.” Dr Du projected a calm he didn’t feel. “Everything is fine, you should focus on finishing your tasks.”

Only then did Nurse Peng breathe a sigh of relief.

Just as she was about to open the door to leave, she suddenly remembered something, stopped in her tracks, and looked at Dr Du with some anxiety.

“But when I came over, I met Captain Xiang,” she said.

“Did you show him the reports?” Dr Du asked.

“No.” Nurse Peng shook her head.

Her eyes quickly scanned the room and, seeing no one outside, she lowered her voice and said, “But he asked me about Chu Chenli’s situation and that medicine. I just remembered that day when Captain Xiang suddenly went to the pharmacy, saying he was getting medicine for Captain Ye. Usually, he directly asks you, right…”

Because Ye Lanzhou was the leader of the base, any mishap involving him was not to be taken lightly. However, he wasn’t well-versed in the medical side.

As a precaution, Xiang Renxi usually got medicine from Dr Du, even if it was the same medication as before. He would still ask Dr Du about the recommended dosage for this particular usage.

At that time, Nurse Peng was just happy and surprised to see him and didn’t have any suspicions.

She didn’t even think about it when Dr Du scolded her for this incident. But now, when she remembered, it dawned on her.

However, she didn’t dare to think too much.

Even if Xiang Renxi was involved in this, it was self-evident who was more important between him and Chu Chenli. Even if it was just Chu Chenli alone, he was still more important than a small nurse.

So, she was too lazy to meddle and hoped that the real culprit behind this was just an ordinary bystander, to avoid stirring up a bloody drama.

These were her previous thoughts.

Now that Chu Chenli had saved her life, she naturally switched sides to support him, and she couldn’t help but feel unjust for him.

But as a mere nurse, her professional capabilities might not even be better than Xiao Bai’s. In the hospital, her importance was negligible, and she couldn’t even think of challenging the bigwigs.

However, this tiny knot lingered in her heart.

After much hesitation and a moment of impulse, she mentioned this to Dr Du— recently, Dr Du seemed to be quite concerned about Chu Chenli.

Dr Du was horrified in his heart, his face grew even more serious.

Upon hearing enough, he quickly raised his hand to stop Nurse Peng and reminded her, “Don’t mention this to anyone else!”

Nurse Peng fell silent immediately and looked at Dr Du with some trepidation.

“I know what to do.” Dr Du waved his hand at her. “Hurry back to your work.”

Nurse Peng nodded, turned around to open the door, and hurried away.

Dr Du stood in place, lowering his head to look at those reports and couldn’t help but sigh deeply, muttering to himself tiredly, “What kind of situation is this…”

After sighing, he still had to tidy up and get new medicine for his patients.