Chapter 27: Dream Part 1

Tang Ling was no stranger to the set of uniforms. Only those who had attained qualifications as a reserved warrior deserved to own it. There were once powerful young men who proudly donned it back to the settlement.

“With this, you have already passed the screening test as a reserved warrior and attained the necessary qualifications. At least, you can get into the lousy and rotten-to-the-core Fifth Camp and loaf around. But don’t forget that your goal is the First Camp. That is where only the best of the best, the elites of all five camps, can enter. If you want to loaf around in Fifth Camp for the rest of your life, I won’t object or say anything either, but from that moment onwards, you will lose the stipulation for me to guide you. And if I ever hear anything like seeking revenge or yearning for more power from you, I won’t mind beating you till all your teeth fall off.

“Three days from now is the reexamination day for the reserved camp. I’m looking forward to your performance and which camp you will end up in.” Su Yao squinted his eyes as he stood up from the sofa. His buff and robust body cast a shadow as huge as a hill over Tang Ling.

“I’ll be there.” Tang Ling picked up the items Su Yao gave him from the floor. Neither did he ask Su Yao why the man would simply let him pass the screening, nor did he promise that he would get into the First Reserved Camp.

Rules were made to be broken by the powerful. Promises uttered from the mouth were the most unreliable ones. Only actions were trustworthy.

Tang Ling would give a hundred percent of his effort in the upcoming reexamination.

“Good, kid. I like your eyes now. As for what you need in order to enter the First Reserved Camp, find out about it yourself. No one has the duty to explain everything to you in detail.” After Su Yao finished, he stretched his body and walked towards the door.

Looking at his back, Tang Ling tried to hold back his urge multiple times, but he ultimately gave in and asked, “Who are you?”

Who exactly is this man? Although what he said was utterly cruel and realistic, he keeps helping me and showed me great kindness. Is there really such thing as a free pie from the sky in this kind of era?

Tang Ling’s heart had, after all, turned chilly after that tragic night.

After hearing Tang Ling’s question, Su Yao stopped and turned around slowly to Tang Ling. His lips curled up into a deep and meaningful smile. “Do you think you are qualified to know that now?”

Tang Ling puckered his lips as he sucked in a deep breath. “Thank you. I’m grateful for your help.”

Su Yao turned around as his countenance was shadowed by the light from above. “Your gratitude has no value, but…”

Tang Ling lifted his head up.

“I think you’re a person who can dream.”

Dream? Tang Ling was confused. He was never a dreamer. Why would Su Yao say that?

Su Yao spun around again all of a sudden. He caught Tang Ling’s extremely complicated gaze and said softly, “Be careful of your dream. ‘It’ might be coming.”

The words Su Yao said were too confusing and vague. Tang Ling could not understand any of them, but somehow, after Su Yao said that, his heart seemed to have skipped a beat as his spine felt somewhat chilly.

The empty room echoed with the noise of Su Yao closing the door. It seemed like life had presented another question for Tang Ling, yet kept him away from the answer.

It rained endlessly outside the window. Tang Ling stood in the room quietly and breathed as he tried his best to achieve calmness in his heart.

Matching all the questions with the correct answers was obviously a luxurious thought. Tang Ling understood the saying, but the pain from his chest was not something that he could easily suppress. Holding his grandmother’s bottle of ashes and his sister’s torn dress, Tang Ling slowly walked over to the bedside and looked outside of the window blankly.

In this cold and cruel era, losing one’s life was not as scary as losing warmth.

He dared not to remember anything about his grandmother and his sister, but he was helpless against his own memories.

His mind seemed to have slowed down in this moment, yet his conscious was clear. The memories were like a knife puncturing his heart with bits and pieces of warmth and cruelty.

Even stronger people required time to recover.

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Amidst the silence, the rain had somehow ceased.

A dash of sunset glow refracted into the room through the fences behind the opened wooden window, landing within Tang Ling’s sight.

Tang Ling suddenly stood up but sat back down quickly. Sunset meant that it was time to go home.

He could not remember how many similar sunsets had shone over his shoulder, accompanying him on the way back to his home.

As long as he walked along with the wind and reached the settlement, he could see his grandmother’s kind merciful smile, and hug the warm body of his little sister who would jump into his arms every time.

He felt like he could smell the faint fragrance of dried pogostemon stellatus leaves again.

The false smell made Tang Ling open his eyes suddenly. A suffocating pain appeared at his chest before an unfamiliar impulse burst out of his control!

He wanted to return to the settlement!

He wanted to go back to the place that he once lived in and tell his grandmother and his sister, who had gone ‘far away’, what the heaven that they once dreamt of—the Safety Sector—was like.

His thought was absolutely illogical, somewhat mad. It would not even hold any price-performance ratio as it seemed meaningless.

However, Tang Ling did not know why he could not sit quietly. He anxiously paced around the room, panting like an animal. Several times, he gripped the door handle, yet he let go in the end.

Daylight soon turned dark and blurry, yet a sharp clarity seeped through his mind.

After the rain stopped, the splashing from the footsteps on the streets was utterly clear. Many children started to play on the streets, and one of them was a little girl, calling out to her big brother.

“Big Brother, Big Brother…”

Tang Ling clenched his teeth.

“Big Brother, Big Brother…”

Tang Ling stood up suddenly and without any second thought, he opened the door and darted out the comfortable yet unfamiliar room.

He started to run through the corridor and then over the stairs. The street was filled with the splash of icy cold puddles as the whistling of the wind sounded beside his ears.

Tang Ling did not know anything about the road. He instinctively followed the direction of the sunset and ran as fast as he could. Nevertheless, it was not necessary for him to know the road as the sun set in the west, and heading in that direction would eventually bring him to the south gate of the Safety Sector.

Everything seemed to happen smoothly. A while later. Tang Ling found himself standing at the familiar but already distant Safety Zone.

After the fire, the Safety Zone was in a desolate state.

Even though the shrubs in the area were usually full of bumps and hollows because of the obvious and secretive entrances to the settlement were installed there, it had still been filled with life back then.

Tang Ling’s heart was drowning in sorrow.

Moving his feet, he did not head to the Fifth Camp of the settlement. Instead, he headed to the transfer hub.

He could locate his grandmother and his sister there!

The sky turned dark as countless dark clouds enveloped by the night wind rumbled and intertwined. Layer upon layer, they formed thicker clouds that looked like they were crashing down on Earth.

The scorched land would present the burnt bodies of snakes and bugs from time to time. They were all charred to a hardened state and were as hard as coal.

Tang Ling walked along numbly. His heart and mind had fallen into an indescribable state of trance.

There was no need to worry about the bodies transforming back to zombies again. Other than the transformation directly from humans, legend had it that such a transformation would only happen to a few species.

Not worrying about the zombie transformation was one of the few clear thoughts in his mind, but that was all he had.