Gray mist filled the skies, accompanied by faint rumbles emanating from deep within the earth’s crust—the final dirge of this ruined world.
Around the dilapidated factory stretched endless severed limbs and mutilated corpses. Blood flowing from the bodies pooled in low-lying areas, forming small lakes.
Everything in sight was filthy, save for a spot a little further ahead that could barely be called clean.
There lay several people, their status—dead or alive—unknown.
The only standout figure was the child still sleeping in his older brother’s arms.
A rare splash of white clung to the hem of his clothes in this world.
Time seemed to freeze like that, with no telling how much passed.
Until everything around began to fade and blur. Even those dark, bloody ‘lakes’ gradually turned black and white.
The scene of mountains of corpses and seas of blood scattered like the ubiquitous sandstorms of the Wasteland World. A gentle breeze blew through, and all traces of its existence vanished.
The ground merged seamlessly with the sky, forming a flawless black curtain.
Amid the curtain, only those few figures at the very edge remained real.
In this utter silence, a dark red mist replaced the initial gray mist.
Beneath the red mist, the youth holding the child gradually blurred. In the end, he took on the form of an adult man.
The child in his arms underwent the same change, his body elongating.
His once chubby arms grew slender.
The round, baby-fat cheeks lost most of their puffiness. His features remained as exquisitely refined as in childhood, but now carried an added touch of teenage handsomeness and clarity.
After Su Ximu closed his eyes, he felt like he had a very, very long dream.
It was as if he dreamed of everything that happened after he and his brothers shut their eyes.
He thought that when he woke up, he would still be lying there and would see his brothers.
He never imagined he would die, because in his mind, he had already been dead for a very, very long time. He died before his fifth birthday.
He had been living with his brothers in the world of the dead.
They were already dead, turned into ghosts—how could they die again?
But when he opened his eyes once more, he saw Grandma.
Grandma’s expression had been worried at first. Only when she saw him open his eyes did it light up with joy as she scooped him up—blanket and all. She said he had slept so much that day, right through until noon without waking. She had thought he was sick.
Even Dad and Mom were there.
The little guy, who hadn’t seen Grandma or his parents in so long, was thrilled. He blinked his eyes and reached out like a sticky little bun to hug her back.
But soon enough, he wasn’t so happy anymore.
He couldn’t find his brothers anywhere. And somehow, he seemed to have gotten smaller.
He clearly remembered that he had already passed his seventh birthday. So why did the overalls he had outgrown before suddenly fit again?
Why was Grandma asking what gift he wanted for his fifth birthday?
He had celebrated his fifth birthday—with his brothers.
Over the two-plus years, due to the peculiarities of the Wasteland World, Su Ximu rarely had anyone to talk to besides his brothers or the occasional chat with Neighbor Grandpa.
For a little kid, it was impressive that his mind hadn’t regressed. But there wasn’t much room for growth.
On top of that, he trusted Grandma and his parents completely. So when doubts arose in his heart, he voiced them right away.
He asked Grandma and his parents—wasn’t he dead? Why had he suddenly come back? What about his brothers? Hadn’t they come back with him?
Dad thought he was joking at first and scolded him harshly. Kids shouldn’t talk nonsense about life and death. What brothers? There were no brothers here.
After nearly three years, aside from Grandma who had raised him, Su Ximu had grown somewhat distant from his parents.
For him at the time, his brothers mattered a little more than his parents.
So right after Dad finished scolding him, he burst into loud cries.
Kids couldn’t stand being accused of lying—especially when they were telling the plain truth.
He cried heartbrokenly until Grandma held him and soothed him. Sobbing on her shoulder, he insisted to her that he wasn’t lying.
He tried his best to describe what his brothers looked like and all the things that had happened after he died.
The terrifying Doll Big Bear, the talking Wolf Granny, rows upon rows of tin houses, the brothers inside those houses, and the painful wound on his brother’s arm…
He went on and on, unaware that his parents’ expressions shifted—from utter indifference to seriousness, and finally to eyes tinged with hesitation and fear.
In that underdeveloped little county town back then, many people still held a deep fear of ghosts and spirits.
That fear reached its peak one day.
The little guy, forced back to kindergarten for classes, suddenly ran back inside after dismissal. He found his teacher, tugged at her hand, and said worriedly that she had to be careful—because she might ‘die’ soon.
If the teacher died too, could she go over there and look for his brothers? And pass along a message for him?
Out of the kindness of his heart, Su Ximu earnestly shared some of his experiences after death.
Like how it wasn’t so great over there. There were bad people who cut flesh off with knives. The food was awful. And most of the people who could talk were no good.
Nearly three years was a long time for a child who had only been aware of the world for a few short years. Inevitably, he had picked up some of the Wasteland World’s grim aura.
And upon returning to the Real World, his young mind fell into a chaos he couldn’t sort out.
He just felt that whenever he got close to the teacher that day, something felt off. It was like the Doll Big Bear, or the Wolf Granny—like the Gray Mist he remembered from the end.
To him, as someone who had been through it, that was the harbinger of ‘death.’
His warning came from nothing but a child’s innocent goodwill.
But to the teacher he warned—and to his parents chasing after him—it was utterly spine-chilling.
What kind of child spoke of death and flesh being sliced off in such a pure, earnest tone?
To those in the know, it sounded like nothing less than a mischievous, malevolent curse.
The teacher, who had been about to greet the child running toward her, froze with a grim expression.
Su Bing—Su Ximu’s father—yanked the boy away, his own face ashen.
That night, despite having only gone to warn the teacher out of goodwill, Su Ximu nearly got a severe beating from his parents.
Grandma shielded him, insisting that her Star Treasure was a good boy who wouldn’t say such things on purpose. It must have been from that nightmare last time. Kids that age couldn’t tell dreams from reality. She would go apologize to the teacher, but they mustn’t hit him—it would scare his soul right out of him.
The protected little boy felt wronged and scared. He watched as Grandma argued with Dad over protecting him, and even Mom said unkind things to her.
He didn’t quite get it. Had it been wrong to warn the teacher to be careful?
Then the next day, the teacher vanished.
Gone in the literal sense.
No one could find her.
Her family went mad with worry, searching everywhere.
Luckily, only a few people had overheard Su Ximu talking to the teacher that day: the teacher herself, Su Bing, and his wife Yang Hui.
But from then on, whether Su Bing or Yang Hui, the way they looked at the child changed completely.
It was like they were staring at something terrifying they wanted to avoid. But bound by blood ties, they couldn’t shun him entirely like they would other frightening things.
Su Ximu didn’t notice the shift in his parents’ attitudes—or if he did, he didn’t care much.
When he was very young, he had craved his parents’ company. But they always fought.
Now he was a big kid. He wouldn’t cling to them like a little one anymore.
At this point, the innate childish longing for parental love had gradually been replaced by another kind of familial affection and yearning.
Back when he had first moved into the house with his brothers, he used to cry at night missing Grandma—until one of his brothers picked him up.
Now that he had seen Grandma, he couldn’t help crying every night missing his brothers.
Then one morning, while Grandma was out buying groceries, his parents wanted to take him out.
He said he didn’t want to go. He wanted to stay home and wait for Grandma.
But they said they were taking him to find his brothers.
He couldn’t resist going out with his parents.
Dad led him on a very, very long walk and even took a bus. They finally arrived at a completely unfamiliar place.
It was a village.
At the deepest part of the village was a small courtyard, where a gaudily dressed old woman lived.
His parents made him stand right in the center of the courtyard. The old woman splashed water on him.
He felt uncomfortable and cold. He wanted to dodge away.
But his parents said that if he dodged, they wouldn’t take him to find his brothers. They had already found them.
He no longer craved his parents’ company much, but it never occurred to him that they would lie to him.
Hearing their words, he was overjoyed. He stood obediently in place as the old woman kept splashing basin after basin of water on him, all the while thinking about what he would say to his brothers later.
The old woman splashed him for quite a while. Then she patted him all over with some objects. Finally, she burned a sheet of yellow paper to ash, stirred it into water in a bowl, and made him drink it all.
After he finished the water, his parents took him home. He fell asleep right away and never got to see his brothers.
Because he got sick from the splashing.
When he woke again, several days had passed. His parents were no longer at home—only Grandma was there with him. Perhaps afraid he would resent them, she said it was she who had taken him to see the county’s Shaman Woman. The Shaman Woman wasn’t a good person and had made him sick.
After waking, he couldn’t remember a lot of things. Grandma said it was probably because the illness had been so severe this time that the fever had burned his brain a bit.
But it didn’t matter. He was just a little kid who couldn’t remember much anyway. It wasn’t too late to start over.
Su Ximu nodded, thinking Grandma was right.
But from then on, he had dreams every night.
He felt like he had lost something very, very important.
In the space shrouded by darkness and red mist, invisible ripples stirred once more.
The familiar Abandoned Factory and the desert Sand Dunes ahead reappeared.
As always, Su Wuzi was the first to open his eyes.
He looked down at the youth whose head was completely buried in his chest and smiled.
He tightened his arms around the youth a little more and murmured, “This time, I held on…”
