It Has Been a Very, Very Long Time

Song Weishi came out on the losing end, slinking upstairs in disgrace. Of all people, Xie Yi—who would have thought the quiet ones could be so terrifying when they finally rebelled?

She grabbed a nutrient pack for herself. These packs sold for a premium inside the city, priced higher than actual food. One serving staved off hunger for hours and required no supplementary nutrition, but once real food was available, who would still go back to these things?

The moment she stepped beyond the air-conditioned zone, Song Weishi felt the heat slam into her. Once you've tasted comfort, it's nearly impossible to return to the old way of life.

Song Weishi acknowledged that she was the same way—if she could live comfortably, she wouldn't put herself through any unnecessary suffering.

She still had plenty of usable supplies in her space that she hadn't brought out, but most of what she needed was already here. There was no real need to pull anything else out.

She padded downstairs in her slippers and saw that Xie Yi had already sorted and laid out the seeds by category. There were quite a few of these containers. With nutrient solution in the mix, hydroponic vegetables should grow even faster.

Song Weishi had a lot of seeds too, and no plans for a second round of breeding just yet—she was waiting to get the first batch of vegetables on the table.

She wondered what the quality of the System-produced seeds would be like. Song Weishi found herself looking forward to it.

She was ready to settle here long-term. The place was quite nice, and Xie Huiqing didn't seem eager to go back just yet. One could say she'd practically been driven out by the people inside. The power struggles in the city were tangled and complex; the tech company had pulled the rug out from under her, leaving her badly wounded, nearly to the point of death.

Still, her heart remained with the residents of Huihai City. But until she fully recovered, she couldn't go back to the fight.

Xie Huiqing shared her thoughts with the group, and everyone was quick to agree. Song Weishi privately thought the woman had an overdeveloped sense of responsibility. Since arriving in this world, she herself had never once entertained the notion of thinking for the greater good. Just managing to look after herself was already the most she could do.

Whenever she thought about the fact that some of those protected inside the city actually wanted her dead, she lost all enthusiasm for that whole crowd.

It was a selfish streak she never voiced aloud. But she truly admired someone like Xie Huiqing, who could put everyone's interests before her own. If Huihai City hadn't had her from the start, who knew what it would look like now?

Probably all the refugee reception and basic welfare programs would have vanished. A paradise that wasn't hot like the other cities, but without any checks and balances—that would easily turn into hell on earth.

Song Weishi worked with the seeds, mentally scanning the original story's plot. After Xie Huiqing died at the Research Institute, she pretty much disappeared from the narrative. It was after that point that Xie Yi awakened her ability.

An unprecedented riot had broken out in the city. The insect plague in the original storyline hadn't been resolved nearly this quickly. Huihai City suffered catastrophic casualties under the insect assault, losing forty percent of its population. After the mass deaths of its residents, the once-cramped city suddenly felt much roomier.

The story ended with Xie Yi gaining her ability, but never once mentioned what that ability actually was.

Song Weishi was a little confused. This story was far too slapdash. Such a major plot point, and it wasn't revealed right away. Was writer's block some sort of mandatory trial every author had to go through?

She couldn't very well go ask Xie Yi directly, though. Back when Song Weishi's own body first started changing, even she didn't know what her ability was.

She figured Xie Yi was probably still in the exploratory stage. Song Weishi decided to wait and see how things played out.

By the afternoon, everyone had mostly turned in to rest. It was the safest time of day. Xiaoli and the animals had gone out to play right after dinner.

Ke Shaoyi's cat had basically become Xiaoli's pet. The panda-like creature carried it around everywhere, refusing to put it down. Fortunately, the cat seemed to enjoy it too, darting after Xiaoli at every turn.

The animals only came back toward evening, just as everyone was preparing to head out.

Song Weishi put on her hat and got ready to leave. The temperature had dropped considerably compared to the afternoon.

At four o'clock, the sky was still bright. Huihai City's days didn't fully darken until seven or eight in the evening. She planned to scout the mountain, see what else was out there, and mark the useful spots on her map.

With the solar panels, she could finally pull out her dead-signal phone and plot markers on the already-downloaded maps without worrying about the battery.

This time, they made better time on the road than before. With the aunties leading the way, Song Weishi was able to get a much clearer picture of the local surroundings.

The area had gone undeveloped for years, still frozen in its old form. The aunties' homes weren't far apart. Apart from themselves, basically no one else came back to check on their hometowns.

Auntie Guo Li and Sister Chen were playfully bickering along the way, like they were on a spring outing. Every place they passed prompted some kind of story.

As they covered more ground, memories slowly resurfaced.

"Didn't I remember there being a stream here? Who went and blocked the water flow?"

"Right, how'd it all turn into grass? Well then, let's just cut straight across here."

Sister Chen stepped right onto it after hearing Guo Li's words—and a great big splash erupted. The top layer of green, leafy stuff looked like solid grass; anyone unfamiliar would have no idea there was water underneath.

Sister Chen quickly yanked her foot back, but her pant leg was already soaked through with a huge dark patch. Guo Li burst out laughing.

"Xiaonian, you never learn! You used to splash through water just like this as a kid, hahaha..."

Sister Chen smirked, spun around, and dragged the other woman down with her.

Guo Li: "..."

Fortunately, the sun was still strong enough that the two women's pants dried off in no time.

All along the way, Sister Chen animatedly narrated what they were passing. Occasionally they spotted a few old houses that had collapsed from years of neglect, along with a few odd mounds.

Sister Chen had a remarkably good memory and steered them around those bumps. She said they were grave mounds. She warned Song Weishi to never, ever get curious about what was inside. In the old days, the area practiced earth burial, with graves piled up near the family homes. At first, they had clear markers, but after years of no one coming to pay respects, they'd become indistinguishable from the landscape.

Song Weishi acknowledged the warning; she had no interest in those dirt mounds anyway.

She was a city girl through and through—knew a little bit about everything but was no true country farmer. She had no idea whether anything valuable was hidden underground, and no desire to find out.

They walked for a while, and she managed to mark most of the route.

Sister Chen and Xie Huiying's homes were the closest to each other—a two-story house with a worn, shabby exterior. With no one living there for years, the yard had turned hazardous, and the structure itself was basically condemned.

When Xie Huiqing came back to maintain her own family's old home, she would also pull weeds and tidy up the surface around Sister Chen's place, so the yard was still presentable.

But the fields in front and behind the house had long gone fallow. This was a stretch of fruit trees. Sister Chen's parents had loved tending to them when they were still around. After they passed, she never moved the trees; they stayed right where they'd always been.

Song Weishi spotted several longan trees already bearing fruit, along with mango trees—the kind of common greenery you saw all over Huihai City.

Back in the day, these trees lined every road. There were so many mangoes you couldn't finish them all. But once food started running short, every last fruit on the roadside had been stripped clean.

Unlike here—there were still leftovers.

Even though birds and bugs had gotten to quite a few of the fruits, plenty remained.

Looking further, there were green plums, and two pomegranate trees in the yard that had their fair share of fruit too.

Sister Chen scratched her head, pleasantly surprised. "I thought these trees were all dead. I mean, I haven't come back to tend them in two years. I remember we had grapes too. I loved them as a kid, so my dad bought a few foreign varieties from a traveling merchant and planted them. They were unbelievably sweet."

Her voice trailed off. Her gaze fixed on the two small dirt mounds in the distance.

"Xiaonian... it's been such a long time since we came back."

Xie Huiying wrapped an arm around her shoulders and gave a reassuring pat. The cicadas chirped in waves. The abandoned little yard had gone so long without visitors. Though it still looked the same, the scene before them felt utterly foreign.

The four of them had left home in their youth to make their way in the world, only to return in middle age, battered and world-weary. Their parents and old friends were now distant memories. All they had left was each other.

They were at that age now—every day lived was one day less. Fear stirred in her heart; she hadn't lived enough yet. She'd only just retired, with no parents to care for, no children to worry about, and friends still by her side. She'd just reached the time meant for enjoying life when disaster struck. Adrift and exhausted at her age, coming home left a dull ache in her chest.

She felt ashamed to face her parents. The closer she got to home, the stronger that feeling grew.

She was afraid to face her mom and dad, and even more afraid to face this unsettled world.

Revisiting childhood memories was how she eased her heart, but seeing her family again brought no comfort.

It was like having no anchor. She felt lost about where she was heading. Seeing her parents reminded her that all her ambitions and plans had been buried in this catastrophe.

The cheerful mood in the group dimmed. Song Weishi watched, and she could feel Sister Chen's sorrow.

In the past, she'd treated these people as passing strangers. Their pain washed over her like a feather, never truly touching her.

But now that she saw this world as real, everything felt different.

They were only minor characters in the book, unimportant in the grand scheme. But these people had rich lives before all this. Those experiences weren't fake.

They'd simply been buried by the author's pen. In this story, everyone was meant to die, but these people living on was a second beginning.

"Xiaonian, don't be afraid. We're all here. And death isn't something to fear. When it's truly time to go, all the family below will be waiting to welcome us."

Auntie Yuan spoke up unexpectedly. She was the quietest of the group, but whenever she did speak, her words carried weight.

Sister Chen slapped her on the shoulder, a teasing grin on her face. "Old Yuan, you really know how to talk. Such a wordsmith."

Song Weishi followed the aunties to the two grave mounds. The stone markers showed their age, and she pulled up some of the weeds growing over them.

A fig tree grew beside the grave, bearing a single large, green-skinned fruit. Chen Xiaonian plucked it joyfully, her voice tinged with sweetness. "This is my mom's doing. She knew it was my favorite."

But when she looked again, Chen Xiaonian was crying openly, her lips trembling around the fruit. Tears mingled with the sweet flesh, impossibly bitter, and she swallowed it all down.

Song Weishi looked down at the dates on the gravestones. These graves were thirty years old. That meant her parents had been gone longer than the years they'd spent beside Chen Xiaonian.

She couldn't fully grasp what a harmonious family felt like, but her nose stung, and something warm threatened to spill from her eyes.