Chapter 224: Reunion
The weather was overcast, thick clusters of dark clouds pressing low overhead.
When sunlight broke through from above, the clouds split apart, and the enormous shadows on the ground slowly drifted beneath people’s feet. Faces in the crowd flickered between light and darkness.
The cemetery was completely silent. A faint breeze carried fallen leaves down to the ground, and even the soft tapping against shoe soles could be clearly heard.
Because the pot of flowers that the Chief treated like his own heart and soul had now been reduced to nothing but an empty pot.
After the last incident—when someone couldn’t help laughing and was “kindly assisted” by the Chief—everyone became extremely cautious around memorial day, especially on the day itself. Some said it was wrong for the Chief to abuse authority, but what if he was simply mentally unstable?
So when they saw the Chief lift the empty flowerpot and hold it up in front of his eyes, its base already broken and hollow, his gaze sweeping directly across everyone’s faces from behind it—
The scene was not funny at all. Was heaven trying to drive him truly insane?
Aside from the majority trembling with fear over possible loss of control, those closest to him only felt worry. They all knew resurrection was impossible, but at least that sprout had once given him something to cling to, allowing him to keep living.
“Um… hiss, um…” Lin Mengzhi rarely even stumbled over his words like this. “Did it grow bigger… and go out for a walk? Shukui often goes out walking on its own. The other day it was even fined 10 coins by the community for not being on a leash.”
The hem of Xie Chongyi’s clothes was whipped backward by the wind. He stood like a statue, jawline tightly clenched, his pulse visibly pounding under his skin.
“Time is almost up. Let’s handle the main matter first.”
“Old Xie?”
The man standing there gave no response at all. His fingers clenched the flowerpot so tightly it cracked further, yet his head tilted slightly behind it in confusion.
Those nearby noticed his abnormal reaction and followed his gaze, looking toward the back of the crowd.
In the crowd, at the back, someone slowly walked up from the hillside below.
He was still wearing the same clothes from three years ago, stained completely with yellow mud—like they had been buried underground for three years and only dug up and put back on. He smiled faintly at Xie Chongyi standing far away, his expression carrying the fatigue of someone waking from a long dream.
Xie Chongyi slowly lowered the flowerpot. The faint, familiar bitter scent drifting through the air caused his pupils to constrict involuntarily. Rarely did he ever show such a truly emotional expression.
Even Shen Ruyi, who had been secretly hooking pinkies with Wu Zhi and joking about “a promise for a hundred years,” noticed it. He clicked his tongue, muttering that he could also look that cool, then turned around as well.
And then his eyes nearly popped out of his head.
“Brother!!!” Shen Ruyi screamed at the top of his lungs, immediately pushing through the crowd like a bowling ball rushing forward.
Shen Ruyi’s older brother? Shen Ping’an—wasn’t he supposed to have fallen alongside the Lord three years ago? That street filled with blooming flowers had never once been cleaned or disturbed since then.
Except that occasionally, when Shukui went out for walks, it would leave a couple of puddles of dog urine there.
Xie Chongyi watched as Shen Ping’an was thrown backward by Shen Ruyi’s forceful embrace. Suddenly, something clicked in his mind.
He stepped down the stairs. No one could clearly see his movement—he had already flashed past Shen Ping’an’s side in an instant, and then abruptly stopped.
The grassy plains rolled and rose gently, extending from the hillside down toward a cluster of white-walled, red-roofed houses. A familiar silhouette appeared little by little in the shifting shadows of the clouds.
He stood at the end of the stone path, looking up. Compared to three years ago, he seemed almost unchanged.
No one had forgotten him. At least those who had once seen him could never forget—and dared not forget. He was the one who had sacrificed himself in exchange for their new lives, and for the rebirth of all life on Earth. To forget him would be betrayal—worse than betraying one’s own faith, deserving of the deepest hell.
But in present-day Suyou City, at least two-thirds of the people had never seen this man before.
So they were confused.
They followed the sudden movement of those who had turned toward the mountains, staring as everyone’s attention shifted downhill. When they squeezed into the crowd, their confusion only deepened.
What were they looking at?
It was just an unremarkable, raggedly dressed man.
Today was memorial day. If it was a beggar asking for food, they should have given him more out of sympathy—but why was he worth such a large, collective reaction?
The rest of the people were frozen in place.
It might have been an illusion—some hallucination. When an ability user’s energy leaked uncontrollably, phenomena like this could occur.
But so far, Wu Heng had never appeared in illusions. The closest was in their Chief’s dreams—because sometimes, unable to distinguish dream from reality, the Chief would do strange things only Wu Zhi could explain, such as once locking all death-row prisoners inside sheep pens and never giving a reasonable explanation for it.
Wu Heng did not take the paved path.
He walked straight through the grass and stopped in front of Xie Chongyi.
“I told them to tell you I was back, and to have you come pick me up—but they were too slow.”
Only after he finished speaking did hurried footsteps echo between the clustered buildings.
“Chief! The Lord is—” a woman’s voice abruptly cut off the moment she saw the figure above.
Xie Chongyi’s gaze shifted away from Wu Heng’s face. He looked at the woman for a moment, then returned his eyes to Wu Heng.
He raised his hand and pressed his palm against Wu Heng’s cheek.
The touch—soft, warm, and real—made Xie Chongyi’s eyes sting uncontrollably.
Vines burst up from beneath the ground at his feet, gently wrapping around his wrist.
As if it had finally regained its awareness, the vine’s tip rubbed affectionately against the inside of his wrist, then began to draw blood in a familiar, practiced way.
After a long moment, Xie Chongyi finally confirmed that his wish had come true.
He lowered his hand, his damp eyes curving slightly.
“Should I say… welcome home?”
Wu Heng didn’t even have time to react.
The person who had just been speaking in front of him suddenly collapsed straight to the ground.
—
News of Wu Heng’s return quickly spread to every corner of the base. People rushed to visit him, check on him, show their concern—but everyone around him turned them away one by one. Wu Heng needed rest, and besides, even his old friends hadn’t had the chance to properly speak with him yet, so how could outsiders get a turn? Even so, flowers and food kept pouring into the hospital and the Chief’s residence as though they cost neither money nor energy.
“Oh, he’s far too exhausted, and his body is very weak. He needs to rest for a while.” Doctor Chen yanked the vines clinging to Xie Chongyi off him and threw them to the floor, stomping on them several times. “You’ve spoiled it rotten. Get lost.”
Wu Heng sat on the windowsill, still not having changed clothes. “Why are you being so fierce?”
Xue Shen said, “Old Xie has been bloodletting himself to feed the flowers. Doctor Chen’s furious because he thinks he doesn’t take care of himself.”
“You should be angry about that.”
“But there was no guarantee you would’ve come back if Old Xie hadn’t kept feeding them blood.”
“A lot of things happened that I don’t know about.”
“Of course. Because you made sure every one of us survived.”
The others were nowhere near as calm as Xue Shen, but the only one who actually rushed up to Wu Heng, grabbing and squeezing him all over, was Lin Mengzhi. His eyes were already swollen red from crying, though he didn’t break down sobbing.
“F*ck… where the hell did you go? If you weren’t dead, why didn’t you come back? Do you even know that all of us…”
“I did die.” Wu Heng raised a hand and wiped the tears off Lin Mengzhi’s face with his palm.
Lin Mengzhi fell silent. He pinched the back of Wu Heng’s hand and said blankly, “But…”
Among the people who rushed over after hearing the news was Professor Ye. Using the institute’s special vehicle, Professor Ye smoothly took Wu Heng away to the research institute. Wu Heng only brought Lin Mengzhi with him, while reminding the others not to forget to give that sea slug some water. Also:
“When the class monitor wakes up, let me know.”
“Class monitor”… that was already a very distant title.
Inside the research institute, Professor Ye gave Wu Heng a full-body examination. His blood, hair, even bits of his keratin layer were all stripped off and stuffed into machines to await the results.
“How is it? How is it? Is he dead or alive?!” Lin Mengzhi excitedly snatched the thick stack of test results away. After glancing through them and failing to understand a single line, he handed them back again. “Just tell me already.”
“Alive. But it’s not what people outside are calling resurrection from the dead. He’s not the same person as before,” Professor Ye said.
The excitement on Lin Mengzhi’s face froze. “What do you mean? A substitute? A fake?”
Professor Ye continued browsing through the data in his hands and smacked his lips. “That adult continuing-education class Assistant Liu signed you up for—did you ever attend it?”
“No. Why?” Lin Mengzhi answered with complete confidence.
Wu Heng asked, “What continuing-education class?”
“Liu Ning thinks I’m uncultured, that’s why. So for the past two months I’ve been crashing at Xue Shen’s place.”
“Maybe Xue Shen was the one who signed you up for the class,” Wu Heng said sharply, hitting the nail on the head.
Lin Mengzhi suddenly looked enlightened.
Professor Ye shook his head helplessly. Compared to the increasingly neurotic Xie Chongyi over the past few years, the one beside him wasn’t much better. At least Xie Chongyi could logically explain his behavior of raising flowers to save people. As for the things Lin Mengzhi came up with, every last one leaned straight into mysticism. The two had somehow ended up on the same wavelength and hit it off immediately. If Lin Mengzhi hadn’t tried to dig up Wu Heng’s grave during the Ghost Festival last year to summon his soul, the pair of them probably would still be fooling around together now.
He returned to talking about Wu Heng.
“Your original essence hasn’t changed. Xie Chongyi showed me that seedling before. A few years isn’t enough time for it to develop a genetic mutation. It’s just that your current body has been reconstructed from your old consciousness and matter that had already been shattered. In a sense, it’s like you evolved all over again—from an ancient lifeform from before recorded memory into a human. So you and the previous you can no longer overlap one hundred percent. But you are still you. There’s no doubt about that.”
Wu Heng nodded. He didn’t really understand, though it wasn’t exactly that he couldn’t understand. It was more that his human consciousness still hadn’t fully recovered.
“I don’t get it,” Lin Mengzhi admitted honestly.
Professor Ye gestured with his hands. “Think of it like this: flowers blooming from the same tree in different years. Can you say they’re the exact same flower? No. But can you say they’re completely unrelated? Also no. Wu Heng himself is that tree—his consciousness is the tree. It’s just that the material composing his body has been renewed once.”
Seeing that Lin Mengzhi still looked completely lost, Professor Ye gave up and said directly, “Actually, the you right now isn’t the same person as the you from ten years ago either.”
That finally made sense to him.
“But I still feel like there are many things I can’t remember.” Wu Heng didn’t even know who this old man was.
“That’s normal. You need time to finish resetting,” Professor Ye said.
“Then do you remember me?” Lin Mengzhi leaned over nervously and pressed the question.
Wu Heng paused for a moment, pressed his lips together, then shook his head.
“It’s over, it’s over, we’re screwed! You remember Xie Chongyi but not me! Old Man Ye, hurry up and shock his brain or something—”
Seeing that he genuinely believed it, Wu Heng stood up. “Mengzhi, let’s go home.”
After saying that, he turned and walked toward the door.
Lin Mengzhi’s voice caught in his throat. He turned back in disbelief. “You lied to me!” After chasing after him, his aggrieved, tearful shouting continued echoing down the hallway. “How could you lie to me? Do you know I was just scared half to death by you…”
Wu Heng’s feelings toward him—and toward all of them—were somewhat different from theirs. His body was still in the middle of recovery, and his consciousness was still piecing itself back together. He only knew that they had been separated for a period of time, but within him there was not much joy of reunion, as though they had never truly been apart in the first place.
On the way back, Lin Mengzhi spent the entire trip telling Wu Heng about all the things that had happened after he left.
For example, Dou Lu had founded an environmental organization and left Suyou City. Teacher Ying was now mainly in charge of education within the city, though people still filed complaints about how annoying he was every month. Ao She had developed many new varieties of fruits and vegetables—the newest mango variety had a pit only the size of a thumb. Reconstruction had progressed at rocket-like speed, everyone’s standard of living had improved dramatically, and this year’s number of newborns had already exceeded four hundred…
As for the bad news that would make people unhappy, Lin Mengzhi deliberately left it unspoken.
Things like Wu Zhi. Things like Ruan Silian. Or how, for a period after the disaster, the s**cide rate had surged dramatically.
In any case, terrible things happened every day. There was nothing remarkable about that. Good news was more worth talking about.
Xie Chongyi remained on an IV drip until late into the night and never woke up during that time. In the room, Wu Heng received batch after batch of visitors. Among all the gifts sent over, he only accepted the food. The original residents all knew the lord’s preferences—other than the Chief, no matter who sent flowers, he would never accept them.
At ten o’clock that night, Wu Zhi, who had clung to Wu Heng for most of the day, finally became exhausted and fell asleep on the sofa.
Wu Heng sat behind the dining table, quietly watching the long couch crowded with three or four people.
He was recovering much faster than he had expected.
There were many things afterward that he had never anticipated. He knew Xie Chongyi would definitely be heartbroken, Wu Zhi would certainly make a fuss, and Lin Mengzhi probably wouldn’t be able to accept it either. But as for the others, he didn’t know whether it was because of love or because they needed him.
“Why are you unhappy? I feel like all these humans really like you,” the sea slug suddenly spoke while basking in the moonlight.
“I just naturally look unhappy.”
“All right then.” The sea slug rested its head against the rim of the bottle. “Send me back to the sea in a few days.”
“Why?”
“I think the ocean suits me better.”
After Wu Heng nodded, a bird cry sounded from far away in the night sky. Along with it came a slender shadow, leaping directly between the buildings as it rapidly approached the hospital.
Everyone had forgotten about them, but they had found their way here from home on their own.
The enormous parrot let out a shrill, miserable screech the moment it saw Wu Heng. It rapidly shrank in size, dove straight into Wu Heng’s arms, and started kicking and pecking at him.
“Bastard, idiot, asshole, f*ck, f*ck, f*ck, abandoned me—” it babbled incoherently, too frantic to form a complete sentence. Afterward, Shukui came charging up from downstairs and nearly knocked the table over.
The sea slug caught sight of the bird and quietly slid to the bottom of its bottle.
The dog and bird bounced and screamed so loudly that Doctor Chen personally came over to make them quiet down. “No loud noise in the hospital rooms. Do the other patients not deserve rest?”
The four creatures froze after being scolded. X tilted its head. “A dead man, this is terrible, terrible.”
“Woof!”
Wu Heng lowered his eyes to look at the parrot, which looked even more like a bandit than before. He had absolutely no idea just how many bad habits it had picked up over the years.
Compared to before, Doctor Chen hadn’t changed much either. It was just that the rotten flesh on him had dried out considerably, making him look leaner and sharper. Even after being insulted, he didn’t get angry. Instead, he stood motionless at the doorway for a long while. After some time, he left—but soon returned again.
This time, he walked into the room. “Want some midnight snacks?”
“I’m not hungry.” Wu Heng had already eaten a lot of things, including living ones.
“Xie Chongyi raised quite a lot of food for you. Specifically waiting for you to come back and eat it.”
“He still hasn’t woken up. Wouldn’t that count as stealing food?”
Doctor Chen waved a hand dismissively. “I’ve stolen some several times already.”
“…Where is it?”
Wu Heng ultimately didn’t go with Doctor Chen to sneak food after all. He still wanted to wait for Xie Chongyi to wake up first.
That wait lasted two days.
During that time, Wu Heng met Xie Yi, Wen Yuan, and many other people. He had returned to his own place again.
At one point, Ruan Silian also came to see him with her child. Her partner was a delicate-looking man who, apparently, had been the founder of a supermarket chain brand before the apocalypse and was now also a high-level ability user. The child resembled Ruan Silian very much—especially when smiling.
“Bwother, big bwother!” she still couldn’t speak clearly.
“Ahhh! What are you calling him?!” Wu Zhi’s reaction was over the top.
Ruan Silian crouched down, unable to hold back a laugh. “You should call him uncle. Uncle.”
“Unco.”
The child was adorable, and she smelled sweet and pleasant. Wu Heng crouched down in front of her. “What’s your name?”
“Xian… Yuan Xian.”
Ruan Silian answered for her. “Ruan Xian. She took my surname—her father’s surname doesn’t sound nice.”
Ruan Xian had never seen a boy with long hair before. Her big eyes kept staring at Wu Heng’s hair. Finally unable to resist, she reached out and grabbed it, tugging repeatedly. “Pwetty… pwetty,” she mumbled.
Behind her, Ruan Silian held the child’s shoulders. Her gaze shifted from the child back to Wu Heng’s face, her eyes already welling up with tears. “We all missed you. Xie Chongyi… these past few years, he’s been in a lot of pain.”
Wu Heng’s feelings toward her were somewhat complicated. After a moment’s pause, he gently took Ruan Xian’s soft little hand. “She’s an ability user.”
Ruan Silian smiled. “Yes.”
They didn’t talk for long before Ruan Silian’s partner arrived to drive her home. He was a tall, thin man who looked quite refined. It was his first time meeting Wu Heng, and he jogged over with a hint of awe in his expression. “I’ve heard a lot about you. You’ve worked hard.”
Wu Heng didn’t like this kind of polite small talk, and Ruan Silian knew it too. After saying goodbye, she left with her husband and daughter.
“A’Ruan, the Lord looks younger than in the photos. Is he not photogenic?”
“So young… he looks like a high school student.”
“Impressive.”
“A’Ruan, I’ve been feeling a bit unwell lately. Could you come with me to the hospital?”
Dou Lu rushed over in a hurry, temporarily handing off her work to her deputy. She barged straight into the meeting room without any manners and gave Wu Heng a big hug. “I missed you so much!”
The day after Dou Lu returned, Ruan Silian’s husband suffered a heart attack at his workplace and collapsed. After extensive verification, Ruan Silian was found to have significant suspicion of murder and was placed under temporary detention.
Wu Heng didn’t bother himself with these messy matters. He and the dog and bird spent most of their time at the hospital.
—
Xie Chongyi only woke up a week later. His fingers moved slightly, and the vines draped over the edge of the bed suddenly reared up like snakes.
Wu Heng, who had been sleeping on the sofa, also sat up.
“You’re awake?”
Xie Chongyi propped himself up and sat against the bed. “How long did I sleep?”
“A week.” Wu Heng placed a pillow behind his back.
“And you? How long did you sleep?”
Wu Heng’s hands paused.
“You’re trying to settle accounts with me? You weren’t any better.” They were both equally self-righteous, both hiding things from each other, both plotting situations where one of them would live and the other would die. It was just that Xie Chongyi had been a step behind and lost—so if he wanted to blame someone, that wasn’t fair.
A dark shadow flashed before his eyes. Before Wu Heng could react, he was already pinned beneath Xie Chongyi.
He looked up at the person above him, meeting a pair of eyes so close they seemed to glow.
One drop after another of hot tears fell onto his face.
Wu Heng blinked, and when he spoke again, his voice was hoarse. “I also wanted you to live.”
“I don’t blame you for feeding the flowers with your blood for three years.”
His voice lowered.
Xie Chongyi didn’t know whether to cry or laugh. He lifted Wu Heng’s chin and forced it up, then leaned down and kissed him hard.
The moment their lips met, Wu Heng felt a sharp sting as his lip was bitten. He instinctively tried to turn away, but the person above him seemed to take it as an excuse to punish him further. One hand grabbed his hair tightly, and the kiss deepened, forcing its way in—leaving him no chance to speak, and no space to make a sound.
Wu Heng’s stiff body grew hot and limp from the kisses, the vines that had been on high alert soon went limp and drooped over the edge of the bed. Xie Chongyi slowly released his hair, his fingers massaging their way down from his neck to his shoulders. Wu Heng let out a low cry of pain, but Xie Chongyi swallowed every sound into his own mouth. After a few rounds, Wu Heng’s tears flowed uncontrollably.
The cheeks pressed against each other were damp with their shared tears.
Wu Heng’s body and mind, which had been on edge for a week, finally relaxed. He couldn’t tell if his physical discomfort stemmed from Xie Chongyi’s brutal teasing or something else. Overwhelmed by an unbearable emotional surge, he mumbled, “I love you, Xie Chongyi. I love you.”
Xie Chongyi didn’t cry as he spoke. He lifted Wu Heng’s head, nuzzled against his ear, and ground his teeth, “Wu Heng, I love you.” As soon as he finished, he turned his head and bit down hard on the other’s lustrous, jade-like earlobe. The wormhole was gone; he had branded a new mark upon him.
A new life dawned upon Wu Heng, while Xie Chongyi was met with resurrection.
“Shall we?” The young man’s body still throbbed from being pinched and squeezed, yet he didn’t want to stop.
With strands of hair obscuring his face, Xie Chongyi’s gaze was moist and raw, yet he shook his head.
Wu Heng shifted his body, frowning. “But you’ve been poking me the whole time.”
Xie Chongyi stared intently at the fair, delicate face below him for a long moment. Finally, he pulled the other man into his embrace, rolled over, and lay down. “If we’re really going to do this, let’s wait until I’ve calmed down. Otherwise, I’m afraid I won’t be able to control myself and might end up hurting you.”
After a long while, a muffled voice came from within Xie Chongyi’s embrace, “Oh, okay.”