Faced with Hong's questions, the girl did not know how to respond.
She stood there in a daze, her hands trembling around a medicine box, shaking so much it seemed as though the medicine inside would fall out at any moment.
Suddenly, the door swung open again, coming from the outside.
A middle-aged woman in a dirty white coat stepped in.
With her yellowish skin, black hair, and thick black glasses, she was indeed the woman who seemed to be a doctor a moment ago.
“I’m here to answer your questions. Don’t trouble Yi Yi, she’s been sick before and has had her share of scares—she’s not so good at speaking or thinking clearly,” the woman said, moving to the side of the bed and placing a light gray kettle on the wooden nightstand.
“We don’t know how you got here. Last night, Yi Yi went out to gather firewood and accidentally found you in a pit. She dragged you back.”
“When we found you, you were unconscious with a fever but had no visible injuries. Yi Yi gave you a lot of filtered water, and you only woke up after waiting all night.”
Taking a breath, the woman continued, “Now, about this place. This is Baiqiu Village, surrounded by deep mountains. The only way to the outside world is an old road to the west.”
She paused for a moment and then said, “I’m the village doctor, my surname is Xu. Her name is Lin Yi Yi, she’s an orphan and lives here alone. There’s really not much else to tell. Now it’s your turn. Who are you, how did you come here, and why?”
“Doctor Xu, can I call you that?” Hong cleared his throat, suppressing the pain, and spoke in a low voice.
Seeing her nod, he continued, “My name is Yu Hong. I was just sleeping at home, and then…” He recounted his previous sensations in detail. “I don’t know how I got here.”
He raised his hand slowly to cover his forehead.
“How old are you?” Doctor Xu suddenly asked.
“Twenty… twenty-seven,” Yu Hong answered reflexively.
“That’s enough. You can’t go back anyway. In this world, no matter where you came from or how, without transportation, stepping outside is certain death. You’ll likely be here for a long time,” Doctor Xu said coolly.
“What?! No transportation? Could you find someone to borrow a vehicle to take me to the nearest station? I can pay!” Yu Hong felt confused.
“A station?” Now it was Doctor Xu’s turn to be bewildered. “What nonsense are you talking about? Where would you find a station? Who’s going to drive you? The outside world is crawling with all sorts of monsters—going out alone is just asking for death!”
“Monsters?!” Yu Hong froze.
“What kind of monsters?” He began to doubt whether she was joking or if there was something wrong with her mind.
However, when he saw the way Doctor Xu looked at him like he was a fool, unease welled up within him.
He started to panic a bit.
He was just an ordinary office worker—nobody would spend a fortune to hire actors of this caliber for a prank, right?
“Done for. He’s really a fool,” Doctor Xu sighed as she looked up, showing her exasperation. “Fools match fools; you two are quite the pair.”
She glanced out the window. “It’s still early. When night falls, you’ll understand. I’ll be leaving now. Yi Yi, keep an eye on him, don’t let him open the door at night.”
“Alright,” the stuttering girl nodded eagerly.
As Doctor Xu made to leave, the stuttering girl called out urgently, “Medicine! Older sister!”
Doctor Xu turned back and, after looking at Yu Hong, understood.
She pulled a mercury thermometer from her pocket and put it in Yu Hong’s mouth.
“Let’s check your temperature.”
After a moment, she took out the thermometer and glanced at it. “38.5, you won't die.”
“My medicine—I'm sorry!” the stuttering girl quickly presented the medicine box in her hands for Doctor Xu to see.
Doctor Xu frowned at the mold on the medicine. “Yi Yi, I don’t have much medicine left either. The post office only goes to town once a month.”
Upon hearing this, the stuttering girl panicked and quickly rummaged around.
Shortly, she found something resembling a yam from a corner cabinet and handed it over. “Trade, this, trade… for medicine!”
Doctor Xu shook her head, indicating it wasn't enough.
The stuttering girl began searching elsewhere.
The two began to bargain, their voices echoing in Yu Hong’s ears, muddling his already dazed mind.
He felt increasingly weak and drowsy until he gradually fell asleep again.
The pain in his throat, the heaviness in his head, and the weakness in his body made it hard for him to even get up.
His body’s instinctive self-healing mechanism compelled him to quickly recover energy through sleep.
Time passed quickly.
He didn’t know how long it had been—maybe an hour, maybe three.
For someone in a daze, time could lose all meaning.
Slowly, Yu Hong awoke.
His body ached, felt weak, and his throat felt blocked as if something was stuck there, preventing him from speaking.
Opening his eyes, with great difficulty, he propped himself up and surveyed his surroundings.
The room was quiet.
This small square bedroom had wooden walls and a ceiling, all a pale yellow color.
The floor was made of black mud, smooth and dry, with patches of grass growing in some corners.
Yu Hong gradually turned, letting his legs dangle off the bed before carefully lowering his feet to the ground.
The solid feeling of the ground beneath him unexpectedly eased his mind.
Looking down at himself, he saw he was wearing a gray-white short-sleeve T-shirt with a cartoon tiger head on it, slightly stained with yellow.
His pants were light yellow casual trousers, wrinkled and battered, and his gray socks had holes at the big toe, with dirt-covered toes sticking out.
‘What is this?’ he thought, glancing at his right hand, which bore a strange black mark he hadn’t noticed before.
The mark looked like an ancient seal, square in shape, with something resembling a lump of mud resting on it—no patterns, no characters, just a sight that appeared like a birthmark at first glance.
But Yu Hong was certain he had never had such a large birthmark, especially not on the prominent part of his right hand.
Rubbing the mark didn’t hurt at all.
He tried to wipe it off but couldn’t and eventually gave up.
After examining his body again and confirming there were no injuries, he felt his stubble and turned to the window.
The square window was on the right side of the bed, tightly nailed with horizontal wooden boards inside and out, giving off a sense of unease as if guarding against something sinister.
Outside, the dim yellow light filtered in, casting faint yellow patches by the bed.
Taking a breath, he noticed something strange about the air, which carried an indescribable burning smell.
He walked a few steps to the door and noticed a thick stack of old newspapers by the wooden door’s base.
He hesitated a moment, then bent down to pick up the topmost newspaper for a closer look.
“Top Alert: Major ‘Black Disaster’ Strikes Across the Nation”
The enormous headline almost dominated half the newspaper’s front page.
Below were detailed contents: ‘The continual occurrence of “Black Disasters” and the weak responses from relevant departments have brought tremendous threats to the safety of the people’s lives.
In the face of this grave situation, the National Disaster Prevention Committee urgently established the Emergency Management Department, activating a rapid response for areas severely affected by the disaster, organizing rescue efforts.’
Yu Hong frowned as he flipped to the back.
The photos on the back showed scenes of bustling rescue zones.
One depicted a gray pile of building rubble where people in thick protective suits carried stretchers bearing charred bodies out.
“Black Disaster?” He had never heard of this term.
He flipped again to another section of the newspaper.
“Severe Pest Disaster Approaches, How Should We Respond?”
“Food Shortages, Water Scarcity—National Rescue Teams Work Hard to Save Thousands!”
“Suspected Biochemical Agent Leak—Emergency Lockdown in Yi Gu City”
“Experts Talk About Responding to Black Disaster Blood-tick Pests”
“The First Hope City Completed, Thousands Set to Move In”
As Yu Hong flipped through the papers, his expression grew graver.
Apart from the oddity of the headlines, the crucial thing dawned on him:
He suddenly realized, none of these newspapers were written in any language he had ever learned before—neither Chinese, English, French, Spanish, Russian, or anything else.
Instead, it was a completely unfamiliar and alien language.
“What the hell?!”
Yu Hong set down the newspaper, glancing at the date printed on it.
“January 3, 2020.”
Languages he had never seen before, yet somehow he could understand them.
This bizarre feeling caused a wave of discomfort to swell in his heart.
Returning the newspaper to its original spot, Yu Hong turned his gaze to the door ahead of him.
The door was a gray-black color, adorned with two square pattern designs, one large, the other small.
The doorknob was white, with paint chipped off, revealing the black metal underneath.
He reached out, grasping the handle.
The cold, solid feel made him shiver slightly as he turned it softly.
Creak.
The door opened.
Outside was a set of three gray stone steps leading down.
Beyond them lay a broken, rocky road.
Across the road stood a shabby little house with its door wide open.
The house, with its grayish-white walls and blackened, decayed roof, stood just over three meters high.
On its outer wall were blurry red slogans, the content nearly indecipherable.
The slanted roof still held remnants of stones and dry yellow leaves, which rustled gently in the wind.
Stepping outside, Yu Hong realized he wasn’t wearing shoes—just those tattered gray socks.
His bare feet felt uneasy on the gravelly ground, sharp stones pricking at his soles.
Deciding to stand still, he looked around.
The rocky path outside was flanked by house after house, made of stone and tiled roofs.
These houses were all quite old, their walls mottled with stains and mold, some even sporting red slogans: “Wishing You a Lifetime of Happiness,” “One Person’s Safety, the Whole Family’s Peace,” “Prevent Fire, Pests, and Dampness.”
The rocky road was somewhat dim, the sunlight blocked by the houses with only a few rays managing to enter through broken doors and windows.
This was partly due to the houses being relatively low.
Yu Hong glanced left and right.
The houses were like a line of people defectively aligned, closely spaced and dilapidated, with doors and windows open to the wind’s howl.
He raised his gaze and looked back at the building he was in.
Indeed, while his was also a tiled house, it was different from the others.
The doors and windows were all secured with thick black and yellow wooden strips, with the gaps stuffed full with heavy cloth, and the door sill was taller than that of the other homes.
Yu Hong felt an inexplicable sense of foreboding rising in him.
Suddenly, a quiet sound came from the distance on his right.
It seemed like shoes crunching over gravel.
He hurriedly turned to look.
In a house on the right side of the path, he saw a vaguely visible figure in white standing in the shadows of the open door, staring at him.
From afar, he thought he saw the figure smiling at him.
“Smile at what?!” Yu Hong frowned, ignoring the stranger.
Even though he wanted to find someone to ask for information, the figure was somewhat unsettling, making him feel uncomfortable.
So he decided to look for someone else.
Turning away, he scanned the other tiled houses in hopes of finding someone.
Unfortunately, he surveyed the area but found no one else.
Thus, he turned back to the direction of the figure in white.
However, this glance made his heart sink.
The figure was no longer standing in the previous house but had instead appeared in another house much closer to him.
Still standing in the shadows at the door, it smiled at him.
In the brief span of ten seconds, the distance between them, which had been dozens of meters, had shrunk dramatically.
The weirdest part was, despite the proximity, he still couldn’t clearly see the figure's face.
All he could make out was that it was a man with very pale skin, still smiling at him.
He couldn’t hear any footsteps, so how could this person have moved such a great distance so quickly?
Yu Hong began to feel a chill creep up his spine.
He inhaled sharply, swung his head to look in another direction but then quickly darted his gaze back to the figure.
In just that instant, less than a second had passed.
Yet that white figure was gone from the last house and had reappeared again, standing in a house diagonally opposite him, much less than ten meters away.
Still in the doorway’s shadows, it remained motionless, smiling at him.
“Damn!!” A chill coursed through Yu Hong as he began to back away slowly.
What made him feel more strange was that despite being so close, he still couldn’t clearly see the figure’s features even without myopia!
Thinking back on what had just happened, he dared not blink, slowly backing away until he reached the door.
Carefully, he kept his eyes fixed on the figure as he gradually started to close the door.
Slowly.
The door was now just an arm's width open.
Yu Hong fought to keep himself from blinking, but the strain grew intolerable, and tears began to pool in his eyes, dropping one after another.
He could barely hold on any longer.
(End of Chapter)