Chapter 1357: "Ceaseless Life"
Zheng Yingxiong ran home with a look of terror on his face, but the entire way he felt dizzy and lightheaded, and there wasn't a single person in sight.
But right now, all he wanted was to find his family.
What exactly had happened in that enormous prison... to make people in the real world disappear too?
He panted heavily as he reached his doorstep, gasping for breath for a long time before he finally mustered the courage to reach out and slowly touch the door.
The moment his fingers made contact with the door handle, the street behind him began to grow chaotic, and the sound of snoring from inside the house drifted out like a memory.
The scene inside the house came into Zheng Yingxiong's view. His father was still sleeping inside, but this time he hadn't broken any plates—he'd just drunk a lot.
Was this reality...? And yet it felt a little different from ordinary reality.
"Yingxiong!" A voice sounded behind Zheng Yingxiong. He turned around and saw his mother coming back from grocery shopping, carrying a basket of vegetables.
"M-Mother?" Zheng Yingxiong stared at her blankly.
"And you still remember to call me?" His mother reached out and grabbed him by the ear. It looked terrifying, but her grip wasn't strong. "What time is it? Are you out of school? Why are you at home?"
Zheng Yingxiong looked at his mother, and in an instant, tears began streaming down his face as he trembled.
He didn't know what had happened, but for the first time, he could smell the scent of a living person on his mother.
No matter how many times he had woken up in reality before, all he could ever smell was the stench of the prison.
His mother paused for a moment, then reached out and touched the tip of his nose. "What's wrong? Did you get into a fight?"
At that moment, he suddenly wanted to talk to his mother—to say so many things.
He wanted to tell her that he'd met two older sisters—
That he loved them just as much as he loved her.
Just as the cigarette in Attorney Zhang's hand was about to burn out, the door to the fire escape was pushed open.
The noise of the wedding from outside came flooding into Attorney Zhang's ears.
"Sister Zhang?" Xiao Sun poked his head in, looking at her curiously.
Attorney Zhang's entire body jolted, scattering ash all over the floor.
She looked up at him in confusion. A few seconds later, she instinctively reached into her pocket.
According to normal memory... after she finished the phone call in the fire escape, Xiao Sun would appear. But why was this time different?
Where was the phone...?
"Looking for this?" Xiao Sun slipped a hand in through the door, holding up a phone and gently shaking it. "Not only are you smoking without me, you're leaving your phone behind too?"
Zhang Chenze was slightly disoriented. She dropped her cigarette on the floor, quickly walked over, and snatched the phone back. She unlocked it and checked—
There were no missed calls at all.
She thought for a few seconds, then started scrolling through her contacts. Soon, her whole body began to tremble.
She realized she had never saved a single family member's number.
What... was going on?
"What's wrong, Sister Zhang?" Xiao Sun asked, puzzled. "For the record, I didn't peek at your phone."
"Jia... Jiaqi... where are my parents' numbers?" Zhang Chenze stumbled over the word "parents" noticeably. She looked up at Xiao Sun in bewilderment.
"Parents...?" Xiao Sun frowned in confusion. "Sister Zhang... have you been under a lot of pressure lately? Maybe you should take a long vacation?"
"What—"
"Didn't you say you grew up in an orphanage?"
Zhang Chenze froze in place, as still as a statue, unable to move.
...
Qiao Jiajin was sitting in Gun Youliang's car. Jiu Zai, just like before, was sharing all the interesting stories he'd collected over the years.
But Qiao Jiajin simply stared blankly out the window.
They drove out of the prison, and after just two intersections, he saw a dazzling high-rise that he'd never seen before on Portland Street.
The building soared into the clouds, dozens of stories tall.
It was covered in special materials he'd never seen, shimmering with brilliant light on the street like something out of "The Terminator."
What... was this...?
At another intersection, the car drove past Beijing's Qianmen Hutong and turned onto Chengdu's Qingyang Avenue.
Wait... what was this now?
"Jiu... Jiu Zai..." Qiao Jiajin kept his eyes wide, staring at the completely unfamiliar scenery outside. "What's... going on out there?"
"Huh?" Jiu Zai was taken aback. "A-Jin, did you lose it? Outside... hasn't it always been like this?"
"Always... like this?"
Qiao Jiajin's voice began to falter. He felt as if something had been etched into these people's subconscious.
And yet they seemed so real...
Gun Youliang laughed. "Brother Jiu, you've lost it too. Brother Jin did time for years, he just got out."
"Oh! Right!" Jiu Zai laughed as well. "No worries, A-Jin. I'm here. I'll help you get reacquainted."
As Qiao Jiajin watched in shock, Gun Youliang's car drove through many more blocks.
He saw a world bursting with color, far vaster than he had ever imagined.
...
That day, some people looked up in bewilderment.
They saw the silhouette of a celestial dragon flash across the "Door" high in the sky, and then someone reached out and completely closed that "Door."
In that instant, all the faint light vanished from the sky. Every trace of "celestial magic" on each person also seemed to lose its connection and slowly receded.
That day, countless people appeared out of nowhere with their own little worlds, and everything—along with all the people from their memories—reconnected with the world anew.
That day, Chen Junnan returned to a home that had never burned down. Zhang Lijuan did not encounter the middle-aged woman who came to cause her trouble in the workshop. Qian Wu saw all of his cats.
That day, through one sweeping glance after another, all the fallen comrades were resurrected in everyone's minds, carrying all of their memories.
That day, everyone whose memories had lasted the longest survived to the very end, becoming seeds full of hope.
That day, people heard someone say, "If you miss them, you will see them."
That day, they all met the ones they had been longing for.
And on that same day, the image of Qi Xia flashed inexplicably through everyone's mind. But Qi Xia never appeared.