Its power is not only reflected in its pervasive destructiveness... but also its incredible creativity.
It can be said that factors are like the power of gods.
It contains destruction and creation, and is an existence attributed to the essence of the world.
——
Opening his eyes, Zhang Yi found that the fog had dispersed at some point.
I stood up and looked around. It was an endless desert.
Hell...is this what it's like?
Zhang Yi stood up and suddenly felt something was wrong... This place seemed... not the legendary hell... but more like a concrete and realistic world.
In order to prove his idea, Zhang Yi embarked on a lonely journey.
——
At first, Zhang Yi kept walking west, rested at noon, and continued to move forward through the stars at night.
It's fine during the day, as long as you set off at sunrise and sunset, you won't lose your way.
But at night, Zhang Yi found that the stars above his head seemed to be changing every day.
This strange phenomenon made Zhang Yi give up the idea of moving forward at night...
At the same time, Zhang Yi also noticed something, that is, he no longer felt hungry and thirsty... Most of the physical fatigue came from the mental level. If it were not because he was too bored, he felt that he would have no problem moving forward.
And on the fifth day.
When Zhang Yi woke up in the morning, he felt something strange on his face.
He raised his hand and touched it, and a fragment fell off his face.
It felt like knocking off the white ash layer on the wall in an abandoned house...
But Zhang Yi knew that this was not the same situation.
There is still something wrong with his body, and this loss is a precursor.
So Zhang Yi picked up the fragments and planned to "put them back" for himself, but this move caused another piece to fall off his face...
This frightened Zhang Yi. He didn't dare to act rashly anymore, so he had to collect the fragments and take them with him.
Fortunately, this kind of shedding does not cause Zhang Yi any pain, and the bleeding is very little.
Slowly, Zhang Yi got used to it...
——
On the 157th day of his lonely journey, Zhang Yi finally walked out of the desert and came to the edge of a city.
Zhang Yi was extremely happy when he saw the city, but at this moment, he had turned into a skinned "living corpse"... He also discarded the pieces that fell off his body...
If you enter the city like this, you will definitely be killed, right?
So Zhang Yi waited until night before heading towards the city.
However, during the day, Zhang Yi noticed something was wrong with this building...
It has a large area, with many high-rise buildings, and a large area of green space on the periphery to separate the city from the desert... But it is too quiet... It is as quiet as a sculpture group, at least standing one kilometer away from the city.
Yi can't hear the slightest sound from it.
At night, Zhang Yi finally summoned up the courage to head towards the city.
While walking through the green space, Zhang Yi found that the watering system here was still working, and the sound of water flowing in the fountain made him feel quite excited.
These details that are usually not within his attention are telling Zhang Yi at this moment that he is still alive! This world... is still alive...
However, when Zhang Yi walked through the green space and actually arrived at the city, standing under the first tall building on the outskirts of the city, Zhang Yi felt something was wrong.
It's so quiet...deadly quiet...
The tall building that gives people a sense of solemnity during the day is as eerie and terrifying at night as a prison where countless demons are imprisoned.
Although Zhang Yi was not frightened, he still felt panicked.
He now desperately wants to see the same kind of people and communicate with others.
However……
The city is empty…
Yes……
A city with an area of at least two hundred square kilometers is actually empty!
Zhang Yi did not give up. He spent three hundred days searching... and was finally convinced... that this was a strange empty city, a city that was not only abandoned by humans, but also forgotten by time.
A year and a half after coming to this world, Zhang Yi decided to leave the city and continue his journey.
But before leaving, he made the city noisy.
All kinds of music and radio are turned on.
Zhang Yi's soliloquy still echoes in many places...
Zhang Yi didn't know why he did this, but he felt that it might be more reassuring.
At least that's how he sees it...
——
When leaving the city, Zhang Yi wrapped himself in gauze like a mummy, then put on a windbreaker and a hat.
And this time he was no longer hiking, but driving.
A large pickup truck, also pulling an RV on the back.
Sufficient supplies and wonderful music made Zhang Yi's journey much more comfortable.
But there was still one question that tormented him every night...
That is, for more than three hundred days, Zhang Yi not only failed to find anyone, but also did not even have a single useful text or record.
Many room chains are unlocked, but most of the rooms are empty.
It seems that in order to cover up something, someone has erased all these records that can be informed to future generations...
This is really incredible and very puzzling.
The lack of humans in human cities may be due to some kind of disaster... The cities are well preserved and always spotless, perhaps because the environment and cities in this world have strong self-purification abilities.
But there is no way to explain it without any records.
What are they trying to hide in this hypothetical scenario?
Zhang Yi didn't know it, but as he passed one empty city after another, he began to realize that the world might have indeed suffered some kind of disaster.
Some kind of... humans and the traces left by humans are erased... a disaster where time is locked...
——
Five years later, Zhang Yi, who had become accustomed to living alone, stopped.
He stopped moving forward, even though he knew that he was just traveling on a continent at this moment, and there might still be people alive on the other side of the sea.
He is tired.
Unprecedented fatigue.
But he also figured it out and decided to accept it all and adapt to it.
Although he no longer felt hungry, Zhang Yi suddenly had the idea of planting food in the soil.
He had previously found a large number of seeds in a city's seed museum. Now was the time to sow seeds, and he should do this.
The process of sowing made Zhang Yi feel very at ease.
While he was working, he was talking to his own recording. The original purpose of this schizophrenia-like phenomenon was to prevent himself from becoming aphasic.
Facts have proved that Zhang Yi does need to communicate with others...even if that person is himself.
——
One rainy night, thunder roared, and Zhang Yi saw a figure in his dream.
He was marching forward in the deserted wasteland, and he could always hear waves of whispers behind him...but when he looked back, he couldn't see anything.
Now the whispers were also heard in his ears.
At first Zhang Yi thought it was an echo from a dream...but as his subconscious was awakened, he began to realize that the sound was real!
Then he suddenly woke up.
Then I saw a figure outside the window.
At that moment, Zhang Yi felt his scalp was exploding and his heartbeat accelerated rapidly!
He immediately got out of bed and rushed out.
But the figure had long since disappeared.
Zhang Yi did not give up. He stood in the rain and shouted: "I see you! Come out!!! Talk to me!!!"
There was no response, not even the heavy rain stopped.
Standing hastily in the middle of the field, Zhang Yi felt the urge to cry for the first time.
This is the first time in so long that he has been oppressed by loneliness to the point of collapse...
But when he tried so hard to restrain himself that he bent down and roared, he noticed new "buds" sprouting in the field!
At that moment, Zhang Yi was stunned.
His anxiety subsided, and joy filled his heart... He slowly squatted down.
When his fingertips touched the bud, the real feeling made his eyes blurry with tears.
"Hello...little one..."
——
Over the next two years, Zhang Yi became a farmer.
He no longer talks to himself, but places his spirit on the various flowers and crops he grows.
The originally simple farmland was expanded by Zhang Yi into a paradise-like place in two years.
Zhang Yi, whose life was suddenly full of satisfaction, no longer thought about what had happened to the world... because he had found his own answer.
--but……
If this is the end, it may be great for Zhang Yi.
But for the mission given to him by fate, it was too bad...
It was an early morning.
Zhang Yi clearly remembers that it was the early morning of June 5th, the seventh year after he came to this world.
There was a light rain the night before yesterday, and a lot of fruits fell in the orchard. Zhang Yi felt very distressed, so he gave up sleeping and took advantage of the night to collect all the fruits.
When he was done, he went back to bed and fell asleep.
This sleep lasted until the early morning of June 5th.
Zhang Yi doesn't know why he can sleep so well.
Anyway, when he woke up, a day had passed.
and……
It's getting foggy……
The thick fog that originally did not belong to this season completely enveloped his orchard.
This is also the first time Zhang Yi has encountered heavy fog in more than two years.
At first Zhang Yi just thought it was strange, but soon he remembered the scene when he first arrived in this world.
The fog is thick and lingers for a long time...
Yes.
The fog is thick and lingers for a long time...
The sudden heavy fog lasted for half a month before disappearing.
In the past half month, Zhang Yi could always hear people's footsteps in the fog, but he did not dare to go far and pursue them.
The orchard became the center of his activities.
The most daring one was just tying a rope around my waist and walking out for more than a hundred meters.
But still found nothing... Zhang Yi even thought that someone would untie the rope during the journey, and then he would never be able to find his orchard again...
So Zhang Yi hurried back and gave up the idea of exploring.
At this time, Zhang Yi no longer cares about what is in the thick fog or what the fog represents, because for him, those answers are no longer the point.
He just wants to spend the rest of his life quietly.
…
But……
When the thick fog cleared, Zhang Yi woke up.
He found a man standing in the orchard.
A person with his back turned.
At that moment, Zhang Yi was both scared and extremely excited.