Chapter 260 - 227: Sweet Dreams

Chapter 260: Chapter 227: Sweet Dreams

"Zhou Ning!" Zhou Qian had no idea how he had ended up here. He distinctly remembered that when he first arrived, Zhou Ning’s dead, ashen, and withered body had already stiffened, swallowed whole by the Rose Corridor. His comrades had held him back, refusing to let him get closer...

But now, no one was stopping him. Zhou Qian sprinted forward with all his might. Even though they were so far apart, he could clearly hear her every breath and murmur—

"Don’t go... no, Brother, don’t come—it’ll kill you...

"No, no, don’t come!"

Her agonized struggles reached his ears, twisting his heart into knots. Yet, no matter how hard he pushed himself, the distance between him and Zhou Ning remained insurmountable!

"Ningning!" he shouted at the top of his lungs.

"Brother... no... no..." Her mouth was open, her eyelids twitching frantically. The veins at her temples bulged and throbbed grotesquely, making the alien spider orchid on her head look even more terrifying. Within this horde of parasites, their biological instincts surged with a yearning for the vaster expanses of the Wilderness.

The next moment, Zhou Ning suddenly screamed, "No! I won’t go! To the Wilderness!"

Then came a sharp CRACK. The long aerial roots of the alien spider orchid had completely snapped her cervical spine. Her shriveled corpse collapsed before Zhou Qian’s eyes. Like countless other parasitized corpses, she was about to be piled up to pave a high road leading to the freedom of the Wilderness.

"Ningning..."

Zhou Qian stood frozen in place. Beside him were his comrades, clumsily pinning him down, but he lacked even the strength to struggle. He could only watch helplessly as the once-quiet Rose Corridor suddenly unleashed countless vines!

Just like in his memory.

The earth churned. Beneath the surface, the fibrous roots of the Roses that spread across the entire Wilderness arched through the deep soil, dragging back the undignified corpses one by one, burying them deep, deep underground.

The Wilderness before the Rose Corridor fell dead silent, as if no one had ever been there. The people beside him stood dumbfounded, not daring to take another step forward. It all felt like a dream.

When Zhou Qian opened his eyes, the ground before him was slick with tears.

Was it a dream?

But why had everything in it felt so real? It was as if he had truly witnessed the past he had missed—Zhou Ning’s persistence, her small wishes, and her unyielding determination to protect Zhou Qian’s hope of survival, even at the cost of her own Life...

Everyone knew the Wilderness was dangerous, teeming with endless waves of mutated creatures. As a member of the Defense Army, Zhou Qian saw casualties in every operation. Zhou Ning had known all of this.

In her eyes, the Wilderness must have been the most terrifying place in the world. She had believed that as long as her brother didn’t go there, he would be able to live well...

He wondered, "Is that how it was, Ningning?"

The sky had long since turned pitch black. A brilliant milky way stretched overhead, and mosquitoes buzzed around him. Zhou Qian slowly tried to push himself up from the ground, pressing his hands against the rough dirt. Sand and gravel dug into his palms, yet he still struggled, in too much pain to stand.

The fading dream felt like a ravenous vortex, swallowing up every last ounce of his strength.

He thought he had already learned to calmly accept it all, that he could easily tell others the fact that Ningning was gone. But reality made him realize that Zhou Ning had always been deeply etched in his heart.

In the end, he sat blankly on the ground and cried out with fierce, unrestrained sobs. His uncontrollable whimpers and overwhelming grief were carried away by the wind, like hot blood finally surging from a long-dormant scar.

When dawn broke, Huai Yu got up to get ready for the day.

Pushing open the door, she saw a figure in the nearby field already swinging a hoe, working as diligently as a hired farmhand.

"Brother Zhou Qian," she called out, stifling a yawn. "You’re here so early?"

As soon as the words left her mouth, she realized something was wrong. The soil before her bore fresh, damp marks, clearly having just been dug up.

She ran over to take a closer look and gasped in surprise, "Brother Zhou Qian! You didn’t work all night, did you?"

"Yeah." Zhou Qian looked up. His face was etched with deep exhaustion, but his expression was more peaceful than ever before. "I had a dream after drinking the tea yesterday. I didn’t want to go back to sleep, so I decided to come do some work."

Oh, a dream. Huai Yu recalled the reaction of Uncle Zaozi’s family members and asked with a hint of concern, "Was your dream good or bad?"

Zhou Qian fell silent for a moment. "It was good."

Even though it had been excruciatingly painful, the dream felt so real, as if he had witnessed everything he had missed. It made him realize just how much Zhou Ning had cared for him. Rather than a dream, it felt more like a continuation of all his regrets.

The person in the dream couldn’t be brought back from the dead, but the living would remember her forever—more unforgettably than ever before. He even wondered if, in the dream, in Zhou Ning’s final memories, she had known that her brother hadn’t given up on her!

Whether it was keeping her hidden in secret for half a year or trying so hard to sustain her Life... he had never given up on her.

Zhou Qian looked at Huai Yu. "So, Little Yu, if you want to recover your memories quickly, you should also drink a cup of the pink tea. But you shouldn’t sell it so easily anymore."

Huai Yu observed his expression and guessed that his dream hadn’t been as happy as Uncle Zaozi’s. She nodded and said nothing more.

However, his past memories had nothing to do with Little Yu, and Zhou Qian didn’t want to see her acting so cautiously. He smiled at her and said, "Go about your business. By the way, I’ve been working for a long time. Cook a little extra for breakfast."

"Oh, okay, okay!" In Huai Yu’s eyes, as long as someone could eat and drink, it wasn’t a big problem. Her worries instantly vanished, and she hurried back to prepare breakfast.

After breakfast, she had other tasks lined up for Zhou Qian.

"Brother Zhou Qian, you won’t need to go to the trading market with me in the mornings anymore. I made an arrangement with Uncle Zaozi—the deliveryman will come by every day once he receives the goods. Since we’re not sure when the goods will arrive, you’ll need to go there and check every morning at nine o’clock.

"Also, if you happen to run into him, could you rent his tricycle again and go to the nearby Golden Yuan District to buy a few jars for me? I want to pickle more eggplants and make some dried vegetables, and the two small vats we have at home aren’t enough."

Huai Yu listed off the tasks one by one, only then remembering another major matter.

"Right! In a bit, could you help me pull the fish trap out of the pond?

"I wonder if that big black snakehead fish that escaped swam into it, and if the trap can even hold it?

"Big snakehead fish eat smaller fish. If we don’t catch it soon, that pond will only be good for growing lotus roots. Oh, wait, no, it’ll eat all the lotus roots, too."

Wouldn’t it just become an abandoned pond then? What a pity that would be! The nearby barnyard grass tree had been constantly purifying the impurities in the water. If it hadn’t been for the contaminated rain a few days ago, the pond would be crystal clear by now.

Zhou Qian nodded. "Alright, I’ll be careful."