Zhang Lesi found it unbelievable: “What nonsense are you talking about?”
She said: “Isn’t that all coincidence? How many samples do you have that you dare draw a conclusion? The development zone is so far from the city center—maybe the surviving civil servants are all somewhere else. Your conclusion doesn’t hold up at all. Insufficient sample size.”
Zhao Yi knew not everyone could understand.
He didn’t force Zhang Lesi to understand either.
Zhang Lesi couldn’t see now—she must have her own fears.
They’d all wanted her to find an empty apartment on the first floor so she wouldn’t have to climb stairs. She’d refused.
Because she couldn’t see, her other senses had become more sensitive. She didn’t want to go to an environment with completely unfamiliar smells—staying in her own apartment made her feel more at ease.
He turned over and held her: “You’re right. I was overthinking.”
Zhang Lesi scoffed: “You just read too many comics. If what you said were true, what kind of force would have that kind of power? If a foreign force were that powerful, they’d just directly destroy our country—why go through all this trouble? What for? To occupy land? Seize resources? War reparations? What for? There has to be a motive, right?”
Zhang Lesi wasn’t entirely wrong.
But Zhao Yi had another, even more absurd hypothesis in his heart.
But if Zhang Lesi couldn’t even accept this level, then the more absurd hypothesis was even less acceptable.
He gently patted her back, coaxing her to sleep.
This matter, Zhao Yi felt, could only be discussed with Gao Yuxuan.
Gao Yuxuan saw him: “Where’s Lesi?”
“Sunbathing.” Zhao Yi glanced back.
Zhang Lesi had set up a chair to sunbathe. When Zhao Yi worked, Zhang Lesi sunbathed.
With her friends around her, there was nothing to worry about.
And her blindness didn’t stop her from helping others with diagnoses—her superpower still worked.
Gao Yuxuan asked: “What’s up?”
This kind of thing wasn’t really suited for daytime discussion. But Zhao Yi had no time at night, so he could only squeeze in time where he could.
He told Gao Yuxuan all the information he’d gathered and his own thoughts.
Gao Yuxuan met his eyes in the sunlight.
Zhao Yi waited for Gao Yuxuan to digest and absorb it.
Gao Yuxuan didn’t directly deny it like Zhang Lesi did. Instead, he followed Zhao Yi’s logic and continued the deduction: “Something capable of this level—it couldn’t possibly be any Western country, much less any neighboring country. There are only so many countries in the world, and everyone knows what each one is like. So…”
Gao Yuxuan lowered his head in thought, deducing to himself: “So, this is a force that surpasses all nations on Earth. So, it’s a force that surpasses this planet. So, it can only be an extraterrestrial civilization.”
A statement that would make others laugh out loud—neither of them laughed.
Because it wasn’t a joke. It was a serious, thoughtful, earnest discussion.
And it could only be discussed with Gao Yuxuan.
With Li Jiangbing, he’d have to expend effort explaining.
With Song Jingshuo, he’d probably already be face-palming, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.
Only Gao Yuxuan—same frequency of thought, same sync of imagination.
Zhao Yi said: “There’s another possible direction.”
Gao Yuxuan raised his eyes: “Higher-dimensional reduction?”
Zhao Yi: “Yes.”
Gao Yuxuan: “So we’re a lower-dimensional world?”
Zhao Yi: “Possibly.”
Gao Yuxuan: “Fuck.”
Zhao Yi let out a long breath.
Gao Yuxuan put his hands on his hips, sucking in air through his teeth: “Oh man, oh man…”
He went on like that for a while.
Zhao Yi asked: “You’re not scared?”
Gao Yuxuan put his hands on his hips: “Scared my ass. What’s there to be scared of? Worst case, we die. We’re hard to kill anyway!”
Zhao Yi’s fear suddenly dissipated.
“True.” He felt reassured. “Worst case, we die.”
They’d seen so much life and death already. Thinking about it, there really was nothing to fear.
The previous fear had come mostly from the “unknown.” Fear imagined from the “unknown” was the greatest fear of all.
Now that he’d figured out that the worst was just death, he was no longer afraid.
His downcast eyes were seen by Gao Yuxuan.
In just a few short months, they’d gone from strangers who were neighbors to comrades-in-arms to like-minded confidants.
Now they were close friends.
Gao Yuxuan saw through him at a glance: “What else haven’t you said?”
Zhao Yi looked up into the distance.
Gao Yuxuan followed his gaze and saw a few people gathered around Jiang Cheng, talking.
“There’s something I thought Jiang Cheng would mention,” Zhao Yi said. “But Jiang Cheng didn’t, so I don’t know if I should.”
“In that case, don’t tell anyone else. But,” Gao Yuxuan changed tack, “I’m not ‘anyone else.’ Spit it out!”
Zhao Yi was silent for a long time, then said: “That day, the sky was purple. Did you see it?”
“…” Gao Yuxuan asked, “Which day?”
Zhao Yi said: “October 5th.”
October 5th—what kind of day was that? It was the day when dawn had finally appeared, only to suddenly plunge back into darkness.
The city-wide explosions, S City burning, reduced to ruins.
Gao Yuxuan: “…Is that the purple sky Jiang Cheng mentioned?”
Jiang Cheng had said that during both the first and second zombie outbreaks, the sky had turned purple, and she’d felt something abnormal too—which was why she’d dared to guess the zombie virus had returned.
The claim about physical abnormalities—people could accept that.
But the heavenly omen about the sky—many people actually didn’t believe it in their hearts. They thought it was too mystical. They heard it and didn’t take it to heart.
“Holy shit! I didn’t see it!” Gao Yuxuan couldn’t believe it. “What did I miss? I actually missed it!”
“Wait, what was I doing at the time?”
“Oh, right! We flipped the vehicle! It exploded!”
“And Moli stood up with his bare ass showing! Flashing us right in front of our faces!”
“Who would be looking at the sky at a time like that?!”
At that moment, the city was a sea of fire, explosions chaining one after another. Everyone was injured, bleeding.
The black cat turned into a spirit and took human form.
Every single thing—which one wasn’t eye-catching?
Even so, Gao Yuxuan still agonized over having missed witnessing such an important moment, and redirected his anger at Zhao Yi: “Why didn’t you tell me then! Despicable!”
He’d actually kept it to himself!
But Zhao Yi was quite innocent.
So many things had happened at once. He couldn’t exactly go over, grab Gao Yuxuan, and say “Quick, look—the sky turned purple!”
By the time they’d finished scrambling—finding a new vehicle, making a skirt armor to cover Moli’s shame, grabbing Moli’s arms and ears to study him front and back—Zhao Yi turned to look again, and the sky had returned to a normal overcast.
Zhao Yi explained: “Mainly, I thought Jiang Cheng would mention it.”
But Jiang Cheng hadn’t mentioned it at the time, nor on the road.
Right after, Zhao Yi learned something had happened to Zhang Lesi—how could he still have the brain to think about what color the sky was?
After Jiang Cheng returned, she still didn’t mention it.
Zhao Yi thought maybe there had been too many things going on at the time, and she’d mention it later.
In the blink of an eye, it was now late October.
Jiang Cheng clearly wasn’t planning to mention it.
And everyone at the time, like Gao Yuxuan, had only paid attention to what was in front of them—no one had noticed the sky.
Only he and Jiang Cheng knew—the omen had appeared again.
“So you held it in until now, and finally couldn’t hold your fart anymore and remembered I exist, huh.” Gao Yuxuan grumbled. “For the rest of my life, I’m calling you Big Old Turtle.”
Gao Yuxuan put his hands on his hips, squinted, and ground his teeth, watching Jiang Cheng from afar.
Moli walked over.
Moli went up behind Jiang Cheng, opened his arms, and tried to drape himself on her shoulder.
Jiang Cheng’s backhand smacked him on the forehead.
Moli looked aggrieved.
Moli stood obediently to the side.
Song Jingshuo personally went to the storage room to pick out clothes for Moli.
Though they weren’t name brands, they were well-coordinated, and combined with his unrivaled physique, he looked extremely handsome.
Moreover, the high school girls called Moli “Moli,” but called Song Jingshuo “Uncle Song.”
You had to understand—youth was the most precious thing.
Gao Yuxuan said: “If I were Jiang Cheng, I wouldn’t say it either. Just think about what happened the first time, what happened the second time. And then the third time?”
The first time, for the first time in human history, people turned into zombies.
The second time, the virus broke out again. Not only did the zombies become stronger, but humans also began to evolve.
But the third time…
The third time, Moli evolved into human form.
The first two times were about all of humanity.
By the third time, it suddenly focused in.
To Gao Yuxuan and Zhao Yi, this didn’t seem like much. Moli, as the heroine’s summoned beast, was so powerful—continuing to evolve was his destiny.
But not everyone thought that way.
There would definitely be people saying “Isn’t she/it the disaster star who brought the zombies?”
Historically, people who held that kind of thinking were actually the majority.
Gao Yuxuan said: “Keep your mouth shut.”
Zhao Yi said: “You too.”
Zhao Yi said: “I actually… just want to know if our world is real.”
Relative to the human world, a comic is a lower-dimensional world. A novel is also a lower-dimensional world.
Humans in a higher-dimensional world can manipulate the development of that comic or novel with just a pen.
Zhao Yi said: “I just want to know… am I real?”
“Bullshit.” Gao Yuxuan said. “Real and virtual are relative.”
“To us, a comic is virtual.”
“To the characters in that comic, this is their ‘reality.’”
“You don’t have the ability to shatter the void and go to a higher-dimensional world anyway, so just stay in this world and be your ‘real’ self. Stop daydreaming about nonsense.”
Zhao Yi gazed at Zhang Lesi in the distance.
She was sitting with her eyes closed, feeling the sunlight.
She seemed to be glowing.
She was so beautiful.
He turned his head to look at Gao Yuxuan.
Silly.
Noisy.
But he was his soul brother.
He’d originally just been an otaku working alone in a big city.
Getting on in years, still criticized by his parents and elders for “still watching stuff kids watch and playing with kids’ toys.”
Every day going to the company pretending to be an adult.
Coming home to eat alone, accompanied by his figurines.
But now, he had a lover, a close friend, a whole group of partners who trusted each other.
If this was written by someone in a higher dimension, he thanked that person for their writing.
He felt happy. He felt joy.
Why obsess over whether it was real or not?
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