Su Ziyu felt as if he were drifting in a void.
He seemed to see a magnificent time-space Milky Way, countless grains of sand emitting a faint glow flowing slowly within it. He felt like an unnoticeable speck of dust, drifting for an unknown amount of time, suddenly being attracted to a certain point and drawn into it.
Su Ziyu slowly opened his eyes.
He looked up at the Heaven, suddenly shivering all over, muttering, "Am I back?"
Moon.
He saw a Moon.
But immediately, Su Ziyu frowned because he saw the ruins around him. This used to be a city but had been abandoned for who knows how long. Everywhere were mottled and broken remnants of walls, and there seemed to be some dust in the air, making breathing feel uncomfortable.
A certain intuition made Su Ziyu very repulsed by this place, as if staying here was very dangerous and uncomfortable.
Must leave as soon as possible.
He didn't know why, but that was what his intuition was telling him.
The current time should be morning.
Su Ziyu attempted to find a way out, thankfully his physical ability was now much more impressive than before. He could clear walls four to five meters high with a running start, and his stamina was significantly improved. This should be Earth, but apparently not within Huaxia, because he saw some English letters. In the ruins he found a rusted metal framework with a date printed '2051.10.23' and below it a line of English letters 'Made-in-China'.
Su Ziyu suddenly fell silent.
He stood there dazed for a while before he continued to search for a way out.
He indeed returned to Earth, but it seemed not to be his original era, perhaps not even the original world. He was familiar with the concept of parallel universe and felt as though he was utterly lost in the river of time and space. If this was a dream, he desperately wished he could wake up soon.
"Food, water, safe spot."
The human body is really fragile.
Even though he was enhanced, Su Ziyu gradually felt thirsty and hungry. Luckily, this city is not very large, he vaguely saw a forest in the distance. So far, he hadn't seen any living creatures, only a dead silence all around, occasionally interrupted by the whistling wind.
He was a bit hungry but felt thirstier.
Su Ziyu's physical condition seemed not as good as at the beginning, he must leave here quickly.
The city's edge was getting closer.
Just as Su Ziyu quickened his pace, he suddenly heard gunshots coming from the south. This sound was so sharp that he could not possibly be mistaken. After a moment of hesitation, Su Ziyu headed in that direction and saw a group of people being attacked, frantically shooting at what looked like zombies. Su Ziyu wasn't sure if those things were zombies, as they moved quickly and were very strong, and even though their dry flesh was hit by firearms, it didn't seem to matter much. The casualties of that group were rapidly increasing.
They were doomed.
The team's defense line had collapsed, and as the first person began to flee, others followed suit and scattered.
Su Ziyu noticed that these people wore strange clothing covering their entire bodies, obscuring their features and even making it hard to distinguish gender. He thought of protective clothing because of these odd outfits. Some were overwhelmed by those humanoid creatures, and others fled in the direction where Su Ziyu stood, but along the way, people kept being knocked down, and once down, survival was almost impossible.
One person gradually approached this side.
This person even saw Su Ziyu standing on a broken wall dressed like a wilderness hunter holding a short blade, and the striking scene made him momentarily stunned, thinking he was hallucinating, his steps faltered. At this moment, a creature resembling a zombie charged forward. He raised his gun to shoot but found the magazine had already been emptied, then a dark shadow pounced directly at him. The terrifying dry face and the wide, bloody mouth made him instinctively shut his eyes. The expected pain seemed not to come; the creature trembled in mid-air and fell onto him, knocking his head hard against the ground, blurring his consciousness.
Bang.
Before the creature lunged, Su Ziyu instinctively threw the black short blade he held, without considering whether he would hit or not. But the black blade accurately pierced the creature's head, almost sunk in completely like slicing tofu.
The short blade was very sharp.
"Hey?"
"Are you still alive?"
The person in strange clothing had a bloody back of the head, seemingly hit on the ground against stone fragments; there was some noise in the distance again. Su Ziyu squatted to pick up the gun first, then pulled the black blade out from the creature's head, thought for a moment, bent down and lifted the person from the ground, then quickly retreated.
This seemed to be a woman.
Her body had curves, and some long strands of hair fell out of the damaged clothes. Carrying her, Su Ziyu quickly retreated from the battlefield, where the gunfire was gradually fading. However, as Su Ziyu carried her and dashed out, suddenly a cold electronic sound came from the woman's wrist:
"Warning! Warning!"
"Current radiation pollution index has exceeded 20%!...Please move away from the radiation source as soon as possible!..."
Su Ziyu paused his steps.
He frowned and reached into the woman's clothes to search around, then removed a watch-like device and put it on his own wrist.
"Warning! Warning!"
"Current radiation pollution index has exceeded 35%!...Please inject antiradiation potion as soon as possible!..."
He finally realized why he felt uneasy from the start!
Damn!
This damned place has radiation pollution!
Did this city experience a very serious nuclear leakage? No wonder everyone here wore things that looked like protective clothing!
Carrying her, Su Ziyu fled the abandoned city, now holding many questions in his mind, all needing answers from the woman on his shoulder. But currently, the priority was to find antiradiation potion because he already felt unwell, and the peculiar mechanical watch showed the radiation pollution index nearing 40%, though thankfully it slowed and stopped rising as he moved away from the city ruins. It seemed the most severe radiation pollution area was the city ruins, other places were relatively safer.
Around one or two hours later.
The woman saved by Su Ziyu finally woke up, first seeing the muzzle of a gun aimed at her, which startled her. Then scenes before fainting flashed in her mind. She looked at the cautious man before her and spoke in English, "Did you save me? Thank you!"
English?
They could communicate.
Su Ziyu slightly lowered the gun, and in somewhat rusty spoken English asked, "Which one is the antiradiation potion?"
The protective clothing she wore had been peeled off by him. Su Ziyu found some syringes on her but couldn't identify the antiradiation potion.
"The ones with green labels," the woman quickly replied.
Then, to her surprised gaze, Su Ziyu immediately took a syringe with a green label and jabbed it into her arm. Upon seeing the radiation pollution index on her mechanical watch started decreasing, he also took a syringe and jabbed it into his own arm.
A cooling sensation surged inside.
Su Ziyu's physical condition was continuously recovering; he put on the mechanical watch and soon noticed the radiation pollution index dropping to 0.
This was a very cautious man.
Pasha quickly understood the man's behavior and somewhat curiously looked Su Ziyu up and down, asking, "Are you a Wilderness Hunter?"
"Mm." Su Ziyu replied nonchalantly.
He stared at the woman before him for a while before asking, "Do you have food?"
"No," Pasha shook her head, seeming also a bit hungry as her stomach growled. "Logistical supplies were all lost."
"I don't have any either," Su Ziyu said helplessly.
No food.
Hungry.
Su Ziyu had just expended quite a bit of energy; he urgently needed some protein replenishment. Luckily, this was Earth, with a wild forest just outside the city ruins. He might be able to find some food. Nearby, some long-abandoned road traces could be seen, civilization had faded away for unknown times, leaving only weathered remains.
The woman at his side kept looking at him, sensing how out of place Su Ziyu seemed amidst everything around!
"What's your name?" Su Ziyu asked.
"Pasha," the woman replied looking at him, "And yours?"
"Su Ziyu," he thought a moment before adding, "You can call me Su."
"We need to find something to eat."
"And clean water."
Food and water are a priority because he's already hungry, urgently needing energy replenishment.
.........