3: Chapter 3 Wasteland World

Jiang Lin did not feel the anticipated tearing sensation.

Instead, he felt as if the air all around him was instantly sucked away by an invisible giant hand, followed immediately by a cold wind mixed with rough gravel that slammed straight into his face, burrowing into his nasal cavity and scraping all the way down his trachea, causing him to hunch over and cough violently.

After coughing for a good while, he managed to straighten his waist, reached out to wipe away the tears choked out from the corners of his eyes, and raised his head.

He instantly felt as though he had fallen into an ice cellar.

The bedroom had disappeared.

That yellowed desk lamp, the half-finished math test paper, and the old-fashioned mechanical alarm clock on the desk were all gone.

Beneath his feet was no longer the flat bedroom floor, but a kind of dark red soil.

This soil looked like rust and clay churned and mixed together, repeatedly crushed by something, and caked together so severely that every step left a shallow mark.

Moreover, this realm also seemed to be in the early morning hour, with a dark red morning light leaking from the distant horizon, barely outlining the contours of this world.

Cold.

This was Jiang Lin's second sensation.

It was not the kind of cold that made one shrink their neck when getting up early to go to school in winter.

Instead, it was a drier, sharper, and more unreasonable cold.

There was almost not a trace of moisture in the air, and when the wind blew past, it felt like countless extremely thin blade edges skimming against the skin, cutting every inch of exposed skin until it hurt fiercely.

What he was wearing was still the autumn school uniform that he had casually put on when getting up in the morning, with only a thin cotton T-shirt inside; the wind poured in from the cuffs and collar, making him shiver all over from the cold.

Jiang Lin subconsciously lowered his head and felt around his front and back with both hands.

Fortunately, it was exactly the same as his state before being transmigrated, and the pair of blue plastic slippers on his feet were also there.

Even the black ballpoint pen that he instinctively stood up and clenched in his hand when he discovered the countdown was about to hit zero was still there.

"What is this considered, forced wilderness survival?"

Jiang Lin smiled bitterly and rubbed his arms, which were frozen with goosebumps all over.

His voice appeared light and thin on the empty wasteland, and before it could travel far, it was torn apart by the wind.

No one responded to him.

This ghost place was terrifyingly quiet.

There was no sound of wind passing through tree tops, no fluttering sound of birds being startled, and no murmuring sound of stream water.

But there was nothing here.

Between heaven and earth, there was only the sound of the wind, and the slight stinging sensation of gravel whipping against exposed skin when the wind swept across the ground.

Standing still for a short while, Jiang Lin felt that his whole body was about to freeze stiff.

Stamping his feet, he began to look around.

On the dark red horizon, some outlines stood sporadically.

The distance was too far to see very clearly, but judging from those irregular ups and downs, they should be the remains of some kind of architecture.

Jiang Lin couldn't help feeling a joy in his heart.

Having architectural ruins meant that someone had once lived here.

Even if those people were no longer here, at least they could leave something behind.

A wall to block the wind, materials to make a fire, or more ideally, drinkable fresh water.

He hadn't drunk water since waking up in the morning.

Now, just thinking of the word "water", a wave of thirst welled up deep in his throat.

The wind was blowing uninhibitedly.

Jiang Lin zipped his school uniform up to the very top, shrank his neck, put his hands deep into his pockets, and lowered his head to walk forward against the wind.

The plastic slippers stepped on the dark red soil, making a creaking sound, and every step kicked up a small pinch of red dust.

Along the way, he did not see a shred of vegetation.

There was no grass, no Moss, no gray lichens that could crawl out from rock crevices even in the harshest environments.

There was nothing at all.

Wherever his sight could reach, there was only dark red soil, and occasionally exposed gray-black rocks whose surfaces were covered with honeycomb-like holes, as if they had been corroded by some acidic liquid.

A scent similar to sulfur vaguely permeated the air; it wasn't strong, but it was always present, like something burning far, far away.

He didn't know how long he had walked.

He had no watch, and his cell phone was not on him either.

That second-hand Android phone given to him by his mom had been shelved by him.

Because he was in senior high school and had to focus on reviewing, he had no time to play with the phone.

Right now, the only thing he could use to keep time was probably his own heartbeat, but the frequency of his heartbeat was messed up by the cold and tension, making it completely impossible to use as a reference.

Perhaps he had walked for an hour, perhaps two hours, or perhaps even longer.

The soles of his feet hurt fiercely from being bruised by the plastic soles of the slippers, and his calves were aching and bloated as if he had run three thousand meters in PE class.

When he finally walked to the base of that broken wall, his whole body practically slid down and sat while leaning against the wall.

Last night's dinner was scrambled eggs with tomatoes and shredded pork with green peppers made by his mom; because he was worried about the math test paper distributed during evening self-study that he hadn't finished writing yet, he hurriedly shoveled down two bowls of rice and returned to his room.

After a night passed, those two bowls of rice had long been digested completely.

His throat was as dry as if it had been repeatedly licked by tongues of fire, the surface of his tongue clung tightly to his upper palate, and even secreting a little saliva became difficult.

He was both tired and hungry, as well as thirsty.

He had to find water.

Once this thought popped up, it could no longer be suppressed.

Jiang Lin propped himself up against the broken wall and stood up; the touch of the wall was rough and ice-cold, and most of the mortar on the surface had peeled off, exposing the rusted steel bars inside.

He began to search along the base of the wall.

And then he saw that puddle.

Calling it a puddle was actually a bit of a stretch.

That was nothing more than a depressed spot on the ground, probably a circle larger than his washbasin, with some liquid gathered inside.

But that liquid was grayish-black, with a thin layer of oil floating on the surface, resembling a puddle of wastewater in front of an auto repair shop that had accumulated for who knows how long.

Drawing closer, one could smell an indescribable odor.

Jiang Lin squatted by the edge of the puddle, staring at that layer of grayish-black liquid surface for a long time.

Reason told him this water could not be drunk.

Anyone growing up in a normal society seeing such a liquid would have their first reaction as staying far away.

But thirst was something that could erode reason; it started from the deep part of the throat, climbing up bit by bit, stripping away layer by layer those judgments in the brain regarding hygiene, safety, and rationality, leaving in the end only the most primitive impulse.

Drink a mouthful.

Just a small mouthful.

He lowered his head, his forehead almost touching his knees.

Then he saw the ballpoint pen still clenched in his hand.

Jiang Lin froze for two seconds, then abruptly straightened his body.

Unscrewing the pen head and pulling out the refill, he obtained a hollow tube.

Thinking for a moment, he turned the school uniform inside out and found a relatively clean piece of fabric at the lining position.

Saying it was clean was actually nothing more than having stained a bit less red dust than other places.

Biting a gap with his teeth, he forcefully tore off a small strip of fabric.

Finally, he folded the fabric strip into several layers, wrapped it around one end of the pen barrel, and pinched it tightly with his fingers.

This crude filtration device could only filter suspended matter.

Of course he knew.

If any heavy metal salts or acidic substances were dissolved in this water, filtering it a hundred times with cloth would be useless.

But he was simply too thirsty.

Thirsty to the point that even for something he knew was impossible, he had to find himself a reason that might somehow be useful.

He cautiously inserted the end of the pen barrel wrapped in the fabric strip into the grayish-black liquid, trying his best to avoid stirring up the sediment settled at the bottom.

Then he leaned down, held the other end of the pen barrel in his mouth, and gently sucked a small mouthful.

The instant the liquid touched the tip of his tongue.

"Hiss——"

Jiang Lin flung the pen barrel away as if he had been electrocuted, his entire body leaning backward, and his back slammed heavily against the broken wall, scraping off a patch of mortar.

He turned his head sideways, desperately spitting outward, but that meager bit of saliva was simply not enough to wash away the liquid remaining on the surface of his tongue.

The intense sour and astringent sensation felt like countless needles stabbing into the oral mucosa at the same time; the tongue surface, upper palate, gums, and even deep inside the throat simultaneously welled up with a burning pain.

It was not water.

That was not water at all.

It was more like some kind of diluted mineral acid solution, carrying that bitter astringency unique to metal ions, instantly shattering all his taste buds the moment it exploded in his mouth.

He could feel that the outermost layer of mucosa on the tip of his tongue was burned, and the stinging pain surged up in waves, like pressing the tip of his tongue against a red-hot iron plate and then taking it away.

He lay prone at the base of the broken wall retching for a good while, unable to vomit anything out.

His stomach was completely empty, with only sour water welling upward in waves, and the burning sensation spreading all the way from his oral cavity to his esophagus.

After quite a while, he recovered slightly.

Jiang Lin turned over and sat up, his back leaning against the ice-cold wall, panting heavily.

The cold air pouring into his burned oral cavity instead brought a strange analgesic effect.

He licked his lips, tasting a rust-like flavor.

His lips had chapped at some point, oozing fine blood threads.

He lowered his head and glanced at the ballpoint pen barrel thrown onto the ground.

A small segment of grayish-black liquid still remained inside the transparent plastic tube.

He reached out, picked the pen barrel back up, wiped it with the hem of his school uniform, and put it back into his pocket.

"Physics filtration can only block sediment, but it cannot block acid radicals and heavy metal salts dissolved in the water."

He smiled self-deprecatingly, and the split crack on his lips oozed blood again because of this movement.

"If distillation cannot be performed, drinking this water is suicide."

These words seemed to be spoken to himself.

On this wasteland where only the sound of the wind responded, speaking them out loud could at least confirm that he was still alive, could still think, and had not been completely crushed by fear and thirst.

He curled back up under the base of the wall, drew his legs together, and wrapped his arms around his knees.

This posture could preserve body temperature to the maximum extent.

He didn't know how long had passed; perhaps the sun had come out.

The daylight was growing increasingly intense.

Only the sky was still hazy.

It changed from hazy to dark gray, then to gray-black, and finally into completely opaque black.

The temperature plummeted.

Although it was cold during the day, it could still be barely endured.

As long as he didn't stop, as long as he shrank under the base of the wall and curled his body into a ball, his body temperature could still be maintained at a level that would not cause him to lose consciousness.

But nighttime was different.

The cold of the night was something else entirely.

The wind was no longer wind, but rather felt like extremely thin sharpened knives, drilling through every crevice of the clothing and cutting against the skin one knife at a time.

The chill also seemed to appear directly inside the bones, spreading outward from the depths of the bone marrow.

It was still not enough for Jiang Lin to zip his school uniform up to the very top; in the end, he tucked his head entirely into the school uniform, thrust his hands deep into the sleeves, tightly crossed his arms over his chest, curled his whole body into as small a shape as possible, and pressed his back firmly against that broken wall.

The temperature of the wall was even lower than his own body, and the chill seeped through the school uniform fabric into his back muscles, making his entire spine feel as if it were soaked in ice water.

He was so cold that his teeth kept chattering, making clicking sounds, and the frequency of his upper and lower teeth colliding was so fast that he simply couldn't control it.

A person cannot sleep when they are extremely cold.

This was something he saw in a certain magazine, which said that in the final stage of hypothermia, a person would feel an inexplicable stuffy heat, take off their clothes, and then die smiling.

He didn't know whether he would also reach that step, only knowing that right now he was so cold that even thinking became intermittent.

The images emerging in his brain were all in fragments, unable to piece together a complete logical chain.

The apples cut up by Mom.

Peeled, cut into crescent shapes, stuck with a toothpick, and placed on a white porcelain plate.

Every time he wrote homework late into the night, she would bring a plate in, place it next to the desk lamp, say a word not to write too late, and go out.

Usually, he would always mumble a vague response without even taking a look; by the time he finished writing a test paper, the surface of the apples had already oxidized and turned yellow.

The back view of Dad watching TV.

The sofa in the living room, that spot pressed into a human-shaped depression.

The sound of Xinwen Lianbo, occasionally interspersed with a sentence or two of casual chat with his mom.

Dad's shoulders were very wide, looking like a mountain from behind; when he was young, he always felt that that mountain could block everything.

...

"I want to go back!"

When the voice was squeezed out from his throat, it carried an uncontrollable tremor.

Jiang Lin buried his forehead into the gap between his knees and his chest.

"What kind of ghost place is this, I want to go back. I haven't finished writing my test paper yet, and I still have to test into a tier-one university."

When the tears welled up, he was completely unprepared.

He gritted his teeth to keep himself from making a sound, but his shoulders still twitched one stroke after another, his breathing became short and rapid, and every inhalation carried a flattened sob.

On the edge of life and death, whatever "a man does not easily shed tears" was all bullshit.

He was eighteen years old, in senior high school, and yesterday's biggest trouble was a sequence problem involving telescoping sums that he couldn't calculate.

Now he was squatting under a broken wall that had been abandoned for who knows how many years, his lips chapped and bleeding, his oral cavity burned by acid, sour water churning in his stomach, his body shaking like a sieve, not knowing whether he could live until dawn.

His entire mind was left with only one thought.

Go home.

Want to go home.

Want to return to that bedroom with the yellowed desk lamp, want to return in front of that half-finished math test paper, want to hear the ticking sound of the alarm clock, want to hear the sound of water flow from his mom washing dishes in the kitchen, want to hear the button-pressing sound of his dad adjusting the TV volume in the living room.

At the very moment this thought swelled up to the point of almost bursting from his chest.

Light suddenly surged back into his eyes.

The warm yellow lamplight was clearly discernible even across a layer of the school uniform.

Jiang Lin abruptly pulled his head out of the school uniform.

The desk lamp.

That desk lamp with its slightly scorched lampshade edge was standing quietly on the desk, emitting that warm light he was more than familiar with.

The lamplight shone on the desktop, shining on that spread-out mock math test paper.

Right at this moment, his mom's voice came from outside the door: "Jiang Lin, are you up yet?"