Doomsday Wonderland

If only memories could be extracted and etched onto a disc—she could play them over and over, reliving each moment as often as she wished. She wouldn't need to worry that each time she recalled it, her mind would make the inevitable human mistakes: forgetting certain details, unconsciously altering parts... until the memory left would hardly resemble the truth of what had actually happened.

If Xie Feng could choose, the memory she would replay endlessly would be that rainy night on the boat with Dong Luorong.

At the moment the boat began to move, Xie Feng and Dong Luorong both felt the same sensation: it was as if a heavy cloth that had shrouded their faces for ages was finally lifted, and for the first time, they could breathe freely. Outside lay the storm, the ocean, the darkness, and the path of a fugitive without safe ground beneath their feet, all beneath the shadow of an impending doomsday—and yet, everything felt perfect.

If this was the end of the world, Xie Feng would open her arms and plunge into it.

The world outside was vast, filled with possibilities beyond her imagination, free from the constraints and oppression that once bound her. She had strength, she had power, and she could charge into the sea breeze, collide with the waves—she imagined the resonant clang of metal like a deep bell.

And then, there was Dong Luorong.

Before meeting Dong Luorong, Xie Feng hadn't realized how her past nineteen years had withered and dried up. Dong Luorong hadn't saved her life—she had caught Xie Feng as she fell from her old life, cradling her like a mother's womb, bringing her into a new birth.

How could there be a word to describe this feeling? Xie Feng doubted such a word even existed. It was a feeling so unusual, so far beyond what words could capture.

Dancing with Dong Luorong in the rain, the unfamiliar music from the record, the mix of seawater and rain in the whiskey, the satisfying clink of glasses, the joyous laughter as Dong Luorong threw her head back...

Xie Feng would gladly replay every memory of those hours, right up until they encountered the patrol ship.

At that point, she would rewind, starting from the moment she shouted the smuggler out of the cabin, then replaying it all again and again.

But a person can't control—at least not always—the direction of their thoughts.

The pounding rain had never sounded so loud, beating furiously against the sea as the waves shuddered and rolled, each current seeming to carry its own will, tearing apart everything in sight.

While these waves might not have been particularly rough for a boat, to someone thrown into them, they brought an overwhelming sense of despair. What had happened? Even as Xie Feng choked and surfaced, her mind was reeling in confusion.

Was everything that had just happened a dream?

Under the pitch-black rain, on a sea dark and void of any light, waves rose and fell like jagged mountains. Using all her strength, Xie Feng pushed against the unseen undercurrents, fought through the waves crashing down on her, struggling through layer after layer of water toward where the boat had been struck, not realizing that she had been shouting Dong Luorong's name the entire time.

How could that small boat—a craft meant for traffickers moving people in secret—stand a chance against a patrol frigate?

Before they had set off, the smuggler had explained to her several times that their route completely avoided the coastal patrol zones. He'd crossed these waters countless times, knowing exactly when to depart and where to go to avoid capture. When they had finally spotted a large ship on the distant horizon, he was so shocked that he froze.

"Th-that's not a coastal patrol ship! We're far beyond their range," he muttered, staring through the binoculars, his face draining of color as he turned back. "It's... I've never seen one of those before... It looks like a frigate!"

The smuggler didn't understand, but Xie Feng and Dong Luorong knew well—Qiu Chantian's death had surely been discovered.

It wasn't just a security minister's death that would bring such swift retaliation to even these far-off waters; rather, his brutal demise, coupled with the testimony from the surviving guard, had confirmed that one of the fugitives was a posthuman. That explained the warship.

What was equally unsurprising, yet still unanticipated, was that the warship hadn't bothered with any confirmation of identity. It simply opened fire on them.

What if it killed innocent people? This, apparently, wasn't a concern.

Xie Feng's memory blurred the moment the boat was struck by the cannon fire. It was as if her recollection had shattered along with the boat into countless pieces.

She remembered a deafening blast, a blinding flash, the sensation of Dong Luorong's hand slipping from her own, and then something slamming into her body, tossing her high into the air before she crashed onto the surface of the sea, the impact stealing her consciousness for a brief moment.

Kids from Tear City were generally good swimmers, but even Xie Feng felt like she was swimming for a lifetime, barely moving forward. Finally, in the dark, turbulent waves, she spotted a few blurry, pale fragments—the remnants of the boat, though she could barely recognize what parts they were.

One larger fragment, seemingly a piece of the shattered deck, drifted more slowly than the rest, as if something heavy was holding it back.

Realizing this, Xie Feng felt a surge of energy, diving down and swimming toward it as fast as she could.

"Over here!" The distant shout sent a sinking feeling through her heart—it was the smuggler's voice.

He clung desperately to the piece of the deck, barely keeping his head above water, shouting to her, "Help us! Miss Dong is hurt!"

Xie Feng nearly broke into tears.

Or perhaps she did cry, though in the rain and seawater, she couldn't tell. She barely remembered how she reached the piece of debris. Reaching over, she found someone on the other side of the smuggler—Dong Luorong. Her dark hair coiled around Xie Feng's arm as she pulled her from the water, her body cold, and even the blood flowing from her didn't hold a trace of warmth.

"Don't be scared, don't be scared," Xie Feng murmured, pressing her fingers to Dong Luorong's pulse, relieved to feel it, though her own fear was overwhelming. "I've got you. I can save you. Look at me..."

Miraculously, her voice seemed to bring Dong Luorong's mind back just a little. She made a faint, murmuring sound, nestled in Xie Feng's arms, more like the gentle stirring of someone caught between sleep and wakefulness than the groans of someone gravely injured in the freezing sea.

"I'm fine..." Dong Luorong whispered softly. "It just... hurts a bit..."

Any rational person would realize saving her was impossible. But Xie Feng suddenly remembered a solution, a thought that struck her with startling force as she held Dong Luorong close.

"I can... I can create another item," Xie Feng said, her voice tinged with a desperate hope. "I can feel it... I can make another one now..."

"But there's... no lamp this time," Dong Luorong murmured, as though smiling.

Not only was there no lamp—at this moment, adrift in the vast, dark sea, there was nothing around that could qualify to be transformed into an item.

But there was one person who did.

It turned out that a dying person could... could be made into a humanoid item.

Xie Feng held Dong Luorong close, her entire body trembling, though she couldn't tell if it was from the cold or fear.

"Would you... stay with me forever," Xie Feng whispered, burying her face into the curve of Dong Luorong's neck, feeling the warm blood striking her own stomach, cooling instantly as the sea washed over it. "As... as an item?"

For a brief moment, Dong Luorong seemed unable to respond.

She was slipping in and out of consciousness, and if it weren't for Xie Feng's persistent voice calling her back, she might have already faded away. Xie Feng didn't know if she was being selfish—maybe she was. But if Dong Luorong couldn't answer... could Xie Feng decide for her?

Then Dong Luorong moved. At first, Xie Feng thought it was just the waves shifting them, but then Dong Luorong moved again, with a faint, deliberate struggle. Xie Feng realized what she was doing.

The heart-shaped silver pendant, the [Empathy Pendant], was still hanging from Dong Luorong's wrist, and its effect had yet to expire.

The [Empathy Pendant] could only focus on one person at a time. As the smuggler suddenly snapped out of his trance, Xie Feng found herself entirely immersed in Dong Luorong's mind.

"I don't want to."

She hadn't spoken, yet Xie Feng heard her voice clearly.

"My whole life... I've lived as an object. I was a decoration, a framed painting, a lucky charm, a source of money, a target for sales... but never a person. My life was taken from me long ago; it hasn't been my own for a very long time. My desires, dreams, likes, dislikes... no one ever asked. If I can't live by my own will, then I'd rather... not live at all."

She seemed to smile faintly.

"Just reaching the sea in the end has already made me content."

She truly was content.

The next few minutes passed in a blur. Xie Feng had felt something like this once as a child, when she'd been scolded by her mother, crying so hard she couldn't catch her breath. In that haze of oxygen deprivation, everything except her crying faded away, as if nothing else existed.

This time, the difference was that she didn't know if she was crying or if, under Dong Luorong's influence, she too was smiling in contentment.

Two things finally shattered this dream-like, surreal state.

First was the stark white beam of a spotlight tearing through the black shroud over the sea as the warship approached.

Second, in that harsh spotlight, she could make out the smuggler still clinging to the deck. He stared at Xie Feng, his eyes widening further and further, his gaze sliding to the sides of his head until he almost looked like a mantis—a sea mantis.

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