A Foreign Land

A Foreign Land

As the saying went, what you thought about by day, you dreamed about at night.

Perhaps he was homesick. Lu Li had fallen into that familiar dream again...

In the airport waiting hall, his father held two plane tickets and shouted excitedly:

"Son~ Dad's taking you to a country like heaven! Even the air there is especially sweet. You'll get the best education and live the best life..."

His father's mouth kept opening and closing as he described the wonderful future he imagined.

Lu Li was bewildered and frightened. He didn't want to leave the hometown where he'd grown up.

But a twelve-year-old boy had neither the awareness nor the courage to resist his father's arrangements.

In a daze, he boarded the plane and climbed to thirty thousand feet. His hometown grew farther and farther away, gradually shrinking into a blurry black speck.

Lu Li suddenly realized—he would never be able to go back!

Resentment and panic filled his chest, so painful he felt he might be torn apart...

Just then, the buzzing vibration of a phone shattered the dream.

In the dim basement apartment, Lu Li's eyes flew open. He slowly sat up.

The young man had sharp brows and bright eyes, and was quite handsome. His expression was a little dazed, as if he still hadn't escaped the dream.

"Five years have passed in the blink of an eye..."

The dream felt more like a memory—a memory Lu Li didn't want to revisit.

Back then, countless people had firmly believed the moon was rounder abroad, and had done everything they could to emigrate. Only after arriving did they discover that the world wasn't quite so wonderful.

The past was too painful to recall. Lu Li shook his head to clear it, then took out his phone and unlocked it.

On the cracked screen was a notice from his school:

[In view of the current tense situation, Tijuana City High School will suspend classes effective immediately...]

Lu Li wasn't surprised by the notice.

"Classes really are suspended. In this country, nobody dares to ignore the drug lords' threats."

His country was called Mexico. It was one of the most dangerous countries in the world, rife with drugs, crime, and violence, and overrun by drug lords.

After taking office, the current president had made cracking down on drug crime his top priority and launched a sweeping anti-drug campaign.

The drug lords weren't about to back down. They issued death threats against government departments, including the police and schools.

Faced with armed drug cartels, suspending classes was inevitable. But to Lu Li, it was good news.

"I've been studying Xia Country's high school textbooks on my own. I can do without the happy education here. That frees up time to look after Dad at the hospital."

By the weak light of his phone, Lu Li quickly got dressed, then felt around beside his pillow for a strange object.

A socket, metal joints, connecting tubes... It was unmistakably a prosthetic leg! A crudely made prosthetic lower leg!

Lu Li rolled up the empty right pant leg. His leg was gone from the knee down.

He skillfully strapped on the prosthesis, pushed himself upright with both hands, and headed out.

Apart from a slight limp, he was almost indistinguishable from anyone else. Clearly, he'd adapted to his artificial limb.

~~~~~~~~~~

In contrast to the gloomy basement, the sun blazed outside.

Lu Li raised a hand to shield his eyes and let them adjust to the light. Then a foreign landscape spread before him.

Low, jumbled houses and shacks, tall palm trees, and passersby dressed in cheap clothes. Most had amber eyes and brown skin.

A few neighbors greeted him in Spanish. "Hola!" ("Hello!")

Lu Li answered in Spanish, dodging several tousle-haired children kicking a soccer ball around.

This backward place was nothing like the "paradise" his father had described. It was even worse than the county town back home.

Lu Li knew this wasn't the country his father had longed for.

His father's real destination had been the neighboring country to the north—Star Alliance Country.

It was the most powerful country on Blue Star, hailed as a beacon of democracy. Those who wanted to emigrate there were as numerous as carp crossing a river.

Many "black-market immigration brokers" had preyed on this desire, claiming that since the two countries were neighbors, it would be incredibly easy to immigrate to Mexico first, then move on to Star Alliance Country.

They'd tricked many people into giving up their original citizenships and spending their entire fortunes to come to this poor, chaotic hellhole, where they were left to fend for themselves.

Lu Li's father was one such unlucky soul. Years of resentment and frustration had weighed on him until he fell ill with stomach cancer.

The cancer had now spread. All Lu Li could do was stay by his father's side as much as possible in his final days.

He sighed and set off for Tijuana City General Hospital.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Living in the country with the world's highest murder rate, Lu Li always stuck to main roads when he went out. At least they were a little safer.

But the streets were unusually unsettled today. Military vehicles kept rolling past, packed with soldiers carrying guns and ammunition.

One was a Bull Armored Vehicle, a steel behemoth weighing more than ten tons. It rumbled by with an imposing air.

Lu Li hurried to the roadside beside a snack shop, where he overheard the customers talking:

"The new mayor is a hardline anti-drug man. He arrested Benjamin's son as soon as he took office!"

"His only son! Benjamin's bound to go berserk..."

Benjamin was a local drug lord. It looked like things were about to get ugly.

Lu Li wasn't interested. He was an ant struggling to survive. He had no time to care about any of this.

Just then, the smell of chicken wraps made his mouth water.

He'd left early without breakfast, but money was tight, so he decided to save what he had rather than spend it on a meal.

"Skipping one meal won't hurt."

As he turned to leave this tempting spot, a timid voice came from behind him:

"Big brother, would you like to buy some flowers~"

He looked back. A little girl of about fourteen or fifteen stood there with a flower basket over her arm, pleading in her eyes.

Lu Li frowned. These worthless wildflowers were usually sold to tourists. He lived nearby and passed through here every day; he'd seen the girl a few times.

If she'd come to him... it could only mean she was desperate.

Selling flowers came with quotas, too. With the government's anti-drug campaign keeping tourists away, she'd go hungry if she failed to meet her target—or even get beaten.

Lu Li sighed and pulled out a few bills. "Three pesos. Deal?"

That was about one yuan in Xia Country, enough for a chicken wrap. It was the limit of Lu Li's generosity.

The girl's eyes lit up, and she nodded again and again. "Yes, yes! Thank you!"

She picked the biggest, brightest dahlia and handed it over. In Mexico, the flower symbolized generosity and splendor.

Lu Li took it, thinking, It might cheer Dad up to have it by his hospital bed.

The boy raised the flower to his nose. Before he could smell it, a commotion suddenly erupted in the distance!

The Government Army soldiers who'd just driven by came running back, throwing away their weapons and equipment as they fled.

Even the imposing Bull Armored Vehicle was in a panic. It didn't have time to turn around and had to flee in reverse, plowing into countless stalls.

Then Lu Li saw what had caused it all: an M1A1 main battle tank slowly appearing at the street corner!

It was the same model of tank used by the Star Alliance Country Army, but its hull was painted with the chilling insignia of a viper passing through a skull's eye sockets.

Lu Li's pupils contracted. That was the drug lords' insignia! It was their tank!

The tank swung its cannon into position and took aim at the Bull Armored Vehicle.

By a stroke of bad luck, the armored vehicle had made it right in front of Lu Li, less than twenty meters away!

When he saw the tank's dark cannon barrel pointed their way, the hairs on Lu Li's back stood on end. His heart pounded like a drum!

When a person faced a sudden brush with death, the brain went into overdrive. Thoughts sped up, and time seemed to slow down.

At that moment, Lu Li felt everything around him slow. Even the crowd's screams seemed to stretch out.

Without a word, he hurled himself forward, knocking the flower-selling girl down with him.

The next instant came a thunderous blast. One tank shell blew the armored vehicle apart!

The vehicle became a fireball that shot into the sky. The shock wave hurled all kinds of debris in every direction.

Even a small pebble could pierce a person's body. Countless bystanders were instantly turned into blood-soaked bundles, flung through the air.

Though Lu Li had dropped to the ground in time, the explosion was so close that he lost his hearing and sight.

He lay facedown. An eerie silence swallowed his ears, and everything before his eyes blurred.

In a daze, it was as if he'd returned to his hometown, sitting in a classroom where the only sound was the turning of pages...

But the warm illusion soon shattered.

His hearing returned first. Ringing surged over him like a tide. Lu Li heard himself panting heavily, along with the crowd's earthshaking sobs and screams.

His sight recovered a moment later. The burning, smoking armored vehicle came into view, along with a field of severed limbs and scarlet blood.

Lu Li coughed out a mouthful of flower petals mixed with gunpowder smoke. Dragging the girl, who was frozen with terror, he crawled into the snack shop and hid.

He'd barely made it inside when he heard the tank's tracks rumbling over the ground.

Huddled behind the thick wall, he felt a false sense of safety.

His head was still buzzing. His thoughts wandered, and he suddenly thought of his old classmates, whom he hadn't seen in ages.

"They must be about to take their college entrance exams..."

The tank rumbled past, followed by the even tramp of marching feet. The drug lord's guards were advancing.