Memory

"Where is this? Where am I?"

A voice rang out abruptly in a dim, dark space.

"Wasn't I blown away by the explosion? Why am I here?"

At this moment, Lin Chenxing had not yet realized that he had fallen into a coma in reality.

"Why... where are my hands and feet? Why can't I feel them?"

"Where exactly is this place? I need to go back; I don't know what happened to my team members."

Lin Chenxing felt anxious. Because of his recklessness, six or seven of his team members had been caught in the shockwave of the explosion and blown away.

"Is anyone there? Is there anyone around?"

"Let me out, quickly, hurry!"

Despite his repeated shouts, he received no response at all.

Gradually, Lin Chenxing's voice grew lower and more desperate.

He could see nothing and feel nothing; all of this filled him with terror.

In this moment, he recalled the sensation he felt when he died in his previous life.

Could it be that I've died again? This doubt began to surface in Lin Chenxing's mind.

No, how could he die just like this? He hadn't accomplished anything great yet.

Although this world had entered the apocalypse, as long as one planned reasonably, they could rise again in this wasteland and realize the ideals of his past life.

But perhaps it was already too late, if he were truly dead.

Lin Chenxing thought as much, unable to help but lament why he hadn't done better.

An ordinary person is, after all, still an ordinary person. Even with the memories of a past life, when dealing with things never before experienced, one still lacks a bit of foresight and experience.

If it were Gao Zheng and the others, what would they have done if they had encountered the previous situation?

Based on the information obtained so far, this was a Beast Tide-type apocalypse. How could he arrange things to take this world back from the monsters?

These thoughts couldn't help but flood Lin Chenxing's mind. He began to constantly analyze all the data he had obtained, as well as the things he had missed or failed to do when he first started preparing.

Through constant recollection and a comprehensive assessment of his own conditions, Lin Chenxing thought of one thing: the pack of wolves that appeared at the very beginning.

Dogs were domesticated from wolves, so it stood to reason that wolves would possess many of the same traits as dogs.

Sense of smell—an ability that dogs have always been praised for and utilized—there was no reason it wouldn't exist in wolves.

Since they hadn't been pursued at the time, Lin Chenxing didn't believe this pack of wolves would give up on so much food forever.

If that were the case, why hadn't this pack of wolves appeared in the previous Beast Tide?

Lin Chenxing's heart was filled with doubts. Fortunately, he now had plenty of time to review, recall, and think.

Finally, after constantly flashing through scene after scene, Lin Chenxing made a small discovery.

On the night of the first Beast Tide, the night the base walls were breached, the pack of wolves that broke in later—though few in number—looked quite different from the previous pack. The wolves that broke in were dark red all over, while the ones he encountered on the road only had dark red markings.

They certainly looked different, but what if that period was the time when all animals were mutating the fastest?

Then, these wolves were very likely the same pack, just with their fur having changed from dark red markings to being dark red all over.

Then the question arose: if so, what about the alpha wolf? Was it still lurking near the base?

That was it. He seemed to have heard a wolf howl that night, which persisted even as the pack charged into the base. Therefore, there must have been wolves that didn't enter the base, remained alive, and had been wandering outside the base all along.

After realizing this, Lin Chenxing felt even more anxious to return.

At this moment, a wisp of something like dust drifted past Lin Chenxing. Lin Chenxing, not noticing that he had no hands, still felt the urge to try and grab this wisp of dust and acted on it unconsciously.

In this space, one could see a mass of gray, fog-like substance slowly protruding a corner. It touched a wisp of dust, and the dust instantly merged into the fog-like mass.

"Huh? Where did that wisp of dust go? I think I just touched it; why did it suddenly disappear?" Lin Chenxing's mind was filled with confusion.

Suddenly, an image appeared in Lin Chenxing's mind. It was a piece of text describing a battle scene.

Lin Chenxing realized that this seemed to be a memory from his previous life. Why did it appear so suddenly, and why did he seem to have no impression of it before?

"Could it be that these wisps of dust are the memories I haven't remembered yet?" Lin Chenxing finally realized.

Upon realizing this, Lin Chenxing had a sudden epiphany. "Could this be the world of the soul and consciousness? So, I must be in a coma."

"Wake up, quickly!" Lin Chenxing began to force himself, but it had absolutely no effect.

After trying many times, Lin Chenxing gave up and began to observe this world of the soul.

Seeing the dust drifting by from time to time in the distance, Lin Chenxing began to actively move toward the direction of the dust, wanting to come into contact with more of it and recall more things from his past life.

He didn't know how much more time passed. Lin Chenxing came into contact with more and more dust, and more and more memories of his past life returned.

However, there were some gray wisps of dust that, no matter how he tried to touch or absorb them, would not merge.

At this moment, another wisp of dust drifted in front of Lin Chenxing. Habitually, Lin Chenxing reached out to touch it again, not noticing that this wisp of dust was different from the previous ones; its color had a hint of white.

After touching and absorbing it, an image appeared in Lin Chenxing's mind once more. The image was filled with green. What he could distinguish was that this green was grass on a meadow, and the perspective of the image was looking upward from the roots of the grass.

This scene left Lin Chenxing at a loss. After all, he had absolutely no memory of having such an experience in his past life, and this perspective was also quite strange—it was not a perspective a person could normally have.

He did not overthink it; after all, he still had to continue absorbing what needed to be absorbed.

During the subsequent wandering and absorption, Lin Chenxing encountered similar scenes multiple times, only the perspective kept shifting, growing higher and higher until, eventually, Lin Chenxing finally caught sight of something familiar: a bamboo stalk, a withered bamboo stalk, and apart from that, there was no sign of any other bamboo.

Lin Chenxing had a premonition that these memories likely belonged to the Bamboo Forest that he had led the Third Exploration Team to destroy, though he wondered why these memories would appear here.

After an unknown amount of time had passed again, the gray mist representing Lin Chenxing had grown to twice its original size, and before his eyes, a different scene finally appeared.

It was a cluster of white mist, significantly smaller than his own, remaining motionless; only whenever a wisp of mist drifted nearby would this white mist instinctively reach out to capture and assimilate it.

In Lin Chenxing's judgment, this cluster of white mist was likely the soul or something similar of that Bamboo Forest.

This is a chance to experiment, Lin Chenxing suddenly thought.