Memories

"Where is this? Where am I?"

A voice suddenly rang out in the dim space.

"Wasn't I blasted away by an explosion? Why am I here?"

Lin Chenxing still hadn't realized that he had fallen unconscious in the real world.

"Why can't I feel my hands and feet? Where are they?"

"Where am I? I have to get back. I don't know what happened to my team."

Lin Chenxing was worried. Because of his recklessness, six or seven of his teammates had been sent flying by the shock wave of the explosion.

"Is anyone there?"

"Let me out! Hurry!"

But no matter how much he shouted, he received no reply.

Gradually, Lin Chenxing's voice grew weaker and weaker.

He couldn't see or feel anything, and it all filled him with fear.

At that moment, he remembered what it had felt like when he died in his previous life.

Had I died again? A doubt like this began to take shape in Lin Chenxing's heart.

No. How can I just die here? I haven't achieved anything great yet.

Though this world has entered the apocalypse, with proper planning, it can rise again. I can still make my ideals from my previous life come true.

But perhaps it's already too late, if I'm dead.

Lin Chenxing thought this and couldn't help lamenting that he hadn't done better.

Ordinary people were ordinary people, after all. Even with memories of a previous life, when faced with something they'd never experienced before, they still lacked a little foresight and experience.

If Gao Zheng and the others had faced what happened earlier, what would they have done?

Based on the information he had so far, this was an apocalypse overrun by Strange Beasts. How could they take the world back from the monsters?

These thoughts rose in Lin Chenxing's mind. He began continually analyzing all the information he had gathered, along with the things he had overlooked or done poorly since he first started preparing.

As he recalled everything and weighed all the conditions at his disposal, Lin Chenxing thought of something: the pack of wolves that had appeared at the very beginning.

Dogs had been domesticated from wolves, so it stood to reason that wolves shared many of the traits dogs possessed.

Their sense of smell was one of the abilities dogs had long been praised and put to use for. There was no reason wolves wouldn't have it too.

Given that the pack hadn't managed to catch them back then, Lin Chenxing didn't believe they would simply give up on such a large supply of food forever.

If so, why hadn't the wolves appeared during the Beast Tide?

Lin Chenxing was full of questions. Fortunately, he now had plenty of time to review, remember, and think.

At last, after scene after scene flashed through his mind, Lin Chenxing noticed something.

On the night of the first Beast Tide, when the base's wall had been breached, another pack of wolves had charged in later. They had been few in number, and their appearance had differed considerably from that of the earlier pack. The wolves that broke in had been dark red all over, while the wolves they had encountered on the road had only had dark red markings.

They certainly looked different. But what if those few days had been the period when all the animals mutated most rapidly?

Then the wolves that had broken in could very well have been the original pack, their fur having changed from dark red markings to an entirely dark red coat.

But that raised another question: what about the leader of the pack? Was it still roaming near the base?

That was it. He seemed to remember hearing wolves howling that night. The howling had continued even as the pack charged into the base, so there must have been wolves that hadn't gone inside. They had survived and continued wandering outside the base.

Once Lin Chenxing realized this, his desire to get back grew even more urgent.

At that moment, something like a wisp of smoke drifted past him. Lin Chenxing didn't notice that he had no hands, yet the thought of trying to grab the wisp still arose in him, and he unconsciously acted on it.

In the space, a gray, mist-like mass slowly pushed out a protrusion. It touched the wisp of smoke, which instantly merged into the mass.

"Hm? Where did that wisp go? I think I just touched it. Why did it suddenly disappear?" Lin Chenxing was puzzled.

Suddenly, an image appeared in Lin Chenxing's mind: a passage of text describing a battle.

He realized that it seemed to be a memory from his previous life. Why had it appeared so suddenly? He didn't seem to have had any recollection of it before.

"Could these wisps of smoke be the memories I still haven't remembered?" Lin Chenxing finally realized.

Once he understood, he suddenly saw the answer. "Could this be the world of souls and consciousness? So I must be unconscious right now."

"Wake up!" Lin Chenxing tried to force himself awake, but it had no effect.

After trying again and again, Lin Chenxing gave up and began observing this world of souls.

Seeing wisps of smoke drifting now and then in the distance, Lin Chenxing began moving toward them of his own accord. He wanted to touch more of them and remember more about his previous life.

Who knew how much time passed? Lin Chenxing touched more and more wisps of smoke, and remembered more and more of his past-life memories.

But no matter how often he touched and absorbed some of the gray wisps, they wouldn't merge into him.

Another wisp drifted past Lin Chenxing. Out of habit, he reached out to touch it again, not noticing that this wisp was different from the others. Its color had a faint tinge of white.

After he touched and absorbed it, another image appeared in Lin Chenxing's mind. It showed a sea of green. He could make out that the green was grass, and the view looked up from the roots.

Lin Chenxing was at a loss. He had no memory of experiencing anything like this in his previous life, and the perspective was strange. It wasn't one a person could have under normal circumstances.

He didn't dwell on it. He still had to keep absorbing the wisps.

As he continued drifting around and absorbing them, Lin Chenxing encountered similar images several more times. The viewpoint changed, rising higher and higher until he finally saw something familiar: a bamboo stalk, dry and withered. There were no other bamboo stalks around.

Lin Chenxing had a feeling these were memories of the Bamboo Forest he and the Third Exploration Team had destroyed. But why had those memories appeared here?

Who knew how much more time passed? The gray mist representing Lin Chenxing had grown to twice its original size. At last, the scenery before him changed.

A small white cloud of mist sat motionless, much smaller than he was. Whenever a wisp of mist drifted by, it instinctively reached out, caught it, and absorbed it.

Lin Chenxing judged that this white mist was probably the soul of the Bamboo Forest, or something like that.

This is a chance to try something, Lin Chenxing suddenly thought.