Disaster of All Living Things

Returned.

The world brightened once more.

Qing Chen still stood inside the Agricultural Academy's War Fortress.

He looked at Sun Chuci, Tuanzi, and Zard. "Did everything go smoothly?"

Zard was about to speak when Qing Chen said, "Don't speak yet. Sun Chuci, you tell me. Zard, you can add anything afterward."

Sun Chuci said, "Under Yang Yang's guidance, Li Cheng and Qing Ling have already passed through Forbidden Zone No. 002. The vehicles were abandoned outside the Forbidden Zone, and Zard buried them with sand and dirt so no one could continue tracking us through them."

Sun Chuci continued, "Four soldiers stepped forward and admitted that they had once been turned... They chose suicide. They weren't cowards. Everyone else passed Ding Dong's test."

Qing Chen fell silent for a moment. "What were their names?"

"The gravestones they erected said Wang Zhongyu, Li Gongwen, Liu Bingxu, and Zhang Boming," Sun Chuci said.

Qing Chen nodded and silently remembered those four names.

Sometimes, having too good a memory was not a good thing. Qing Chen even remembered that Liu Bingxu had only been twenty-eight. On the Steam Train, he had cracked sunflower seeds while saying that he wanted to marry a beautiful wife and have a child someday. He said he didn't want his wife to have too many children, because he had heard childbirth was painful.

Then Li Cheng had laughed at him for never even having dated anyone, yet talking about getting married and having children.

Liu Bingxu had retorted that he had enlisted at fifteen and been captured by Kamishiro at eighteen. When had he ever had the chance to date?

Qing Chen also remembered that Zhang Boming had been heavily addicted to cigarettes. On the Steam Train, he liked picking at his feet, and he had been extraordinarily