The Sole Survivor

Late at night, the Beishan District Office of the Bureau of Secrecy. Wen Wen had barely slammed the office door shut when her phone rang. Incoming call from Su Zi. "Hello? Sis Wen, I found the files you asked for." As soon as the call connected, a voice still laced with lingering shock came through the receiver, carrying the exhausted tone of someone worked to the bone. "Find anything?" "Did I? Oh, you bet I did! Way too much!" Su Zi's voice grew deeply resentful. "It's terrifying, okay?! Where on earth did you dig up two freaks like this in one scoop? Every single one has extraordinary skills, every single one has exclusive secret techniques... Could you please not drop this kind of surprise on me next time?" "Start with Lu Feng." Wen Wen leaned back in her chair, propping her legs up on the desk and swinging them lazily. "I'm guessing he's not just the law-abiding ordinary citizen he claims to be, right?" "...Law-abiding barely passes muster, but 'ordinary citizen' depends on how you look at it." The sound of rustling papers came from Su Zi's end. "He has two files in total. One is from Yacheng, and everything on it looks normal—the completely run-of-the-mill kind of normal. "Adoptive family, adoptive parent is the owner of an auto repair shop. He got into fights from childhood, a total troublemaker who never gave anyone peace of mind. Before reaching adulthood, he lied about his age to enlist in the military. After his discharge, he returned to help out at the family auto shop. Because his customer service attitude was terrible and he'd curse at people at the drop of a hat, he racked up a mountain of bad reviews... In short, just an ordinary guy muddling through life." "And the not-so-ordinary one?" "The other one is where things get terrifying. Red cover, top-secret clearance, directly under the Midtown Military Department, stamped with six classified seals—six damn seals!" Su Zi couldn't help but curse. "I've worked in the Investigation Division for so many years, and this is the first time I've ever seen classified seals stamped all over a file like postage stamps. Just submitting a request to access it triggered a warning email from the Military Department." "Figures." Wen Wen understood immediately. In fact, from the very first moment she laid eyes on Lu Feng, she had already known—aside from the usual military decorations on his arms, there was a tattoo of a creature half-lion and half-skull. According to her knowledge, among those who had served in the Mid-Continent with that tattoo, there was only one unit publicly known as the Airborne Battalion. Among the Federation's high command, its existence was hardly a secret at all. It was staffed entirely by people who handled wet work for the Federation. Including, but not limited to, assassinations, abductions, inhumane weapons testing in violation of the International Human Rights Charter, and even terrorist strikes... That was precisely why it felt so bizarre. *How did you manage to get discharged alive?* One had to understand that in the quagmire of the Mid-Continent, aside from security units guarding oil fields, it was rare for anyone in the combat divisions to survive long enough to reach discharge—let alone walking away from the Airborne Battalion in one piece. He hadn't died on the battlefield, hadn't died on a classified mission, and hadn't 'committed suicide' by shooting himself thirty-odd times in the back... A man like that was either blessed with heaven-defying luck that cursed anyone who crossed him, or he had an absurdly powerful backer to lean on. Whichever it was, the Dragon Cult's dogs had poked a hornet's nest in the military by crossing him. "Knowing he's tied to the military is enough. The Security Bureau's job is preventing anomalous crimes anyway. Even if he goes around murdering and setting fires out of boredom, that's the military's headache, not mine." Wen Wen asked bluntly, "What about the other one?" "The other one is even more terrifying." Su Zi rubbed her brow. "Sis Wen, you only came back these past two years, so you must have heard about the major catastrophe that happened in Haizhou ten years ago, right?" Wen Wen fell silent for a moment. After thinking it over for a long while, she straightened up in her chair. "You mean... the Day of the Burning Sea? Could he be connected to the Flame Tide Calamity?" "Yes, he's a survivor." Su Zi sighed. "To be precise, Ji Jue is the only survivor of the Flame Tide Calamity." * In an agonizingly long dream, Ji Jue once again heard the sound of a train clattering against iron tracks, so terribly familiar. He opened his eyes and leaned against the window, staring at the scenes flashing past across the distant wilderness outside—mountain ridges, barren plains, scattered, desolate villages, and the blazing red sunset at the edge of the sky. The glow of the sunset reflected in the child's eyes, crimson hues dancing across the heavens. This was his lost childhood. "Awake? Rest a little longer. We'll be in Yacheng soon." Someone stroked his head with a gentle touch. "Once we arrive, how about Mom takes you to see the sea?" "..." Ji Jue remained silent. After a long while, he murmured softly, "Actually, I don't like the sea. Seeing too much of it gets annoying." "Back when you heard we were moving to Yacheng, you secretly saved up your allowance to buy a swimsuit, didn't you?" The person beside him laughed, drawing him into her embrace and ruffling his hair with light, gentle strokes. "Don't worry. You'll make new friends and classmates at your new school, and everyone will play with you." She said, "You'll adapt. The past will grow distant, and you'll embrace a new life." "But a new life is so hard, Mom. It's so hard... so much harder than I imagined." Ji Jue rested his head against her shoulder and looked down. "The food in Haizhou is so bland, I could never get used to it. The dialect is complicated too, and I could never understand it. "The hospital medicine tastes terrible, the nurses are fierce, and the old house gets damp so easily. During the humid south wind season, water gets everywhere in the house, and if you don't clean it up right away, it goes moldy. Some of the kids at school liked to bully me, and the teachers were always hard on me..." "It's been so hard on you," she sighed softly. "Don't worry, I handled it all, Mom. None of them could beat me. I got into college—the same one as you, Tianmen University. The scenery there is just as beautiful as you said, even if the braised pork rice at the cafeteria is really hard to get." He gently took his mother's lowered hand, as if cupping a dream far too fragile to hold. "Mother Lu has a terrible temper, but she treats me wonderfully, just like her own kid. Professor Ye has strict standards and always threatens to kick me out of the lab if I mess up, but she's never looked down on me. If anyone bullies me, Brother Feng fights for me. My senior takes good care of me too, and never gives me a hard time on our research topics... "They're all great people, and they all like me. "So don't worry, Mom. I'm doing really well." Ji Jue smiled, making a promise to her. "I'll definitely make something of myself... no matter how hard it gets." "Then why are you so sad?" His mother stroked his cheek with such tenderness that Ji Jue's eyes stung, tears welling up uncontrollably. "I just... really miss you." "Me too." Gentle arms held him tight, like an eternal shelter and blessing that rendered this cruel world and all its suffering no longer frightening. Ji Jue closed his eyes, nestling into her embrace. He stopped looking at the scene outside the window. Those dancing crimson clouds flared with their final brilliance, only to be swallowed by black clouds. Later, even the black clouds disappeared. Amidst the upheaval of heaven and earth, screams and shouts rang out, just like in countless nightmares before. The black clouds were slaughtered, raining crimson blood. When the rain struck the earth, it sowed inextinguishable flames. The flames rose into the sky, merging together into a boundless tide. Everyone called it the Flame Tide Calamity. It was a natural disaster bearing the name of ruin. When it manifested, even the ocean boiled. Invisible mountains of fire swept over like a deluge, reducing everything in their path to ashes. Ten years ago, it appeared in Haizhou without warning, surging toward the southeast and incinerating everything along its path. Be it mountains, wilderness, villages, or a train that happened to be caught in its aftermath. Just like that, it casually stole away everything Ji Jue had. Four hours after the disaster struck, the search-and-rescue team from Yacheng was the first to arrive on the scene. Amidst the shattered wreckage of the train, someone found the only surviving child. Severely burned, clinging to his last breath. Held tightly in the arms of his deceased mother, he did not cry or struggle, quietly letting the rescue team carry him away. Afterward, experts wrote tedious, lengthy dissertations analyzing how fortunate and coincidental it was. People read the newspaper headlines, hailed it as a miracle of life, and rejoiced. Yet so-called miracles were sometimes no different from curses. And Ji Jue had never been the lucky one. He had replayed this dream countless times, yet its ending had never changed because of anything he did. Whenever it reached this point, the dream was supposed to end. This time, however, he did not wake up. He raised his head, looking toward a sky that did not belong to this dream. Above the fractured night sky, countless dazzling stars gradually appeared, turning, overlapping, and weaving together into indistinct silhouettes, like magnificent deities manifesting in the mortal realm. One after another. Be they entities, mortals, or gods, they were watching him. Solemn and silent. Waiting, as always. * Inside the office, silence reigned. Only a wisp of pale smoke rose silently from the ashtray. Even in the disaster-ridden history of the Federation, the Flame Tide Calamity ten years ago remained a rare catastrophe. The collapse and fall of a Border Realm caused the hazard rating to spike past the alert threshold. A burning gale rose from the south of the Quancheng Ruins, tearing violently across the land and boiling the West Sea. Although no major city was destroyed, the resulting devastation struck Haizhou's economy a devastating blow from which it nearly failed to recover, and the tragedies left in its wake were beyond counting. As the sole survivor of that catastrophe... Wen Wen didn't know whether Ji Jue's luck was good or bad. When facing a natural disaster, surviving did not mean one was fortunate; it marked the beginning of misfortune. People who survived facing such calamities directly were commonly referred to by another title: 'Cursed Ones.' When ordinary people became entangled with a natural disaster, getting off with mere bad luck was a blessing. Their chances of aberrant degeneration were far higher than normal, and almost none met a peaceful end. That Ji Jue had gone so many years without suffering spontaneous combustion was already luck so terrifying it bordered on outrageous. "Sis Wen, why are you suddenly looking into this?" After a long silence, Su Zi asked curiously from the other end of the line, "Don't tell me he got mixed up in some incident?" "No, he didn't." Wen Wen shook her head flatly. "I just ran into him while getting my motorcycle fixed and got a little curious, that's all." "...Eh?" Su Zi drew out the syllable in a long drawl, clearly playing along out of courtesy. "Then you'd better treat me to a meal later. No brushing me off with the Security Bureau cafeteria!" "All right, all right." Wen Wen nodded. After a moment's hesitation, she suddenly asked, "Su Zi, you've worked in the Investigation Division for so long and reviewed so many files. "If—and I mean if—a Cursed One were to receive Heaven's Choice..." "Are you serious?" Su Zi sounded astonished. "The odds of that? Without relying on higher-order resonance, spontaneous awakening isn't completely impossible, but let's just say buying a lottery ticket is far more realistic than daydreaming about that. "An ordinary person tainted by aberration is already marked by the vortex. "To put it into perspective, it's like walking a tightrope over a cliff with hundreds of jin of iron balls chained to your ankles. Just shuffling forward two steps is already a miracle, let alone taking flight into the heavens." "I see. Thanks." After hearing that, Wen Wen said nothing more. After hanging up the phone, the office fell into silence once again, leaving only the ticking of the clock. Staring at the blank report document on her computer screen, her mind drifted once more, and she gazed out the window at the sky. If someone destined to plummet into the abyss could one day soar into the heavens... his wings would surely be magnificent, wouldn't they? Wen Wen smiled. The night sky was clear and vast, unmarred by clouds. The stars glittered brightly, their light gentle.