Chapter 226 | Chapter 227 | Chapter 228
Chapter 226: Snowflake in Water
Huai Yu, who was at the door, stood frozen: “…”
She shrunk her head back silently. Zhou Qian, having heard it even more clearly than she had, let out another sigh. Right. The secret fusion of Ketaro and the Rose Corridor has become even weirder now.
He didn’t want to eavesdrop any further and knocked on the door.
The conversation inside ceased, and Uncle Zao quickly invited them in, mentioning he wanted to buy something at the hospital entrance. But Zhou Yunfang looked at her IV drip and shook her head:
“I’m fine. Don’t bother buying anything. Let’s just leave once the drip is finished.”
“That won’t do!” Uncle Zao said nervously. “You fainted for no reason; we still need to run a few more checks.”
Huai Yu couldn’t help but feel a bit anxious. However, remembering that Zhou Qian had already drank, soaked in, and applied the tea without the hospital finding anything amiss, she quickly put her mind at ease.
Zhou Yunfang shook her head. “In all these years, I have never felt this clear-headed.”
She looked at Uncle Zao with a steady gaze. “I won’t go mad again—I want to wait for my gardenias to grow, so our family can be lively and happy together.”
Uncle Zao looked at her bright, clear eyes and fell silent.
After a while, he muttered, “Anything you want to plant is fine, but gardenias aren’t our children.”
This time, it was Zhou Yunfang’s turn to laugh. As she laughed, bean-sized tears rolled down the corners of her eyes. “My children are at the monument, in the martyrs’ cemetery. I know where they sleep.”
She was no longer young; she should spend the rest of her life living well with the family she had left.
Huai Yu watched them both, hesitating. “Uncle Zao, that ball tea…”
As soon as she said this, the couple, previously immersed in their sorrow, instantly became alert. “Xiao Yu, what ball tea? We haven’t drunk that yet. If there’s any more, remember to bring it over next time.”
They spoke with such sincerity, as if it were the honest truth.
After a pause, they added, “I’ve tasted the other colors, and they were all quite good, but that pink one wasn’t very tasty. Don’t sell the pink ones anymore.”
Huai Yu: …
Looking at Zhou Qian, she saw he was visibly relaxed. He patted Uncle Zao on the shoulder:
“Yeah, let’s not sell the pink ones next time. For the extras from this batch, please just pick them out and handle them as you see fit.”
The four people in the ward spoke of things with such gravitas that their secret blended in naturally, like a snowflake in water, vanishing without a trace in an instant.
…
Crowded onto the bus on the way back, Huai Yu sighed. “Does this mean we can’t use the rose petals anymore?”
“Not necessarily.” Zhou Qian thought about it. “This matter with Uncle Zao might be a coincidence. Should the two of us try some tonight?”
Huai Yu shook her head instinctively!
She didn’t want to! People had bottom lines, and Ketaro’s mouth was her bottom line!
Zhou Qian glared at her. “Do you think I don’t have a bottom line?”
Huai Yu thought for a moment and said seriously, “But Brother Zhou Qian, your bottom line disappeared back when you were saving lives—why don’t you try it instead?”
“You, Uncle Zao, and Auntie Zao—the three of you are enough as a sample group.”
Zhou Qian: “…”
He truly broke his heart for this household.
However, he had to admit, his own resolve was wavering.
Because, if Uncle Zao’s wife could dream of children who had died years ago, then… what about Zhou Ning?
Would he dream of Zhou Ning?
Zhou Qian clenched his fists silently, harboring hope, yet afraid to hope.
…
Because of this detour, their plans to shop at the nearby Jin Yuan market were abandoned.
Since Huai Yu hadn’t bought a fishing net today, she simply hauled out her fish trap, purified a large chunk of dough again, and tried to catch that big black fish that remained elusive.
Really, she couldn’t drag it out any longer. The lotus leaves had grown out, and the flower buds were standing tall and graceful. If she didn’t find that fish, her dream of a lotus pond would be shattered even more thoroughly!
At that moment, Zhou Qian was sitting in Huai Yu’s living room, staring at a giant jar on the table filled with colorful Ketaro-balls, deep and light, like a collection of gorgeous dreams.
He picked out a pink one, his mind as tangled as a ball of yarn played with by a cat. He struggled to suppress his urgency before hearing Huai Yu call from outside:
“Should we go check on Kuang Biao? Why has it been so quiet lately?”
“While we’re at it, bring a few more bamboo poles to stick in the ground by the door; I’ll need to tie ropes when I dry the vegetables later.”
Zhou Qian recalled Kuang Biao’s romance, and his already complicated mood turned cold. But the sun hadn’t set yet; he feared that drinking the tea to enter a dream might affect the results, so he decided to find some work to do.
Stepping behind the house, the scorching sun still shone on the verdant sunflowers.
After one day, the washbasin-sized flowers seemed to have grown even larger. Their harmless-looking petals swayed gently in the wind, completely hiding the fact that yesterday, those petals and the entire flower head had adjusted their angles to reflect sunlight and leave Kuang Biao scorched and mottled.
Now, among the bamboo stalks that had retreated from the sunflowers, the front row showed faint signs of black scorching marks, not to mention leaves that were either withered and curled or burned completely through…
Zhou Qian’s mouth twitched, but he quickly suppressed his smile. Seeing the “big kid” and “little kid” foraging in the grass nearby with the chicks as if nothing had happened, and feeling the rare quietness of Kuang Biao, he couldn’t help but laugh.
“So… Kuang Biao, are you doing okay?”
Kuang Biao had suffered physical damage, while Xiao Kui had suffered psychological damage—it was hard to say which was worse, but who told Kuang Biao to have a mouth?
Kuang Biao swayed the bamboo grove, scattering bamboo leaves like broken, fluttering hearts from above. They rained down on Zhou Qian’s head, shoulders, and arms…
It didn’t speak, but this performance spoke volumes.
Zhou Qian stared at the sunflowers that remained tall and proud, unable to help but silently give them a thumbs-up—patient when it lacked ability, but striking immediately once it gained power. Huai Yu’s poem was right; this sunflower was a born warrior.
Impressive!
Although Xiao Kui couldn’t speak, it seemed to sense emotions. The large leaves on its body swayed toward Zhou Qian, and the big floral face atop its head shone even more brilliantly.
While Kuang Biao remained silent, Zhou Qian still had a mission to complete!
Looking at the several stalks in front of him with scorched marks, he couldn’t help but sigh: “Looking at it this way, it really doesn’t look good—Kuang Biao, are you still in pain? If not, give these bamboo stalks to me. It’ll clear up space for you to grow some more.”
Kuang Biao had not only been dumped but also violently assaulted by its crush. How could a few bamboo stalks compare to its grief?
It didn’t even want to say a word. Feeling the sharp beaks of the “big kid” and “little kid” poking at its roots, the bamboo collapsed with a rustle, as if it were the heart that could never love again…
Chapter 227: Zhou Qian’s Dream
Since Kuang Biao had decided that it would never love again, the “big kid” and “little kid” faced no obstacles when poking the bamboo. They had even learned how to poke at the bamboo branches. While they lacked the precision to cleanly strip every twig from a stalk, dragging back a bundle of the bamboo poles Zhou Qian wanted was an effortless task.
By the time the frame was set up and the plastic ropes were tied, Huai Yu had already organized dinner and planned out the dried vegetables and pickles for the next day.
This turbulent, ups-and-downs day had finally come to an end.
Returning home, Zhou Qian took out the pink Ketaro-ball. He hesitated for a moment before dropping it into his cup.
He did his best to avoid recalling the sight of Ketaro chewing on a pile of debris. Once the tea was no longer scalding, he downed the bizarre pink liquid in one gulp.
It tasted slightly bitter and astringent.
As he exhaled, the faint scent of roses lingered in his mouth.
Beyond that, he felt nothing else.
Zhou Qian sat quietly in the twilight for a while, yet felt no change. He shook his head helplessly, thinking to himself that it couldn’t possibly be that miraculous.
The next moment, his legs began to feel soft, the scene before him began to spin, and then…
“Thud.”
…
The sun was bright.
The house was old and ordinary.
Zhou Qian stood there in a daze, unable to understand why he was seeing his home from the past. Clearly, this old residential building had been completely overtaken and torn apart by creeping vines by the fourth month of the cataclysm.
The sixth-floor balcony had been ripped away by brute force. He had been responsible for leading a team to clear the entire complex, so he knew exactly what that looked like.
“Brother!”
Someone poked their head out from the balcony. “You’re home for your break? Perfect timing! The bulletin says plants are mutating and we should try not to keep plants at home… but my orchids are so expensive!”
The young girl looked dejected. She was only seventeen, with round cheeks and a slightly plump build—a sweet girl who smiled kindly and was well-loved by all the grandmothers and aunts in the neighborhood.
She looked nothing like the grim, darkened Zhou Qian.
And at this moment, she was pulling him toward the balcony…
This situation felt so familiar.
Zhou Qian shook his head, dizzily remembering that she had once called to him like this, but because his mission had been urgent at the time, he had only pressed down on her shoulders and demanded that she get rid of the plants on the balcony…
“I don’t want to! This Spider-Morph Orchid is an original species; I’ve raised it for three years just to get it this big…”
“No matter how big it is, the government has already issued a call. Keeping this thing at home is dangerous. Zhou Ning, don’t you usually hate people who dawdle and don’t cooperate at critical moments? Hurry up, be quick about it.”
He opened his mouth, speaking these words instinctively.
In that instant, the trajectory of fate seemed to overlap with that of six years ago. Every fiber of Zhou Qian’s consciousness was screaming that it shouldn’t be happening! He clearly had a mission to attend to, yet he couldn’t move his feet no matter how hard he tried.
It was as if something unbearable would happen the moment he walked away…
He gripped the doorframe.
After a moment, Zhou Qian turned back. “If you really can’t bear to let them go, move them all to the rooftop first. I’ll help you!”
Those words had been agonizing to say, and he couldn’t understand why he was acting this way. But the young girl lit up with happiness, chattering away as she moved the flowers:
“I’m in so many hobbyist groups. This Spider-Morph Orchid is so big; someone offered to pay 950 for it before.”
“And this one—this Blue Star is a newly cultivated variety, rarely seen on the market, so the price is very high right now. Don’t look at how small it is; I split it into six pots, and each one can sell for 85!”
She was a chatterbox by nature. Now, as she babbled on, Zhou Qian didn’t find her annoying at all. Instead, an inexplicable emotion rampaged through his chest, making his nose sting and his eyes burn.
“Ningning…”
He murmured, not knowing what else to say.
The girl in front of him looked up and smiled gently at him, sweat glistening on her round face:
“Moved, aren’t you? This is all part of the wedding fund I’m preparing for you.”
“Grandma Lin downstairs said you’re at that age, you should be starting a family. She’s planning to introduce you to someone; I saw her, she’s very pretty!”
“Brother, if you don’t get married soon, you’re going to be a bachelor for life!”
“Don’t worry about me, the money from selling these flowers is enough for my tuition. And with some part-time work, I definitely won’t be a burden to your little family…”
She held the Spider-Morph Orchid in her arms, her smile radiant. “So, don’t talk about plant mutations—even if it were raining knives from the sky, I wouldn’t just throw these away.”
“This is our future fund!”
Zhou Qian wanted to smile, perhaps ruffle Zhou Ning’s fuzzy hair and tell her, “What does a little girl like you know?”
He opened his mouth, dizzily recalling that in his previous memory, he had left in a rush, and Zhou Ning had never had the chance to say these words.
At this moment, the grief formed a massive eye of a storm in his chest. A violent tornado swept through all of Zhou Qian’s memories and emotions, causing a deluge of tears to fall.
Everything before him—the house, the flowers, and Zhou Ning—disappeared like a tornado passing through. He stood amidst the old, broken walls and ruins, trembling as he dropped to one knee on the ground.
His rough palms pressed against the shattered floor, his body shaking slightly. Agony radiated through every bone and marrow, as if half of his flesh and blood were being torn away by the merciless memories—the pain was nearly unbearable.
He dizzily remembered the two-story building on the street yesterday.
The middle-aged woman, hair disheveled, gripping the security bars with both hands, staring at him with vacant eyes…
They were both enduring the same agonizing torture.
In the next instant, before him lay a vast, desolate wilderness. At the end of the wilderness was a towering, overwhelming, seemingly endless Rose Corridor.
Rose petals were swept up by a gale, scattering everywhere. Pale pink flowers were strewn sparsely across the grass.
Trampling upon the petals were people who looked like walking corpses. Their consciousness and brains had long since been drained by mutated plants; they were now rushing toward the Rose Corridor as stiffly as puppets, attempting to use their human bodies to layer a pathway so that the strong could climb over them and reach the plants’ main base.
Among so many stiff puppets, one young, slightly plump figure walked with extreme difficulty. Her eyes were tightly closed, tears streaming down in large drops. A mutated Spider-Morph Orchid clung to her temple, its hideous blood vessels pumping blood—drained to the point of near-dryness—into its roots.
“Pain…”
“Pain…”
“It hurts so much…”
“I’m not going… Brother… Brother… it hurts!”
She murmured, her pale cheeks and withered lips trembling slightly, spitting out faint, wispy words that no one else could hear: “Can’t go… can’t go…”
“Brother… can’t follow me into the wilderness… you’ll die…”
Chapter 228: A Good Dream
“Zhou Ning!” Zhou Qian didn’t know how he had ended up here. He remembered that when he arrived, Zhou Ning’s dead, graying, withered body had already stiffened, being consumed by the Rose Corridor, and his comrades had held him back to stop him from getting close…
But at this moment, no one blocked his path. Zhou Qian ran with everything he had. Even though the distance was vast, he could still hear every breath she took, every murmur she made—
“Can’t go… no, Brother, don’t come—it’s going to kill you…”
“No, no, can’t come!”
This painful struggle reached Zhou Qian’s ears, twisting his heart like a knife. Yet, no matter how desperately he pushed himself, he remained eternally just a few steps away from Zhou Ning!
“Ningning!”
He shouted at the top of his lungs!
“Brother, no, no…” She opened her mouth, her eyelids fluttering frantically. The veins at her temples pulsed hideously. The Spider-Morph Orchid on her head looked even more terrifying. Among this group of parasites, biological instinct surged with a longing for the vast, expansive wilderness.
The next moment, Zhou Ning suddenly cried out: “No, don’t go to the wilderness!”
Then came a “crack.” The long, aerial roots of the Spider-Morph Orchid had completely severed her cervical spine. Afterward, her emaciated corpse collapsed before Zhou Qian, just like countless other parasitized bodies, destined to be stacked to build a high road leading to the free wilderness.
“Ningning…”
Zhou Qian stood where he was, his comrades holding him down from all sides. He didn’t even have the strength to struggle, only watching helplessly as the Rose Corridor, which had been perfectly quiet just a moment ago, suddenly extended countless vines!
Just as it had in his memory.
The earth churned. The rose roots that permeated the entire wilderness from beneath the ground pushed up the deep soil, dragging back one undignified corpse after another, hiding them all deep, deep beneath the earth.
A deathly silence fell over the wilderness in front of the Rose Corridor, as if no one had ever been there. The people beside him stood there dumbfounded, not daring to take another step forward.
It all felt like a dream.
…
Zhou Qian opened his eyes. Before him lay a patch of ground dampened by tears.
Was it a dream?
But why did everything in it feel so real? It felt as if it were truly a past he had missed. The missed persistence and small wishes of Zhou Ning, and the obsession that drove her to safeguard Zhou Qian’s hope for life, even at the cost of her own…
Everyone knew the wilderness was dangerous; countless mutated creatures rushed forward wave after wave. As a member of the Defense Army, Zhou Qian saw comrades fall in every operation. Zhou Ning knew all of this.
In her eyes, the wilderness must have been the most terrifying place in the world.
As long as her brother didn’t go, he would surely live a good life…
Is that so, Ningning?
The sky was already pitch black, a brilliant galaxy overhead, with mosquitoes buzzing nearby. Zhou Qian slowly pulled himself up from the ground. But as he braced his hands against the rough soil, sand and gravel digging into his palms, he struggled, agonizingly unable to stand.
The vanished dream felt like a consuming vortex, devouring the last of his strength.
He had thought he could calmly accept everything, that he could easily tell others the fact that Ningning was gone. But reality made him understand that Zhou Ning had always been in his heart.
Finally, he sat blankly on the ground and cried out fiercely, recklessly.
The wind carried his uncontrollable sobbing and grief, like hot blood finally surging from a long-healed scar after years of silence.
…
When dawn broke, Huai Yu got up to start her chores. Pushing open the door, she saw a figure in the nearby field, swinging a hoe as diligently as a long-term farmhand.
“Brother Zhou Qian,” she yawned. “You’re up so early?”
As she spoke, she realized something was off, as the soil still bore fresh, damp marks, clearly freshly turned.
She ran over to take a closer look and exclaimed in surprise: “Brother Zhou Qian! You didn’t work all night, did you?”
“Mm.” Zhou Qian looked up. His face was etched with deep exhaustion, but his expression was more peaceful than ever before.
“I had a dream after drinking the tea yesterday and didn’t feel like sleeping anymore, so I just decided to get some work done.”
Oh, a dream.
Huai Yu recalled the reaction of Uncle Zao’s family and asked with some concern: “Was your dream good or bad?”
Zhou Qian was silent for a moment. “It was good.”
Although it was agonizing, the reality of everything he had missed made him realize even more deeply just how much Zhou Ning had cared for him. It was less of a dream and more of a continuation of all his regrets.
People in dreams could not be brought back to life, but those who lived would remember them forever. More deeply and painfully than ever before.
Even in the dream, in Zhou Ning’s final memories, did she know that her brother hadn’t abandoned her?
Whether it was hiding her secretly for half a year or struggling to sustain her life… he had never given up on her.
Zhou Qian looked at Huai Yu. “So, Xiao Yu, if you want to regain your memories soon, you should drink a cup of that pink tea, too.”
“But, don’t sell it easily.”
Huai Yu studied his expression, guessing that his dream hadn’t been as blissful as Uncle Zao’s family’s. She nodded and said nothing more.
But her past memories had nothing to do with Xiao Yu, and Zhou Qian didn’t want to see her looking so cautious. He smiled at her: “Go about your business.”
“Oh, by the way, I’ve been working for too long. Cook a bit more for breakfast.”
“Oh, oh, okay!” In Huai Yu’s eyes, as long as there was food and drink, there wasn’t a big problem. She felt instantly relieved and rushed back to prepare breakfast.
After eating, she had other work arrangements for Zhou Qian—
“Brother Zhou Qian, you don’t have to come with me to the trading market in the morning anymore. Uncle Zao and I agreed that the uncle who delivers the goods will stop by whenever he has them. Since we’re not sure when they’ll arrive, you’ll need to go check there at nine every morning.”
“Also, if you happen to run into him, could you rent his tricycle and help me buy a few crocks from the Jin Yuan residential complex nearby? I want to pickle more eggplants and make other dried vegetables; the two small jars at home aren’t enough.”
Huai Yu smoothed out the tasks one by one before remembering one last big thing—
“Oh! Later, help me pull up the fish trap in the pond!”
“I don’t know if that runaway big black fish has crawled in, and whether the trap can hold it?”
“Big black fish eat the small fish. If I don’t catch it soon, the whole pond will just be for planting lotus roots—oh, wait, no, it’ll eat those, too.”
Wouldn’t that just make it a wasted pond? What a pity! The Job’s tears trees nearby were constantly purifying the impurities in the water. If it weren’t for the polluted rain a few days ago, the pond should be crystal clear by now.
Zhou Qian nodded. “Alright, I’ll be careful.”
