Chapter 3: Rose Corridor
After a lot of noise and fuss, by the time it was Huai Yu’s turn, dusk had already fallen.
When her zero-contribution card beeped, everyone around her fell silent.
But Huai Yu seemed to feel no shame at all. She simply stood there quietly and obediently, waiting.
She had nothing to be ashamed of. She had forgotten everything from before and didn’t know if she had died and come back to life or suddenly mutated. All she knew was that when she opened her eyes today, she was wrapped up in a cocoon made of tree roots.
After crawling out of the cocoon, she remembered only her name and some vague common knowledge—everything else was gone. Parents, friends… she couldn’t recall a single thing.
Anyway.
She figured she must have been a good person. She hadn’t done anything bad, so the zero-contribution card wasn’t her fault—it must be the world’s fault.
Thinking like that made her feel unusually calm. Her smile was open and carefree, leaving the people who had been preparing to gossip speechless.
After a while, the registrar finished the paperwork and handed her 30 bottles of nutrient solution and one jin of soybeans.
“From now on, your life is your own responsibility. The state won’t be supporting you. If you keep living like this, you’ll starve to death.”
Huai Yu hugged her things and smiled politely:
“I understand.”
After a pause, she added, “I’ll live well. Thank you, Auntie.”
…
When she walked out of the hall, the sky in the distance had already turned a mix of dark blue and orange-red.
The beat-up bus at the gate was already packed, and the loudspeaker kept urging:
[This month, bus rides are free to help with registration—]
[Final stop: Rose Corridor—]
Huai Yu blinked, then hurried over. The driver was honking furiously and yelling:
[Move to the back—move to the back!]
“We’re full! Let’s go, driver!”
“Yeah! I live at Jinyuan, if we don’t leave soon it’ll be completely dark!”
In the next moment, everyone felt squeezed tighter and instinctively shifted to the side.
“Damn! Who the hell is pushing!”
“Stop shoving! Stop fucking pushing! We’re packed! My feet are off the ground!”
“Hey, hey, don’t crush my nutrient solution—”
Finally, the doors slammed shut. Huai Yu tightly gripped the handrail and flashed an innocent smile at the people packed around her like sardines.
Through the cracked glass, she watched the city transition from orderly to ruins to barren wasteland, just like the scenes she vaguely remembered from her dreams.
But what else was in those dreams?
“Rose…”
She murmured, but couldn’t remember anything more.
The bus rattled and bumped along the broken road, slowly making its way toward the outskirts.
The passengers gradually thinned out. After a few people got off at Jinyuan Community, only Huai Yu and the driver were left.
They looked at each other through the rearview mirror. Huai Yu smiled and said, “I’ll get off at Rose Corridor.”
The driver helplessly restarted the bus. The final stop is Rose Corridor, he thought, but that doesn’t mean anyone actually lives there… and now someone does!?
Muttering under his breath, he couldn’t resist asking, “Girl, even Jinyuan didn’t take you… Did you, uh, lose a lot of contribution points?”
“No,” Huai Yu shook her head honestly, “I guess I just didn’t contribute anything at all.”
Driver: …
…
The bus didn’t even stop properly at Rose Corridor—clearly, the place was dangerous enough to require a quick turnaround.
Dusk blanketed everything. In the distance, the mountains were just blurry outlines.
The night air carried a chill. Huai Yu squatted down, touching the tender green sprouts underfoot, trying to remember the morning broadcast she’d half-heard earlier—it was supposedly March.
She was a little hungry, but the soybeans were dry and hard, so she grabbed a packet of nutrient solution instead.
The packaging was simple, like a jelly pouch. Only “Basic Nutrient Solution” was written on it. The rest of the ingredient list was blurred in the fading light, but she could vaguely make out words like “vitamins.”
She twisted it open and took a sip—
Mmm. Sour. Barely any sweetness. A little salty too. As for the texture… it was like soaked wood shavings with thickener.
Not tasty.
But that was fine. So much had happened today; she needed to figure out who she was and why she had woken up encased in tree roots on Mount Sanqing.
Could it be… she mutated from a root tumor?
Ew! She quickly shook the thought away. Gross!
Deciding to prioritize survival, she looked around, thinking about practical matters.
Like—where was she going to sleep tonight?
All around was darkness. In the far distance, tall buildings flickered with brief lights before going dark again.
Tugging at her torn clothes, Huai Yu paced back and forth on the barren ground, then realized—
No one was watching her. She didn’t have to stay here overnight!
She could go back to the mountain! Her cocoon was still there!
It sounded weird, but stuffing some pine needles and dry leaves into that tree-root cocoon would be way cozier than staying here.
The fragrance of roses grew stronger in the midnight air. Sharp thorns lurked under the green leaves, blooming a bit too eagerly for early spring.
Huai Yu couldn’t remember which direction she had come from during the day. But when her fingers brushed against a soft, fragrant petal again, a tall pillar she hadn’t noticed before suddenly lit up with an alarm:
[Mutation levels rising rapidly in Rose Corridor Zone 37, possible disturbance detected—]
[Mutation levels rising rapidly in Rose Corridor Zone 37, possible disturbance detected—]
[Mutation levels rising rapidly in Rose Corridor Zone 37, possible disturbance detected—]
She immediately pulled her hand back and, acting like nothing happened, dove into a nearby hollow.
Three minutes later, the roar of engines echoed through the silent night.
Two minutes after that, Huai Yu, curled up in the cold, stony structure, heard the sound of military boots stepping on the ground above her.
“Come out!”
Someone barked loudly.
She slowly poked her head out, looking like a helpless flower bud growing under layered lotus leaves—obedient and soft.
“I didn’t do anything…”
The cold glint of guns slowly lowered. The surrounding soldiers relaxed slightly, but their expressions remained stern:
“It’s late. What are you doing here? No loitering in the Rose Corridor at night.”
Huai Yu looked utterly confused. “But… this is my place now.”
She climbed out of the rubble, looking like a stray puppy, her clothes tattered and hair messy from crawling around.
She pointed at the pile of ruins nearby:
“Look, this is where the Rose Residence used to be. They assigned it to me today.”
The soldiers were stunned.
“They… assigned this to you?”
The leader, whose chest bore a rose emblem, finally realized:
“Are you saying you got assigned here today during registration? Alone? Was someone tampering with your contribution points?”
Under his helmet, his expression grew colder.
