RHWHEG – Chapter 7 The Key to Rebirth

Han Shuzhu had already intended to strike up a conversation, so the two of them quickly began talking. They crossed layer after layer of roadblocks until they finally entered the shelter’s range.

As they passed by the medical area, both fell silent instinctively—for this place was nothing less than a living hell.

“I’m human… I’m human! I’m not a monster!” A man, whose body had sprouted several extra arms, cried out in despair.

“This degree of mutation is only LV1…” The nurse checked again and again, flipping through the testing instruments nonstop. Her hands kept trembling. What lay before her could only barely be called human. But the iron law of the shelter stated that those at LV5 and below retained human rights, so she had no choice but to grit her teeth and examine his wounds.

Another doctor shoved his way through in panic: “I absolutely refuse to treat that man—I don’t have a green badge! I’ll get contaminated! Dr. Chen already said mutation is irreversible. Once you’re exposed to radiation, you’ll only keep evolving! LV1 eventually becomes LV5, and LV5 eventually turns into a natural disaster! The instrument already shows he’s LV2, meaning he’s heavily irradiated…”

“I’ll go! I used to intern in the burn unit!” An intern grabbed the first-aid kit and dashed into the critical injury area.

The injured man, tested as LV2, was the highest level within the entire shelter. During the mission two days ago, both his hands had been badly burned and the shockwave of an explosion had left him unconscious for two full days and nights.

Inside the medical tent, the air was thick with the stench of disinfectant and charred flesh. The patient lay on the bed—his face was handsome, his wounds terrifying. The label on the bedside read: She Lulang.

She Lulang’s brows were furrowed tightly, as if he were still trapped inside the fire.

In memory, thousands of tons of ammunition poured down, fuel barrels exploded within a cramped mine shaft, as if igniting a hundred suns. Now the suns had gone silent, leaving only a boundless sea of fire. Outside, drums thundered as liquid nitrogen was sprayed over the scorched land, frosting everything white. Voices clamored: “Find the traitor’s corpse!” Their sharpened weapons gleamed in rainbow hues.

“Once you get out, stop trusting the wrong people.” She Lulang whispered, “I… won’t let anyone get near you again.”

The other replied, “Get out? Don’t worry about that for now. I want to give you my most precious thing.”

She Lulang’s eyes flickered.

“This is the key to my riverside apartment. I spent five years working part-time from my junior year of college just to make the down payment. Perfect location, three bedrooms, two living rooms. Sadly, I only lived there a few days before the catastrophe hit. I’ve never stopped longing for it. It’s my obsession, my soul’s flame, my past and future. Now—I officially give this key to you…”

She Lulang ground his teeth: “Don’t you ever think about surviving?!”

The other answered softly, “I don’t think too far ahead.”

With bloodied hands, he slapped the key against She Lulang. His body faltered, and it landed instead against She Lulang’s collarbone. The still-warm key slid along his skin, slipped beneath his clothing, and came to rest against his heart.

“Don’t lose it. The fight’s starting.”

A blinding white light burst forth, a wave of heat swept in, and the ground shook as if Gonggong himself had struck Buzhou Mountain. She Lulang shut his eyes tight, and two inexplicable tears spilled out. It was as if he already knew he was about to lose this person forever. Yet he still had countless unspoken secrets, countless nights of silent longing cutting him like a dull knife. His mind remained rational, but grief surged from the depths of his soul like a mountain collapsing, his heart seared as if a burning hole had been carved into it.

Suddenly, when the pain reached its limit, sensation vanished. His body floated upward. His hands prickled faintly, but compared to the tortures he had endured, they were nothing. Time stretched endlessly. He felt himself grow smaller, and then, abruptly, the world became real again—his hands blazed with heat!

She Lulang opened his eyes. The gray-white ceiling of a medical tent came into view.

“This is…? Where have I returned to?” He was still dazed. As he moved slightly, the bloodstained key slipped from his body to the ground with a crisp clink.

“Mr. She Lulang…” The intern clutched the first-aid kit, trembling in the corner. “Your hands… just now, they turned into wings. The instruments confirmed it too. I think you really have evolved into an LV2 ability-user. According to the rules, please report to the Ability Hall…”

Everything was filled with familiar traces.

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Yu Qunqing accidentally toppled from his beach chair, scraping his face against the trunk of a coconut tree.

He had almost dreamed of his own death.

Sitting up, Yu Qunqing guessed that perhaps the manner of his death had been too tragic, so his subconscious blocked the memory.

But—

He glanced toward the doorway. Last time when he came home, he had reached into his pocket only to realize he’d forgotten his key. With no choice, he had painfully fried his own door lock with high-voltage electricity. Even after tearing his house apart, he still couldn’t find the key, so he had set a stool against the door to feel some sense of safety and privacy.

—Surely it was just “daytime thoughts turning into nighttime dreams.”

In the dream, She Lulang had told him to keep his eyes open when choosing friends, to live well. Yu Qunqing intended to keep both promises.

A faint sorrow stirred in his chest.

“Little bird, you’re awake too? What a coincidence, I couldn’t sleep either.” Yu Qunqing teased the little blue-bellied parrot.

The moment he first saw the parrot, he couldn’t help but think of how much his vice-captain had liked birds. Because She Lulang’s ability form was avian, he’d naturally felt an affinity for flying creatures.

But right now, they hadn’t even met?

Yu Qunqing didn’t know why, but the moment he saw the parrot, he had the urge to show it to She Lulang.

Would they, in this lifetime, come to know each other again as they had before?

Yu Qunqing wasn’t one to dwell on the distant future. He quickly turned his mind back to survival. The room was kept dark to avoid attracting light-seeking calamities. A simple rule of thumb to gauge disaster strength: large ones, nocturnal ones, aquatic ones—novice ability-users should avoid them at all costs.

The parrot’s beady eyes still sparkled with spirit, and its tilted head gave it an adorably silly look.

Since his in-game stamina hadn’t recovered and he couldn’t sleep, Yu Qunqing sat under the moonlight on the balcony, writing out plans. The moon reflected off the river, the waves glittering, shadows occasionally sweeping across, the silence profound.

In just two days, the torrential rains would arrive, and countless supplies would be ruined by flooding. He was truly racing against time. At this rate, he needed a proper route plan.

The more he wrote, the more energized he felt. His mind was firing smoothly, and forgotten landmarks and road signs resurfaced effortlessly. Feeling he was in the zone, he decisively ate an apple and dove under his blanket to clear stages.

This time, urgency made him burn through tools and coins freely, no longer hoarding. The priority now was racking up hexagrams.

Progress was smooth—he even hit a four-stage win streak. He gained 25 hexagrams.

Past midnight, the seven-day newcomer sign-in popped up automatically, awarding him another 30-minute infinite stamina apple.

Yu Qunqing became even more engrossed. Each stage’s burst of balloon-water-gun chaos was incredibly satisfying.

In that 30 minutes, he gained 19 more hexagrams.

But after an hour of playing the same game, he grew bored, so he pulled out his PSP to blow off steam with some brawlers.

The system finally couldn’t hold back: “Player gets tired of one game… and actually uses another game to relieve stress?”

Yu Qunqing: “Well, what else? People can’t not play games.”

System: “Ding-dong! Solution found in the database. Recommendation: increase Exploration Points to unlock more game slots sooner, and download more games. That way, Player won’t get bored of this system’s games!”

Yu Qunqing: “Sigh, sometimes playing games feels just like going to work—utter torture…”

The system, feeling wronged, went silent.