Chapter 284: Rose of the Frozen Winter

Zhao Yi stood at the door, looking like a statue.

His dull gaze slowly swept across the room, across those faces that were shockingly pale… He knew these people. They were all survivors from District 3, neighbors who had supported each other in this building, companions who had huddled together for warmth in a foreign land.

And now, they had all taken off the heavy quilts they had been wrapped in, as if they were in a sauna, huddling together, with faint smiles on their faces, as if they were sleeping peacefully.

In this quiet and peaceful atmosphere, Zhao Yi’s chapped lips parted tremblingly…

“Boss Xu……?”

“Auntie Li?”

“Uncle… Uncle Xu?”

Zhao Yi tried calling their names, hoping they would open their eyes, yawn as if they had just woken up, and then ask him with a smile why he had suddenly returned, busily starting to prepare a welcome dinner for him… The dinner might not be particularly luxurious, but there should be vegetables and meat. Auntie Xu knew he loved stir-fried pork with chili and would definitely make that dish. Uncle Xu might pull him to sit at the door and drink, asking how he had been doing lately…

No, he had turned into this ghost of a person now; they should be startled, and then he would explain in a panic that he was actually Zhao Yi…

Zhao Yi’s mind was completely chaotic.

He didn’t know what he was thinking, only that his hands and feet were trembling involuntarily. The body that had just been filled with power felt like it had fallen into an ice cave… No one responded to him.

It wasn’t until some time later that Zhao Yi summoned the courage to step into the room… He carefully bypassed their hands and feet, and with trembling fingertips, began to test their breath, but the result was no surprise.

In a room with such a low temperature, as long as one breathed, there would definitely be mist drifting out, but the room was silent at this moment.

They had all frozen to death.

“No… it shouldn’t be like this……” Zhao Yi muttered to himself.

He stumbled to the place closest to the brazier. There, Xu Chongguo and his wife were huddled together. At the corners of their eyes, a few teardrops were sparkling like diamonds… Closer by was a small figure curled into a ball.

“……Ling’er… Ling’er??!”

Zhao Yi’s voice was extremely hoarse, his mind a blank. He hugged the figure in his arms like a madman, but what he felt was endless cold.

A dry, hoarse roar echoed through the deathly silent room. Zhao Yi’s eyes were already bloodshot. He hugged Ling’er’s body and rushed out of the house like a madman, roaring and screaming at the sky above:

“Why… why??!!”

“Why did I survive in the end… but they were the ones who died??!!”

“What did they do wrong?! They survived District 3 after a narrow escape!! They finally had a new life!! What did they do wrong??!!”

Zhao Yi knelt powerlessly on the pale ground, the cloth that had covered his face blown away by the wind. This monster covered in incantations was now like a child who had lost everything, crying hoarsely in front of the deathly cold small building.

At the same time, a figure in a white lab coat walked over from a distance like a walking corpse. Hearing the roar coming from here, he stopped subconsciously.

Dr. Yi saw Zhao Yi holding the girl in the snow and was slightly stunned.

“It’s him… he’s actually still alive?” Dr. Yi muttered to himself. “He’s initially fused with the Forbidden Sea Calamity cells… but without subsequent medicine to stabilize his body, he’ll collapse and die sooner or later… Every one of them is like this… Heh, every one of them is like this……”

Seeming to hear Dr. Yi’s whisper, Zhao Yi, who was kneeling on the ground, suddenly raised his head. Those pupils filled with incantations instantly locked onto his figure. After seeing Dr. Yi’s face clearly, his pupils contracted slightly!

WHOOSH—!!

His speed was too fast, so much so that Dr. Yi only felt a blur before his eyes, and a huge force lifted him up and slammed him heavily beside the girl’s corpse.

“It’s you!! You’re that scientist!!” Zhao Yi recognized Dr. Yi, as if he had grabbed a straw for his life. He pointed at Ling’er and the small building behind him. “You… aren’t you very capable?? You saved me!! Help me… help me save them too!! They’re all good people! They’re just ordinary people who wanted to live well! They… they……”

Zhao Yi’s voice began to stutter. He didn’t know what he was saying, only knowing to constantly shake Dr. Yi’s shoulders, tears flowing onto Dr. Yi’s cheeks and freezing into ice.

Dr. Yi looked at Ling’er, who had frozen to death beside him, and closed his eyes bitterly.

“……I can’t save them.” He whispered hoarsely.

“What did you say??!!”

“I said I can’t save them!! Can’t you understand?!” The veins on Dr. Yi’s neck bulged, and he roared as well. “I can’t save them!! I can’t save anyone, damn it!! Can’t you understand?!?”

Zhao Yi was stunned. He tremblingly released Dr. Yi’s shoulders and stumbled to the ground.

Just then, his fingertips seemed to touch something… In the arms of Ling’er’s corpse, there was a neatly folded note.

Zhao Yi stiffly took the note and slowly unfolded it. A series of crooked characters appeared before him. The lines of the characters were distorted, looking as if the writer must have been shivering from the cold while writing this…

[Brother Xiao Yi, are you okay?]

[Uncle Xu said, if you have anything you want to say to you, write it down quickly, otherwise you might not be able to write it in a while… But I’m so cold, my hands are shaking, I want to warm up for a while before writing… But Uncle Xu said I must write it now, so my handwriting is very, very ugly. Brother Xiao Yi, you should be able to understand, right?]

[Brother Xiao Yi, when can you come back? Uncle Xu said you went to a very far place to work, said you earned a lot of money, and when you come back, you can buy me a new little dress… But I don’t want a new little dress, I don’t want you to be so far away from me… I’m afraid that like Grandma, if you’re too far away, I’ll never be able to find you again.]

[It’s so cold today. Uncle Xu said the price of coal outside was being (crossed out) gouged too high. He said they were eating people, so he took people to reason with the coal sellers, but they got beaten… If Brother Xiao Yi were here, you would definitely be able to beat them, right?]

[In the end, Uncle Xu only brought back one piece of coal. They said this was all of Uncle Xu’s savings. We all huddled together, so the heat wouldn’t dissipate.]

[Brother Xiao Yi, the burning red coal is so beautiful, like a rose…]