From Meihua Villa to Xuanwu Bay, if you took the subway, you could first ride Line 2, get on at the Alfalfa Garden Station, transfer to Line 1 at Xinjiekou Station, and then get off at Xuanwu Gate, the whole journey taking about twenty minutes. Riding a bicycle would take around forty minutes.
Ban Xia was riding her beat-up mountain bike, speeding along the road, with black car shells on both sides.
The subway was not an option anymore; it hadn't been feasible for many years. Nowadays, subway stations are extremely dangerous places, which Ban Xia daren't set foot in. These dark, damp, food-rich, interconnected subterranean city spaces had long been occupied by dangerous creatures. Her teacher had once warned her never to enter places without light.
Standing at the pitch-dark entrance to the subway station and looking downwards, moss-covered, slippery steps stretched into the darkness beyond the reach of sight. Ban Xia could faintly smell a foul, bloody stench mixed in the chilly air, her subconscious telling her to stay far away—an instinct that had evolved over millions of years, the instinct of prey.
The girl stopped for a rest at the entrance to the Ming Palace, taking the opportunity to eat something.
Calling it the "Ming Palace", in fact, not much of the structure remained.
Long before the world's destruction, Nanjing's Ming Palace had already been reduced to ruins. Her teacher said that the palace was dismantled once at the end of the Ming dynasty, again during the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, and once more in the Republic era, leaving only a few stone piers fenced off and turned into a park.
What Ban Xia saw now were ruins of the ruins.
She parked her bike at the entrance of the Ming Palace ruins park. The park's gate was a mock-ancient structure, erected atop ten high steps, with golden roofs and flying eaves. The main entrance had four vermillion pillars, too thick for one adult to wrap their arms around.
Had it remained intact, it would have surely been a magnificent building. Unfortunately, Ban Xia had never seen it whole. A crashed fighter jet had sheared off half of the great hall's roof, the broken tiles and stones scattered all over the ground. How did Ban Xia know a fighter jet had done this? Because that very jet was now planted upside down in the ground behind the great hall.
Her teacher had once taken her through the park's entrance and pointed at that charred empty shell, stating it was a Su-27.
Ban Xia sat down on the steps and took out some provisions and a water bottle from her bag.
The provisions were starch blocks mixed with animal fat, the latter obtained from deer and rabbits. After hunting these animals, Ban Xia meticulously preserved the fat, while the starch mainly came from lotus roots and seeds. Nearby Crescent Lake by the Meihua Villa was covered with lotus plants, making roots and seeds easy to come by. Ban Xia would cook and mash them, then mix them with deer fat to form balls, which she wrapped in plastic cloth.
These were high in calories and provided the necessary energy for outdoor activities.
The sky was a clear blue, with intense greenery across the spacious road. Opposite used to be a park as well, called Wu Dynasty Gate Park, which was part of the Ming Palace ruins.
Over the years of human absence, nature had infiltrated every nook and cranny of the city with astonishing regenerative abilities. Sometimes, Ban Xia thought that humanity didn't necessarily have to suppress nature, as their very existence and the vast spaces they occupied were already encroaching upon the reproduction of other species. As long as the human population existed, nature would never be able to return to its original state.
For thousands of years, perhaps humanity had suppressed nature too harshly, allowing it to accumulate a huge amount of energy like a spring, which rebounded fiercely the moment humans disappeared.
It came fiercely, unstoppable.
A green mass of mountain collapse and tsunami surged from the ranges and the sea, engulfing the entire city.
Ban Xia took a bite of her provision, gazing across the road to the park. Next to the park was the Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics. From Ban Xia's perspective, what could be vaguely seen was Building No. 11, a gray concrete structure nestled among lush greenery. Probably because cement surfaces were not very conducive to plant growth, it still retained its original appearance. But Ban Xia knew that the paths leading to it must have been overgrown with weeds.
Building No. 11 was lucky. Not so much its neighbor, Building No. 12, which Ban Xia saw on her way over Zhongshan East Road, was half destroyed, likely hit by a missile.
A breeze stirred, rustling the thickets across the road.
Ban Xia immediately bit down on her provision, grabbed her bow, and fitted an arrow.
More than twenty meters away from her, across the roadway, this was a sufficiently safe distance, enough for her to shoot an arrow and then draw her gun.
So far, she hadn't used that replica of the Type 54 pistol. The necessity to use a gun arose infrequently, primarily because Ban Xia was sufficiently vigilant and intelligent to avoid the territories of large predatory animals. In the area near Nanjing Aeronautics, there were no tigers or bears. The most dangerous felid was the leopard, and because of the leopard, Ban Xia never stayed for long under trees.
Leopards were incredibly agile, and their entire family, barring the cheetah, were deadly hunters. Most creatures in this world had never encountered humans; frankly, they seemed to have forgotten that a dominant species called humans ever existed. To them, Ban Xia was a rare upright monkey—whether edible or not would only be known with a bite.
A pair of large antlers were the first to protrude from the thicket. The girl sighed in relief.
It was a horse deer.
A large male deer stepped onto the road, "clack clacking," with beautiful white stripes on its neck.
It was an enormous beast, a presence that could overturn most people's perception of deer. This creature stood two meters tall, with majestic and impressive antlers nearly as high as a building, strong enough to overturn a car.
"That gave me a scare," Ban Xia put down her bow, sat down to continue eating, while watching the horse deer, one after another, crossing the road.
It was a herd of horse deer, and Ban Xia estimated their number to be over twenty.
They easily crane their necks to reach the tender leaves on the trees, aside from giraffes and elephants, this thing is truly the tallest creature Ban Xia has ever seen.
Oh, right, there are giraffes in Nanjing.
About five or six have been observed, mainly active around the Zijin Mountain peninsula.
Nanjing originally didn't have giraffes. The teacher suspects that the giraffes currently living in Nanjing City are the descendants of individuals that escaped from a zoo years ago.
Due to climate change, those giraffes seem to be living quite comfortably.
Horse deer are more sensitive to the environment than humans; as long as they are leisurely foraging, Ban Xia isn't worried about predators nearby.
The buck noticed a strange creature across the road but didn't care; it turned its pitch-black eyes this way, then turned its head to look for food again.
Judging by its size, that thing was unlikely to pose a threat to its safety.
After finishing her dry food, the girl patted her bottom and stood up. She ignored the horse deer, and the horse deer ignored her. Ban Xia got on her bicycle and continued towards Xuanwu Bay.
The rickety frame of the mountain bike creaked and groaned. Ban Xia rode carelessly in the middle of the road, arms spread wide, speeding like the wind.
Xuanwu Bay is Ban Xia's largest source of food.
The teacher once said that if you only see the dangerous side of nature, then you're certain to not survive in this world; don't forget that humans are also children of nature. Since ancient times, humans have relied on the gifts of the natural world to survive—it is full of dangers, but at the same time, it provides you with endless resources.
Nature does not favor anyone.
Every time she goes to Xuanwu Bay, Ban Xia always returns with a full haul, the fish almost overflowing.
To get from the main road to the seaside, you have to pass through a city wall—there are many city walls in Nanjing.
Once past the city wall, you reach the seaside. Looking out, the water sparkles and seems endless, with scattered high-rise buildings standing in the distance in the azure sea. They haven't been completely submerged; half-submerged, half-emerging, like concrete pillars growing out of the seabed.
The most prominent is the Zifeng Building; it hasn't collapsed, standing tall and straight far away in the sea, where you can only get to by boat.
If you stand at a high place, you can see through the clear sea water down to the seabed, where there's another world—that's the other half of Nanjing City.
The rising seawater has flooded the old pedestrian paths and flower beds, turning them into tidal flats where Ban Xia can catch crabs and sandworms.
The waves come in with a roar, frothing white, and Ban Xia quickly takes off her shoes to carry in her hand, hopping and skipping onto the wet sand.
"Wow—so comfortable—!"
The girl shouted in the salty sea breeze.
She's decided, no matter where the person she contacted last night is, she has to get him to move here, to Unit 2, Building 11, Zhongqin Garden, Meihua Villa. Where else in the world is better suited for living than Ban Xia's little nest? With mountains, water, and fishing by the sea! It's truly a geomantic treasure!
She has to get him to move here, no matter how many people, they can all come!
(Author's ramblings: I'd like to recommend a book "The Sword at Eight O Five".
You can't just be coddled, you also have to coddle in return.
P.S.: Big Eyes and I are old acquaintances, his poison doesn't kill his own kind, so everyone rest assured.)