The town was not as far from Qiayang City as Wei Tianyang had imagined. After driving along the road for about two hours, he entered the urban area. However, the destruction that the civil war had wrought upon the city was beyond his expectations.
The city's exit highway was jammed with cars and vans full of refugees. Many people stood in front of their cars—some staring at their phones, others conversing, while some mothers held their toddlers as they peed by the roadside—giving the scene the appearance of a somber yet typical holiday traffic jam.
Wei Tianyang couldn't drive through; he had to abandon his car and proceed on foot, earning envious looks from some.
He had grown accustomed to such sights and casually approached a couple whose clothes were riddled with bullet holes; the woman's top was disheveled, revealing a portion of her chest.
Wei Tianyang asked, "How far is it to the city center from here?"
"Very far, it's a half-hour drive, but if you're walking, it'll take half a day," the husband replied.
"Don't go into the city, they've invaded," the wife advised.
"I have to go in," he shook his head.
The wife's eyes conveyed deep sorrow as she turned away from Wei Tianyang. The husband, with an awkward smile, said, "You've narrowly escaped death, why insist on finding it?"
"My mother is in the city," Wei Tianyang replied.
"She wouldn't want you to come back, right?" the husband noted.
Wei Tianyang sighed heavily, nodded his thanks, and turned away from the couple.
He then saw two children, five or six years old, crying and clinging to their mother as their father squatted nearby, smoking silently as if he had seen through it all.
Noticing Wei Tianyang passing by, the father called out to him.
The father's hands were burned, his left hand missing all fingers, while the mother had a wound on her head and half of her face was charred black.
"Hey! Don't go into the city," the father said.
Wei Tianyang stopped and looked at the children, their faces marked with severe burns, whining to their mother, "Mommy, I'm hot! I'm hot!"
"We ran in the wrong direction. We should have gone to Kongse. The news said international humanitarian organizations' rescue teams arrived there, refugee camps were set up, and the government troops wouldn't dare to stir trouble there," the father said as he exhaled smoke and shook his head, his voice laced with profound regret.
"When did this happen?" Wei Tianyang asked.
"What?" the father was taken aback.
"When did this happen to you?" he asked again.
"About half a year ago," the father said with a bitter smile.
Wei Tianyang nodded, the severity of the situation exceeding his expectations.
He made his way through the dense throng of abandoned vehicles, or rather, the deserted fleet...
They were all dead, with bullet holes littering every car's windshield and sides, these civilians having faced a barrage of gunfire during their escape.
Some cars had exploded, reduced to charred metal frames. To prevent the spread of disease, the combatants had removed the bodies, yet all the wreckage remained.
Trapped here, they could never leave again.
Yet, to look on the bright side, they wouldn't have to worry about warfare anymore and could enjoy peace in their isolated corner.
Walking several kilometers along the road into the city, by the time he truly entered, it was afternoon. The sky had turned gray, the sun was nowhere to be seen, and a light drizzle began to fall, making the temperature drop further.
The surroundings began to feel familiar, but those once-familiar buildings had all suffered varying degrees of damage.
The building of Sushi Delivery Logistics Company had been shelled; the White House warehouse was missing a wall, and the open ground that once had tables for daily wage payout was now lined with sandbags.
Turning the corner, the pharmacy was reduced to a few columns, and the rice store had bullet holes all over its front door, with one wooden half fallen on the ground. Inside, darkness reigned, emanating a disgusting stench of decay.
There were large crowds on the streets, their movement resembling a procession or perhaps an aimless stroll, all wearing expressions grim as bitter gourds.
Not good...
Very not good...
Wei Tianyang quickened his pace and ran towards the slums. Some apartment buildings still had inhabitants who, upon hearing footsteps, would peer out of their windows onto the street.
He couldn't tell which were alive and which were dead. He only knew that the city was no longer inhabitable.
Fortunately, he didn't encounter any government forces and made it unscathed to the place where he had lived for fifteen years.
The familiar muddy path was still there, but in the distance, the apartment buildings that often blocked the sunlight were now bombed into fragments, and the slums had suffered the impact.
The low-lying area that was once covered with shanty houses now resembled a dump piled with black rubble.
Stepping off the muddy road, he slowly approached his former home—a small bungalow that was now just a blackened concrete husk.
He walked in shaking, the small dining table still in its place, a chair toppled to one side, and the inner room was so filled with debris it was impassable.
No bodies were found.
Hoping against hope, Wei Tianyang wanted to use the smell to search for his mother and little girl, but suddenly, he discovered something under the table.
It was the calendar his mother always kept close by...
He squatted down and picked up the calendar from beside the wall. It had miraculously survived, slightly dirty though it was.
Mother... where is she?
Thinking this, unexpected footsteps suddenly came from outside the door.
He turned around to see his mother smiling at him, leading a little girl and standing by the door.
Hot tears suddenly spilled over, and the calendar in his hand dropped to the floor.
His mother smiled gently, looking at him with a heartache, and said, "Mom knew you would definitely come back."
Wei Tianyang shook his head, his throat feeling as if it were clogged by something.
His mother walked into the room, came to his front, and gently stroked his back.
"After that day, Mom has been waiting here, no matter what others say, no matter what happens here... Mom just waits... waiting and waiting... Finally, she has waited for your return."
"Mom... why didn't you run away...?" Wei Tianyang choked up.
"If Mom had run away then, what would you do if you couldn't find Mom when you came back one day?" his mother said with a smile.
"...Who did this...?" Wei Tianyang clenched his fists and asked.
His mother shook her head and said, "Yang, don't seek revenge for Mom, go back to Yin Country."
She caressed Wei Tianyang's face gently with her hand.
"Mom always feels sorry for you... If you had been born into a normal family... you wouldn't have to endure all this..."
"To bring you into this world... Mom is very sorry..."
"But, Mom has always believed that you will be a successful person. Mom can see that you are different from Dad, different from everyone else..."
"Mom hasn't been able to help you with anything, has held you back, couldn't afford to send you to school, and you even had to work to support Mom... Mom is very sorry..."
"You've grown up, it's time for you to make your own decisions, Mom doesn't want to hold you back any longer, from now on, think more for yourself, take good care of yourself, and feel free to do what you want to do."
"Let the whole world know your name, become a man as warm as the sun, Mom believes you can do it."
His mother looked at Wei Tianyang tenderly as if she could never get enough of looking at him, yet she still sighed and slowly pulled away.
"Brother, thank you." The little girl by her side also spoke up.
"You are the best mother in the world." Wei Tianyang said with tears and a smile.
"Mom is going to leave now, leave this place, go back to Yin Country... to find your life." His mother smiled, took the little girl's hand, and turned to walk out of the room.
"Mom!!" Wei Tianyang ran after her, but his mother and the little girl had already disappeared without a trace.
The bitterness and sadness in his heart made him tremble uncontrollably, he gritted his teeth, his right hand clutching at the door frame, creating cracks in the cement wall.
The sky rumbled, two fighter jets flew from afar, skimmed over his head, and then disappeared into the gloomy skies.
He gasped for air, struggling to control himself not to cry out loud.
Wei Tianyang didn't have much, and now, he had nothing.
He became a rootless weed.
At that moment, the earth beneath his feet suddenly flew up, a powerful force sending him flying, he was airborne for 2 seconds before crashing heavily against the wall of Grandpa Liu's small flat house.
As if all the bones in his body had broken, he lay back on the ground, grimacing in pain, and blood started to flow from his ears.
A tank and two jeeps stopped on the muddy slope that led to the slums.
These men were not wearing military uniforms, but were dressed in more sophisticated grey low-visibility combat gear and bulletproof vests, the weapons in their hands were squad automatic weapons and grenade launchers.
The tank's gunner was a Caucasian officer, in his fifties with a scar by his mouth and hawk-like eyes looking down at the ruins of the slum below the slope.
"That woman said this is the place, sure enough, he'd come home after he escaped," the officer said.
After a pause, he looked toward the gate guards by the tank, and said, "The report says he is an unchecked inverse triangle, but I don't think so, the damage level at the 091 Cache Station can't be achieved by a half-finished product."
"The target we face, likely possesses the level of an inverted triangle, or even that of an upright triangle."
"But he moved against our brothers. Four men died at his hands."
"Go, don't take it lightly, I don't think that last shot took him out, go check it out and then bring back the body."
Having given his orders, the officer went back into the turret.
Eight light infantrymen went down the muddy slope and slowly advanced toward the ruins.
Wei Tianyang lay among the rubble, his blood-red eyes gazing at the sky, raindrops falling on his face, mingling with the tears.
But the moment the raindrops hit his pupils, they evaporated.
The heartbeat sounded like thunder, on his right arm wrapped in bandages, the dull patterns faintly glowed.
In Wei Tianyang's mind, it was as if thousands of voices were screaming.
"Kill them all! Kill them all!"