TDRA Chapter 30

Gu Ning stood in the space, her entire body frozen in place, and her eyes which seldom rippled with emotions were filled with disbelief and shock.

A sea of magnificent green was right in front of her! In theory, a large expanse of water should be called a lake, but the body of water in front of Gu Ning’s eyes was boundless. While she was standing on this side, she couldn’t see the end of the green water. This was a sea, a green sea.

As if because of her arrival, the green ocean raged and created waves that made a roaring sound as if it were laughing.

In the distance, there was a large area of lush forest. Further down were mountains, overlapping verdant hills, the highest of which plunged into the clouds and were hidden from view. Moreover, from the clouds, there was a waterfall rushing straight down, it almost looked like the Milky Way falling from the sky, and even from such a great distance, Gu Ning could still hear the faint sound from the waterfall.

Beneath her feet was the soil, the soft green grass, and she stood at the edge of the green sea, where the breeze, lifted by the waves were greeting her with an incomparably fresh and pleasant scent.

This was probably the most beautiful sight Gu Ning had ever seen, but she didn’t have time to appreciate it at all, she only felt a coldness burrowing into herself from the ground beneath her feet and then rising all the way up into the top of her head.

If that space was gone, how would she ever get back to the real world?

She felt chills all over her body.

The location that would have been reached through that door suddenly went from all that white space to this unknown place.

The sea, the mountains in the distance, and the clouds floating overhead were all unusual and looked fantastical. She couldn’t possibly have been transported to another world by that door, could she?!

Gu Ning pursed her lips tightly, forced herself to calm down, and pulled away from that deep sense of fear emerging from her heart.

She began to analyse her current situation. If she had come through that door, then this place too would surely have that door in it. A black door, conspicuous enough for Gu Ning to begin and search for it.  After searching for a whole hour or so, Gu Ning couldn’t find the black door.

Gu Ning’s hands and feet were cold, and she even wanted to cry.

Her lips were tightly pursed, and the look on her face, despite her best efforts to remain calm, still revealed her anxiety…… Suddenly, a thought popped up in her mind.

If she was in another world now, then maybe with just a thought, she could return to that dimension?

Gu Ning took a deep breath, then slowly closed her eyes as the sight of that space and that black door appeared in her mind, then she opened her eyes and froze.

A door was now standing on the place that was vacant a moment ago.

Yet this door was not the black door.

Rather, it was a door with lush green colour.

That familiar Tai Chi compass was still embedded on it, the golden pointer still resting in the middle like in the beginning.

Gu Ning stared at the door, which seemed to have changed its colour, in awe and uncertainty, a little unsure if this door was the one she had passed through earlier. And if it’s not, what kind of world would be behind this door?

Regardless of what, it’s important to check first ……

“Gulp——“ Gu Ning swallowed hard as she reached out her hand, flicked the golden pointer to the side, and then pressed her hand on the door handle.

A golden light flashed past.

Gu Ning slowly opened her eyes and glanced at the familiar surroundings, her tense nerves relaxed all at once, then her whole body went limp on the bed and she exhaled a heavy breath.

However, at the same time, she appeared in the other world, the golden pointer in that space spun around once and then stopped at the same position Gu Ning had toggled as if it had never moved.

Gu Ning patted her chest while her heart was pounding violently and glanced at the wall clock, it was already past eight in the evening. She gently gripped the bedroom door handle and when she twisted it, the anti-locking clasp popped out at once. When she heard that sound, Gu Ning was relieved, this proved that neither Father Gu nor Mother Gu had noticed her disappearance or went into her room.

She opened the door and strolled out.

That sound also startled Mother Gu who was watching TV.

“Where’s dad?” Gu Ning asked, at this time of the day, Father Gu should be stationed in front of the TV, watching the news broadcast without fail.

“Your dad called to cancel his leave from school. He’s going back to school tomorrow. He’s in his study room preparing for the classes tomorrow.” Mother Gu said and got up, headed to the kitchen, and brought out all the food that had been warmed up. “You were so focused on your revision that even I called you once and you didn’t reply.” Mother Gu continued.

Gu Ning was secretly glad that Mother Gu had only called her once and then gave up.

After that, she was so engrossed with the thoughts about the changes in that space that she muddled through the whole meal.

After finishing her meal, she went back to her bedroom and locked the door behind her.

Gu Ning was a little nervous, and after taking in a deep breath, her mind thought about the space and she returned to it.

However, the place she arrived at was still the same as before, with the sea and the mountains, she didn’t manage to return to the space consisting of only white walls.

Gu Ning already had a vague idea in her mind at this point that the changes in the space might be related to the green bead which made her faint after swallowing it.

Moreover, she simply couldn’t decide whether the changes were good or bad so she just simply ignored it, just like she had done with the previous event where sudden changes happened in her own body.

Shifting the golden pointer to the other side, Gu Ning opened the door. The air carried the unique stench of decay only found in a post-apocalyptic world, and Gu Ning finally put her mind at ease as she looked at the dark grove she was in.

Just as she was about to walk out, there was a sudden sound of rustling on the other side, and faint sounds of talking, followed by two light footsteps threading through the grass heading in her direction.

The darkness in the woods did not hinder Gu Ning’s vision, so she could see a ragged fourteen or fifteen-year-old boy pulling a little girl around seven or eight years old towards this direction. The boy was walking while hiding the biscuits in his shirt which looked like he had just dug out of the soil. It was obvious that he didn’t see the other person standing here but the little girl saw Gu Ning and the smile on her face froze for a moment.

Gu Ning felt that the little girl saw her, and not just the vague sense of knowing that someone was there, but clearly saw her with those eyes.

The little girl’s footsteps halted and her big, keen eyes looked at her warily as she pulled back the unaware teenager and whispered: “*GeGe, there’s someone.”

(T/N: GeGe means elder brother.)

When the teenager heard the voice, he froze for just a moment, and in the next second, drew the small knife pinned to his waist while pulling the little girl behind him, vigilantly aiming the knife at the blurred figure of Gu Ning in the dark.

Even Gu Ning couldn’t help but marvel at the teenager’s display of reflexes at this moment.

The silent confrontation between the two sides ended when Gu Ning turned away.

The teenager wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and asked: “Is he gone?”

The little girl looked at Gu Ning’s back as she walked out of the grove and replied softly: “She’s gone.”

The teenager heartily touched the small bag of biscuits he had hidden in his inner pocket before saying: “Let’s get going too.”

The little girl took the hand offered by the teenager with no problem even in the darkness and replied: “Mmm.”

It was just after five o’clock, and the sun had sunk completely into the west, the moon was already hanging quietly on the sky, giving off a hazy glow.

Two thin figures, one tall and one short strolled in the darkness.

The world reflected in the little girl’s dark eyes was the same as in the daytime.

If you looked closely enough, on the outer rim of her obsidian black eyes, an extremely inconspicuous ring of white which was more transparent and brighter than the white of her eyes could be seen.

When everyone noticed that Gu Ning went to the toilet for over an hour, they got anxious and went outside to look for her a few times.

Gu Ning could only explain that she had met an acquaintance.

Both Father Gu and Mother Gu woke up, although they were both physically injured, the family was finally reunited and they all felt great relief within their hearts.

At the same time, Gu Ning solemnly thanked Li HongJuan.

“Don’t thank me either.” Li HongJuan, in turn, was a little embarrassed and said: “I’m not afraid of anything in my life, but I’m most afraid of owing someone a favour. You’ve saved my life not only once or twice, and if it wasn’t for you I would have died more than three months ago, so a day of being alive is a day earned.”

Li HongJuan’s face was in stark contrast to the faces of the “elders” on the bus who usually greeted her with a smile. Before the apocalypse started, she had subconsciously never liked Li HongJuan, but much to her surprise after the apocalypse, among those she had saved, only Li HongJuan, who had always been disliked by everyone, had a pure basic sense of gratitude.

After distributing food to everyone, Zhang Yang was quite surprised to also receive two pieces of bread, and he didn’t dare to finish all of it, he meticulously tore only half of the bread, and the remaining piece and a half were prudently tucked back into his pocket. Then he chewed on the half piece of bread and asked: “Gu Ning, where did you get all these supplies? We’ve gone through almost all of the supermarkets around here, and the supplies are getting harder and harder to find these days so where did you manage to find so many of them? And those medicines, our search, and rescue teams have been having a hard time finding them these past few days.”

He casually asked but everyone in the dormitory was also looking curiously at Gu Ning now.

Gu Ning got startled abruptly, she had not been aware of this problem. Due to the greed for convenience, she thought that it would be just fine to take out the supplies from her backpack. But she hadn’t thought about the severe scarcity of the supplies. After all, a supermarket with a small zombie population would have long been looted by hungry people.

She swallowed her saliva for a moment, before replying, acting as if it was just a trivial matter: “I got lucky and found a grocery shop along with a private clinic. Probably due to its remote location, there were some things left behind.”

This was a reasonable argument. So the crowd only lamented about Gu Ning’s luck and didn’t think anything more of it.

Jia DaoZhang suddenly spoke which immediately shifted the subject: “Gu Ning, have you noticed that the sun is setting earlier and earlier nowadays? It’s also unheard of for the moon to come out at just over five o’clock in this time of the year.”

The crowd nodded repeatedly, indicating that they all had the same concern.

“It would be fine if it remained just like that, but at this pace, I’m afraid that……” Jia DaoZhang said with a slight pause, sweeping a glance at the people in the dormitory before continuing in a deep voice: “There will come a day when the sun will set and never rise again……”

At these words, the whole dormitory fell into complete silence. A feeling of indescribable fear rose in everyone’s heart.

Is the sun never rising again?

The whole world falling in total darkness?

That’s probably the worst disaster even if it got compared to the zombie outbreak.

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(T/N: Thank you for reading.)

(Editor: De Vile)