Zhao Linong closed her eyes, her brows furrowing as she thought. She instinctively turned her face to avoid the light, but it still touched her neck, making it feel slightly warm.
This isn’t a dormitory lamp; it’s like sleeping next to a heat lamp.
As soon as this thought crossed her mind, Zhao Linong opened her eyes, looked toward the light source, and was stunned: there was no lamp.
Sunlight streamed through a large rectangular window, so bright that it was almost impossible to open her eyes. She wasn’t in bed or the lab, but sitting by the window on a train.
Zhao Linong raised her hand to shield her face, squinting as she looked out the window. In the distance, endless hills stretched out under the sun, covered in dense forests so dark green they appeared black. But as she looked closer, the scene abruptly changed, as if something was blocking it. The yellow-black soil was bare, devoid of plants, not even a single weed. It was empty and strange.
Even on asphalt roads, weeds manage to grow through tiny cracks. But here, there was an indescribable feeling of unease.
The last remnants of confusion in Zhao Linong’s mind faded with the bright light. She slowly lowered her hand and glanced around.
The entire carriage was quiet, with only a few whispers. In the aisle beside her sat two women and a man, all young, thin, and silent, with pale complexions and stiff postures, as if ready to flee at any moment. Her neighbor, a young man, seemed more relaxed, leaning back in his seat with his long legs casually stretched out.
Perhaps Zhao Linong’s scrutiny was too obvious; the boy sitting next to her turned his head, met her gaze, and smiled. “You finally woke up. I thought you were going to sleep till we reach the base.”
His facial features were ordinary, but his phoenix eyes gave him a clever and cunning look.1
Those eyes seemed familiar, Zhao Linong thought, but she couldn’t place them.
“Classmate?” Zhao Linong’s voice was hoarse, as if she hadn’t spoken in a long time. She cleared her throat. “You are…?”
Zhao Linong had been precocious, and her parents had high hopes for her. They always told her she needed to leave the fields and not spend her life like them.
She did it, skipping grades and getting into a top university at the age of 14. It was no exaggeration to call her a genius. But for some reason, the two top universities in her province each had only one available spot.
In the end, Zhao Linong received an admission letter but was transferred to study agronomy.
Everyone thought she should go; even her parents tried to persuade her.
Zhao Linong believed she could change her major in college, so she agreed. However, she didn’t expect to end up studying for seven years, from undergrad to graduate school. She was about to be pushed by her supervisor to pursue a doctorate in agronomy and spend the rest of her life farming.
Her parents had farmed their entire lives to send her to college, and she ended up learning farming. People in the village mocked her parents.
Zhao Linong’s dream was to be a white-collar worker in the city, sitting in an office! Or to study something else and serve the country, but not to be a farmer.
She planned it all out. She was still young, and with her abilities, she could start over.
But just before graduation, her experimental field was suddenly destroyed, and her thesis data vanished. She had to delay her graduation and continue farming.
Last night, Zhao Linong stood in front of the experimental field, now ravaged by dogs, and drank to drown her sorrows. Anger boiled up inside her, and she pointed at the sky, cursing a few times before losing control and collapsing.
In this situation, waking up in the dormitory or hospital would have made sense. She couldn’t understand why she was on a high-speed train.
“He Yuesheng.” The boy next to her extended his left hand with a smile. “What’s your name?”
“…Zhao Linong.” She shook his hand and then withdrew, still feeling something was off.
She wasn’t sure if it was the eerie silence in the carriage or the strange scenery outside.
Zhao Linong glanced at her left hand and noticed a silver ring on her wrist. The ring had a thin square body with a silver disc inside, the size of a five-cent coin, slightly wider than the band.
The boy beside her, He Yuesheng, had the same ring, as did the three people in the aisle.
Zhao Linong instinctively reached into her pocket for her phone, intending to contact her tutor or classmates, but found nothing. Instead, her eyes caught an advertisement on the back of the front seat, and she suddenly paused.
The ad was printed in black on a white background: “Central Base Seeds, mutation rate as low as 13%, available through agricultural students. Website:”
When choosing seeds, one must consider germination rate, disease resistance, and drought tolerance. She had never seen a brand advertise its mutation rate.
Zhao Linong stared at the black words in the advertisement for a long time. Something clicked in her mind, and she let out a short laugh. Then she leaned forward, covered her face with her hands, and rubbed it hard.
No wonder the boy’s eyes seemed familiar. Her mentor had similar almond-shaped eyes, though they had drooped with age.
The strange scenery outside the window, the boy’s vaguely familiar eyes, and the illogical seed advertisement—everything made sense if this was all a dream.
Maybe it was the stress, combined with her delayed graduation, that caused her to dream like this, Zhao Linong thought.
This was the first time she had such a clear and vivid dream, but unfortunately, even her dreams were filled with agricultural themes.
Zhao Linong put down her hands, closed her eyes again, leaned back, and waited to wake up.
He Yuesheng, who had just started talking to her, watched her and thought, “She’s a little too calm.”
Ten minutes passed, and Zhao Linong didn’t wake up from the dream. Instead, the train suddenly braked, causing her to lurch forward, almost hitting the seat in front of her. She quickly caught herself.
At that moment, everyone in the carriage stood up, most squeezing into the aisle. Their faces were pale, and the braver ones cautiously looked out the window.
It was then that Zhao Linong realized that, in her dream, the carriage was full of young people in their twenties.
“What’s happening?”
“Maybe there’s something wrong with the train.”
“Did a mutant plant appear?”
“Don’t talk nonsense! This is the base post road; that can’t happen.”
As the train stalled longer, arguments broke out among the passengers. Zhao Linong leaned back in her seat, staring at the luggage rack above, thinking this dream was incredibly realistic—something she’d have to tell her roommate about when she woke up.
Just as panic spread among the passengers, a shrill alarm sounded inside the train. A red light flashed ominously, cutting off any last hope. Everyone fell silent.
[Emergency notice: There is danger ahead.]. Evacuate and find shelter!
An electronic female voice echoed through the train, repeating rapidly and making everyone fearful.
Zhao Linong was puzzled. She thought the passengers were acting strange. They had been arguing, but the moment the alarm sounded, they fell silent, as if they understood what was happening and had resigned themselves to it.
The direction of this dream was odd.
She didn’t know why she was dreaming this, but the passengers’ expressions reminded her of the helplessness she had felt over the past seven years.
This must be a projection of her resignation in reality!
While she daydreamed, the passengers quickly exited the train, moving as if they’d practiced it countless times.
“Aren’t you leaving?” He Yuesheng stood up and noticed Zhao Linong wasn’t moving, so he asked.
Zhao Linong looked up at him, her nerves on edge. She asked slowly, “Where are we going?” She hadn’t figured out what was happening.
He Yuesheng pointed to the broadcast at one end of the carriage. “To find shelter. If you don’t get off the train,
Before he could finish, the carriage in front of them started shaking violently. The passengers who hadn’t yet exited screamed and pushed their way out.
Seeing that Zhao Linong hadn’t reacted, He Yuesheng grabbed her arm. “Let’s go!”
With his help, Zhao Linong stood up. She took one step but nearly collapsed, her knees giving out. He Yuesheng pulled her up forcefully.
“Are you so scared your legs gave out?” He Yuesheng held most of her weight. “I thought you were calm before.”
Zhao Linong: “…”
Her legs felt weak, as if she hadn’t walked in a long time. But it was just a dream, so she didn’t worry about it. She let herself be half-dragged out of the train by He Yuesheng, still in a daze.
Because of the delay, the two fell behind, and everyone who had gotten off the train was now running desperately in the opposite direction.
Zhao Linong turned to look back at the train and saw the carriage ahead slowly being lifted as if something beneath it was pushing it up. No wonder their carriage had been shaking.
A train carriage isn’t huge, but when it’s lifted like this, it looks like a scene from a sci-fi movie—enough to make anyone gasp.
Zhao Linong thought this dream was getting more and more bizarre. If it was a dream, why couldn’t she wake up?
“Classmate, move!” He Yuesheng panted as he continued to drag Zhao Linong along, sweat dripping from his forehead. When he glanced back and saw her dazed expression, his face fell.
“Can you please move your legs a little?”
Zhao Linong, who had unconsciously leaned her full weight on him, blinked. “…Oh.” She shifted her legs and found she could barely manage to walk on her own.
But they hadn’t gone far when a sudden, blood-curdling scream pierced the barren landscape ahead. This scream was different from the fearful cries on the train; it was the desperate, final roar of someone in their last moments.
Zhao Linong instinctively looked up, and her expression changed in an instant.
Ahead, amid the fleeing crowd, a “plant” had erupted from the ground. It stood about three meters tall, with a straight stem and five enormous obovate leaves at the top, each leaf impaling a living person through the chest. The plant’s branches, stained with blood, seemed to mature at an unnatural speed, splitting into broad, three-sided capsules.
Blood from the impaled bodies dripped down from the towering plant like gruesome rain. Those below screamed in horror, turning and fleeing in the opposite direction.
As the plant continued to grow, the five people skewered on its leaves slowly succumbed, their bodies going limp as life left them.
Zhao Linong stared in horror at the gruesome scene, thinking that this had to be the most terrifying nightmare she had ever experienced.
