"She didn’t make it past the first forty-eight hours when the capital defense lines collapsed," Old Wang said, his rough voice dropping into a low, hollow register that barely carried over the steady, distant thrum of the compound’s diesel generator.
He didn’t look up from the glossed paper. "We were on the way out on that high-priority mobilization mission with Commander Han when the outbreak hit. We were all away from ho when the grid went black. I couldn’t get back to her. By the ti the secondary units tried to stabilize her sector, it was completely overridden by a mutated horde."
Lin Qing remained completely silent, her dark eyes scanning the empty, frosted highway stretching out into the plains.
For a long, heavy mont, an unfamiliar wave of uncertainty washed over her. In her previous life as a soldier, she had operated entirely on clinical efficiency, treating emotional displays as standard operational liabilities. Confronted with the raw, quiet grief of a seasoned veteran who had survived the end of the world, she found herself completely unsure of what words to offer.
To break the suffocating silence, she shifted her stance slightly, her boots crunching softly against the frozen dirt. "What about the others? Your remaining family... or the families of the rest of the unit?"
Old Wang let out a faint, dry chuckle, a small puff of white condensation escaping his chapped lips into the freezing morning air. "Most of the guys in the Vanguard elite squads were pulled directly from specialized state programs or advanced tactical academies years ago. Orphans, mostly. I didn’t have anyone else in my corner but her. And now, she’s gone too."
He paused, his thumb gently smoothing over the frayed edge of the photograph before he began to list the silent, heavy losses of the team they traveled with.
"Lieutenant Chen had a family—elderly parents living back in the eastern residential district. They both perished during the initial containnt failure at the central hub. Ah Hua... his family’s status is completely unknown. We managed to clear a path to his old apartnt block on the way but the entire structure was completely hollowed out. No signs of a struggle, but no signs of life either. Xiao Li was married, but his wife died during the first breach at the local regional base before he even awakened his stone armor."
Old Wang lowered his gaze back to the frost-bitten gravel beneath his boots, his posture heavy with the collective mory of a shattered army. "The rest of the guys—Zhou Ming, Sun Hao, Da Yong—all orphans. Cut from the exact sa cloth by the state. Even Commander Han Zheng’s parents passed away from illness years before the apocalypse ever touched the soil. In a way, this unit beca the only real family any of us had left to protect."
Lin Qing listened intently, her internal walls shifting slightly with every na he uttered. She had read about these specific n in a narrative format, viewing their backstories as re ink on a digital page. Hearing it spoken aloud in the freezing dawn by a living, breathing warrior made the reality of this world feel entirely different. They weren’t tropes; they were survivors carrying a mountain of silent grief.
"She was actually pregnant," Old Wang murmured suddenly, his rough voice fracturing completely as the words caught in his throat. He stared fixedly at the smiling, dark-haired woman in the photograph.
"We tried for seven years. Countless dical procedures, endless hospital visits, countless disappointnts. She wanted a child more than anything else in this world. We finally succeeded... she was exactly three months along when the sky fell apart. And now, there’s absolutely nothing left of them."
A single, heavy tear escaped the veteran sniper’s eye, cutting a clean, dark path through the grease and road dirt etched deep into his weathered skin. His shoulders trembled slightly under his winter jacket as he stared at the ghost of the future he had lost.
Lin Qing’s posture went rigid. Panic, cold and unfamiliar, flared in her chest. She had faced terrifying zombie mutations without bating an eye, but a crying veteran soilder left her completely out of her depth.
Standing awkwardly in the crisp air, she hesitated for several seconds, her hands twitching slightly against her weapon fra. Finally, stepping a fraction closer, she extended a stiff, chanical arm and began to awkwardly pat Old Wang’s back in a rhythmic, unpracticed motion, her face remaining completely deadpan despite her profound internal awkwardness.
After a few long monts, Old Wang drew in a sharp, stabilizing breath, wiping the moisture from his face with the rough back of his tactical glove. He managed a faint, apologetic smile, clearing his throat thoroughly as he carefully slipped the precious photograph back into the secure, waterproof inner pocket of his body armor.
"Sorry about that," he said, his voice quickly regaining its steady, professional tone. He looked up at her, his eyes clear and respectful. "What about you? What about your family?"
Lin Qing’s hand dropped back to her side, her expression imdiately returning to its usual flat, unbothered mask. "I don’t know," she replied honestly.
The statent was true on multiple levels. The parents of the forr Lin Qing—the original character whose body she now inhabited—were wretched, self-serving people. Her stepfather had been an opportunistic, lecherous man who looked at his stepdaughter with repulsive intentions, while her biological mother had been a cold, unfeeling woman who looked the other way to preserve her own fragile security. The original Lin Qing had severed all ties with them long before the apocalypse.
As for herself... in her actual past life before entering this world, she had also been an orphan. She had grown up in a harsh, unforgiving institutional system where she was constantly bullied, mocked, and looked down upon by everyone around her.
Desperate to escape the abuse and find a place where she couldn’t be touched, she had joined the military as a combat dic, believing the strict structure would protect her. But even within the ranks, her superiors and fellow soldiers had continued the cycle, treating her like an expendable tool because she lacked connections.
She hadn’t broken under the pressure. Instead, she had climbed the military ranks through sheer, terrifying physical strength and unyielding, calculating ruthlessness alone, eventually forging herself into an elite soldier so lethal that the very people who used to bully her were suddenly too terrified to even look her in the eye.
But that intense survival chanism had hardened her into a cold, entirely unfeeling machine. She had lived solely for the execution of her missions. She was ruthless, untouched, and utterly alone—she had never possessed a single person she could genuinely call a friend.
Books had been her only silent escape from the bleak, violent reality of her existence. And now, ironically, she was trapped inside one.
’No...’ Lin Qing thought, her eyes tracking the movent of Xiao Li as he stood guard on the northern wall, his stone armor power resting dormant beneath his uniform. ’It isn’t a book anymore. This is my world. This is my reality.’
She realized she had spent every single mont since her awakening trying to keep everyone at a distance. In her mind, she had safely labeled Han Zheng, Han Ye, Gu An, and the soldiers as re "characters", an artificial boundary to protect herself from ever getting emotionally invested.
But they weren’t ink on paper. They were very real people who carried profound tragedies, who bled real blood, and who had protected her and accepted her presence without asking a single question—even though it was entirely obvious to a seasoned commander like Han Zheng that her sudden shift in personality and combat capability was strange.
’Maybe,’ she mused silently, her fingers relaxing their iron grip against the cold steel of her rifle, ’I shouldn’t keep my walls built quite so high.’
"Old Wang."
The deep, resonant baritone of Han Zheng cut through the quiet courtyard as he approached from the administrative block, his heavy boots crunching firmly on the frosted gravel. His large, imposing fra cast a long, protective shadow over the area.
He looked at the veteran sniper, his sharp eyes missing nothing of the lingering emotion in the air, but his tone remained entirely professional and calm. "Go inside. Get so hot food and rest before your driving shift begins. I’ll take over the periter watch."
"Copy that, Commander," Old Wang replied instantly, standing up from the crate and offering a brief, respectful nod to both of them before heading toward the safety of the concrete building.
Han Zheng turned his dark, intense gaze toward Lin Qing, his eyes searching her face for a fraction of a second as the wind rustled the high collar of his jacket. "I’ll join you on the periter walk."
"Alright," Lin Qing agreed simply, falling into step beside him.
They turned in perfect lockstep, beginning their slow, thodical patrol along the interior periter of the concrete blast walls. As they walked side by side into the pale morning light, Han Zheng silently observed the woman beside him. Sohow, he could sense that sothing about her had fundantally altered in the minutes he had been gone.
Her usually rigid, hyper-vigilant posture was a fraction more relaxed against the cold. Her combat boots hit the gravel with steps that felt noticeably lighter, stripped of the heavy, defensive caution she usually carried around her like a suit of armor.
She was still the exceptionally capable, lethal partner who had secured his flank, but the invisible, icy wall she kept between herself and the rest of the world seed to have sustained a fracture.
A quiet, subtle warmth blood in Han Zheng’s chest at the revelation, a faint trace of a genuine smile softening his sharp features as they moved together through the dawn.
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