Experiencing What She Experienced
The ringing in his ears and the headache had only just faded, and everything around him felt unfamiliar.
Gu Cheng lowered his head and looked at his wrist.
The wrist bone was thin and fragile, pale and weak, with faint blue veins clearly visible beneath the skin. He recognised it at once. This was Ning Yi’s hand.
…So.
Gu Cheng lowered his eyes and slowly stood up. In an instant, he had understood everything.
Now, he had switched into Ning Yi’s body—
Into Ning Yi’s body in the apocalypse.
Gu Cheng raised his eyes and looked around.
The apocalypse world he had only glimpsed in fragmented dreams finally appeared clearly before him—
Desolation everywhere.
The roadside was covered in ruined weeds.
Thick smoke burned in the distance.
Strange roars came from all directions.
This was the world Ning Yi came from. The place where she had grown. The place where she had struggled.
And it felt as though weeds had grown in Gu Cheng’s heart too.
He stood there, took a deep breath, and tried speaking in his mind:
“…A Yi.”
No answer.
The mental communication they had always had ever since he woke up had been cut off.
Gu Cheng closed his eyes. His mind forced itself to calm down and operate clearly—since the swapping mechanism had sent him here, then Ning Yi should currently be in his body.
And if they had swapped into each other’s painful periods, then… he was standing in the apocalypse where Ning Yi had struggled, while Ning Yi should be trapped in the darkness of his three years.
Three years corresponding to three years.
So… they had exchanged bodies, felt each other’s emotions, seen each other’s memories, and finally, suffered each other’s pain.
It was like an arrangement laid out from beginning to end.
Gu Cheng slowly tightened his grip around the bottle in his hand.
Think of a way.
Think of a way.
…There would be a way.
This was Ning Yi’s body, and she was already so, so thin.
Ning Yi had protected her bright heart. Gu Cheng had to at least protect her body.
But although the liquid tasted of grape when it entered his mouth, it was painfully bitter to him.
Gu Cheng threw away the bottle and looked up at Wander, finally speaking.
“What year… of the apocalypse is this?”
“The second year,” Wander looked at her. “Are you stupid?”
Gu Cheng frowned. So they had not been sent to the beginning of each other’s three years. The timeline was random.
He observed Wander. At this moment, Wander looked slightly different from the Wander Gu Cheng knew. His muscles were powerful, but he had clearly been living on unstable meals too. His eyes held the wolfishness and bloodiness forced out by survival, alert to any change.
Perhaps when Wander had been pulled back to the apocalypse world, his timeline had also been adjusted. But even if he did not currently have the memories of the later years, there should only be one Wander in the same world—just like there was only one Ning Yi now.
Wander waved his hand in front of his eyes. “Really stupid?”
When he looked at “Ning Yi,” there was still some humanity in his eyes. He patted Gu Cheng’s shoulder with a hand covered in dust and a little blood. “Don’t be stupid, or Fourth and the others will start running their mouths again. Luckily, you fixed all the communication equipment this time, so at least the team won’t say anything for now.”
Gu Cheng didn’t know the whole context, but from just half of those words, he could roughly understand Ning Yi’s current situation.
In the apocalypse, everyone survived in groups, with small teams as the basic unit.
Ning Yi was the only woman in the team led by Wander. Her strong communications skills were useful, but this was the apocalypse—technology couldn’t fill people’s stomachs. Even though Ning Yi had the strength to snap zombie heads and didn’t need protection, she wasn’t considered part of the team’s combat reserves.
And when it came to the most important things in the apocalypse—fighting for supplies and repelling zombies—the men in the team clearly had more combat advantage. Even though Ning Yi kept improving her technical skills to increase her survival value, she was still someone who could be abandoned at any time.
Gu Cheng’s dark eyes turned icy.
He was not Ning Yi. He did not have her powerful communications ability.
Once they discovered that “Ning Yi” was useless, there was no need to think too hard about what these people would do.
Gu Cheng remained calm.
The powerful inner core he had built over many years supported him as he analysed every aspect of the current situation.
Only, truly feeling every hardship Ning Yi had once experienced—every step—almost made him clench his fists.
He needed to use all his strength to suppress the heartache and longing, and think calmly.
Seeing him silent, Wander kicked the box at his feet and said, “01, pick a weapon you can use.”
At the moment, their team was in a school. A zombie tide had just ended here, and three small teams had died. Wander had directly led his team to lie in ambush for a long time. With enough fighting strength and stamina, they swept in afterward to loot everything they could. Apart from food and water, there was also a box of weapons—
Wander knew 01 had never received professional training. She had survived the apocalypse thanks mostly to her brain and agility, but she wasn’t a power type in the end. Among these weapons were knives and clubs, as well as a few broken guns.
Gu Cheng lowered his eyes and looked.
Gu Cheng had systematically practised shooting, including slow fire and rapid fire. He was also accurate with long-range firearms—but there was another skill he was even more precise in.
His gaze swept over the weapons one by one. Just as he was about to reach out, a sharp, mocking voice sounded.
“Captain Wan, taking care of the little girl again?”
It was a narrow-faced, monkey-like man carrying a gun. He walked over and whistled. “Our little 01 is so good at coding. Does she know how to touch a real gun?”
Contempt and lecherous scrutiny rushed toward him.
Gu Cheng’s lips tightened, his eyes turning icy. Ning Yi’s harsh living environment wasn’t only because of the apocalypse—it was also because of people.
The cold, gloomy aura of the strongest emperor from another world spread outward. The way he looked at that man was as if he were looking at a dead person.
The other man clearly sensed the strange danger too and even instinctively started to raise his gun.
Strange. Why did 01 suddenly seem like a completely different person?!
Wander cursed, “Fourth, how many heads did you take?”
Fourth: “Don’t mention it. Three rushed out from the women’s toilet just now. Damn, lucky my hands were fast.”
As soon as he finished speaking, the strange hissing, rasping sounds seemed to draw closer.
Wander’s expression sharpened.
Although the zombie tide had already passed, there was no absolute safety in the apocalypse. Zombies could appear at any time.
After listening to reports from each channel on the communication equipment, Wander prepared to evacuate at any moment.
Fourth, annoyed after being intimidated by 01 earlier, walked toward “Ning Yi.” “You’re really getting cocky, aren’t you—”
But at some point, Gu Cheng had taken out a bow from the weapon box and was already nocking an arrow.
“Pfft—hahahaha! Our genius little sister wants to use a cold weapon, hahahaha.” Fourth burst into laughter and said lewdly, “She’s going to draw the bow. Shoot me, come on, shoot me—”
“Zing!—”
Gu Cheng opened his shoulders and drew fully. The old curved bow was pulled into the shape of a moon, and the arrow shot through the air.
Straight toward him!
The speed of the arrow exceeded everyone’s expectations.
Wander suddenly shouted, “01!”
But the battered arrow feather precisely brushed past Fourth’s cheek, leaving a line of blood.
Then, at an extremely fast speed, it flew into the distance—directly hitting a low-flying bird and pinning it to a tree!
Fourth had almost been shot through the head and stood frozen on the spot.
But after the bird was pinned to the tree, it did not die. Instead, it chirped and struggled under the arrowhead. Clearly, this was no longer a normal bird!
Gu Cheng calmly lowered the bow. After proving 01’s strength, he openly chose two guns.
Wander was also quite shocked, but he immediately realised danger was approaching and had no time to marvel at his archery.
“Damn it, even the birds have mutated!”
“Everyone, take the supplies. We’re leaving!”
Wander’s team returned to camp.
Gu Cheng followed silently the whole way.
Because of that arrow earlier and the two guns on his body, Fourth couldn’t figure out his current combat ability and could only walk aside resentfully.
Their camp was a secretly concealed basement. The entrance was overgrown with climbing vines, with one layer of iron mesh and one hidden door. Inside the basement, there was also a safe escape passage.
The basement had been crudely divided into several small compartments. Taller people even had to lower their heads slightly inside. Because the air didn’t circulate and there were many people, the whole camp was filled with a dull, stuffy smell.
Gu Cheng found Ning Yi’s compartment.
There was only a hard plank bed, an old computer nearly ready for scrap, and a dusty keyboard.
Under the bed was also a pile of books: ‘Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs’, ‘The C Programming Language’, ‘Effective C++’, ‘More Effective C++’… and ‘Digital Holography and Its Applications’, ‘The Holographic Unified Theory of the Universe’. And others. They had probably long been read to pieces by Ning Yi as entertainment.
Beneath the books, Gu Cheng saw her senior software development engineer certificate.
When he opened it, there was a photo of Ning Yi inside. Although it had yellowed and worn with age, he could still see her slightly younger face, smart and lively.
Gu Cheng’s fingertip landed on her photo. Sensing that the longing he had restrained was about to break, he carefully closed the certificate and placed it into the pocket of his coat.
Outside, they were distributing the supplies they had scavenged this time.
There were unspoken rules for distributing supplies within the team.
The strongest fighters had first pick. After Wander came the other tall young men.
Wander lowered his head and looked over the supplies, reaching out to pick out a piece of cake.
It was chocolate-flavoured, the kind made with cheap ingredients. Before the apocalypse, it would have sold for only a few yuan in a supermarket, but now it had become a rare dessert.
“Captain Wan, do you want that? If not, I’ll take it—”
“You’re a grown man and you like sweets?”
“I grabbed it, so of course it’s mine—”
Wander’s hand paused, but in the end, he didn’t fight for it.
He had originally wanted to save it for 01, but Fourth and the others were already dissatisfied with 01. If he kept taking care of her, it would only worsen the conflict.
Actually, the reason he took care of 01 wasn’t because of her face, no matter what many people said. It wasn’t like that—
He simply felt that if this weren’t the apocalypse, a girl like 01, so strong inside and so hardworking, would definitely have a brighter, more brilliant life. She would be liked by many people and use her skills in a much wider world.
So he simply felt it was a pity.
If only they could all have another kind of life…
Inside the compartment,
Gu Cheng lay down fully clothed and closed his eyes.
Chocolate cake.
He remembered a very, very long time ago, when he had just escaped the endless darkness, and Ning Yi had just arrived in that world. During the first time she swapped bodies with him—
“Honey—then can you bring me a few cakes, honey?”
“I haven’t eaten any in years. I want chocolate flavour!”
In the apocalypse, she couldn’t get any at all.
Clearly, she had contributed too. Clearly, she had ability.
Clearly, she had suffered so much grievance.
Yet at that time, her tone had been light and cheerful, without any resentment or gloom.
Gu Cheng folded his arms.
And tightly closed his eyes.
…A Yi.
The longing he had tried so hard to suppress suddenly broke open like a flood.
At this moment, Ning Yi—
She had slept for a very, very long time. When she woke, it still felt like she was in a dream.
The darkness remained unchanged, boundless, with only memories of life to pass the time.
She had always known Gu Cheng was a very formidable person.
But it was true: only by personally experiencing what the other had suffered could they truly understand how difficult it had been—
Gu Cheng’s body did not feel physically uncomfortable, nor did it need to eat. At first, it was easy to fall asleep in the pitch-black, soundless silence.
Later, after her mind had rested too much, it became restless instead.
But even while restless, she couldn’t move.
That was torture.
It was too quiet. Too quiet. So Ning Yi began quietly talking to herself.
“I’m super strong.”
“I’m extremely awesome, haha.”
“If you could endure it, then I can too.”
“Nom nom.”
“Bloop bloop.”
Gu Cheng could no longer talk to her, so Ning Yi started talking to herself.
She had suffered through so much; she refused to believe she couldn’t get through this.
“Gu Cheng.”
“Hmph hmph hmph.”
“Gu Cheng—good thing it’s me.”
Good thing the person who swapped with you was me.
Good thing the person you like is me.
Her mind had long been tempered through countless hardships. She could definitely stay awake until she saw the light again. Just like he had.
But—
Don’t make her wait too long.
Because the last thing he had said before they separated was: wait for me.
Gu Cheng kept thinking. Thinking until his head hurt.
While surviving the malice of the apocalypse, he also thought of a way to break the situation.
Looking back over everything from their first body swap until now, the whole process showed a trend of deepening vertically while also merging horizontally. In the end, they had separated during a kind of mutual shuttling and fusion.
So if swapping into each other’s three years was the extreme of the swapping mechanism, then perhaps fusion was supposed to be the final endpoint.
But was it their fusion?
Or the fusion of worlds?
Every day that passed, Gu Cheng grew more anxious.
There had to be a time point.
The swapping had to have a point where it would randomly happen again.
Yet it was like he and Ning Yi were clearly so close—if he raised his right hand, he could touch Ning Yi’s left hand.
But they were also so far apart, so far they had to cross two worlds.
And while personally experiencing what she had once gone through, Gu Cheng finally understood all of her later actions.
Because her hearing had been forced sharp by the apocalypse, always alert to possible danger, her nerves constantly tense, and because she had to desperately work every day to prove her worth, she had later wanted so badly to lie flat and catch up on sleep.
Because zombies would suddenly rush out here, their faces rotting and terrifying, far more impactful than the survival game they had once played. Their bloodied, stinking teeth opened and closed like weapons. Gu Cheng could now smash their heads in expressionlessly, and he finally understood why Ning Yi had been so calm in survival games and VR.
He experienced every part of Ning Yi he had once not fully understood.
And in the end, he opened her heart—
When the team was scavenging medicine in a hospital,
Gu Cheng encountered an old woman who had been knocked off a sickbed.
Her lips were cracked, her gaze unfocused. She was so hungry she was almost dead, lying there pitifully.
After taking the medicine bottles from the table, Gu Cheng paused for one second. In the end, he walked to the bedside, lowered his head, and placed a cheap candy into her mouth before turning to leave.
Suddenly—the old woman lunged up and grabbed him, biting down on the candy as she let out a savage hiss.
The sound then drew people breaking in through the window. A rope suddenly shot out, trying to loop around Gu Cheng. The lasso was made of steel chain. Even though Gu Cheng quickly dodged sideways, it still tore through the fabric at his calf.
Only then did Gu Cheng see the bite mark hidden beneath the old woman’s bedding.
She had already been infected long ago. Someone had used her as bait.
Wander’s roar came mixed with several gunshots: “01, get back!”
In the apocalypse, people preyed on people.
Every team wanted to swallow other teams.
Using bait against Wander’s team’s only woman, testing her humanity and morality—that was the method the other side had come up with.
Capture her, then see whether her captain would trade supplies for her. Even if he didn’t, the woman could still be used.
All that filthy malice rushed toward him directly, yet Gu Cheng barely changed expression.
He smashed the zombie old woman’s hand with the butt of his gun, then rapidly retreated. Amid Wander’s covering shots, he cooperated perfectly and used the steel chain to counter-snare the attacker.
Then he withdrew cleanly and decisively, without the slightest hesitation.
The other side had thought this woman was the weakest combatant in their team. They hadn’t expected “her” to be so fast and fierce, and to cooperate with the team captain so flawlessly.
Gu Cheng actually understood Wander.
In that world, whether it was Ning Yi and Wander’s coordination in games, or their later teamwork in sports events, Gu Cheng had observed it all carefully while steeped in jealousy. Not to mention, he had already once been inside Ning Yi’s body and partnered with Wander.
Only… none of that seemed important.
Gu Cheng fired, swept the area, and retreated with movements as mechanical as a machine.
He looked at the old woman being dragged back and forth on the ground, tears leaking from her eyes, as if one last trace of human consciousness remained. Only one thought filled his mind.
So.
Humanity. Conscience.
Here, they had no value.
Ning Yi’s sense of morality had been forced, little by little, to become thin like this.
“Fuck, are you stupid?!”
“That bait was so obvious. Did you just arrive in the apocalypse or something?”
Gu Cheng said nothing.
Even his expression grew more and more numb.
It was an expression of enduring pain—only no one understood it.
Wander looked at him and felt something indescribable. Everything experienced in the apocalypse—how much malice could a pretty girl endure? Anyone else would have collapsed long ago, or simply fallen, using beauty itself to trade for survival resources. But 01 would rather use her skills to survive and had never fallen. Her heart was strong and free, growing stubbornly toward the sun.
That was why Wander, though also trapped in the mud, always wanted to protect her a little.
Because it was too rare.
But the current 01… although still strong and steady, seemed somehow… sadder than before. Wander couldn’t describe the feeling.
Old Fourth had old and new grudges together, and today he wanted to teach this increasingly cold woman a lesson.
“Fuck you, 01. Who are you showing that dead face to? I’ll beat some sense into you today—”
Wander shouted him down. “Shut the hell up! Is now the time for infighting?”
He snapped back from watching 01 and quickly judged the situation. Based on his experience, four or five teams had gathered here in a short time. The smell and warmth of humans would attract more zombies.
If they stayed any longer, a zombie tide would arrive within an hour.
Wander said, “Pack everything. Prepare to retreat from the west gate and head straight up the mountain.”
Everyone had different expressions, but they had no choice but to obey the captain’s order.
Wander gripped 01’s thin shoulder hard. “Pull yourself together.”
He thought 01 had been shaken.
But just as everyone was about to retreat, someone suddenly shouted, “Wait—don’t you smell blood?”
No one had been shot just now. Even if someone had been hurt in the chaos, it would only be a scrape, not enough to produce such a strong smell of blood.
And bleeding in the apocalypse was never a good sign.
Everyone immediately became alert and searched around. Finally, Old Fourth shouted—
“It’s 01! Her trousers are covered in blood!”
“01 is bleeding?!”
“So she got bitten by that zombie hag just now, right?! She’s going to be infected!”
In an instant, every man on the team raised their guns.
They formed a semicircle, aiming at “Ning Yi” in the centre.
Everyone’s expression was full of vigilance.
Wander also had no choice but to step back slightly, frowning hard. “Were you bitten?”
“No,” Gu Cheng’s voice was strangely tight. “I wasn’t.”
Old Fourth refused to let it go. “Then why are your trousers covered in blood?!”
One trouser leg was stained red!
After facing the line of gun barrels for several seconds, Gu Cheng silently crouched down, rolled up his trousers, and showed everyone the wound on his calf where the steel chain had cut into him. Blood was still flowing.
His mind was also clear, and he really showed no signs of infection.
Only then did everyone slowly lower their guns and prepare to retreat.
Wander gave the retreat order again, then lowered his voice beside him. “Can you walk? I can’t carry you.”
Not only did he have to be responsible for the whole team—if he carried 01, the rest of the team would become even more dissatisfied.
Gu Cheng slowly stood, his face pale. “No need.”
No need.
Back then, Ning Yi had endured it just like this.
Gu Cheng’s legs trembled slightly, but not because the wound hurt.
It was because—
The blood flowing down.
It was hers.
Menstrual blood.
Just like that, running down her trouser leg.
The whole team was made up of men. No one understood what it was.
And looking around, there wasn’t even anywhere here to find Ning Yi a sanitary pad.
How had she endured it?
Gu Cheng’s expression was numb as he slowly covered his abdomen. The familiar menstrual pain began. He had helped her endure period pain countless times in her body, but this time, Gu Cheng felt as if he could no longer sense the pain.
Gu Cheng thought: if the purpose of the swapping deepening to its extreme was to make him and Ning Yi understand everything about each other, to suffer what the other had suffered, all the way to the deepest point—
Then he believed the turning point was already on its way.
But.
But at this very moment.
Her blood had run all down her leg.
The whole world was chaos and despair.
Struggle, suspicion, betrayal, no rest, hunger, fear.
And what appeared before Gu Cheng’s eyes was—
The first time he had opened his eyes and seen Ning Yi: that face smiling without the slightest grudge, as if her life had never contained such desperate, humiliating moments.
From the first glance, she had been bright.
And strong.
And now, all the suffering she had swallowed alone was finally being witnessed by Gu Cheng, one by one.
So Gu Cheng finally felt pain.
Across an entire world and three years of time, holding her stomach, his heart ached into ash.
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