The Most Terrifying Nightmare…
With her eyes closed and her consciousness hazy, Zhao Linong slowly furrowed her brows. Instinctively, she turned her face away to avoid the light, but the light shining against her neck felt strangely hot.
…This wasn’t the light in her dorm room. It felt more like she had fallen asleep beside a heating lamp in the laboratory.
The thought had barely crossed Zhao Linong’s mind when her eyes abruptly flew open. She looked towards the source of the light and froze.
She was wrong. There was no lamp.
Dazzling sunlight streamed diagonally through a large rectangular window, so bright that she could barely keep her eyes open. She was neither in bed nor in the laboratory. Instead, she was sitting beside the window of a train.
Zhao Linong raised a hand to shield her forehead and narrowed her eyes as she looked outside.
In the distance, endless mountain peaks beneath the sun were covered in dense wild forests. The green was so dark and intense that it almost appeared black. Yet when her gaze shifted downwards towards the nearer ground, the scenery changed abruptly, as though an invisible boundary had been deliberately erected.
Not a single plant could be seen in the yellowish-black soil. There was not even one blade of wild grass. The land was empty and strangely barren.
Even on asphalt and concrete roads, wild grass would stubbornly force its way through the smallest crack. This place… gave her an indescribably eerie feeling.
The last of the fog clouding Zhao Linong’s mind gradually dispersed beneath the piercing sunlight. She slowly lowered her hand and turned to examine her surroundings.
The carriage was remarkably quiet, with very few people speaking.
Across the aisle sat two young women and one young man. All three were thin and silent, their complexions sallow. Their backs were held rigidly straight, as though they might leap to their feet and flee at any moment.
The person sitting beside her was also a young man. Compared with the others, he seemed slightly more relaxed. He leaned against the backrest, his long legs casually stretched out in front of him.
Perhaps Zhao Linong had been staring too obviously, because the young man turned towards her. When their eyes met, he smiled.
“Classmate, you’re finally awake. I thought you were going to sleep all the way to the base.”
His features were upright and handsome, but he had a pair of narrow, upturned phoenix eyes that gave him an inexplicably lively and crafty appearance.
Those eyes looked somewhat familiar, Zhao Linong thought, but she still could not understand her current situation.
“Classmate?” Zhao Linong only realised after speaking that her voice was slightly hoarse, as if she had not spoken for a very long time. She cleared her throat and continued, “You are…?”
Zhao Linong had been precocious from childhood and had always carried her parents’ high expectations.
Her parents constantly told her that she had to leave their village and build a life elsewhere. She must not be like them, spending their entire lives working in the fields.
She had succeeded.
At fourteen, she skipped several grades and was admitted to one of the country’s top universities. Calling her a genius would not have been an exaggeration.
For some unknown reason, however, the two top universities recruiting from her province that year had each offered only one place.
Zhao Linong eventually received an acceptance letter from one of them, but she was reassigned to an agricultural science major.
Everyone thought she should accept it. Even her parents tried to persuade her.
Zhao Linong assumed she would be able to change majors once she entered university, so she agreed. She had never expected to remain in the programme for seven years, progressing from undergraduate studies to a master’s degree. Now her supervisor was already preparing to drag her into a doctorate in agricultural science.
At this rate, she would spend her entire life farming.
Her parents had farmed all their lives to send her to university, only for her to study farming once she got there. Many people in their village were already laughing at her parents because of it.
Zhao Linong’s dream was to become an urban office worker and sit behind a desk!
She would even have been willing to research something else and serve the country. Anything was fine, as long as she did not have to farm.
She had already made plans. She was still young, and with her ability to learn, she could start over from the beginning.
But just before graduation, her experimental field had suddenly been destroyed. All the data for her thesis was lost, forcing her to delay graduation and continue farming.
Last night, Zhao Linong had stood in front of the ruined experimental field, which looked as though it had been gnawed apart by dogs, and drowned her sorrows in alcohol.
The more she thought about it, the more furious she became. Unable to hold herself back, she pointed at the heavens and cursed a few times. Unfortunately, she lost control of her body and toppled headfirst into the ground.
Under such circumstances, waking up in her dormitory or a hospital would both have been reasonable.
She truly could not understand why she had awakened on a high-speed train.
“He Yuesheng.” The young man beside her extended his left hand with a smile. “Classmate, what’s your name?”
“…Zhao Linong.”
She briefly shook his hand before withdrawing hers, still feeling that something was wrong.
She could not tell whether it was because the carriage was unnaturally quiet or because the scenery flashing past the window was too bizarre.
Zhao Linong’s gaze fell upon her left hand. For some reason, there was now a silver bracelet around her wrist. The band was thin and angular, but one section held a silver circular disc approximately the size of a five-jiao coin, slightly wider than the rest of the bracelet.
The young man beside her, He Yuesheng, had one as well.
Not only him—the three people across the aisle seemed to be wearing them too.
Zhao Linong instinctively searched her pockets, intending to find her phone and contact her supervisor or classmates. She found nothing.
Then her gaze swept over the advertisement cover attached to the back of the seat in front of her, and she abruptly paused.
Several lines of black text had been printed on the white fabric:
Central Base Seeds. Mutation rate as low as 13%. Agricultural students are welcome to purchase. Website:
When selecting seeds, people looked at germination rate, disease resistance, drought resistance and other qualities.
She had never seen a brand advertise its mutation rate.
Zhao Linong stared at the black writing for a long time. Seeming to finally understand something, she suddenly let out a brief laugh.
She then bent forwards, covered her face with both hands and rubbed it forcefully.
No wonder the eyes of the young man beside her seemed familiar. Her supervisor also had phoenix eyes. It was only that, with age, the skin around them had loosened and begun to droop.
The strange scenery outside, the slightly familiar eyes of the boy beside her and the illogical seed advertisement on the seat cover…
All of it only made sense if this was a dream.
She was probably under too much pressure because of her delayed graduation, causing her to have a dream like this, Zhao Linong thought.
It was the first time she had experienced such a clear and realistic dream. Unfortunately, even in her dreams, she could not escape matters related to agriculture.
Zhao Linong lowered her hands, simply closed her eyes again and leaned her head against the backrest, waiting for the dream to end.
He Yuesheng, who had only just started a conversation with her, stared at her speechlessly.
“…”
Wasn’t she being a little too calm?
Ten minutes passed.
Zhao Linong did not awaken from the dream. Instead, the train suddenly slammed on its brakes, throwing her upper body forwards. She nearly crashed into the seat in front of her, but reacted quickly and caught herself with her hands.
Everyone in the carriage immediately stood up.
More than half of them crowded into the centre of the aisle, their faces deathly pale. The slightly braver passengers moved closer to the windows and cautiously looked outside.
It was only then that Zhao Linong noticed that everyone in this carriage, within her dream, was a young person around twenty years old.
“What happened?”
“Maybe there’s a problem with the train.”
“Could a mutated plant have appeared?”
“Don’t talk nonsense! This is a base route. Something like that couldn’t possibly appear here.”
…
As the train remained stationary for longer and longer, arguments gradually broke out in the carriage.
Zhao Linong leaned back in her seat and stared at the luggage rack above her.
This dream was surprisingly realistic. Once she woke up, she would have to brag about it to her roommates.
While the passengers in her dream were panicking and arguing, a piercing alarm suddenly rang throughout the train.
Red warning lights lit up along the ceiling and flashed continuously. Their crimson glow seemed to take on a hideous, tangible form, like a blade descending and severing the passengers’ final thread of hope.
In an instant, everyone fell silent.
[Emergency announcement: Danger ahead. All passengers must evacuate and locate a shelter!]
A mechanical female voice echoed throughout the train. The announcement repeated again and again with increasing urgency, filling everyone with fear.
Zhao Linong was puzzled.
She found the passengers standing in the aisle rather interesting. A second ago, they had still been anxiously arguing, but the moment the alarm sounded, they immediately became silent.
It was as though they understood exactly what had happened. There was even a trace of resignation in their expressions.
The direction of a dream could not be controlled.
Zhao Linong did not know why she was having this sort of dream, but when she looked at the passengers’ faces, she felt as though she could see the helplessness she had experienced during the seven years she had spent rooted in the fields.
This was definitely a projection of her resignation towards reality!
While Zhao Linong was still thinking, the passengers had already begun hurriedly leaving the train. They moved quickly and efficiently, as though they had practised this evacuation countless times.
“You’re not leaving?”
He Yuesheng stood up. Seeing that Zhao Linong still had no intention of moving, he could not resist asking her.
Zhao Linong raised her eyes towards the boy beside her. He was visibly tense.
“…Where are we going?” she asked slowly.
She still had not figured out the logic of this dream.
He Yuesheng pointed towards the loudspeaker at one end of the carriage.
“To find a shelter. If we don’t get off the train soon—”
Before he could finish speaking, the carriages ahead suddenly began shaking violently.
The passengers who had not yet managed to get off screamed. They shoved the people in front of them and rushed towards the exit.
Seeing that Zhao Linong still had not reacted, He Yuesheng simply grabbed her arm.
“Move!”
Following the force of his pull, Zhao Linong stood up.
She had only taken one step and had not even reached the aisle when her knees abruptly went weak. She nearly collapsed to the floor, but He Yuesheng forcibly hauled her upright.
“Were you so frightened that your legs went weak?” He Yuesheng supported most of her body and could not help adding, “I thought you were incredibly calm earlier.”
Zhao Linong: “…”
She could not exert any strength through her legs. It felt as though she had not walked on solid ground for a very long time.
However, since this was only a dream, she did not pay much attention to the problem. Still dazed, she allowed He Yuesheng to half drag and half carry her off the train.
Their delay caused them to fall to the very back.
Nearly everyone who had disembarked was desperately running in the opposite direction from the front of the train.
Zhao Linong turned her head to look back.
She saw that one of the front carriages was slowly being lifted into the air, as though something beneath the ground was forcefully pushing it upwards.
No wonder their carriage had been shaking so violently.
A single train carriage could not be considered a colossal object, but seeing one lifted off the ground resembled a scene from a science-fiction film. It was certainly enough to astonish anyone.
Zhao Linong thought that this dream was becoming increasingly absurd.
“Classmate, let’s make a deal.”
After dragging and supporting another person while running for so long, He Yuesheng’s forehead was covered in sweat. When he turned his head and saw Zhao Linong’s distant, distracted expression, his face darkened.
“Could you perhaps move your precious legs a little?”
Zhao Linong, who had unknowingly placed almost her entire weight on him, replied, “…Oh.”
She obediently attempted to move her legs and discovered that she could now barely control them well enough to walk.
However, they had not run very far when several horrifying screams suddenly erupted from the crowd ahead, tearing across the barren land.
These were different from the frightened screams that had filled the carriage earlier.
They sounded more like the final, desperate roars of people struggling for their lives.
Zhao Linong instinctively raised her head and looked forwards.
Her expression changed drastically.
At some point, a “plant” had burst out of the ground in the middle of the crowd.
It was approximately three metres tall, with an upright stem. At its top grew five gigantic, inverted-oval, umbrella-shaped leaves.
A living person was impaled upon each leaf, pierced directly through the chest.
The bracts, drenched in bright red blood, seemed to mature at a visible speed. They split open, transforming into broad, rounded, three-angled seed capsules.
Blood from the victims rained down from a height of nearly three metres.
Everyone beneath the plant who was splashed with it screamed and immediately turned around, fleeing back the way they had come.
As the ovaries and styles protruding from the victims’ chests rapidly matured and expanded, the five people impaled upon the stems and leaves lost their lives.
Their bodies fell completely still.
Zhao Linong stared blankly at the corpses hanging from the enormous plant.
This was probably the most terrifying nightmare she had ever experienced.
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