Chapter 11 Another World...

After two days of calm, I went to the hospital for a follow-up appointment.

There were many people at my follow-up appointment that day, and I was last in line. Luckily, I brought two books on drainage pipes that I borrowed from the library, so I could read them while waiting and not get too bored.

It took a long time before it was my turn. I really wanted to talk to the doctor about my experience and the translation, but I felt the doctor would only think my condition was more serious, so I swallowed hard and held back. After asking me some routine questions, the doctor called my parents in for a private talk.

I sat alone on a bench outside the corridor, gazing at the soft sunlight streaming through the window.

Two nurses pushed a cart full of medicine past me, whispering, "Didn't she just get discharged from the hospital not long ago? Is she here for a follow-up appointment?"

"That's probably it. I heard she was missing for a long time and almost died?"

“She had been missing for five hours,” a nurse said, her gaze fixed on a small door at the entrance to the building. “She was found unconscious in the basement behind that door…”

The two nurses, gossiping as they pushed the cart, disappeared outside the corridor door.

My heart skipped a beat. I grabbed my backpack and rushed to the small door at the entrance of the building, hoping to find out some secrets about the basement where I had once fainted and mysteriously disappeared for five hours.

I ran downstairs with a thud, pushed open the basement door, and was greeted by a cloud of dust; it must have been uncleaned for quite some time.

I sneezed several times in a row.

This place is not much different from an ordinary basement, with a few dusty junk boxes, a stack of messy documents, and a few abandoned storage cabinets.

I heard a voice behind me. I turned around and was horrified to see a man in a white hospital gown smiling at me strangely. He was clearly a mental patient.

I tried to run out the door, but he was faster. He grinned and hurled a large brick at me. A sharp pain shot through me, and I lost consciousness...

***

As dusk settled, snowflakes danced in the air, blanketing everything in white.

I was woken up by the cold, wearing only a long trench coat.

As I opened my eyes, a pungent smell of blood wafted into my nostrils.

Where is this?

Suppressing my nausea, I struggled to sit up halfway. In the dim light, I saw that my hands were covered in blood, which terrified me. I looked around frantically and saw more than a dozen gruesome corpses lying there—old people, children, men, and women, their limbs torn apart, blood flowing everywhere, a truly horrific sight.

I screamed in terror as the cold wind, carrying snowflakes, filled my throat, choking me several times, but it couldn't stop me from screaming...

After calling out for a while, I realized that half of my body was numb from the cold, so I tried to stand up and run away, but after taking only two steps, I lost my footing and fell into a snowdrift.

I was half-buried and wanted to call for help, but I couldn't even open my mouth.

A rapid sound of hooves came from afar, as if a carriage was approaching.

The horse neighed and whinnied, as if startled, and the carriage came to a sudden stop. A rough old man's voice drifted over, "Are you trying to get yourself killed? Why did you stop all of a sudden?"

A girl's voice, slightly trembling, came out, "Father, there seems to be someone here."

"Don't meddle in other people's business."

But I could still vaguely hear the sound of the girl jumping off the carriage. A moment later, two thick arms reached into the snowdrift, grabbed my shoulders, and pulled me out.

"How are you?" A soft girl's voice came to my ear.

The cold wind made it hard for me to open my eyes, and I opened my mouth but couldn't speak. Suddenly, I heard the girl scream, "Father, Father, why are there so many corpses here?"

"What? A corpse?" the old man exclaimed in surprise.

“It’s the Dai Bei family…” The girl’s voice was distorted with fear.

The hurried footsteps, accompanied by the howling cold wind, rushed in. I tried to force my eyes open, but I couldn't hold on any longer and fainted...

I woke up a day later, sitting on the tattered bed, looking at the fluffy animal skin blanket covering me, and then at the snowflakes falling from the broken roof, I felt a sense of temporal and spatial dislocation.

The earthen fireplace inside was burning brightly, but I still felt cold, so I wrapped myself tighter in the animal skin blanket.

"Have some water," a short-haired girl in a coarse cloth dress walked up to me with a bowl of hot water. "You had a really high fever the other day, I almost thought you weren't going to make it."

I remembered that she was the girl who saved me, so I took the hot water without hesitation and drank it all in one gulp.

It was ginger water, and after drinking it, my whole body warmed up quickly, which allowed me to speak, "Thank you."

The short-haired girl wasn't exactly beautiful, but she had fair skin, long, narrow eyes, and a high, defined nose, giving her a somewhat exotic look. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, looking at me curiously. "Are you from out of town?" she asked.

Yes, yes.

"Are they fleeing from disaster?" The short-haired girl asked with sympathy. "Recently, two villages near us have seen outsiders, all because of the snow disaster. Our village is a little better off; we have sweet potatoes and potatoes to get through the winter."

I looked out the window at the snow-covered landscape. "It must have snowed for a long time, right?"

"It's been two years."

Two years? I suddenly remembered the natural disaster the Elf Queen had mentioned, "It's been snowing the whole time?"

"Yes, it's been snowing where you are too, hasn't it?"

I was stunned, holding the empty bowl, not knowing what to say.

Looking at the short-haired girl's clothes and appearance, I was certain that I had returned to the world I was in before.

But this time I didn't go back to Castle Black. Instead, I came to a small, drafty brick and wood hut.

The room was empty except for a heated kang bed, a broken table, and two broken chairs, but the ginger soup and the short-haired girl's smile gave it a warm, homey feel.

It just feels a bit strange to switch from a horror episode to a slice-of-life episode.

The short-haired girl served me another bowl of ginger soup, which I drank down in one gulp. I finally regained some energy and was able to chat with her again.

I asked about the day I was saved, and about those horrible corpses.

The short-haired girl suddenly burst into tears. "That day, the Daibei family went to dig sweet potatoes at the boundary marker. Unexpectedly, they encountered hunters from the neighboring village chasing a roe deer. The wounded roe deer rushed across the boundary marker, and the Daibei family caught it. However, the hunters from the neighboring village demanded that they return it, believing that since the roe deer had entered their village, it belonged to them. But the Daibei family believed that they had caught it. They started arguing, and at the height of the argument, those bastards actually killed the entire Daibei family."

I couldn't believe it. "Just for a deer?"

"Yes." The short-haired girl cried even harder, and I hurriedly wiped away her tears, wanting to comfort her but finding myself at a loss for words.

The short-haired girl cried for a while before she could barely calm down. She took the wooden bowl from me and said, "Sister, you rest for a while. I'm going to wash my face."

Just as she stood up, the door was pushed open, and a cold wind carried in a somewhat familiar girl's voice, "Aya, do you still need fever-reducing herbs? I heard you have a fever."

"It wasn't me." The short-haired girl quickly turned around and wiped away her tears. "It was my guest."

I couldn't help but exchange a glance with the girl at the door. The instant our eyes met, I almost jumped up in surprise.

She was actually the girl with the long braid who pushed me into the cesspool in the Black Castle! Good heavens!

"Sister Shaling, please have a seat. I'll be right back." The short-haired girl didn't notice anything amiss and left with the empty bowl.

The woman, Sha Ling, and I stared at each other in shock.

We were still in shock when the short-haired girl returned after washing her face.

"Huh, do you know each other?" The short-haired girl realized something was wrong and looked us up and down.

Sister Shaling moved her lips and uttered a few words, "I don't know her. You said before that a guest had a fever, and this medicine of mine is quite effective." With that, she placed a packet of herbs on the table and left.

The short-haired girl handed me the ginger soup. "Sister Shaling may seem aloof, but she's not a bad person."

"Oh," I replied simply, then my eyes lit up when I noticed my black backpack hanging on the wall.

"Sister, is this your stuff? I brought it back too." The short-haired girl followed my gaze and took the black backpack.

"Thank you." I quickly took off my backpack, opened it, and was pleasantly surprised to find the two books on drainage pipes still inside unharmed.

"Why is your bag different from the bags here?" the short-haired girl asked curiously. "The book is so thick; I've never seen such a thick book before."

"The bag is specially made in our area, and the book is a family heirloom, so it's thick," I made up.

The short-haired girl hummed in agreement and then didn't ask anything else.

A note from the author:

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