(All chapters are finished by midnight, please recommend and favorite!)

By 5:30 p.m., it was almost dark.

After eating three slices of bread and half a bag of potato chips, I took some painkillers and lay down to rest.

I opened my phone, feeling bored, and started looking through the old photos in the Photos app.

The most recent photo was taken in the hospital. It shows Zhou Yang and Jiang Xiaoxiao snuggling together, a very warm and beautiful picture.

I remember it was Christmas Day. The two of them had planned to go out, but Zhou Yang saw that I was too lonely by myself, so he dragged me along to go shopping.

I didn't want to go originally because I don't have a girlfriend, and it would be too much to be stuck between the two of them as a third wheel.

But Jiang Xiaoxiao took pity on me and took the initiative to pull me out, so I went out with her.

This photo was taken that day while I was strolling along the river.

Everything is still vivid in my mind.

But now everything is gone.

"I wonder how Jiang Xiaoxiao is doing now, is she still alive?" I smiled bitterly. When Wu Shuang and I left the hospital, I was thinking of going to find her, but I kept putting it off until now.

As I scrolled through the photos, I saw that most of them were landscape photos from my travels, as well as group photos with my classmates.

I turned halfway through the page, then stopped, my gaze fixed on the photo in front of me, a bitter smile playing on my lips.

The photo is a picture of me and a girl. It was taken when I went on a trip after graduating from high school.

The girl standing next to me is named Xu Xin. She was my classmate in high school, and we were in the same class for all three years of high school.

I liked her from the beginning of high school. I tentatively confessed my feelings in the second year, but I could tell from her words that she wouldn't be with me, so I gave up the idea and became good friends with her.

That's why we went on a trip together when we graduated from high school.

I thought I could be with her after graduation, but I didn't confess my feelings to her until the start of university. Once I got to university, I focused on my studies and didn't think about these things at all.

Over the years, Xu Xin and I have lost touch.

"Are you alright?" I asked, staring at Xu Xin in the photo.

The phone screen gradually dimmed until it finally went out.

It was already dark outside, and inside the house it was completely dark.

I lay in bed, put down my phone, and my mind was filled with thoughts.

I thought about many people and many things, and then I drifted off to sleep.

...

"Zhou Yang, wake me up when you start your early shift."

When I groggily woke up, I thought I had to go to the early shift and wanted to get up.

But when I moved my leg, the pain brought me back to my senses.

I opened my eyes and looked at the dark and silent room in front of me. There was no Zhou Yang, only myself.

I checked the time; it was only six in the morning, and it was still dark.

I was too lazy to get up, so I continued to sleep soundly.

I didn't wake up until the morning sun shone on my cheeks. As soon as I woke up, I habitually called out, "Zhou Yang, get up, it's time for your early shift."

I was still half asleep, scratching my messy hair, feeling lost and confused.

He wondered, why isn't Zhou Yang saying anything yet?

In the past, Zhou Yang would have said, "Go brush your teeth and wash your face first, then wake me up. I'm going to sleep a little longer."

But now, there is no sound at all; the entire lounge is silent.

I slowly opened my eyes, a series of memories flashed through my mind, and a bitter smile appeared on my face.

He propped himself up on the bed with both hands, glanced at the upper bunk, but Zhou Yang was nowhere to be seen.

The world remains the same, but Zhou Yang is dead, and the world has changed.

"If only all of this were just a dream, and when we woke up, Zhou Yang would still be here, and we would still have to go to our early shifts, have breakfast, and if you say the hospital food at noon isn't good, then we'd order takeout or eat instant noodles, and then think about when it will be our turn to have surgery."

"If only all of this were just a dream?"

I closed my eyes and thought to myself, I counted to ten for ten seconds, and when I opened my eyes again, everything was still the same as before.

"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten."

When I opened my eyes, Zhou Yang was still gone, and the world had changed.

The morning sunlight shone on my face, so bright it was blinding. I covered my face and started to cry.

I didn't want to cry, but the pain and despair in my heart made my tears keep falling, and I just couldn't stop them.

Because I don't know what to do next. The world before me has become such a horrific sight, filled with man-eating monsters. How am I supposed to survive? Can I even survive?

I didn't cry when I was in the air-raid shelter because Wu Shuang and Fei Lichao were there to support me.

But now I'm all alone in the lounge, it's empty, and I don't even have anyone to talk to.

I even suspect that I am the only person in the whole world.

I cried for a good ten minutes before I stopped. After accepting the reality, I went to the bathroom, brushed my teeth and washed my face to clean myself up.

The tap water hasn't stopped, which is something to be happy about.

After cleaning up, I changed into my own clothes, sat on the edge of the bed, and began to eat the bread and chocolate that Zhou Yang had left behind.

After eating, I unwrapped the gauze from my left thigh and calf. The wounds were healing well and had already scabbed over.

That's true. When the dagger pierces the thigh, it goes in vertically. Since muscle fibers are vertical, the dagger causes very little damage to the muscle fibers, so recovery is naturally faster.

As for the gunshot wound on his calf, it has scabbed over, but the wound is still quite gruesome.

After disinfecting, I applied medicine and re-bandaged the area.

After I finished doing all that, I lay down on the bed to rest.

To keep myself from overthinking, I picked up a book from the shelf and started reading. As for my phone, I had already turned it off to save battery.

The ten-odd minutes of crying allowed me to vent my despair. As for what to do next, I can only take it one step at a time.

I spent the morning reviewing "Human Anatomy".

In the afternoon, I stood at the small window and looked at the world outside.

As the sun was about to set in the evening, I sat at my table and wrote a passage on a blank sheet of paper.

"January 9th, the second day after returning to the hospital. The world has changed after all. All I can do is try to live. My current wish is no longer to become the best doctor in this year's class. I want to go back to school, find Xiaoxiao, and tell her about Zhou Yang. Then I want to go home, back to Wutong City, and find my parents."

There's only this one sentence on the blank paper right now. I can't think of anything else, so I'll leave it at that for now.

After dark, I lay back down in bed, closed my eyes, and began to reminisce about the good old days.

Before I knew it, I fell asleep again.

And so the day came to an end.

But life is just beginning.

(End of this chapter)