With his ring packed to the brim, the tightness in Luo Yang’s heart caused by poverty miraculously eased at that moment.
Even though the sky outside was still baked red by flames, and even though his nose was filled with the acrid stench of scorched plastic mixed with mutant beast fluids, the way he sat in the driver’s seat was much more relaxed than before.
His back leaned into the curve of the seat, and his shoulders slumped comfortably.
A sense of satisfaction was truly a rare thing for him.
Luo Yang didn't even notice it himself, but as he swerved around an overturned traffic barrier, a few notes escaped his throat.
It wasn't exactly singing, more like an absentminded hum.
The melody was ethereal and intermittent, rising and falling with the jolts of the vehicle.
Yan Zhi tilted her head to look at him. She was holding the half-flattened cola bottle, the plastic making a dry, crinkling sound in her arms.
“What are you humming?”
Luo Yang jerked the steering wheel to the left, avoiding a private car slanted in the middle of the road. His tires grazed the scrap car’s side mirror, sending a spark flying.
“...I don't know.”
“You’re humming even though you don't know what it is?”
“I heard it online,” Luo Yang replied casually, his eyes fixed on the road ahead.
“I thought it sounded good, so I downloaded it and threw it into my playlist. I liked the intro the moment I heard it, and the chorus suited my taste too.”
“Who sang it?”
“I forgot that too.” He thought for a moment. “I think it was the ending theme for some anime—the youth romance type. As for which one, I gave it back to the production team as soon as I finished watching.”
Yan Zhi didn't reply, but she carefully replayed those few notes in her head.
Her ears were very sharp, and she was naturally much more sensitive to 'sound' than ordinary people.
After all, in that great hall, she had listened to the sound of the wind, the sound of dust hitting the ground, and the sound of her shovel scraping against stone while digging holes for hundreds, even thousands of years.
Human melodies were new to her, but distinguishing emotions wasn't difficult.
“No,” she said.
“Hmm?”
“There is no feeling of youth romance in those notes.”
Yan Zhi placed the cola bottle on her knees and hugged it with both hands, looking as serious as if she were delivering a formal report. “I didn't hear any.”
“Oh?” Luo Yang felt a bit of interest. He kept his eyes on the road but tilted his head to glance at her. “Then what did you hear?”
“Sorrow.”
She spoke very slowly, as if picking her words carefully. “A very faint scent of sorrow.”
Luo Yang let out a laugh, as if she had hit a nerve, a genuine chuckle rising from his chest.
“Sorrow?”
He repeated the word, as if chewing on it to taste it. “Yeah, sorrow. Sorrow is right.”
“Why is it right?”
“Think about it,” Luo Yang freed one hand to make a vague gesture before quickly returning it to the wheel. “When young people write or sing songs, what can they write about? Great storms? The fate of the nation? They haven't experienced any of that.”
“Then what do they write about?”
“They force a feeling of sorrow.”
“Force a feeling of sorrow?”
“Yeah.”
Luo Yang rolled his tongue in his mouth, trying to savor the phrase. “Forcing a feeling of sorrow just to write a new line. They clearly don't know what sorrow is like, or what bitterness tastes like, but they insist on saying they are very sorrowful and miserable.”
“A sixteen or seventeen-year-old kid standing on a rooftop after evening self-study can write half a book of poetry just from a gust of wind.”
Yan Zhi tilted her head as she listened.
“That kind of thing isn't fake,” Luo Yang continued, his tone casual as if discussing the weather. “They really do feel sorrowful. It’s just that their 'sorrow' is a bit different from the 'sorrow' you and I know.”
The car fell silent for a beat.
Yan Zhi looked down at the bottle she was holding.
“What kind of sorrow is it?”
“Hmm—” Luo Yang drew out the sound. “Probably something like... having too much homework is a bit sorrowful. The person you like doesn't like you back, that’s a bit sorrowful. Waking up to find a pimple is sorrow too. Failing an exam again or arguing with your family makes you so sorrowful you want to jump off a building.”
“...That doesn't sound like something that would make someone want to write a song.”
“That’s why it’s called ‘forcing it,’” Luo Yang explained patiently. “It’s squeezed out. Even if nothing comes out, they have to keep squeezing.”
“But don't look down on that kind of sorrow; it’s real. At that age, those little trivialities are actually world-ending events. It’s only when you grow up and look back that you laugh at how dramatic you were being.”
“But you don't sound like you’re laughing,” Yan Zhi said suddenly.
Luo Yang’s foot on the accelerator faltered slightly.
It was only a very slight pause, and a second later, he was back to normal.
“I was dramatic once,” he said, his tone neither light nor heavy.
“I even wrote a few messy lines in an old notebook. Later, the notebook was lost, and I forgot those words. There wasn't much worth keeping anyway.”
He was telling the truth, except that the notebook wasn't lost—it was still back on Earth, in his home.
“You haven't really forgotten,” Yan Zhi said softly.
“Hmm?”
“Someone who has forgotten wouldn't hum that tune.”
Luo Yang didn't respond.
He tilted his head to glance at her.
This girl usually spent the whole day curled up on the sofa. Between drinking cola and watching anime, she was no different from a slacker who didn't want to move a muscle. Who would have thought she could pick something out from a tuneless hum?
“...A-Zhi.”
“Yeah?”
“You should watch less anime and read more of other things in the future.”
“Why?”
“With your perception, it would be a waste if you didn't become a literary critic.”
Yan Zhi gave a half-understanding nod, then looked back down at the half-flattened cola bottle she was gripping.
The firelight outside the window suddenly grew denser.
The South Viaduct defensive line was already in sight.
The flow of evacuees was pouring out from the service roads beneath the bridge, as dense as a disturbed colony of ants.
Medical staff jogged past, carrying stretchers on their shoulders, brushing past the front of the car by less than a meter.
Civilians in plain clothes dragged their children along; some had even lost a shoe in the scramble.
A few low-tier Punishers in Ability Bureau uniforms were shouting to maintain order, their voices already hoarse.
The scents of blood, sweat, and disinfectant mingled together and poured through the car window.
Luo Yang had to step on the brakes. The crowd was moving against him, and as he tried to push his off-road vehicle inward, he naturally couldn't pick up speed.
Advancing ten meters required waiting for about thirty seconds, and the next ten meters might take another forty.
The slowness made him a bit irritable.
But there was a benefit to going slow.
He wasn't looking intentionally, but as his gaze slid across the panicked faces outside the windshield one by one, he still recognized a few.
People he had seen at the academy, people he had brushed shoulders with on the training grounds, people he had bumped into in the corners of the Mission Hall.
Almost all of them were carrying injuries.
Some had their arms in slings, others had bandages wrapped around their heads, the seeping blood staining the white gauze dark red.
A girl in an academy uniform had a small badge pinned to her arm—the insignia of a Middle Division student.
People from the academy were mobilized too?
Luo Yang’s eyebrows twitched.
Just then, his peripheral vision caught a chubby figure being helped along by two people as they slowly shuffled past the front of the car.
The person’s left arm was wrapped in bandages, and so was his right. His entire face was as white as paper, but his legs seemed fine; he could walk on his own, though his steps were weak.
Luo Yang could recognize that honest, round face even with his eyes closed.
“Yu Mingyang?”
He rolled down the window and called out.
His voice wasn't loud, but it was enough to cut through the gap between the two vehicles.
The fat boy had been walking with his head down, but when he heard the greeting, his entire body jolted, and he snapped his head up.
A second later, his eyes widened into circles.
“Holy crap, Brother Luo?!”
He shook off the two classmates supporting him and stumbled forward a couple of steps, looking like a lost son who had just spotted his father.
His arms, hanging in bandages, swayed with his movement. He winced from the pain but still managed a wide grin.
“What are you doing here?! I thought you—”
“Never mind me for now,” Luo Yang interrupted. He leaned one hand on the window frame, his gaze sweeping from the bandages on the boy’s left arm to his right, and then to his wobbly stance. “How did you end up like this? Are your legs okay?”
“Legs are fine, legs are fine.” Yu Mingyang quickly looked down at himself, then looked back up. His mouth was still pulled into a grin, but his eyes were turning a bit red.
“My arms just got swiped twice by those things. Needed a few stitches.”
“Why would a kid like you be coming down from here?” Luo Yang frowned. “Has everyone at the academy been mobilized?”
“...Yeah.”
Yu Mingyang swallowed hard, his gaze shifting slightly. “This time... even students were brought in. Anyone at the Core Consolidation rank or above could volunteer to help at the various defensive lines.”
“The academy said it wasn't mandatory, but almost everyone in the top hundred signed their names. Those who didn't make the cut also wanted to help out however they could.”
“You’re only at Core Consolidation Level 1.”
“...I know.”
“So how did you manage to get up there?”
The smile on Yu Mingyang’s face became a bit stiff.
“I... I snuck in.”
His voice grew smaller and smaller. “Su Tian went home to visit family yesterday; she’s not in Yuanxing City. If she were here, she definitely wouldn't have let me come.”
Luo Yang stared at him for two seconds.
The flow of people surged slowly beside them. People were cursing, people were crying; the background noise was a complete mess.
He reached a hand out of the car window.
Yu Mingyang instinctively flinched back, thinking he was about to get hit, but the hand simply gave him a thumbs up.
“Good man,” Luo Yang said.
Just two words.
Yu Mingyang froze.
He stared at that thumb for several seconds, and then his entire face suddenly crumpled. The corners of his mouth turned down, and the emotions he had been holding back finally snapped, a tear splashing down.
“What are you crying for?” Luo Yang retracted his hand, his tone returning to its usual nonchalance.
“It’s not like we didn't win it back. Leave the rest to your Brother Luo.”
Yu Mingyang nodded frantically, then desperately used his one movable wrist to wipe his face.
“Brother Luo... be careful.”
He sniffled, his voice incredibly raspy. “The pressure here... it’s the highest in the entire southern city.”
“Three waves of Level 3 mutant beasts have already come through; they were just pushed back. People in the rear are saying there might be something even more powerful being held back. Don't... don't charge in alone.”
“Got it.”
Luo Yang nodded and said no more.
He rolled up the window as a gap finally opened in the crowd ahead. He stepped on the gas, and the off-road vehicle slowly drove past Yu Mingyang.
In the rearview mirror, the fat boy was still standing there. It took his two classmates quite a while to pull him away and get him to turn around.
Yan Zhi tilted her head from the passenger seat and looked at the rearview mirror.
“Is he your friend?”
“Yes.”
“He was crying just now.”
“He was.”
“Do you want to cry too?”
Luo Yang made a slight turn with the steering wheel.
“No,” he said. “I’m humming.”
The wheels rolled over the shell casings scattered on the road, making a series of fine, clicking noises.
Outside the window, the viaduct dyed red by the firelight grew closer and closer. The concrete rubble at the foot of the bridge flickered in the distance, looking like a giant beast crouching in the night.
Luo Yang didn't speak again, nor did he hum another tune, but Yan Zhi could tell that the rhythm of his breathing was perfectly in sync with the melody he had just been humming.
Rising and falling, as if continuing the song in some invisible place.
That scent of sorrow clung to the car window all the way to the foot of the bridge.
Rate on N.U.
