Once We Lived in Nanjing

Ban Xia turned off her walkie-talkie and began to retreat cautiously on tiptoe.

One step, two steps, as if she were walking on a tightrope.

She backed away slowly from the entrance of Brande University's building three. There was a thin layer of soft mud on the ground, making no sound when stepped on, and the weeds in the green belt towered higher than a person. The ground floor of the CFC Plaza Building C, close to the street, featured a lineup of entertainment venues spanning fifty meters; seafood, lobsters, spicy hotpot skewers, banquet rooms, chess, and mahjong parlors, all marked with the remnants of scorched and deserted signs. Ban Xia moved backward, hunching closer to the ground, and finally crawled across the street and through the pitch-black night, her clothes and backpack brushing against the yellow-green, withered grass.

"Where are you— I've found you—"

"Delicious fruit—"

That voice was just around the corner, so close it was almost within reach, separated by a single wall.

Finally, Ban Xia heard that thing speaking again.

Her hands and feet shook, terror threatening to bring her to tears, but she couldn't cry, had to keep the tears spinning in her reddened eyes. This was truly frightening—why did she have to face such a monster all by herself? Only by summoning all her strength could Ban Xia keep her body still, gradually increasing the distance between them—one meter, two meters, five meters, ten meters...

It doesn't seem to have noticed me.

Ban Xia saw hope.

She could escape!

Ban Xia, you must be blessed by heaven; you'll surely turn misfortune into fortune! In a world where everyone else has perished, only you have survived; as BG would say, you have the luck of a protagonist!

Protagonists don't die!

Ban Xia shouted this to herself in her heart.

She crawled along the ground, slowly retreating, moving further away from that corner near Brande University building three. The large eyes hadn't spotted her—you, it didn't peek over at all! In fact, if it had just peeked over, it would have been all over for her, but it didn't even glance her way!

Joy at having narrowly escaped death began to bloom in the girl's heart.

She estimated in her mind that she had probably created a distance of about thirty or forty meters; the alley should be coming to an end.

Lifting her head, Ban Xia saw the white signboard of Fish and Rice Town above her; indeed, the alley had come to an end. Fish and Rice Town was a restaurant located at the entrance corner of the alley. Glancing back behind her, there was the road that cut across; she had retreated back to the entrance of the alleyway, while the creature with the large eyes was still over by Brande University building three, not having given chase.

This allowed her to breathe a slight sigh of relief.

Ban Xia then quietly got up, transitioning from crawling to kneeling, and from kneeling to a crouching position. Finally, she turned around and cautiously tiptoed along the wall, planning to leave the alleyway and take a different route back. The girl's actions were markedly careful. She pressed against the wall at the corner of the road, not rushing her next move, first peeking around to observe the environment—

Ban Xia peered out, and at the same time, the other did the same.

The girl saw her own reflection in a gigantic red pupil.

What kind of eye was that? The deep red iris, like flowing blood, was liquid yet suddenly solidified the moment it locked on its target. It was a vortex, a black hole, anyone who looked into it felt as if they were staring into the abyss. In the instant Ban Xia made eye contact, it felt as if her soul had been sucked away, and within the blink of an eye the creature had gleaned all the information about Ban Xia it needed.

For a moment, Ban Xia's mind went completely blank; 0.0001 seconds later, the extreme fear demolished all rational thought, and she screamed and turned to run.

"Ah—!"

The scream lasted only half a second before it was cut off.

Ban Xia had just taken two steps when suddenly the ground beneath her vanished, her body dropped sharply, and her midsection slammed painfully against the hard road surface, the pain so intense she couldn't make a sound.

The remnants of reason still present in her mind told her she had fallen into a well; there must be a manhole without a cover on the road. This wasn't her first time falling into a well, so she had the experience, but before Ban Xia could react, icy brine flooded her throat, overwhelming her eyes, ears, nose, and all senses. It was as if a heavy blow to her forehead had caused the world to spin and blacken her vision. As her consciousness and the last of the air in her lungs bubbled out, she didn't understand why there was such fast and ferocious moving water beneath the well, it was like an underground river.

Ban Xia was swept into the water's flow, instantly losing her conscious awareness amidst the pitch-dark waters, as if tossed into a washing machine filled with water, her head bobbing above and below the surface, aware that she was alive but death was not far off.

In such chaotic conditions, the human brain can hardly gather any effective information or make any judgments; it cannot think of anything, nor even attempt self-rescue. Most people go into a state of system failure, from being swept away to drowning—Ban Xia's brain was in the same state, filled only with the sounds of gurgling.

She was carried away by the currents deep into the well, and before long, she would become a waterlogged corpse, pale and bloated, to be nibbled on by fish.

What saved her life was her backpack.

The backpack got caught on something inside the sewer, the speed of its drift abruptly hindered, allowing the girl a chance to desperately poke her head out of the water to cough.

She tried to grab onto something to stabilize herself, but the concrete inner walls were wet and slippery, covered with moss and algae; inside the pitch-black sewer, she couldn't see anything, no light at all, only the thunderous sound of water.

Ban Xia carefully tiptoed, finding solid ground beneath her feet.

She tested her stability; the water reached her chest, but the flow wasn't as swift as before, possibly because it had entered a larger main well channel.