Doomsday Wonderland Vol. 13: Sleepwalking in Dreamland

1628: Nesting Pit

If a person has the luxury to fall ill in peace, they can consider themselves lucky.

In that dim hotel room, as Xie Feng lay feverish and bedridden, she quietly shed tears more than once.

Her entire body ached under the high fever, as if her skin and bones were on the verge of bursting. Every time she turned over, it felt like torture. Yet, she had the comfort of a dry bed, free from wandering the streets under endless rain, with three meals a day and fever medicine she could afford. Most importantly, she wasn't alone—someone was by her side.

Though by any stretch of the imagination, Dong Luorong was not someone you'd call nurturing.

The food came via room service, and the medicine was bought by a driver. There were no scenes like in TV dramas where someone cools a fever with a damp cloth. Instead, a large pack of fever patches was tossed onto the nightstand with a thud, and Dong Luorong's idea of care was simply saying, "Stick one on yourself."

When Xie Feng quietly asked if she could boil some hot water, Dong Luorong's expression was one of genuine confusion.

"Why would you need hot water?" she asked, as if she truly lacked all basic common sense in life. "Hot water, cold water—it all turns into body temperature once it's inside you, right?"

Technically, that made sense. But a sip of warm tea would've been nice for the throat.

"Didn't I already buy you throat lozenges?"

At that moment, Dong Luorong looked like a child who had begged for a pet only to realize it involved cleaning up after it—annoyed and unwilling but unable to shirk responsibility. "Fine, fine, I get it. Hot water, right?"

She stood by the electric kettle, rocking impatiently on her toes, as if willing it to boil faster with sheer mental force.

Even though Dong Luorong was such a person—and an imperial citizen on top of it—her presence was still a great comfort to Xie Feng.

Xie Feng often felt as if she were hanging by a single thread, one gust of wind away from plunging into an unknown abyss. The sense of security that had once tethered her to the world, like a screw firmly fastened, only seemed to exist when she was compliant and obedient. The moment she expressed discontent or resistance, the world revealed a very different face.

She had an older brother who worked at City Hall. On the day of the city's surrender, she even saw him on the TV news in the station lobby, standing with his colleagues at the entrance to City Hall, all beaming with pride.

If there had ever been a choice between the two siblings, Xie Feng knew she was the one left behind.

"The Empire guarantees Tear City's future safety. You'll still be able to study, work, marry, and have children. How has the Empire wronged you?" her brother had lectured her at the dinner table, just before she decided to leave home. "Girls shouldn't carry so much anger and resentment all the time, looking so bitter and twisted—it makes people want to keep their distance."

Women's protests turned out to be an offense, a principle that Xie Feng understood at the age of eighteen.

The Empire is protecting you, but the price paid is me.

Xie Feng was in a trance, staring at the scrambled eggs on the table, wondering when she would next taste her mother's cooking. Tear City wasn't far from the Empire, and in this age of instant information, it was easy to see what life under imperial rule would look like—especially for ordinary women at the bottom of society. The only difference was whether you chose to open your eyes and or not.