Doomsday Wonderland Vol. 13: Sleepwalking in Dreamland

1647: Items

If only memories could be extracted and etched onto a disc—she could play them over and over, reliving each moment as often as she wished. She wouldn't need to worry that each time she recalled it, her mind would make the inevitable human mistakes: forgetting certain details, unconsciously altering parts... until the memory left would hardly resemble the truth of what had actually happened.

If Xie Feng could choose, the memory she would replay endlessly would be that rainy night on the boat with Dong Luorong.

At the moment the boat began to move, Xie Feng and Dong Luorong both felt the same sensation: it was as if a heavy cloth that had shrouded their faces for ages was finally lifted, and for the first time, they could breathe freely. Outside lay the storm, the ocean, the darkness, and the path of a fugitive without safe ground beneath their feet, all beneath the shadow of an impending doomsday—and yet, everything felt perfect.

If this was the end of the world, Xie Feng would open her arms and plunge into it.

The world outside was vast, filled with possibilities beyond her imagination, free from the constraints and oppression that once bound her. She had strength, she had power, and she could charge into the sea breeze, collide with the waves—she imagined the resonant clang of metal like a deep bell.

And then, there was Dong Luorong.

Before meeting Dong Luorong, Xie Feng hadn't realized how her past nineteen years had withered and dried up. Dong Luorong hadn't saved her life—she had caught Xie Feng as she fell from her old life, cradling her like a mother's womb, bringing her into a new birth.

How could there be a word to describe this feeling? Xie Feng doubted such a word even existed. It was a feeling so unusual, so far beyond what words could capture.

Dancing with Dong Luorong in the rain, the unfamiliar music from the record, the mix of seawater and rain in the whiskey, the satisfying clink of glasses, the joyous laughter as Dong Luorong threw her head back...

Xie Feng would gladly replay every memory of those hours, right up until they encountered the patrol ship.

At that point, she would rewind, starting from the moment she shouted the smuggler out of the cabin, then replaying it all again and again.

But a person can't control—at least not always—the direction of their thoughts.

The pounding rain had never sounded so loud, beating furiously against the sea as the waves shuddered and rolled, each current seeming to carry its own will, tearing apart everything in sight.

While these waves might not have been particularly rough for a boat, to someone thrown into them, they brought an overwhelming sense of despair. What had happened? Even as Xie Feng choked and surfaced, her mind was reeling in confusion.

Was everything that had just happened a dream?

Under the pitch-black rain, on a sea dark and void of any light, waves rose and fell like jagged mountains. Using all her strength, Xie Feng pushed against the unseen undercurrents, fought through the waves crashing down on her, struggling through layer after layer of water toward where the boat had been struck, not realizing that she had been shouting Dong Luorong's name the entire time.

How could that small boat—a craft meant for traffickers moving people in secret—stand a chance against a patrol frigate?

Before they had set off, the smuggler had explained to her several times that their route completely avoided the coastal patrol zones. He'd crossed these waters countless times, knowing exactly when to depart and where to go to avoid capture. When they had finally spotted a large ship on the distant horizon, he was so shocked that he froze.