AUS Chapter 54: Liu Jiang?

At first, I thought I was dead.

The thought of dying on the waterlogged, glass-shattered second floor of my company building inevitably filled me with a sense of sadness, especially since I hadn’t had the chance to take a hot shower, eat something to fill my stomach, and then lie down properly.

I had just fallen backward, landing hard on the tiled floor.

Ah, what misery!

But I wasn’t dead.

My mind felt like it was drifting on the sea. In a trance, I felt my body floating on the water’s surface, like the bear born in a nutshell from a children’s story, rising and falling, tossed by wind and rain.

After the back of my head rested on something soft, I realized I wasn’t actually at sea, but had been lifted onto a mattress.

My eyelids were as heavy as iron. It took a hundred times my normal effort to crack them open slightly. In my line of sight, I was lying in the infirmary on the second floor of the company building.

The front desk girl I had just spoken with was at the door, anxiously talking to a doctor from a nearby relief organization—it seemed they had worked together to carry me here.

A few sentences later, Haozi also rushed in. He had clearly just gone to find medicine; his round face was beaded with sweat.

I could hear what they were discussing, but I couldn’t react at all. Even though they could see me in the room, it still felt as if waves were pushing against my back. I closed my eyes and sank back into the darkness.

Theoretically, I thought I should be having some chaotic dreams.

But in reality, there was nothing in my consciousness. For a few fleeting moments, I reminded myself that I should be thinking about something, that I should get up, that I should take off the leather jacket that was constantly bunched up under my back.

I couldn’t react at all, even as the sky outside began to darken, and I could sense the arrival of dusk through my eyelids.

During that time, those two must have come back twice.

I felt someone cover me with a thin blanket and feed me a few drops of electrolyte water. Then my breathing and heartbeat were checked again. I really wanted to sit up and say I wasn’t dead, but before the thought could even surface, I fell back into a state of chaos.

I need to wake up.

I have to find Liu Jiang, no matter where he is—I have to find him.

I regained consciousness again at midnight.

What woke me was another burst of guitar sounds. It didn’t sound far, low and melodious. At first, I thought the front desk girl had returned, but I quickly realized something was wrong.

This wasn’t the timbre of a ukulele.

In the sports equipment storeroom, in the small house in Liancheng, and even in the past, on the sports field where we rarely met, he had played the guitar for me many times.

I couldn’t tell the difference from a distance, but up close, I could distinguish the timbre of a guitar one hundred percent of the time.

My eyes opened a sliver. I heard the sound of the guitar right next to me. By the light of the outdoor searchlight shining in, I saw that there was a person at the foot of my bed.

He had entered without my knowing, his back to me, sitting on the edge of the mattress by my feet.

It wasn’t the doctor who had brought me here, nor was it Haozi. It wasn’t anyone I had met since the apocalypse began.

The person was wearing a slightly longer soft-shell jacket. His shoulders were broad and his back was straight. He held the guitar in his hands, his movements relaxed and fluid. He tuned the guitar, and after a few strums, a melody began to play.

My heart felt as if it had been suddenly seized, and even its beating became cautious. But after the first few tentative thumps, my heartbeat began to push its luck.

Thump, thump.

Each beat was stronger than the last, as if trying to break free from my chest, or forcing me to say something, do something, at least react in some way.

But I couldn’t do anything. My whole body felt like it was trapped in mud, unable to move.

My eyes were still within the control of my consciousness. I instinctively raised my gaze, searching for any trace of something familiar.

The person at the foot of the bed had his back to me. Under the jacket was a hoodie, its large hood covering his entire face.

As he moved to pluck the strings, his hands shifted into the light. They were long and slender, yet powerful, with distinct knuckles and clear veins.

I recognized those hands.

These hands had tugged at the corner of my clothes, had grasped my fingers, had caressed me in the dead of night.

They had held the small of my back, gripped my ankle, a thumb had rested on my Adam’s apple, they had left scratches on my back, and when all was calm, they would clasp my wrist tightly, waiting for my kiss to fall.

This was Liu Jiang.

This was Liu Jiang!

I could feel the tip of my tongue pressing against the roof of my mouth, but I couldn’t call out his name no matter how hard I tried.

Why was he here?

Why did he wait until now to appear?

Why won’t he turn his head to look at me? Why didn’t he wait for me? Why doesn’t he miss me?

Why, why don’t you love me.

I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. Only my eyes followed his movements, as if licking them, hoping for even the slightest reaction from him.

Even just a glance.

But his fingers danced on the strings, and nothing happened. He didn’t stop, didn’t look at me, just continued as if no one else was there.

I heard the melody start to move in a familiar direction.

It was “Hotel California.”

His fingering was much more skillful than the girl’s. The notes were fluid, the rhythm perfect. Watching him perform was a pleasure, but at this moment, every note plucked from the strings brought me a pang of powerlessness.

He began to hum.

He wasn’t singing every word perfectly, but humming with his nose as if playing around. He sounded very relaxed, not like someone in the apocalypse. It was as if he was still stuck in the past.

Strangely, I’ve never been one to remember lyrics.

Music in my native language, universally sung classics, even if Liu Jiang sang them to my face, I might not remember them. But this time, in this moment of utter immobility, I could accurately recall every lyric he was humming.

After the chorus, during a low-pitched instrumental interlude, I sang the next lines with him in my mind:

“In the master’s chambers, they gathered for the feast
(They stabbed it with their steely knives, but they just can’t kill the beast)”

At this point, the song came to an abrupt halt. He seemed to hear something and slowly lifted his gaze to look forward.

In the light filtering through the window, I could see the straight bridge of his nose. As he breathed, a few strands of silver hair fell from the edge of his hood, like slanted rays of light through the trees at dawn.

Sensation slowly began to return to my fingers, from the periphery inward, bit by bit. I felt the blood start to flow through my veins again. Strength gathered in my chest, and control returned to my body.

The next second, I shot up and reached out a hand toward his figure.

In almost the same instant, my eyes flew open. I was drenched in sweat, my hands trembling uncontrollably.

At the infirmary door, the front desk girl was just about to leave. Hearing my voice, she hurried back, put down what she was holding, and rushed to my bedside.

“You’re finally awake,” she said, sounding greatly relieved. 

“You were unconscious for a whole day. We guessed it was hypoglycemia and lack of rest. We fed you some electrolyte water, but then we found you were still running a fever…”

“Wait,” I interrupted her. 

“A day?”

Just a moment ago, when I saw Liu Jiang, it had just been nightfall.

Was it all a dream?

I turned my head to look out the window. A bright white sun hung high in the sky. It looked like it was noon.

The time didn’t match. It really was a dream.

After realizing this, the warmth that had just gathered in my chest slowly dissipated. Weakness and despair seeped back into my organs, and a sense of exhaustion washed over me again.

But I still asked her with a glimmer of hope, “Was there no one here just now? Last night, around nightfall?”

The young woman looked at me with a puzzled expression, as if she thought I had definitely lost my mind. She replied, “The doctor left last night. I was in the staff lounge. I came up to check once around midnight—there shouldn’t be anyone else in the building, right?”

Seeing I didn’t reply, she softened her voice and asked, “Teacher Yang, how many days has it been since you’ve rested?”

I shook my head. I couldn’t count how long it had been since I’d slept well. For several days, I had been wide awake almost all night, my mind a kaleidoscope of changing colors.

The girl sighed. 

“It’s easy to have strange dreams when you’re not well-rested. It’s also easy to mistake dreams for reality. Your fever just broke. Do you want to rest a little more?”

I finally managed to muster the strength to answer her. I nodded and said, “It was probably just a dream.”

Seeing that I had regained some of my senses, she breathed a sigh of relief and reminded me to take the fever reducer on the coffee table.

Before she left, I called out to her, thanked her sincerely, and then said, “If you’re evacuating with the other survivors in the next couple of days, just go ahead and prepare. I’ll recover soon, and I’ll leave on my own then.”

She nodded, walked to the door with a hint of worry, said “stay safe” one more time, and then turned and left.

The infirmary was quiet again. I could smell the faint scent of disinfectant left over from before the apocalypse, and it felt like I was back in my student days.

I had always been in good health and never ended up in the infirmary for being sick. Liu Jiang was different. He fainted once from performing nonstop. At that time, as a class officer, I was ordered by our head teacher to accompany him.

By the time he woke up, I had already gone through my vocabulary words twice. Seeing him awake, I got up to leave, but he suddenly grabbed my hand and asked if I would stay with him a little longer.

“Class ends in five minutes,” he said. 

“Stay with me for just five more minutes, please.”

It was only then that I realized he had even faked fainting.

It was summer back then, and the shadows of the trees swayed outside the infirmary window. Now, the concept of seasons was gone. I could only hear the roar of the wind blowing through the building.

So, was everything last night really a dream?

No, no, I never have dreams that are this clear.

The feeling of the guitar strings vibrating, the frequency of his fingers plucking, the melody, the sound of the wind, even the way his hair swayed before he turned his head—none of it felt like a dream.

So what was he trying to tell me? What was he hinting at? And how am I supposed to find it?

I lowered my head, my vision filled with the white of the blanket. I pressed my hands to the sides of my face, my fingertips sinking slowly into my hair.

I can definitely figure it out. I have to figure it out.

I began to replay the events of last night in my mind from beginning to end, second by second, twice over. Finally, I stopped on the lyric that Liu Jiang and I had sung together.

Could it be, this is a hint?

In the master’s chambers, they gathered for the feast… they just can’t kill the beast…

What’s the next line?

I immediately threw off the blanket, dry-swallowed the fever reducer from the coffee table, put on the hiking boots that were on the floor, and ran out the door.

I think I know what he was trying to say.