After Waking from the Dream

“Cough, cough, cough!”

Coughing violently, I woke up.

My head was groggy, and my whole body felt weak and limp; I seemed to have a fever.

A bizarre dream left me covered in cold sweat, sticky and uncomfortable.

But since there were no clothes to change into here, I could only endure the strange sensation.

The wound on my left shoulder seemed a bit inflamed; it was gradually becoming numb, but a slight poke brought a wave of pain.

It wasn’t as agonizing as the pain in the dream, but it was enough to make me gasp for breath.

The feeling of regaining control over my body was truly great.

I extended my hands and clenched my fists; although difficult, my arms obediently listened to my brain’s commands and wouldn’t do anything I didn’t want them to do.

The tragic state of the “me” who was tortured in the nightmare remained in my mind, lingering for a long time.

It probably wouldn’t disappear in this lifetime; even the experience of being skinned by Su Yanlan in a previous dream wasn’t as real as this one.

“Miss Qin Yue.”

Beside me, Su Yanlan spoke at the right moment, waking me from the fear of the dream.

As usual, she gently patted my head.

She probably really wasn’t angry anymore; her gentleness didn’t seem faked.

When promises aren’t broken, Su Yanlan is indeed the easiest to get along with; I must be more careful in the future.

The Zhou Qiuqin in the dream fit my stereotype of the Leader perfectly.

I must stay away from her in the future.

If there is a chance, I hope to change camps and live somewhere else, although that is highly unlikely.

The way that teddy bear burned was exactly the same as how my corpse was ignited—both ending in ashes.

“Miss Qin Yue?”

Su Yanlan called my name again.

“Haha… sorry, I was spacing out again.”

I smiled and apologized, laughing it off.

Unknowingly, I had fallen into the shadow of that nightmare again.

I couldn’t help it; that dream was too real and too bloody.

“You had a nightmare, didn’t you?”

She withdrew the hand stroking my hair and looked at me quietly.

“Mhm, sorry, did I disturb you? Miss Yanlan.”

As she said, I indeed had a terrible nightmare.

There was nothing to hide about such things, so I nodded honestly.

The truck was still moving, and the fog had dispersed.

I didn’t know how much time had passed, but the soldiers on the truck were drowsy, and the people walking on the ground had also begun to tire.

We had left the forest.

Outside the vehicle lay a hard highway and fields covered in white snow.

Desolate grass grew luxuriantly; on the drainage ditches on both sides of the highway, blades of weeds poked their heads out.

The sparse vegetation made the scene appear even more desolate.

I looked up; a bright moon hung in the sky, and a few stars, rarely uncovered by clouds, leaked through.

“No.”

She shook her head.

I breathed a sigh of relief.

There were ten potatoes left in the bag beside me.

My stomach was a little hungry; maybe I could peel one to eat?

Just as I used my relatively agile right hand to reach for a potato in the bag, Su Yanlan grabbed my left hand.

Subconsciously thinking she was hungry too, after some consideration, I simply lifted the whole bag of potatoes and placed it on my lap, a position she could reach.

“…Is your wound okay?”

She shook her head and pulled open my padded coat again.

The shirt inside the coat wasn’t spared either.

Perhaps to avoid touching the wound, she chose not to take off my clothes but simply tore the fabric at the injury site.

Cold air hit the wound, and the freezing wind blowing on the exposed skin made me shiver uncontrollably.

Su Yanlan made no further moves, just quietly waiting for my answer.

I wanted to use my right hand to pull back the opened coat, but she stopped me.

“…I don’t know.”

I actually wanted to say it was fine, but the small holes on my shoulder were red and swollen into small bumps, showing no sign of scabbing.

My left shoulder was numb, and both sensation and reaction were dull; my entire left arm had become difficult to use because of this injury.

I couldn’t even fool myself, so how could I fool others?

“Hoo.”

Su Yanlan exhaled a breath of turbid air; the warm breath hit my face, making me blink repeatedly.

“There is no medicine or alcohol here, so I can’t treat it very meticulously. It might leave a scar.”

Saying this, she supported me, letting me lean against the side wall, and extended my upper body out of the vehicle.

After waiting uneasily for a while, I felt some cold liquid sliding down onto the wound.

It was water.

Water, a precious resource, was being used by Su Yanlan to clean my wound.

In the cold wind, the icy liquid flowed over my skin, and my body trembled.

It didn’t hurt, but it was cold.

With a dripping sound, some water droplets splashed onto the ground, merging with the accumulated snow, while other droplets were absorbed by my clothes after washing the wound, sticking tightly to the intact skin around my shoulder.

When the wind blew, I felt even colder.

“It’s a bit cold.”

Not just a bit, but very cold.

Fortunately, the rinsing didn’t last long.

Su Yanlan quickly pulled me back into the vehicle and used a cotton swab she carried with her, dipped in clean water, to wipe around the wound.

Seriously, why does she carry cotton swabs with her?

I couldn’t find an answer to this question.

Su Yanlan put away the cotton swab, looked at my wound, hesitated for a long while, then tore another strip of cloth from my shirt and tightly bound the wound, tying a not-so-pretty dead knot.

I didn’t feel much pain.

“Thank you, Miss Yanlan.”

After putting my clothes back on properly, I looked at Su Yanlan in front of me and whispered my thanks.

Although I was shivering from the cold just now, I didn’t dare to have any complaints, did I?

In fact, I didn’t really expect anyone to treat my wound, especially since Su Yanlan was the one who aggravated it.

I haven’t forgotten her action of thrusting her fingers into my wound earlier; I even felt that if it weren’t for her behavior, I wouldn’t have developed a fever.

She said nothing, just quietly holding the mineral water bottle in her hand; the transparent bottle still had one-third of the drinking water left.

“Here.”

I took a potato from the bag and handed it to Su Yanlan.

She didn’t refuse but silently accepted the potato, held it in her hand, and peeled it bit by bit.

No surprise at all; after all, cyborgs are humans too, and they get hungry.

They just have better physical fitness and strength than ordinary people, not robots who don’t need to eat or drink.

Uh… not entirely correct, since some cyborgs can have everything except their brains replaced with metal, but would that still count as a cyborg?

I don’t know.

I took out a potato for myself, peeled it carelessly, and started eating.

Having been frozen in the cold winter for so long, it lost the mealy texture it had when fresh from the oven and was somewhat hard.

I wasn’t qualified to be picky.

Finishing the potato in my hand in a few bites, I leaned gently on Su Yanlan’s shoulder.

There were eight potatoes left.

With food in my stomach, I felt much more comfortable, and drowsiness surged up again.

That’s how it is when people are sick; they always want to sleep.