Wicked Soil

Water is dead, but people are alive.

Ningzhi pushed that door for three years. The apocalypse opened it in just three knocks.

"Ningzhi, I'm okay..."

"Don't cry... be good..."

"Please, let me live..."

"Was I really not meant to be alive?"

She heard it all.

The plate of dumplings only ever got smaller. One cry of "Sis" pierced her heart.

The jade bangle was always cold. The ecosystem kept growing.

Some say people are merely pawns who accumulate experience through death. Anyone who tries to escape the game gets erased.

She refused to believe it.

She headed north to find someone still alive. Then deeper still, to ask the thing that had turned everything into spores:

What does it mean to be alive?

Even if no one else survives,

she would bring the person she loved back to the surface.

Given another chance, she would do the same again.

(Apocalypse / Reborn / No CP / Strong Female Lead / Survival)