Mysterious Resurrection: What If

Chapter 214 Forgetting (Part 1)

The sun was shining brightly, and the air was scorching hot.

The summer heatwave swept across the city, and even the air felt scorching.

Zhao Lei stood by the roadside, sweat dripping down his neck and into his collar, feeling sticky and irritable.

I glanced at my watch; ten minutes had passed since the bus arrived at the station.

"Why aren't they here yet?"

My gaze fell on the newspaper in my hand, which had some blurry writing on it, and the ink on the headline had become a blotchy mess.

A hint of doubt flashed in his eyes.

"A newspaper? When did you get it in your hand...?"

However, he didn't think much of it and casually wiped the sweat from his forehead with a newspaper.

The air on the other side of the road was distorted by the heat, and the asphalt surface gleamed white, like a black ribbon about to melt.

The temperature is unbearable; all he wants to do right now is get on the bus and turn on the air conditioning.

"How much longer do we have to wait? It's so hot!"

"Yes, I have to call and complain. The buses are getting less and less punctual these days."

Several people nearby were complaining all at once.

Just then, a muffled horn blared from afar.

"The car is here!"

A bus slowly pulled up, displaying the sign "Dachuan City Route 36".

Zhao Lei immediately stood at the front, wanting to grab the best spot.

The bus slowly came to a stop.

A group of people immediately squeezed forward.

"Damn, luckily I was quick, there were just too many people."

Zhao Lei rushed to the front and found a seat in the last corner.

A cold, damp wind kept pouring out of the vents.

It was very cold, like being in a morgue, which had a sinister atmosphere due to the long-term storage of corpses.

"Damn... the air conditioning is way too strong."

Zhao Lei shivered and muttered to himself.

I casually opened the window a crack, wanting to get some fresh air.

The next second, a pungent stench filled my nostrils, like someone burning a corpse in plastic, mixed with the fishy smell of the sewer.

Zhao Lei immediately covered his nose, "Why does it smell so bad! Did some drainpipe burst somewhere?"

He quickly closed the window, leaned back in his seat, and began to rest.

Outside the window, the sunlight made the street appear white, blurring the shadows of pedestrians.

The driver was very skilled; the bus drove very smoothly, so smoothly that it seemed as if the vehicle hadn't started moving at all, but had remained stationary.

The buildings on both sides rushed past, and the city's appearance came into view.

Strangely, all the buildings in Okawa City are gray and white, and even the shop signs and advertisements have no color.

Pedestrians walk stiffly on the road, as if completing a specific process.

Soon, he noticed a detail; something was very wrong.

Every so often, the road we had just traveled would reappear, and the scenery on both sides would repeat itself endlessly.

"Hmm?...Did the route go around in circles?"

He pressed his entire face against the window to observe.

But the next second, a look of confusion flashed in his eyes, as if he had forgotten something important, and he subconsciously ignored this unusual phenomenon.

But what was even stranger was that he hadn't noticed that two figures were always standing along the road in the reflection of the car window.

No matter how fast the bus sped up, the two people remained standing on the roadside, changing their position as the bus moved.

Before I knew it, a wave of drowsiness washed over me, and my eyelids felt unusually heavy, as if I were about to fall asleep completely at any moment.

His head kept shaking back and forth until he finally couldn't hold on any longer. His vision gradually darkened, and he fell into a deep sleep.

He had a dream, very short, but very real.

On an airplane, a man with vertical pupils handed him a newspaper and said something to him, as if he was explaining something important. Zhao Lei couldn't hear clearly, but he could see the man's lips moving.

He tried to see the face clearly, but every time he focused his gaze, half of the image was erased, blurring into a pale gray blur.

"Hey, Zhao Lei, wake up."

Someone gently patted his shoulder. The gesture was light, but it felt like a nail, pulling him back to reality from his reverie.

"Huh?..." Zhao Lei opened his eyes in a daze.

"Zhao Lei, what's wrong? Why are you asleep here?"

Shaking his groggy head, Zhao Lei looked at the man in front of him.

It's strange, this person's face is unclear, even though the two are so close, his facial features are very clear.
But all Zhao Lei saw was a bleak gray, and all he could make out was the man's hair. Zhao Lei suddenly realized something, but the next second, he froze.

"Ah...it's nothing, I'm just too sleepy, I probably didn't sleep well."

The man nodded. "That's good. Let's go eat."

"Have a meal?"

"Yes, aren't you hungry? Let's go eat now."

"Oh well.."

He was in a daze, his consciousness stagnant. He looked like a corpse being pulled by a rope.

She struggled to her feet from the sofa, stiffly took a few steps, and followed the man out of the small room.

The sky outside was overcast and cool; the late autumn air carried a hint of chill.

The weather was pretty good today, and many residents chose to bring their families out for a trip during this season.

"Where is this"

Zhao Lei looked at the place in front of him, his head throbbing with pain.

A faint stench of decay, mixed with the acrid smell of burning corpses at the crematorium, permeated the air.

Upon smelling this odor, Zhao Lei's expression changed.

"Something's not right, that wasn't me just now!..."

A scene flashed through his mind, like being on a bus, but he couldn't recall the specific details.

The feeling was strange; he couldn't remember anything from before he arrived here.

The man walked over to Zhao Lei's side.

"This is the city center, what's wrong with you? You always seem so distracted."

"No..." Zhao Lei's expression returned to normal.

"I've probably been too busy lately, and my memory isn't very good."

The two walked together toward their destination. Although Zhao Lei didn't know where they were going, he still followed the man.

Subconsciously, I feel safe only when I'm with him.

"Why are you holding this newspaper like that?"

The man turned his head and looked at the crumpled newspaper in Zhao Lei's hand, asking a question.

"I don't know, I just feel that this newspaper is very important to me."

Thick, grayish-black smoke was spreading across the road, indicating a fire somewhere. The smoke drifted throughout the city on the breeze.

The residential buildings on both sides of the street were faintly visible, surrounded by black smoke, like layers of pale flesh being corroded.

"arrive."

The man stopped in front of a restaurant and led Zhao Lei inside.

The light was mixed with a dark green glow, and the decor was classic, suggesting it was a Western restaurant.

The two casually found a seat by the window and sat down.

"Please enjoy."

Zhao Lei sat at the dining table, looking at the plate that the waiter brought over, which was covered with a semi-circular iron lid.

"Eat up, don't just stand there."

"Oh"

Reaching out to open the lid, Zhao Lei's pupils suddenly contracted; a blood-red eyeball sat quietly in the plate.

The eyeball seemed to be alive, staring eerily at Zhao Lei, with blood seeping out continuously. In no time, the entire dining table was soaked in bright red blood.

"What's this?!"

Zhao Lei yelled and jumped back, the chair scraping against the floor with a screeching sound.

He was about to get up when he suddenly stopped, as if he had remembered something. He recalled a man handing him a newspaper and saying something to him.

He blurted out instinctively, "Leg Bro?"

"What leg guy?"

The man stood up and looked at Zhao Lei.

Zhao Lei ignored him, picked up a pen from the side, dipped it in the scarlet blood, and prepared to write on the newspaper.

He looked up at the man, but that one action made him freeze in place.

The tense expression on his face gradually disappeared, replaced by a blank look.

The blood on the table had disappeared, and the eyeball had turned into an ordinary steak; it was as if nothing had happened.

The man suddenly asked, "Zhao Lei, why aren't you saying anything?"

"I…"

The words were on the tip of Zhao Lei's tongue, but he couldn't say them because he didn't know what to say.

(End of this chapter)