RotA – Chapter 39

Her heartbeat quickened uncontrollably.

Her breath hitched for a few seconds.

The hands wrapped around her waist were slender and cool.

The whisper in her ear, so light and so calm, yet it carried an undeniable sorrow.

On the verge of breathlessness, Chai Yuening took a long, deep breath, her raised right hand gently stroking Chu Ci’s hair.

It trembled slightly as she patted her unconsciously.

She couldn’t help but think that anyone in this position would be reluctant to let go of the ordinary freedom that felt stolen over the past month.

She didn’t know how to comfort her.

She wished she could stay with her forever.

But time always passed too quickly, and their efforts to stay together couldn’t outpace their parting.

Amidst the silence, someone knocked on the door.

The two, locked in a gentle embrace, separated in an instant as if nothing had happened.

Chai Yuening strode over and opened the door, only to see four heads of varying heights crowded outside. The moment the door opened, they immediately peered inside.

Most importantly, behind them were bags and luggage of all sizes.

Chai Yuening couldn’t help but be taken aback. “You all… what are you doing crowding my doorway so early in the morning?”

Lu Qi: “Captain, Ci Jie is leaving today. Are you going to see her off?”

Chai Yuening: “Yes.”

Lu Qi: “To the lift platform, to the surface, or all the way to the Floating City?”

Chai Yuening: “If they allow it, I want to see her all the way back.”

Ren Dong: “Take us with you, Captain! We want to see Chu Ci off too. We’ve known each other for a while now, it’s hard to say goodbye.”

Lu Qi: “Yeah, since Chu Ci is going back, we should at least see her to her doorstep to be at ease, right?”

Lao Xiang: “We’ve all been through life and death with Chu Ci. It’s not too much to ask to hitch a ride on the plane for a trip to the Floating City, is it?”

Lu Qi: “Exactly. We can check out the sky while we’re at it. We can brag about it for the rest of our lives when we get back.”

Du Xia: “I’m also curious what it looks like to look down from the sky.”

Chai Yuening was stunned, a trace of warmth rising in her heart.

If more people were there to keep her company, Chu Ci would probably be very happy.

Thinking this, she took a deep breath. “You all…”

Lao Xiang: “Don’t worry, we won’t disturb your private time together. We’ll just liven things up on the way, and go sightseeing on our own once we get there.”

Chai Yuening: “That’s not what I meant…”

Ren Dong: “No need to explain, Captain.”

Lu Qi: “We get it, we get it.”

Du Xia: “Mhm.”

Chai Yuening: “…”

She didn’t know if it was her imagination, or if it was You Lan’s fault.

It seemed like everyone had some strange misunderstanding about her relationship with Chu Ci.

In the beginning, it was only You Lan.

Just as Chai Yuening was about to say something, she heard Chu Ci’s voice from behind her.

“Okay,” Chu Ci said, her brows curving into a smile.

The reply was like a tacit admission of something. Chai Yuening opened her mouth but found herself unable to utter a single word.

After getting permission, everyone outside dragged their luggage into the room, found an empty spot to sit, and began chatting idly with great energy.

The once somewhat somber room instantly became much livelier.

Using the excuse of washing up, Chai Yuening locked herself in the bathroom and zoned out for a while.

She couldn’t stop thinking about that sudden embrace, couldn’t stop dwelling on the warmth that had been so close to her heart.

Chu Ci’s voice seemed to still echo in her ears.

Light and calm, as if recounting an ordinary matter, yet it tugged at her heartstrings.

After calming down, she gently pushed open the door and looked toward where Chu Ci was.

The person who had been resting her head on her chest and confiding in her just minutes ago was now sitting obediently on the luggage Lao Xiang had brought in, listening with a serious expression as Lao Xiang boasted about his youth.

“A while back, that little nurse wouldn’t let me leave the hospital. Said I was weak and needed to be observed for a few more days. What a joke. Me, weak? Every mercenary team I’ve ever been in was elite-level.”

“Back when I was young, those things on the surface weren’t as infectious. My head was covered in blood, my guts were spilling out, and I still took down those monsters and drove that old clunker back to the Base with everyone.”

“Compared to back then, what’s a little injury like this? What’s this little bit of blood?”

But where there was boasting, there was someone to tear it down.

Lu Qi: “But you’re old now.”

“Hey! You brat, you want to go a few rounds outside?”

“I don’t bully the injured.”

“We’ll go a few rounds when I’m healed!”

“Fine, whoever loses buys meals for a month!”

Beside them, Ren Dong shook her head repeatedly, moved her wheelchair next to Chu Ci, and whispered something with a smile.

After listening, a smile bloomed on Chu Ci’s lips, her features as gentle as a crescent moon.

Chai Yuening just watched her quietly, a tenderness she herself hadn’t noticed appearing in her eyes.

Before long, the people from the Floating City arrived.

A vehicle specially sent by the Base to pick up Dr. Yi was parked downstairs.

When the group went down with all their bags, they gave the newcomers quite a shock.

But despite their surprise, no one stopped them from getting on the vehicle.

You Lan, who had heard the commotion and followed them downstairs, waved goodbye reluctantly, shouting her farewells. All the while, she made strange hand gestures and shot frantic, suggestive looks at Chai Yuening, her brow furrowed so tightly it seemed she wanted to write the words “hating iron for not becoming steel” across it.

Chu Ci: “Is Boss You not feeling well?”

Chai Yuening: “She’s always been a little off.”

Chu Ci: “Then you should find some time to take her to a doctor when you get back, just like you took me.”

Chai Yuening: “…”

From the side came the sound of stifled laughter that couldn’t quite be held back.

A chorus of them, even.

On the light personnel carrier, Chai Yuening got her first clear look at the Dr. Yi that Chu Ci had mentioned.

According to the Base Daily, this biology Ph.D. from the Floating City was named Yi Shuyun. She was thirty-nine years old and had made outstanding research achievements in the field of species fusion.

Yi Shuyun had slightly yellowish-black hair tied into a low ponytail that hung down her back.

Her complexion was an unhealthy pale, and when her face was expressionless, the crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes made her look no longer young.

Her gaze was calm. Faced with the liveliness in the vehicle, she showed no aversion, but also no intention of participating.

After hearing Chu Ci say that everyone was a friend who wanted to see her off, the doctor simply nodded and said with a gentle smile, “Then when you get back, you can show your friends around.”

Her tone wasn’t that of a biologist speaking to a test subject, but rather like an elder casually making a suggestion to a junior.

Chai Yuening couldn’t help but think that perhaps Chu Ci’s living situation in the Floating City wasn’t as bad as she had imagined.

Perhaps Chu Ci was right. Even as a specimen, as long as she still had a human form, she could enjoy a relatively limited degree of freedom.

She hoped this wasn’t a misconception.

The Base’s armored vehicle drove all the way to the airfield, where everyone switched to a plane and was taken by the airfield’s dedicated transport belt to the Base’s lift platform.

One after another, fighter jets from the Floating City were sent up to the desolate plains of the surface, illuminated by the rapidly “descending” suspended lights on both sides of the lift platform.

The time was just past nine in the morning, and the sky was bright.

Sunlight, unseen for so long, spilled onto the transparent glass windows of the fighter jet.

Chai Yuening squinted instinctively.

Lu Qi pressed his face against the window, his voice thrilled. “There’s actually a sun today!”

Lao Xiang nodded with emotion. “How long has it been since we last saw it?”

Ren Dong took a long, deep breath and sighed, “The last time I saw the sun was more than ten years ago…”

Du Xia silently squeezed the left hand she had placed on her severed limb.

The pilot in the cockpit was somewhat surprised to hear this. He turned his head to look behind him, his expression clearly showing that he couldn’t quite understand how someone could be so moved by something like “the sun being out.”

Ren Dong couldn’t help but ask, “In the Floating City, can you watch the sunrise and sunset whenever you want? And when it’s not raining, can you see the stars and the moon every night?”

The pilot nodded. “Once you get high enough, there’s no more thick fog. It’s the same for planes.”

As he spoke, the fighter jet began to taxi and take off with the main fleet.

The jet soared into the sky. The ground below gradually receded, and the towering surface signal towers, as the jet flew further and further away, began to shrink, looking more and more like specks of dust on the earth.

It was the first time Chai Yuening had ever flown into the sky, the first time she had looked down upon the plain she had traversed countless times since childhood.

Thirteen signal towers were scattered across the plain. Apart from the three central ones that provided signals to the main city, the rest covered the areas where each of the outer cities was located.

Beneath this plain was the Underground City Base.

Chai Yuening had once thought that it, capable of housing over 2.7 million people, was vast. But looking down from high above, she realized that this plain wasn’t as vast as she had imagined.

The Base that humanity depended on for survival wasn’t even as large as the old world’s nuclear ruins covered in thick fog at its edge.

And at this very moment, for the first time in their lives, they had left that small underground fortress, flying into the sky like birds, heading for a wider world.

Countless fighter jets passed through the thin cloud layer, climbing toward the higher heavens.

After an unknown amount of time, the clouds grew much thicker. Looking down, there was a vast sea of clouds.

Above the sea of clouds, wisps of thin clouds floated like smoke in the azure sky.

This was a sight that people who had lived their entire lives underground had never seen.

The journey from the Underground City to the Floating City was very long.

Without encountering wind, rain, or thunderstorms, and maintaining a constant speed, it would still take a full fifteen hours to arrive.

Each plane had two pilots to take turns resting.

The long flight meant that those who had missed the sunrise caught the sunset.

The sunlight was orange-red, its final afterglow passionately splashed across the sea of clouds.

A bloom someone had once yearned for.

The fiery red clouds, beneath the darkening shadows of the sea of clouds,

traced out fiery ripples of varying light and shade.

In places untouched by the cloud cover, birds swept past from below.

On the distant horizon where light and darkness met, a no-longer-blinding red sun was sinking heavily toward the boundless mountains.

Chai Yuening, who had been dozing on and off, opened her eyes amidst the gasps of wonder and stared blankly at the scene before her.

In a daze, Chai Yuening even began to wonder if the light and freedom so many people in the Underground City Base yearned for was, in that distant place they were finally about to reach, just an ordinary thing.

She subconsciously took Chu Ci’s hand beside her, wanting her to see it too.

But when she turned to look at Chu Ci, she was startled to realize that Chu Ci’s gaze seemed to have been fixed on her face the entire time.

But in the next second, that gaze flickered slightly to the side, and then looked out the window as if nothing had happened.

“We can see this often at our base,” Chu Ci said softly.

Chai Yuening quickly averted her gaze, making small talk to fill the silence. “Then you must be used to it by now.”

A flash of hesitation seemed to cross Chu Ci’s eyes, then she nodded with a soft “Mhm.”

That momentary hesitation went unnoticed by anyone.

Chai Yuening looked out the window and replied softly with a touch of emotion, “That’s good.”

She couldn’t help but think, this was good.

At least, for now, it seemed Chu Ci was living a much better life than she had imagined.

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Author’s Notes:

You yearn for a world of freedom, I yearn for you.

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