Cold, stark white LED lights spanned the entire dome of the subterranean city, their chilly radiance drifting amidst faint, gentle breezes into a pristine, snow-white hospital ward.
In stark contrast to the vast, empty silence of the surface world, the interior of the ward hummed with a restless bustle of activity. The sounds of footsteps, hushed conversations, and the steady, rhythmic beeping of medical instruments echoed incessantly.
Everyone was swarming around a narrow hospital bed, upon which lay a woman staring upward with a pair of vacant, bleary eyes, completely devoid of any focal point.
Her weak, morbidly emaciated body was concealed beneath a bedsheet, appearing paper-thin. Wisps of sparse white hair hung limply across her pillow, revealing a large expanse of pale, deathly scalp. Her skeletal hand twitched forward as if expending the very last fraction of her remaining strength.
A middle-aged doctor wearing spectacles grasped a pair of cardiac defibrillators, his forehead and face slick with cold sweat. Turning toward the entrance of the ward, he spoke with strained difficulty: “Col-Colonel Xiang, the patient has already undergone twelve rounds of electrical defibrillation. We truly, truly cannot bring her back…”
Standing outside the cluster of medical personnel was Xiang Zhijing, sporting a hooked nose and upturned eyes, clad in solemn military attire. His tall, upright posture radiated an oppressive aura of authority that inspired immediate awe at first glance. The cold, stark lighting cast upon his face rendered his expression all the more rigid and unfeeling.
Xiang Zhijing frowned, his gaze sweeping past the crowd to fixate upon the dying woman on the bed. He stood silently for a moment, then waved his hand to dismiss everyone in the ward, including the medical staff and his attending military officers.
Once the others had completely withdrawn, Xiang Zhijing slowly walked over and seated himself by the edge of the bed, staring expressionlessly down at the woman.
“If you can just hold on for another 48 hours, you might still catch a final glimpse of your son.”
Perhaps the word “son” within that sentence struck a raw nerve, causing the woman’s bleary eyes to suddenly bulge wide. Her hands, which had been flailing aimlessly in mid-air, began to twitch violently, while her lips hummed and murmured unintelligible syllables that ordinary people could not comprehend.
Xiang Zhijing’s dark, profound gaze betrayed not a single hint of emotion. He sat with a commanding, imposing posture, neither leaning forward to catch the woman’s dying words nor reaching out with compassionate grace to clasp her hand. He merely sat in silence, watching the woman draw her final breaths bit by bit, watching a broken soul disintegrate into dust and ashes.
Swiftly, the woman’s hand drooped downward, hanging limply over the edge of the bed like a withered tree branch. She was dead, devoid of breath, her skeletal, paper-thin frame lying flat and motionless, rising and falling no more.
Yet her eyes remained unclosed. As her head tilted sideways, a pair of murky, dim pupils reflected Xiang Zhijing’s distorted visage.
She died with her grievances unredressed.
Twenty-six hours later, a military spacecraft made a forced landing at an abandoned surface airfield.
Xiang Zhijing stood waiting with a reinforced infantry company of heavily armed troops, flanked by a neat row of over a dozen modified tanks and missile launchers standing on high alert.
As the spacecraft landed and its hatch swung open, a blood-drenched monster stumbled out.
The glaring headlights illuminated the pitch-black night. Everyone, including Xiang Zhijing, gasped in unison upon catching sight of the monster’s appearance, while a few of the more timid soldiers instinctively took two steps backward.
The monster possessed a pair of blood-red feathered wings. As he drew closer, one could make out that the wings had originally been white, though a massive expanse had been dyed crimson with blood. His right wing was broken, dragging miserably along the ground. It looked immense; fully extended, its wingspan likely exceeded three meters.
His upper body was layered with overlapping wounds, most appearing to resemble the claw marks and bite wounds of ferocious beasts. His lower limbs wore human trousers and military boots, and his unsteady gait clearly indicated he had reached the very end of his endurance.
Step by step, the monster advanced into the illumination of the floodlights, before coming to a halt and standing rigid, panting as he lifted his head to gaze upon the gathered crowd.
It was a human face, but the pupil of his left eye was a terrifying, luminous scarlet, resembling an entire ocean of blood, shocking all who beheld him.
Amidst the array of individuals standing in opposition to him, someone trembled as they cried out, “Z-Captain Zhuang…”, only to be sternly cut off by a neighboring soldier. A dead silence descended upon the vast tarmac.
Zhuang Xingyu blinked, his left eye stinging as though his entire skull were about to fracture. He swept a slow gaze across the surrounding area. Once his eyes adjusted to the blinding glare, his gaze finally locked onto Xiang Zhijing, who was flanked by a throng of people on the opposite side.
“Colonel,” Zhuang Xingyu rasped, his voice sounding as though it concealed a blade, scraping raw against human flesh, “you gave me your word that you would let me see my mother.”
“That’s right,” Xiang Zhijing nodded in assent. “As long as you guarantee you will behave yourself, I will honor my promise.”
Zhuang Xingyu swept a glance over the loaded weapons of his former comrades and the gun barrels and artillery muzzles aimed directly at him, and silently nodded in agreement.