Picking Up My Ex-Wife in the Apocalypse - Chapter 32

Pain.

It was everywhere, as if her muscles and bones were being forcibly torn apart. She felt submerged in a mire, unable to find a way out; like a person on the verge of drowning, the heavy, thin air circling in her lungs over and over.

She struggled, and suddenly, as if finally breaking the surface of the water, she snapped her eyes open, gasping for air.

She wiped the sweat from her forehead with a hand that stung with countless tiny pains. Looking down to check her condition, she saw that the terrifying internal injuries and broken bones had mostly healed, leaving only superficial wounds that still bled.

Before entering the black hole, she had been so close to fainting from the pain, but she remained conscious enough to know that Si Ruxu had shattered the black hole at the critical moment, giving her a chance to survive.

Yet, she didn’t dare assume if Si Ruxu did it because she found her useful or for some other reason.

She looked around. Although two consecutive Great Purges had reduced the number of Awakened by nearly a quarter, resources had become even scarcer. It shouldn’t be this deserted, especially in such a dense forest.

She continued forward. The situation here was unknown, and anyone outside could take her life at any moment. She didn’t plan to treat her wounds here; her black clothes hid the wetness of her injuries from a distance.

After walking for a long time, she realized something was wrong. The environment was too quiet, as if no one lived here.

She pulled several detectors from her backpack and placed them in the forest’s water source. In the apocalypse, water was vital; any Awakened going out would inevitably pass by it. This allowed her to track their movements and avoid being hunted.

Having finished this, she leaned against a cluster of bushes, feeling the dry energy in her body, and gradually succumbed to sleepiness.

The moon rose, its light filtering through the gaps in the leaves in thin strands. By the moonlight, Si Qi carefully pulled back her clothes, finding that the blood from some wounds had dried and stuck to the fabric.

Using a small amount of her Space ability, she separated them bit by bit. With no medicine, no fire, and no way to wash with the raw water from the source, she could only separate the cloth from her skin and wrap the wounds with a few strips of relatively clean fabric.

Finally, she drifted into a half-conscious sleep.

She had a strange dream. In the dream, she was a pool of calm water. Fresh water from upstream would bring small fish, constantly injecting life into her.

Then one day, strange things entered the pool—filthy and chaotic. At first, it was just a small clump, but it gradually spread. She felt her life force fading along with the small fish, and the upstream water stopped flowing in.

She was furious, roaring with wave after wave, but it was useless. No one would hear her, for she was but a pool of stagnant water.

*****

She was startled awake, the emotions from the dream lingering. The detectors near the water source showed they had been destroyed. A flicker of irritation crossed her mind; if people wanted water, they could just take it. She only wanted to track the flow of people, so why destroy her equipment?

Supporting her body, she covered her face with a mask and teleported over. Two people stood by the water—tall, elegant, and looking far too decent for this era.

She looked closer, and her eyes met a familiar pair. She froze, sinking into a world of faint, lingering emotions.

It was Si Ruxu.

Her muscles tensed, her jaw locked tight as she stared at Si Ruxu with a defensive posture. Beside Si Ruxu, another person stepped forward slightly to block her line of sight. Only then did she notice her.

Her gaze froze when she saw a face identical to her own. Was this… a distortion in time and space?

Another Si Ruxu, and another self.

The water source, the mask, the wounds, the black clothes. She suddenly remembered the person she met during the first Great Purge.

So, the person who helped her and Si Ruxu back then… was it her future self?

That was why Si Ruxu said she would become as strong as that person. That was why Si Ruxu wasn’t afraid of her dying there, because she had already seen her future self.

Si Qi suddenly found it absurd, the clues in her mind tangling into a mess. The Si Ruxu before her wasn’t as haggard and thin as the one she knew later; her complexion wasn’t great, but at least she wasn’t ghostly pale.

She looked at the younger Si Qi standing in front of Si Ruxu, tense and baring her teeth, and let out a self-deprecating laugh.

With a wave of her hand, she warped the lightning energy in the pool away. Then, she opened a small spatial domain to envelop her younger self. Her gaze swept over the “Little Si Qi” from top to bottom.

Yes, those eyes were clear, filled with a lot of naive stupidity. No wonder her future self would find her useless.

Looking at her silent but tense younger self, a playful impulse rose in her. A hint of an ambiguous smirk touched her lips. “Can you protect Si Ruxu well?”

Little Si Qi’s breath hitched visibly. “How do you know…”

The older Si Qi said nothing. She gave Si Ruxu a knowing, half-smiling glance, then looked back at Little Si Qi with eyes full of provocation.

She then tore through space, intentionally releasing the pressure of a high-level Awakened. She appeared to leave, but in reality, she created an independent space to hide herself and continued to follow them.

*****

Not long after they left, a woman in a light-colored trench coat, her lips pale and her frame thin, stood by the water source. She felt the traces of youthful lightning and spatial energy in the air and looked toward a certain direction.

She gripped the small black hole sphere in her pocket.

Si Qi might not remember, but she did. This was the space of the first Great Purge. She was too familiar with Si Qi’s energy. She had seen the future Si Qi back then who’s covered in untreated wounds, still bleeding.

She tracked Si Qi’s energy in the air, using the magnetic field of the black hole sphere to follow them to this spot. This was where she and the “Big Si Qi” had first met.

She had been angry back then, and the future Si Qi’s defensiveness toward her made sense now.

The boomerang of memory struck her right between the eyes at this familiar location. The wounds she hadn’t cared about then, the conversations between them. It all became a sharp blade, slowly carving her heart.

She gathered the broken detectors and followed the energy to a small thicket that looked different from its surroundings. The grass here was significantly softer, as if someone had slept there for a long time.

She stood by the thicket for a very long time, warm tears falling into her palm.

Only now did she truly start to feel heartache for the injuries Si Qi had suffered.

If the price of learning to love was losing the one she loved most, then she thought that price was far too heavy.

She wanted to chase her back. She would give up anything.

*****

As the sky darkened, the older Si Qi hid behind the two of them, picking wild fruits to eat when she was hungry. From an observer’s perspective, the days of the Great Purge actually felt quite short.

It was also only from this perspective that she realized how obvious her younger self had been—the way her head was always turned toward Si Ruxu, and the way her eyes were glued to her.

Could Si Ruxu really not have known? Or had she just never thought about it?

Si Qi shook her head, tossing these strange thoughts aside.

She followed them all the way; from Si Ruxu’s intentional or unintentional flirting to the aggrieved, reddened eyes she had when Si Qi forcibly made her breakthrough.

She didn’t want to blame Si Ruxu anymore. Si Ruxu didn’t love her, so she had no need to care about her pain, her wounds, or her feelings. She only needed the deal; everything else, including Si Qi’s heart, was useless in her eyes.

High-level Awakened had a stronger perception of the world’s changes. When the “Human Tribulation” was about to arrive, she sensed a powerful force dispersing everywhere. The first Great Purge was far more dangerous than what she had experienced.

Frowning, she looked at the two of them sleeping together and teleported to the source of that dispersing force. Her second ability sensed the danger, and the eerie blood-red patterns crawled onto her eyelids.

She teleported continuously through these forces, scattering and destroying the powerful ones. Her energy was consumed and replenished repeatedly. Her wounds constantly reopened and tore further due to the energy backlash and her violent movements.

The time on the sky-screen ticked away, and finally, at the last second of the countdown, the Human Tribulation arrived.

The energies transformed into Awakened, passing her by without consciousness and heading toward Little Si Qi and Si Ruxu.

Si Qi collapsed to the ground, spitting out a mouthful of blood. Her vision went black. Her breathing was heavy and ragged, broken and weighted.

After a few minutes, she stood up, gently wiping the blood from her lips. Once clean, she staggered toward the direction the Awakened had gone.

No one knew her younger self better than she did. She was too weak. If she didn’t help, Si Ruxu and her younger self would never survive the first Great Purge.

When she arrived, the two of them were clearly struggling. She forced her body to teleport over, used her last bit of strength to isolate a space, and threw Little Si Qi out.

She had already dealt with the powerful ones; these remaining ones weren’t enough to harm Little Si Qi. The Purge was “close” to her; if she were alone, she definitely wouldn’t die.

As for the wounds and the pain… she had already felt it. There would be plenty more pain to come. This was just the beginning.

“This space can only hold two people. If you come in, Si Ruxu will die too,” she said flatly. The Little Si Qi, who was crawling toward them, immediately stopped and even moved further away.

To control a “love-brain,” one only needs to control the person they love.

Inside the small space, the older Si Qi turned her head and met Si Ruxu’s inquiring gaze calmly.

“Don’t ask whatever you want to ask,” her tone was calm—not particularly good, but not bad either.

Si Ruxu nodded and truly didn’t ask.

Si Qi looked at her younger self struggling outside, and then at the indifferent eyes of the Si Ruxu standing beside her.

“Actually, a few years ago, I used to have a recurring dream,” Si Qi said. Hearing her speak, Si Ruxu turned to look, as if she had expected her to speak. Her eyes were curved, gentle, as if looking at a beloved person.

“What dream?”

“About you. In the dream, I asked you why you suddenly broke up, why there wasn’t a single specific reason, and why you wouldn’t talk to me properly.”

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