Recognized it.
After regaining some Physical Strength, he struggled to stand up.
As he stood, there was a sudden thud beside him.
Turning his head to look, it turned out to be a red, glossy fruit, seemingly ripe, that had smashed onto the ground, shattered to bits. It looked somewhat like an apple, but the scattered flesh was so translucent it was hard to identify what kind of fruit it was.
He looked up again, and on the tree trunk about tens of meters above, more red fruits were swaying, seemingly ready to fall at any moment.
Ren Zhong hesitated for a moment and didn't dare to scrape a bit of the pulp from the ground to taste it.
Though he was hungry, he wasn't sure if this unknown thing was poisonous or not.
He continued to walk toward the forest's edge, calling weakly as he walked, "Is anyone there? Is there anyone here?"
No one responded to him; only his own empty echo filled the forest.
After just a few steps, he suddenly shivered all over and squatted down, clutching his neck.
Very quickly, he curled up on the ground, pressing his hands against his abdomen, his already pale face turning even whiter.
Sweat beads began to ooze out on his face, and his expression grew more distorted.
Panic surged in his heart.
After all, he had only "taken a nap," and he was all too familiar with this excruciating pain.
After a long while, the pain slowly subsided. Ren Zhong struggled to sit upright, gasping for air, showing a sense of relief from barely escaping death, yet his eyes held an indelible gloom and urgency.
He didn't know how many more days he could live; he needed to get out quickly, find modern humans quickly, and get treatment quickly.
The damned cancer was still there!
After half an hour passed, the exhausted and hungry Ren Zhong finally emerged from the dense forest.
Looking out, a vast expanse stretched before him, the terrain undulating like a horse's back, covered with patchy grasses, ferns, and shrubs.
These unfamiliar plants varied in height and shape, but they all had a strange bluish fluorescence on their surface.
Though he wasn't a flora and fauna expert, Ren Zhong swore he had never seen plants like these before.
He glanced back at the dark forest behind him, filled with towering trees that seemed to reach into the sky.
These trees were also of an unknown variety.
But what felt most unfamiliar to him was the sky.
It was currently dusk, and a sun as large as a wheel was slowly sinking into the horizon.
On the opposite side of the horizon facing the sun, a silvery disk-like star was slowly rising, already at the three o'clock position.
Below the silvery disk, another star the size of a bowl had just shot out from the horizon, rising into the sky at a faster pace.
A giant blue-tinted sun, one big and one small, one slow and one fast, two moons.
The scene before him left Ren Zhong utterly stunned.
This wasn't Earth!
Just then, a whistling sound pierced the air from afar.
Ren Zhong looked into the distance, spotting a shadow the size of a car flying swiftly close to the ground.
The forceful wind from the shadow's passage pressed the surrounding plants to the ground, leaving a long trail like a boat skimming over a tranquil lake.
As the shadow drew closer, Ren Zhong saw clearly what it was.
About five meters long, bullet-shaped, its surface shimmering silver, with a beautiful streamlined design, two small wings on either side, it closely resembled the Dongfeng-17, a national treasure in his memory, except there was no fiery tail trailing from behind, and the propulsion system was unknown.
Ren Zhong believed it was definitely a man-made Flying Device.
He hadn't expected someone to find him so quickly.
He figured that the first step was to reconnect with society, then find a way to treat his illness, and gradually understand this world afterward.
He wondered how many years had passed and if cancer was as easy to cure as a common cold by now.
His future suddenly held a glimmer of new hope.
He raised his hands, waving desperately, trying to attract the attention of the Flying Device.
Sure enough, the Flying Device shifted slightly, heading directly for Ren Zhong.
The distance between them quickly closed to a hundred meters, and Ren Zhong quietly sighed with relief, having been noticed and successfully made contact.
In the next instant, he faintly saw the top of the Flying Device shoot out a bowl-thick beam of orange light.
The beam disappeared in a flash.
Ren Zhong's movements abruptly halted.
He looked down at his chest.
White smoke was seeping from his chest, where there was a neat-edged round hole, its inner walls charred black.
What was going on?
Ren Zhong, utterly bewildered, raised his head again to see the Flying Device had arrived near him, coming to a sudden stop.
A gust of wind it brought along blew, and Ren Zhong faintly heard the whistling wind at the cavity in his chest.
Time seemed to freeze for a few seconds; he felt a delayed, agonizing pain, and he found it hard to breathe. His body started to slowly collapse.
He finally understood what had happened.
The Flying Device wasn't here to save him.
It didn't even bother to greet him, just punched a hole clean through his chest from afar.
Why?! What did I do wrong?
His consciousness gradually sank, as darkness descended and rapidly engulfed his vision.
Ren Zhong, in his confused state, suddenly regained clarity and looked again, feeling as if he'd moved backward a few meters and inexplicably floated into the air, as if he'd become a "viewpoint" fixed in mid-air.
A few meters ahead lay his own corpse with a neat round hole, opened from his front chest to his back.
The corpse was half-kneeling, about to fall to the ground.
In the next moment, three long metallic serpents emerged from beneath the Flying Device.
The serpents flew forward like elephant trunks.
Two of them supported "his" shoulders to prevent him from falling, while another reached his head.
What he saw next was a scene that sent shivers down his spine.
The end of the serpent opened, revealing a circle of metal teeth like those of a lamprey.
The metal teeth spun rapidly, pressed against his head.
This damn thing easily removed his skull cap, then extended ten metallic claws inside, grabbing his brain like a claw machine.
Ren Zhong's external consciousness began to dissipate, his vision growing blurry.
Before losing consciousness entirely, his mind was filled with confusion.
Could it be? Did I just die so easily after finally coming back to life?
So hasty?
[New book, please add to your favorites!]