Chapter Eleven: Earthly Bacteria

Closing his eyes, Liu Chang felt as though he had fallen into a long dream. In it, he found himself outside the Earth, gazing upon the planet from beyond the red mist. This godlike perspective bestowed upon him a strange sensation—as if he himself were the Earth.

Suspended above the azure sphere, Liu Chang saw a desolate land stretched beneath him. There seemed to be nothing here, save for invisible unicellular lifeforms, crawling forward at a snail’s pace, slowly dividing and evolving. At this rate, even after five billion years, when the Earth met its end, the land would remain barren.

As Liu Chang mourned this wasteland, the blue planet was suddenly shrouded by a descending red mist, transforming the surface into a blood-red expanse. Within the red fog, the monotonous life forms of Earth underwent rapid evolution, spawning countless species. In the blink of an eye, the land became a paradise of green and teeming life.

“Why did it turn out this way?” Liu Chang murmured.

No sooner had he spoken than the red mist receded, time sped backward, and Earth returned to its peaceful blue tranquility. He seemed to see the lushness of the land, wondrous creatures climbing and moving upon it.

Every form of life appeared miraculous, each striving upward with yearning. But then, a new life rose to prominence, altering everything—humanity.

Within just a few million years, humans transformed the planet’s history, which had spanned billions of years. From the moment they emerged, this species relentlessly reshaped the face of Earth, while other life forms declined at a staggering pace.

He saw humans behaving like the pathogenic bacteria within his own body, infecting and inflaming the Earth, hastening its decay. If things continued, nothing could halt its decline.

Yet, just as the land reached its nadir, the dense red mist appeared—like antibiotics curbing bacterial growth, arriving just in time to halt the devastation.

No, it was not quite antibiotics; the red mist was more like a catalyst, granting the weakened life forms a chance to confront humanity’s bacterial presence.

It was not directed against humans.

In the final moments of the dream, after a long passage of time, the red mist lifted and the “bacteria” on Earth were wiped clean. Over ninety percent of the land returned to green, and all manner of strange, wondrous creatures thrived, turning the world once more into paradise.

The dream was long and bizarre, difficult to comprehend.

Some time the next day, Liu Chang finally broke free from the dream and opened his eyes. Rubbing his head, he tried to shake off the lingering oddities of the vision and, noticing the sunlight filtering in, realized it was already daytime.

He pulled out his phone, using the last of its battery to check the time—9:40 a.m.

“It’s daytime now,” Liu Chang muttered, shaking his head—he no longer felt dizzy. He looked down at the wound on his ankle and saw that the festering, decayed flesh had miraculously scabbed over; his body was nearly restored to perfect health.

“Hey, Liu Tao, awake yet?” The joy of surviving disaster was something Liu Chang felt for the first time. He pushed the rigid body of Liu Tao, who sat beside him, until it toppled onto the floor.

“Liu Tao?” The body hit the floor with a dull thud; unease flooded Liu Chang’s heart.

Kneeling to straighten his friend’s body, he felt its stiffness and stickiness—death had claimed him, and the skin was rapidly softening.

He was dead, irrevocably dead; even the flesh was beginning to rot.

Staring at his friend’s corpse, Liu Chang found himself speechless.

Yesterday, his own fever had been far worse than Liu Tao’s, yet fate was unpredictable—no one could know whether death would arrive in the next moment.

“Sigh, I didn’t expect that when I opened my eyes, you’d be gone.” After straightening his friend, Liu Chang searched the corpse of another man nearby for a lighter and cigarettes. He placed a cigarette at Liu Tao’s lips and lit it for him.

“Last time you asked me for a smoke, I had none. This time, make do,” he said, and adjusted Liu Tao again. But as his fingers touched his friend’s arm, he accidentally peeled away a patch of sticky flesh.

“Microbial mutation—even the speed of corpse decay has changed so much!” He pressed the skin back to Liu Tao’s body, trying to keep it as intact as possible.

After a moment’s silent watch, Liu Chang stood up and surveyed the room, noticing most of those who had lain here yesterday still hadn’t gotten up. Some who did may have already left. Of those remaining, only he and a woman stood. She ignored him, cradling a man’s corpse and crying softly—her back radiated sorrow.

“Sigh.” Liu Chang sighed again, and the dead man reminded him of his father. Reaching into his pocket, he felt a sticky sensation. He pulled out his father’s finger, finding the skin had dissolved, leaving only two white bones.

He found a container of alcohol in the hospital and cleaned his father’s finger thoroughly. After some thought, he walked out of the pharmacy room.

“Wait, where are you going?” As he stepped through the door, a woman’s voice called out—it was the crying girl.

“I’m going to the orthopedics or operating room, to see if I can find a bone needle to string my father’s finger together. I’m afraid if I keep it in my pocket, I’ll lose it one day,” Liu Chang replied truthfully.

“Can I go with you? Two people together are safer,” she said, suppressing her sobs and leaving the corpse of the middle-aged man behind.

“Yes, it’s better to have two people. Let’s go together,” Liu Chang agreed.

Given the circumstances outside, no matter how you looked at it, two were safer than one. Liu Chang had wanted to suggest traveling together before, but seeing her grief, he hadn’t disturbed her.

As they drew closer, Liu Chang observed the woman: she was slightly older than himself, average in appearance, her figure above average, overall quite ordinary.

When she caught up, Liu Chang flashed her a polite smile, his cracked lips already healed. She responded with a slight smile of her own.

Still, their smiles were dry and brittle.

“Do you know where the operating room is?”

“It’s not far ahead,” she replied, pointing down the corridor.

“Alright, let’s go together.”

The two walked one behind the other into the hallway, the hospital eerily silent. Liu Chang wondered where all the staff had gone; there were no injured people coming in, and the hospital felt like a domain of the dead, not a sound to be heard—an atmosphere of uncanny strangeness.

Passing through the mist-filled corridor, they reached a door labeled “Operating Room.” With a creak, Liu Chang pushed it open.

As soon as the door swung inward, a cloud of black surged toward him, accompanied by a loud buzzing, pushing him out of the room. (Note: This scene is based on a real event—a friend who is a police officer encountered this at a crime scene in the summer.)

Shoved back several steps, Liu Chang saw what had pushed him out and promptly vomited.

It was swarms of flies, clustered together like storm clouds, their startled rush strong enough to shove a person backward.

Once the flies had departed, Liu Chang fought his nausea and entered the operating room.

Inside, unlike the silent world outside, sounds could be heard.

A crunching, crackling noise emanated from the operating table. Moving past the curtain, Liu Chang was confronted with another sickening sight.

A corpse—a body cut open, its abdomen stuffed full of maggots.

The crunching came from the writhing larvae.

He vomited again, unable to help himself.