From Meihua Villa to Xuanwu Bay, taking the subway would mean boarding Line 2 at Muluyuan Station, transferring to Line 1 at Xinjiekou Station, and getting off at Xuanwu Gate—a twenty-minute journey. By bicycle, it would take about forty minutes.
Banxia rode her beaten mountain bike, speeding along the road flanked by blackened car shells.
The subway was no longer an option—hadn’t been for many years. Subway stations were now extremely dangerous places that Banxia dared not enter. These dark, damp, food-rich, interconnected underground urban spaces had long been occupied by dangerous creatures. The teacher had warned her never to enter places without light.
Standing at the dark subway entrance looking down, moss-covered slippery steps extended into the darkness beyond what the eye could see. Banxia could faintly smell the putrid scent mixed in the cold air. Her subconscious told her to stay away—this was the biological instinct that evolved over millions of years, the instinct of prey.
The girl stopped to rest at the Ming Imperial Palace entrance, taking the opportunity to eat something.
Though called an Imperial Palace, barely any buildings remained.
Even before the world’s destruction, Nanjing’s Ming Palace had been reduced to ruins. The teacher said the Ming Palace was dismantled once during the Ming-Qing transition, again during the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom period, and finally during the Republic era, leaving only a few stone foundations that were enclosed to become a park.
What Banxia saw now were ruins of ruins.
She parked her bike at the entrance of the Ming Palace Ruins Park. The park gate was a classical-style building set atop ten steps, with golden tiles and upturned eaves. The main entrance had four vermillion pillars so thick an adult couldn’t wrap their arms around them.
If it were still intact, it must have been a magnificent structure. Regrettably, Banxia had never seen it whole in her lifetime. A crashed fighter jet had descended from the sky and sheared off half the hall’s roof, leaving broken tiles and stones scattered everywhere. How did Banxia know it was a fighter jet that had crashed into it? Because that jet was still stuck nose-down behind the hall’s back door.
The teacher had once taken her past the park entrance, pointing at the burnt-black shell and saying it was a Su-27.
Banxia sat down on the steps, pulling out dried food and a water bottle from her bag.
The dried food consisted of starch blocks mixed with animal fat, the fat coming from deer and rabbits. After hunting these animals, Banxia was careful to preserve their fat. The starch mainly came from lotus roots and seeds—there were vast lotus fields in Crescent Lake near Meihua Villa, making lotus roots and seeds easy to obtain. She would cook them, mash them up, mix them with deer fat, roll them into balls, and wrap them in plastic.
These were extremely calorie-dense and could provide the necessary energy for outdoor activities.
The sky was azure blue, and across the wide road was intense green. The opposite side had also been a park called Wuchao Gate Park, part of the Ming Palace ruins.
In the years since humans vanished, nature had penetrated every space in this city with astounding recuperative ability. Sometimes Banxia thought humans didn’t necessarily need to actively suppress nature—their mere existence and the massive space they occupied had compressed other species’ reproduction. As long as humans existed as such a vast population, nature could never return to its original state.
Perhaps nature had been suppressed too harshly for thousands of years, storing up enormous energy like a spring, so when humans vanished, it rebounded violently.
It came fierce and unstoppable.
Green landslides and tsunamis arrived from mountains and seas, engulfing the entire city in an overwhelming tide.
Banxia took a bite of her dried food, gazing across the road to Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics. From her angle, she could faintly see Building 11, that earth-gray concrete structure nestled among verdant growth. Perhaps because plants didn’t grow well on cement surfaces, it still maintained its original appearance, though Banxia knew all the paths leading to it must be blocked by weeds.
Building 11 was lucky, but its neighbor Building 12 wasn’t so fortunate. While coming along Zhongshan East Road, Banxia had seen only half of it remaining, probably destroyed by an aerial bomb.
A breeze passed, rustling the shrubs across the road.
Banxia immediately bit down on her food grabbed her bow and nocked an arrow.
The road’s opposite side was over twenty meters away—a safe enough distance for her to shoot an arrow and then draw her gun.
So far she hadn’t used that Type 54 replica pistol, rarely needing to. This was mainly because Banxia was sufficiently vigilant and smart. She knew how to avoid large predators’ active areas. There were no tigers or bears near the aeronautics university; the most dangerous feline was the leopard, and because of leopards, Banxia never stayed long under trees.
Leopards were incredibly agile—their entire family, except cheetahs, were lethal hunters. Most creatures in this world had never seen humans; simply put, they no longer remembered there had once been a dominant species called humans. To them, Banxia was just a rare upright monkey—whether edible or not would require a bite to find out.
A pair of large antlers first emerged from the shrubs, and the girl sighed in relief.
Red deer.
A tall male deer “clip-clopped” onto the road, beautiful white markings on its neck.
This was an enormous creature—the red deer’s existence could overturn most people’s imagination of deer. This thing stood two meters tall, and with its majestic antlers reached nearly one story high, strong enough to flip a small car.
“You scared me,” Banxia lowered her bow, sat down, and continued eating while watching more red deer emerge onto the road opposite.
It was a red deer herd; Banxia estimated about twenty or more.
They could easily reach tender leaves on trees just by stretching their necks. Besides giraffes and elephants, these were the tallest things Banxia had ever seen.
Oh right, Nanjing had giraffes.
She’d observed about five or six, mainly active around Purple Mountain Peninsula.
Nanjing originally had no giraffes. The teacher suspected the giraffes currently living in Nanjing’s urban area were descendants of individuals who had escaped from the zoo years ago.
Due to climate change, those giraffes were living quite comfortably.
Red deer were more sensitive to their surroundings than humans—as long as they were peacefully foraging, Banxia didn’t worry about predators nearby.
The stag noticed the strange creature across the road but didn’t care. Its dark eyes turned this way briefly before tilting its head back to search for food.
Judging by size, that thing probably couldn’t threaten its safety.
After finishing her food, the girl stood up, dusting off her bottom. She ignored the deer and they ignored her. Banxia mounted her bicycle and continued toward Xuanwu Bay.
The broken mountain bike’s frame made “creaking” sounds as Banxia rode freely down the center of the road, arms spread wide, racing like the wind.
Xuanwu Bay was Banxia’s largest food source.
A teacher once said if you only saw nature’s dangerous side, you certainly couldn’t survive in this world. Don’t forget humans are also children of nature—since ancient times, humans have survived thanks to nature’s gifts. While full of dangers, it also provides endless resources.
Nature never favors anyone.
Every time Banxia came to Xuanwu Bay, she returned fully loaded, with more fish than she could carry.
Getting from the main road to the seaside required passing through a city wall—Nanjing had many city walls.
Past the wall was the seaside, stretching endlessly with sparkling waves. High-rise buildings stood scattered in the distant blue waters, not yet completely submerged—half underwater, half above, like cement pillars growing from the seabed.
Most eye-catching was the Zifeng Tower, still standing upright far out in the water, previously only accessible by boat.
Standing at a high point, one could see through the clear seawater to the bottom—another world existed there, the other half of Nanjing city.
Rising seawater had flooded the remaining sidewalks and flower beds, now turned to tidal flats where Banxia could catch crabs and sandworms.
Waves “swoosh-swooshed” up one after another, creating white foam. Banxia quickly took off her shoes, holding them as she hopped down.
“Ahh—This feels amazing—!”
The girl shouted in the salty sea breeze.
She decided that no matter where the person she contacted last night was, she must get him to move here, to Unit 2, Building 11, Zhongqin Garden, Meihua Villa. Where else in this world could be more suitable than Banxia’s little nest? Mountains, water, and fishing by the sea! It was a perfect feng shui location!
She had to get him to move here—no matter how many people, they could all move here!