The two lived in the cave for ten days, until their dry rations ran out and no more birds or small animals fell to the bottom.
They longed to leave the cave, yet felt a strange sense of lingering attachment.
Using the short rope and the cave walls, Qin Zheng carried Bai Sheng on his back, painstakingly climbing towards the cave ceiling.
They would pause at every protruding rock on the wall before continuing their ascent. It took them a full day to finally see the cave entrance.
When they were still two or three meters from the opening, the rock to which the rope was tied suddenly loosened. At the critical moment, Qin Zheng used all his strength to push Bai Sheng out, while he, utterly exhausted, slid back down to the cave floor.
This time, his fall might not land him on the vines at the bottom; it was possible that…
Bai Sheng felt her heart stop beating. She cried out from the cave entrance for a long time, but there was no response from the bottom.
She ran down the mountain as fast as she could, hoping to find someone to save Qin Zheng. To ensure she wouldn't forget the way, she tore off a large piece of her red skirt and tied it to a large tree at the cave entrance.
She stumbled down the mountain, oblivious to the thorns that tore at her clothes. She even lost one of her shoes and didn't bother to pick it up.
When she finally saw an old man carrying a basket in the mountains, she immediately knelt down and tearfully pleaded with him to use his old mobile phone to dial 110.
Soon, a search and rescue team found her.
The search team had actually been keeping track of information in the area because they had been searching for ten days without finding the university student who had fallen down the cliff.
She grabbed the police officers' arms, crying as she told them Qin Zheng was still at the bottom of the cave and urged them to hurry and save him.
Eventually, the police did find the tree where she had tied the cloth strip, but there was no cave anywhere nearby.
Bai Sheng screamed hysterically that there was a deep cave and that special forces soldier Qin Zheng was still inside. She knelt and begged them to search again, to save him.
The police contacted the special forces unit that was conducting field training in the area. The unit replied that ten days prior, they had indeed sent personnel to search for a university student named Bai Sheng, but had not found her. However, their unit had no soldier named Qin Zheng, nor any missing persons.
Yet Bai Sheng insisted that a special forces soldier named Qin Zheng had saved her, and that Qin Zheng was still trapped at the bottom of the cave.
After all, her embrace, her kiss, even more intimate moments with him, were all so real. How could they possibly be fake?
Everyone believed Bai Sheng was suffering from trauma due to being stranded in the mountains for too long, causing a mental breakdown. She was eventually sent to a hospital for psychiatric evaluation.
For a time, Bai Sheng also suspected she was suffering from hysteria, that it was all her imagination.
But in the hospital, curled up on her sickbed, she thought of Qin Zheng day after day. How could such a real and concrete person be an illusion?
Bai Sheng suddenly remembered something. If all of this was fake, then she must still be a virgin. Because apart from Qin Zheng, she had never been intimate with any other man.
Bai Sheng went to the hospital for a physical examination. The result of the test confirmed the hymen was ruptured.
All of this was true. She wasn't lying. Disregarding her shame, she took the examination report to the police, attempting to persuade them to continue searching for Qin Zheng, reasoning that Qin Zheng might still be alive since he hunted birds and insects.
However, the police stated that strenuous exercise could also cause such a rupture, so the report proved nothing.
Furthermore, they had searched the entire mountain and found no such cave, nor any special forces soldier named Qin Zheng.
After Bai Sheng recovered, she hired a local guide and returned to the area to search many times, but still couldn't find the cave. The red cloth torn from her skirt remained hanging there.
It was as if the cave and the person were merely illusions.
Not long after, Grandma Bai passed away.
Bai Sheng was plunged from one sorrow into another, and the matter of Qin Zheng was temporarily put aside in her heart.
After handling Grandma Bai's funeral, she returned to school.
From then on, her heart felt as if it were filled. The man named Qin Zheng occupied her entire heart, even though they had only known each other for ten days, and even though he seemed like an illusion.
During her undergraduate and graduate studies, she rejected all advances from other men. Even when they were desperately in love with her, her heart remained as cold as ice.
Perhaps due to excessive longing, or prolonged melancholy, Bai Sheng contracted a terminal illness at the age of twenty-six. Doctors could not identify the specific disease, but her various symptoms were akin to a terminal condition.
At twenty-eight, Bai Sheng never woke up after a bout of unconsciousness.
Then, upon opening her eyes, she found herself here.
Qin Zheng had been left behind forever in another world. In that world, she had bid him a final farewell with her own life.
Transmigrating to the Great Xia Kingdom, the first person she saw was Lu Ye. She truly felt he resembled Qin Zheng. But Lu Ye was not a transmigrator; he was a native of this world.
"Good girl, why... why are you crying?" Lu Ye cupped Bai Sheng's face, his eyes filled with bewilderment.
Bai Sheng, tears streaming down her face, sniffled and said, "I... I'm just so touched, touched that the person in your dream is me."
Lu Ye hugged her tightly. "You don't know how happy I was when I finally saw it was you in my dream. I knew then that I wasn't a fickle person; you are the only one I can hold in my heart."
Bai Sheng wrapped her arms around Lu Ye's neck and kissed him with her tear-stained lips.
Lu Ye cradled the back of her head and took the lead, responding passionately.
Wu Yun: I didn't see, I didn't hear, I'm just livestock.
After walking in the desert for five days, they finally saw sparse green in the distance.
After another two or three days, they arrived at a small town's post station on the border.
With more people coming and going, it became inconvenient to enter and exit their personal space, so the couple booked a room at the post station.
Not long after they sat down, they heard a mournful wail from outside the window.
Bai Sheng opened the window and saw a tattered woman from the Qinghuang Kingdom, holding a child and weeping. The child had a bloody head, pale lips, and seemed to have fainted.
Several Great Xia Kingdom soldiers, wielding horsewhips, were still whipping the woman.
On the roadside, another group of scantily clad, emaciated Qinghuang Kingdom people huddled together, trembling as they watched the scene.
For some reason, looking at these people, Bai Sheng's heart suddenly ached. The soldiers' whips felt as if they were lashing her.
She couldn't help but release a few drowsy insect蛊 (gǔ - a type of magical worm or curse) onto the soldiers. This drowsy insect蛊 was the first one she had learned, capable of inducing sleep for the time it takes an incense stick to burn.
After the soldiers collapsed, Bai Sheng ran out.
Seeing Bai Sheng running towards her and her child, the woman flinched back in fear. The next moment, she watched as Bai Sheng placed a pill into her son's mouth and then threw two steamed buns to her.
Bai Sheng turned and threw some food to the huddled Qinghuang Kingdom people.
Then she quickly ran back to the post station.
Lu Ye did not stop Bai Sheng; he liked to see her doing what she wanted.
Moreover, he didn't hate the Qinghuang Kingdom people, because even in its prime, the Qinghuang Kingdom had not bullied other nations. On the contrary, the Great Xia Kingdom bullied its own people.
Watching the people devour the food in their hands, Bai Sheng closed the window. "Does our Great Xia Kingdom always treat the subjects of conquered nations like this?"
Seeing her looking somewhat dejected, Lu Ye stepped forward and pulled her into his arms. "The officials and soldiers of the Great Xia Kingdom are brutal and cruel even to their own people, so you can't expect them to treat the Qinghuang people kindly. In reality, everywhere it's a case of the survival of the fittest; only the truly strong can set the rules."
Bai Sheng nodded, trying to push away the image of what she had just witnessed.
She was not strong, merely an ordinary citizen.