A Letter from the North

The telegram arrived at three in the morning.

Shen An sat up from his cot. The telegram was short, signed by Lu Shihan. His eyes scanned line by line, finally stopping at the last sentence—

"Your father misses you very much."

Shen An didn't have many memories of Lu Shihan. He only remembered that after the Dawn Incident broke out three years ago, he was "taken in" by the Northern Base. He was nineteen then, covered in blood, carried into the Northern Base's medical pod. The first person to visit him wasn't a medic—it was Lu Shihan.

Lu Shihan wore a white lab coat and gold-rimmed glasses, smiling warmly as he said, "Xiao An, I've heard about your father. Don't worry, the Northern Base will take care of you."

Shen An didn't know who Lu Shihan was back then. He just nodded numbly.

Later, he learned—Lu Shihan was his father Shen Du's "college classmate." The two had jointly initiated the Dawn Project. After the Dawn Incident, Shen Du "accidentally died from infection," while Lu Shihan became a "survivor" and, thanks to his "crisis management skills," was elected as the Northern Base's Minister of Security.

For three years, Lu Shihan had cultivated an image of being "rational, gentle, and professional" at the Northern Base. Unlike Shen Du, who was sharp and aggressive, Lu Shihan's every key decision precisely pointed toward the same goal. Shen An knew Lu Shihan wasn't simple, but he had never found direct evidence of it—until this morning.

The telegram read:

Deputy Commander Shen, the Red Willow Camp purge mission has been upgraded to S-Class. Complete an "Orderly Evacuation" within seventy-two hours. Personnel deployment to be directly managed by the Security Department.

Your father misses you very much.

Lu Shihan.

Shen An placed the telegram on the table, staring at that last line for a long time.

"Your father misses you very much"—Lu Shihan wouldn't say something like that for no reason. The sentence had two meanings: the first was, "Your father will know about what I've asked you to do"; the second was, "Your father is still alive, and he's within my reach."

Shen An's fingers tightened under the table. He knew Lu Shihan was threatening him.

Upgrading the Red Willow Camp mission to S-Class meant he no longer had the authority to "suspend the mission"—all purge decisions would be directly handled by the Northern Base's Security Department. In other words, Lu Shihan had taken control of Red Willow Camp away from him.

"Seventy-two hours." Ji Ming stood at the doorway, his voice low. "Deputy Commander, this timeframe—"

"I know," Shen An said. "This timeframe means we have to 'clear out' Red Willow Camp within three days."

"Clear out? How? Red Willow Camp has over three hundred survivors—"

"That's the problem," Shen An said. "Red Willow Camp is one of the few shelters in the wasteland that doesn't abandon the elderly and weak. More than half of those three hundred people are old, sick, or disabled. An 'Orderly Evacuation' within seventy-two hours means either abandoning half of them or having everyone 'purged.'"

"Minister Lu is trying to—"

"Force me," Shen An said. "Force me to make the choice myself."

He walked to the window. Outside, the sky was still dark, with no light on the eastern horizon. He asked Ji Ming whether Jiang Chao was still in camp. Ji Ming said he was. He said, "Tell him to come see me—and show him the telegram."

Ji Ming hesitated. "Deputy Commander, show him? He's a 'key witness,' not internal personnel of the Northern Base—"

"I trust him," Shen An said.

Ji Ming asked no further questions.

When Jiang Chao entered, Shen An was still standing by the window.

"Well well," Jiang Chao's voice came from the doorway, carrying that signature wasteland nonchalance. "Calling me so early—you miss me?"

Shen An didn't turn around. He handed over the telegram. "A telegram from Lu Shihan. Take a look."

Jiang Chao took it, scanned it once, and the smile slowly faded from his lips. "S-Class purge. Seventy-two hours."

"Yes."

"'Orderly Evacuation.'" Jiang Chao let out a cold laugh. There was a kind of irony in that smile that Shen An couldn't quite read. "I've seen the Northern Base's 'Orderly Evacuation' before. Once, at the eastern Black Mountain Camp. After the 'evacuation,' the entire camp's supplies were taken over by the Northern Base, and those three hundred people were 'redistributed' to various Zone Zero work sites—using live humans to clear out the infected in Zone Zero. Three months later, almost everyone at the Zone Zero sites was dead. Now it's Red Willow Camp's turn."

Shen An's fist tightened in his pocket.

"Deputy Commander Shen, what do you plan to do?"

"I'm asking you."

"Asking me?" Jiang Chao raised an eyebrow. "Deputy Commander Shen, I thought you were with the Northern Base."

"Now I'm not so sure," Shen An said.

Jiang Chao looked at him. In Shen An's eyes, he saw something he had never seen in a "Deputy Commander of the Northern Base's Purge Force"—confusion.

"Lu Shihan's last sentence," Shen An said. "'Your father misses you very much.'"

"Your father—you mean—"

"My father might still be alive," Shen An said. "And he's within Lu Shihan's reach."

"You already guessed that. You said so in the tent last night."

"I guessed it, but I had no proof."

"And now you do."

"Now there's only one sentence: 'Your father misses you very much,'" Shen An said with a bitter smile. "That sentence could be a threat, a warning, or—"

"Or a boast," Jiang Chao cut in. "A boast that he 'controls' your father, and 'controls' you too."

Shen An said nothing. He stared at the darkness outside the window. On the eastern horizon, a sliver of gray-white finally appeared.

"Jiang Chao."

"Yeah?"

"I need your help."

Jiang Chao froze. He had never heard the words "I need your help" from anyone at the Northern Base. The people of the Northern Base always gave "orders," "arrangements," and "notifications"—they never "needed" a wandering hunter.

"Go on," Jiang Chao said.

"Seventy-two hours," Shen An said. "I need to get the Red Willow Camp purge mission canceled within seventy-two hours."

"That's impossible. Lu Shihan personally gave the order. You're just a deputy commander—"

"I can't. But you can."

"Me?"

"You said you have evidence of Lu Shihan's true identity," Shen An said, looking at him. "If you spread that evidence across the wasteland within seventy-two hours—"

"You want me to leak the Dawn Project?"

"Yes," Shen An said. "Lu Shihan was the co-director of the Dawn Project. Once that gets out, the Northern Base's justification for 'purges' will collapse. All the survivors in the camps will realize that the so-called 'purge' isn't about protecting them—it's about controlling them. The Northern Base's public opinion will spiral out of control. Lu Shihan will have to focus on damage control, and the Red Willow Camp purge mission will be forced into delay."

Jiang Chao looked at Shen An. "You're asking me to be the wasteland's whistleblower."

"Yes."

"Do you know what that means?" Jiang Chao's voice turned cold. "It means the Northern Base will hunt me down with everything they've got."

"I know."

"You're sending me to my death."

"Haven't you died many times before?" Shen An said. "Surviving a Class Three Infector's claws six years ago—that was already one death."

Jiang Chao paused for a second, then laughed. "Deputy Commander Shen, you've really changed."

"I haven't changed," Shen An said. "I'm just doing what I should do."

"And what's 'what you should do'?"

"Make my father—" Shen An's voice paused, as if weighing his words, "—make my father pay the price."

Jiang Chao didn't respond. He looked into Shen An's eyes. In six years on the wasteland, Jiang Chao had seen too many "bad people." He knew what a bad person's eyes looked like—hollow, calculating, filled with the urge to destroy. But today, in Shen An's eyes, he didn't see that. He saw a desire for atonement.

"Alright," Jiang Chao said. "I'll do it. But I have one condition."

"What?"

"Seventy-two hours from now, no matter what happens," Jiang Chao said, word by word, "you owe me a life."

Shen An was silent. Then he said, "I accept."

When Jiang Chao walked out of the barracks, it was already dawn. He sat for a while in a tent on the camp's periphery. The tent was sparsely furnished—a cot, a folding table, and on the table sat the blood collection tube Shen An had used to draw his blood last night. The deep red blood inside had already dried.

Jiang Chao stared at that tube of blood. He thought of his brother.

The last time he saw Jiang Lan was three years ago. Jiang Lan had made a special trip back from the Northern Base's research institute, just to see him. Jiang Lan had lost a lot of weight, with dark circles under his eyes, and when he spoke, there was an urgency about him, as if he were running out of time.

He remembered what Jiang Lan had said to him—

"Xiao Chao, I might not make it back. If I don't, remember two things. First, find a man named Shen An—he'll tell you everything. Second, survive."

"Why Shen An?" he had asked.

"Because he…" Jiang Lan thought for a moment. "Because he's the person I've met who's most like me."

"Most like you?"

"Yes." Jiang Lan smiled, a smile filled with an indescribable weariness. "We're both people who want to do the 'right thing.' We both thought the 'right thing' could be calculated through reason. But in the end, we both found out—some things can't be calculated."

"What things?"

"Trust," Jiang Lan said. "Trusting someone—that can't be calculated."

Jiang Lan left after saying those words. That was the last time Jiang Chao saw his brother alive. Three months later, the Northern Base sent a death notice—"Comrade Jiang Lan heroically sacrificed himself saving a colleague during the Dawn Incident."

"Heroically sacrificed himself saving a colleague." Jiang Chao muttered the words in his tent and let out a bitter laugh.

His brother wouldn't save a colleague. His brother could barely be bothered to save himself. His brother had been silenced.

Jiang Chao stepped out of the tent. The Purge Force's temporary barracks were thirty kilometers outside the Northern Base—small in scale, but strategically located as a "transit hub" connecting the Northern Base to the depths of the wasteland. Standing outside the barracks, Jiang Chao could see the high walls of the Northern Base in the distance.

The Northern Base was the largest in the wasteland. Three years after the apocalypse, it had built three defensive lines: the first was the outer Purge Zone, the second was the Safe Zone, and the third was the Core Zone. Only those with the highest clearance could enter the Core Zone—Shen Du, Lu Shihan, and a few of the Northern Base's "founding elders."

Shen An's position at the Northern Base was "Deputy Commander of the Purge Force," with clearance for the "Purge Zone + Safe Zone"—he couldn't enter the Core Zone.

But Jiang Chao could. He had a way.

He thought of "Old Ghost" at the scrapyard—a former researcher on the Dawn Project who had been infected three years ago and "disposed of" by the Northern Base, but hadn't died. Now he ran trades at the scrapyard and had an unofficial archive on the "Carrier Experiments." If Old Ghost still had other files on the "Dawn Project"—like direct evidence of Lu Shihan's involvement—

"Jiang Chao." Shen An's voice came from behind him.

He turned. Shen An stood at the barracks door, holding a document.

"This is all the material I have on the Dawn Project," Shen An said. "Not much, but every piece is critical."

Jiang Chao took it. The document was titled "Dawn Project · Branch Research · Summary."

"My father left it behind," Shen An said. "A week before the Dawn Incident broke out, he entrusted this summary to me. He said—'If one day I'm gone, you'll know what to do with it.'"

"Your father knew the Dawn Incident was going to happen?"

"I don't know," Shen An said. "But the contents of this summary—if they're true—are more terrifying than the Dawn Incident itself."

Jiang Chao flipped through two pages. His breath caught. "This is—the 'Accelerated Human Evolution Experiment'?"

"Yes," Shen An said. "The real purpose of the Dawn Project wasn't to develop a vaccine—it was to select an 'elite' capable of adapting to the apocalypse."

"My brother knew about this?"

"Your brother participated," Shen An said quietly. "He was in charge of 'live testing' for the 'Carrier Experiments.'"

Jiang Chao's fist clenched.

"But he regretted it," Shen An said. "A month before he died, he hid the core data from the 'Carrier Experiments.' He sent you a vial of the agent—he might have guessed you would become a test subject."

"So he saved me."

"Yes."

"And my father—"

"Your father didn't know you were injected with the agent," Shen An said. "Your brother kept it from everyone."Jiang Chao was silent. He put away the documents, his voice turning cold: "Deputy Commander Shen, your father—how did he know the Dawn Incident would break out?"

Shen An didn't answer. He didn't know himself. But he was beginning to suspect—that the Dawn Incident might not have been a "loss of control," but something deliberately triggered.

The wind on the wasteland blew from the north. The high walls of the northern base stood silently in the morning light, and for the first time, Shen An felt that what lay behind those walls was not order, but a truth he dreaded more than anything in his life.

He turned and looked at Jiang Chao's back—that man standing outside the barracks, clutching the documents in his hand, his shoulders trembling slightly.

Shen An wanted to walk over, but he stopped.

He didn't know what to say. He owed Jiang Chao the truth, but that truth was too heavy—too heavy for him to know how to begin.

"Jiang Chao," he said at last.

Jiang Chao didn't turn around. "Hm?"

"Seventy-two hours from now," Shen An said, "no matter what happens—I'll face it with you."

Jiang Chao's shoulders paused for a moment. Then he turned, his eyes—unusually bright in the morning light—gazing directly at Shen An.

"Deputy Commander Shen," he said, "is that a promise?"

"Yes."

"A promise on the wasteland—"

"I know," Shen An interrupted him. "Promises on the wasteland are worthless. But I still want to give you one."

Jiang Chao looked at him for a long time. Then he smiled.

There was something in that smile that Shen An couldn't quite read—not mockery, not gratitude, but something more complex.

"Alright," Jiang Chao said. "I'll take it."

He turned and walked out of the barracks. After a few steps, he stopped again. "Deputy Commander Shen."

"Hm?"

"You just said, 'I'll face it with you,'" Jiang Chao said without turning around. "I'll remember that."

Shen An didn't speak. He watched Jiang Chao's figure disappear into the morning light, and suddenly felt something inside him loosen.

It was a very unfamiliar feeling—like a piece of ice that had been frozen for a long time, finally cracking open.

He didn't know what that crack meant. But he knew that from today onward, he was no longer alone.