Chapter 1 The Town Restored

The restored town was exactly like it used to be, but both the streets and the fields were empty. Besides the absence of people, it was like a dead city.

An extremely strong aura of death lingered over the town.

Nila Song took a deep breath. He really hadn't considered this before.

For a town, returning it to its former state wasn't just about building houses, repairing roads, and planting fields.

The most important thing was the people who lived in the town!

If it was just an empty city, what was the point of restoring it?

"Over there… there should still be people who survived from this town, right?" Nila Song was silent for a moment, then pointed to the tall South City Shelter in the distance, and said softly, "Can we let them return to their homeland?"

Li Tianran followed Nila Song's finger and looked at the shelter.

He didn't know how many survivors were left in this town after countless disasters…

For the survivors, the shelter was the only place that could make them feel at ease.

"I don't know if they are willing to come back." Li Tianran said softly, "I can go and ask, but if they don't want to, I won't force them."

Nila Song smiled gently and bowed slightly to Li Tianran with his hands clasped together: "Thank you."

…

Ten minutes after the town was restored, seven or eight helicopters with the Federal flag printed on them flew out of the shelter and landed slowly here.

Although Li Tianran had already contacted the Federal high-level officials and informed them of the upcoming events, as the chief of the South City Shelter, the shelter still sent people over out of consideration for their duties.

On the one hand, it was to see if Li Tianran needed help, and on the other hand, it was to understand the specific situation here.

The helicopters didn't approach the wheat fields or vegetable fields to park. The strong wind from the propellers might blow down these crops. They parked hundreds of meters away from the town. Then, the person in the lead helicopter jumped out. He didn't bring any soldiers and walked straight towards them.

"Governor Li…"

The person came to Li Tianran, considered his words, and then said in a complicated tone, "Long time no see."

Li Tianran looked up at the other person, and a familiar face came into view.

Yu Cheng.

Yu Cheng had a tired smile on his face. His attitude was very restrained, with a hint of respect and awe. He bent slightly and stretched out his hands to Li Tianran diligently: "Welcome! Welcome to the Human Swordholder's visit to South City!"

Li Tianran looked at Yu Cheng with a strange look in his eyes.

In his memory, Yu Cheng wasn't such a flattering and humble person. He always remembered that Yu Cheng sprayed everyone in the Council of Judgment wildly to exonerate himself in the cult case, tearing off the faces of those bureaucrats bloody!

At that time, Yu Cheng was so radiant, high-spirited, and scolding everything. He would never bow to any power.

His back was so straight that even the heaviest mountain in the world wouldn't bend his body even a little!

But now, he had changed.

He had become less tough than before!

What had Yu Cheng experienced during the time Li Tianran left South City?

Li Tianran didn't shake Yu Cheng's outstretched hands.

He opened his arms and hugged Yu Cheng's shoulders like a friend.

Yu Cheng's body stiffened. After a long time, his expression became gentle and complicated, and the words in his mouth were no longer the extremely official "Welcome to visit," but became a sentence…

"Welcome home."

Li Tianran looked at Yu Cheng, and both were filled with emotion.

After the world's cataclysm, there were not many official figures in the entire South City who could be recognized by Li Tianran, and Yu Cheng was one of the ones he was most optimistic about!

If it weren't for Yu Cheng's special status at the time, Li Tianran even thought about recruiting him to Kuangxi Island.

And Yu Cheng's inner emotions were more complicated than Li Tianran's at this time.

At the beginning, in order to help Li Tianran, he didn't hesitate to confront the entire South City government. Although he finally won, Li Tianran had to flee South City due to subsequent changes.

At the beginning, when Miao Yu fired a missile, Yu Cheng really thought that the entire farm had been razed to the ground.

For this reason, he also erected an unnamed monument for Li Tianran in a certain wilderness!

When he later heard Li Tianran's name again, it was during the joint encirclement and suppression of Kuangxi Island by several countries. That was Li Tianran's highlight moment. He used the power of Kuangxi Island to fight against all human forces, including the five major powers, and ended the war and won the victory with a nuclear missile bombing in an extremely barbaric manner!

After that, Li Tianran's story was like a dreamy legend.

Yu Cheng heard that Li Tianran had joined the Human Alliance and reached the position of the five major powers. Then Kuangxi Island surpassed all human powers and became a unique combat power.

And Li Tianran also transformed into the first, and possibly the last, Swordholder of the entire army in human history.

With the blessing of these legendary auras, Li Tianran was no longer the weak youth in South City who needed Yu Cheng's protection…

And Yu Cheng also felt that the distance between him and the other party was getting farther and farther, and even gradually began to become unfamiliar.

It wasn't until the hug just now that Yu Cheng knew that Li Tianran was still Li Tianran. No matter how high his status was or how strong his aura was, he was still the passionate young man with a sense of justice!

Old friends reunited, there should have been countless things to say, but the two were silent for a moment, not knowing where to start.

In the end, Li Tianran broke the silence: "Who is in charge of the South City Shelter now?"

"It's me." Yu Cheng said softly, "Commander Miao Yu was transferred to the border three months ago, and later… she sacrificed herself."

Li Tianran was stunned when he heard the news. He thought that if Professor Nan knew that his close comrade had died, he might be sad for a long time.

In this era of disaster, perhaps one separation for many people is an eternal separation between life and death.

"You have changed a lot…" Li Tianran smiled and said softly, "You have become a little different from what you used to be."

Yu Cheng knew what Li Tianran meant. He didn't argue, nor did he deny it, but sighed and said, "I also want to be a man of iron and bone, not to curry favor with the powerful, not to bow down to any powerful people and flatter them, but…"

"But until I became the military chief of South City, I realized how difficult it is to be such a person!"

"The safety of the citizens of a city is on your shoulders. The food supplies issued by the superiors are insufficient, and the power to distribute the supplementary grain is in the hands of some people above me. I can only ask them in a low voice and compliment them. Only by making them happy can South City get a larger share, and more people will survive…"

"If it was just for myself, I would rather starve to death than lick those people's boots, but I am not just Yu Cheng, I am also the chief of South City… My life is not my own, and my face is not my own."

Yu Cheng said with emotion, and said softly:

"It's not that I've changed, it's that this world makes it impossible for me to live like I used to."