Chapter 1

September 1, 2003.

On the train heading to City H.

Lu Yang opened his eyes in a daze, momentarily unsure of where he was.

As he woke up, he heard a cacophony of chatter around him, some of which sounded familiar. A few people seemed to be playing cards, and just as Lu Yang woke up, he heard a boy shout, "Three aces with a pair of fours!"

Lu Yang was utterly confused, not understanding the situation. What had happened after he got drunk last night? Where were all these people talking?

As he looked around, Lu Yang was stunned.

Clearly, he was on a train that was steadily moving.

The rumbling that had woken him up was the sound of the train in motion.

The voices chatting around him were from the passengers on the train.

And those playing cards...

Lu Yang recognized them at a glance; they were all his high school classmates, some from his class and two from the neighboring class.

Lu Yang counted silently: four from his class, two from the neighboring class.

All of them were around eighteen years old.

Seeing how young everyone was, Lu Yang was startled and immediately looked down at his clothes and hands...

Simple blue jeans, a black T-shirt, and slender, fair hands...

No need to look further, Lu Yang already recognized himself from his younger days.

What had happened?

Lu Yang stared blankly at the scenery flying by outside the window, silent and speechless.

On the surface, he was calm, but in the brief moment, countless thoughts had flashed through his mind. He already understood what had happened.

He had returned to the year he was eighteen.

The current situation was likely the year he was heading to university for the first time.

In his memory, the only time he had traveled by train with these classmates was during the first year of university.

Not long after, Lu Yang's gaze silently shifted to the girl sitting diagonally across from him, who was watching the other classmates play cards.

—Feng Tingting.

The girl he had liked the most during high school.

Because of Feng Tingting, Lu Yang had chosen the liberal arts when they separated into science and arts in the second year of high school; and because of her, he had chosen the Normal University in City H for his college application.

In his memory, after his first novel was published in the second semester of his freshman year, he had confessed to Feng Tingting, and they had started dating.

Unfortunately, the good times didn't last. In his senior year, after returning from an internship, Feng Tingting broke up with him.

Lu Yang learned from his classmates that during the internship, Feng Tingting had met a wealthy and powerful man who owned a Porsche Cayenne.

She was his first love.

And the woman who had hurt him the most.

So, as he silently gazed at her, Lu Yang felt very conflicted.

Perhaps sensing Lu Yang's gaze, Feng Tingting suddenly looked at him. Seeing that he was staring at her intently, she smiled and playfully winked at him with her beautiful big eyes.

At this age, she already knew that Lu Yang liked her. In fact, she didn't dislike him either. They had been classmates for three years of high school and were good friends, often chatting and joking around.

At this moment, she was still playfully winking at him with her beautiful big eyes.

She had no way of knowing that the Lu Yang now was not the same Lu Yang from before.

The Lu Yang now had the consciousness of the year 2013.

He would never forget the pain and betrayal she had caused him that year.

So, she was surprised to see that this time, Lu Yang didn't smile at her. When she winked at him, he actually looked away and gazed out the window at the passing scenery.

For Feng Tingting, they hadn't started dating yet.

But for Lu Yang, they had already ended.

Even if he knew that she would agree to date him when he confessed next semester, and even if he knew that this time he had a good chance of keeping her, Lu Yang wouldn't consider her again.

The scars in his heart wouldn't disappear.

Lu Yang didn't want to have any intimate relationship with her again.

After more than two hours, the train arrived in City H.

Lu Yang, carrying his backpack, silently followed his classmates off the train and walked with the crowd toward the station exit.

Feng Tingting, perhaps sensing Lu Yang's strange behavior today, walked beside him, either intentionally or unintentionally. Just before they left the station, she nudged his shoulder with her shoulder and asked softly, "Hey! Lu Yang, what's wrong?"

Lu Yang glanced at her, smiled politely, and replied, "Nothing."

"Then why were you acting like that just now?"

Feng Tingting pressed.

Lu Yang smiled faintly and repeated, "Nothing."

Feng Tingting wanted to ask more, but Lu Yang quickened his steps, increasing the distance between them, preventing her from asking further.

Feng Tingting, who had managed to get into university, wasn't stupid. In fact, her intuition was very sharp, and she had already fully sensed Lu Yang's intentional coldness toward her.

Her pride as a girl made her swallow the words she wanted to ask.

But she was very confused, not understanding why Lu Yang had changed so much after waking up on the train, becoming so cold toward her.

Outside the station, there were minibuses from the Normal University in City H to pick up the new students.

Lu Yang and his classmates got on the bus, and in less than an hour, they arrived at the school.

This was the first day of the new students' enrollment at the Normal University in City H. The campus was filled with a festive atmosphere, with older students welcoming the new ones and guiding them to various offices to complete their enrollment procedures. Countless young figures moved about, full of vitality.

Shortly after entering the school gate, Lu Yang parted ways with his classmates.

Because Lu Yang was majoring in history, which was different from the others.

When filling out his college application, Lu Yang had intended to choose the same major as Feng Tingting, but unfortunately, she had chosen English, which was her strongest subject, while English was Lu Yang's weakest and most hated course. With no choice, Lu Yang had to select history, which he found somewhat interesting.

When he parted ways with Feng Tingting and the others just now, Lu Yang felt very relieved, grateful that he hadn't stubbornly chosen the same English major as Feng Tingting. Otherwise, facing her every day for the next few years of university, he didn't know if he could have endured it.

Now it was better. Although they were in the same school, the English department and the history department were on opposite sides of the campus. As long as he didn't seek her out, he would rarely encounter her. Over time, they would naturally grow more distant, and eventually, they would cut off all contact as he wished.

That night, lying in his new dorm bed, Lu Yang listened to the chattering of his five new roommates, their voices a mix of different dialects, and his thoughts drifted far away.

Should he write a novel again this time?

What path should he take next?

...

The next two days were for the new freshmen to register, so during these two days, Lu Yang could freely manage his time.

Because of his previous memories, Lu Yang was very familiar with the school. Despite the bustling campus, he used his familiarity to find the 3rd Teaching Building at the edge of the campus, carrying the manuscript paper and pencils he had just bought.

The 3rd Teaching Building was the oldest building on campus.

It was four stories high and had a history of about thirty years.

It was old and weathered.

Moreover, being far from the two new teaching buildings and located at the edge of the campus, it was rarely visited. Only during class times would students come here for their courses.

During the two days of new student enrollment, according to Lu Yang's memory, few students would come here.

Entering the empty 3rd Teaching Building, Lu Yang went straight to the fourth floor, entered an unoccupied classroom, and sat down at a window seat.

The white manuscript paper was spread out in front of him, a cup of tea was placed beside it, and Lu Yang lit a locally produced cigarette. As he slowly sharpened the newly bought pencil, he pondered what type of novel to write and what kind of story to tell.

Before his rebirth, he had written novels for ten years.

For Lu Yang, his strongest skill was writing.

Apart from writing novels, he had no other expertise.

So, before going to sleep the previous night, he had decided that in this life, he would continue the novel writing that hadn't brought him great success in his previous life.

Achieving his dreams was secondary; the most important thing was to live the life he wanted through writing novels.

He believed that with his writing skills from ten years later, he should be able to achieve something in the writing world of ten years ago.

Should he write the works that had made other web novelists famous?

This thought flashed through Lu Yang's mind but was quickly discarded.

Not because he was disdainful, but because he wasn't a computer. He had long forgotten the specific plots of the novels he had read before.

Should he write the novel he had published before?

This thought also flashed through Lu Yang's mind but was quickly dismissed.

Even if it was a novel he had written before, ten years had passed, and he no longer remembered the specific plot. Besides, even if he did remember, he wouldn't write that one again.

Because that was his work from ten years ago, and in terms of true quality, it couldn't compare to his skills ten years later.

The reason his works from ten years later didn't achieve the same success as that earlier work wasn't because the quality was worse, but because the times were different. In 2013, the novel world was full of talented writers and countless excellent works, and his works simply couldn't break through the competition.

Time passed slowly.

The pencil had long been sharpened, and he had already smoked nearly three cigarettes.

Years of writing had made Lu Yang accustomed to having a pack of cigarettes on hand while writing.

This was also why, when buying manuscript paper and pencils today, he had casually bought a pack of cigarettes.

Without cigarettes while writing, he would feel very uncomfortable, as if something was missing.

With a cigarette in his mouth, Lu Yang's thoughts wouldn't be interrupted. Through the wisps of smoke, he half-closed his eyes and gazed at the scenery outside the window. A story gradually took shape in his mind.

This story was not one of the works he had written before, nor was it a work written by any other author. It was a story he had just conceived.

Taking another deep puff of the cigarette, Lu Yang wrote the title of the story on the manuscript paper in front of him—*The Wasteland of the Apocalypse*.

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