Tear A Path 5 Promise

If the world's rules and laws changed drastically, how much can the normal human process really help a person in their decision making. The answer was, almost none.

First things first, consider survival, a person needed three basic things, food, water and shelter. For food the building behind him hadn't had any food in the first place. As for water, with the s.h.i.+ft of the earth, if water continued to be delivered up the hill by the pipelines it would be an understatement to say it was an intervention from G.o.d on Zhao Wei's behalf.

The broken building could still serve as a roof for shelter. Zhao Wei however, considered that if even the plants evolved to this extent, and there were moving organisms the size of what he saw before. There was no telling what else had changed, and without walls, the broken house would give him little to no comfort.

He needed to procure all these necessities in order to survive. This meant climbing down G.o.d knows how far down the hill, find out what's changed in order to procure the resources he needed, but worst of all he needed to face whatever unknown organisms were lurking down there.

Having been in the modern world where everything was safe and there were laws to and officers to protect people, most people didn't have anything to defend themselves. After looking around his accessible area, all Zhao Wei could find was a kitchen knife. For anything bought from the super market it was useful as they were dead, but even to kill a chicken in the old world you'd need a butcher knife to cleanly cut through the head.

After thinking for half a day, Zhao Wei was no closer to a solution than he was when he first woke up. At the brink of desperation, he could only walk out from the house to get more air.

As he walked out, he stopped in his tracks. In front of him he saw the edge of the cliff he was near when he woke up. The unnatural way it seemed to break off was making him feel like he had forgotten something, something important. Trying to recall what happened there, his head was met with an agonizing pain, almost like his head was being pulled apart slowly. After 15 minutes or so the pain subsided, in his mind however he was left with the image of the back of a person's head turning around. He tried to recall again but no matter how many times he went through the experience it only left him with the same memory sequence.

In his mind although he remembered his old life including his parents, family and friends, it felt like something was missing. Like a single aspect of his whole life was erased and that aspect was connected to that incomplete memory. The reason Zhao Wei kept going through the pain to see the memory wasn't just because he felt like it was important, but it was because he felt pain in his heart every time he remembered. It wasn't a physical pain like the headache, but it hurt so much more. To Zhao Wei, compared to the pain in his heart, he could go through the headaches 10,000 times.

This cliff edge was the exact spot he and Xi You Ya were separated during the change even if he himself couldn't remember it right now. Standing up, he looked for a big piece of stone. Finding one that was evenly shaped and stable he used the kitchen knife to carve an arrow forward and placed it in the direction the cliff broke off. In his heart he promised, "I don't know who you are, I don't remember your name, but you were a part of me, from today until I find you I will set my life in this direction, even if the world stops me I will tear a path through it until I either find you or reach this spot again, if I reach here again, I will pick another direction and begin again."

To a man who has everything, promising something is easy. To a man who has nothing and was in the brink of despair just a few moments ago, to promise the world to someone he didn't even remember was much more significant. But even he didn't know, that this promise would bring him to face a much bigger world than he expected and the weight of his words would become heavier once he understood the world he was in.

Once he was up, the desperation was gone, exchanged with a fire burning in his heart. The difference between having something to live for and not is like day and night. Even in the modern world, many of people live as if they were dead and the achievements of those with ambition would throw them far forward into success.

With the spark ignited in him Zhao Wei began gathering everything in the house together in the courtyard. Plopping himself on a chair he took a leftover notebook and prepared to list whatever was left. as he brought the notebook to his face a shadow flashed at the corner of his eye.