April 1. Sunday. Night, 22:25.

Shota Tamada looked up from his mother's arms, but he couldn't see the world that was almost destroyed.

Darkness, half a minute after the earthquake erupted, began to envelop these abandoned people underground.

Nearly an hour ago, Yoko Tamada walked out of the house with her son. She had been working from home for several days on end, and by tomorrow she might run out of food, and for the more important reason that her son could only go out at night, and as a mother, she had already developed the habit of going out at night. Looking out the window at the pouring thunderstorm, the seven-year-old boy was uneasy. Although Yoko is young, she is a patient mother who finally coaxes her son to be quiet.

In the dazzling supermarket, the boy once again had a strange sensation - a salty tide slowly but unstoppably surged up to his feet, drowning his knees and waist, overflowing his chest and neck, and pouring into his throat and nose so that he could not breathe...... Zhengtai quarreled wildly, ran around like crazy, and his mother followed like a chick, and had to take down various items from the shelves by the way. Seeing that her son was unusually for no reason, Yoko Tamada began to tremble, and her mind flashed to that fatal afternoon in Japan a year ago......

No, there can't be a third time!

In the boundless darkness of the polar night, she crawled out from under the collapsed cash register, holding her son firmly in both hands. And when the premonition becomes a reality, Shota has turned back into a meek and intelligent little boy.

Suddenly, someone turned on the flashlight, and a faint beam of light shone through Shota and moved to Yoko's face. The boy couldn't see the man's appearance clearly, and only heard a slightly trembling Chinese: "You...... You okay? ”

Shota has lived in China since he was two years old, and has been brought by a Chinese nanny since he was a child, and only returned to Japan last year to live for three months, and he speaks Chinese better than Japanese.

"Thank you! We're all fine! The mother remained polite and bowed to the staff member with the flashlight while touching her son's face, who appeared to show no signs of injury.

"Please wait!" He took out a flashlight and handed it to Yoko Tamada.

"Thank you!" Yoko bowed again, turned on the flashlight, and illuminated the other party's face, which turned out to be the young man who grabbed Shota before the earthquake.

The other party disappeared in a blink of an eye, and there were chaotic footsteps, cries and cries for help all around. Yoko Tamada then remembered to take out her phone, but found that the signal was interrupted.

Shota felt his face wet, and he knew it was his mother's tears.

The ground was still shaking, there was a constant noise overhead, and some kind of palpitating sound was heard underground. Some lights are lit up in the corner of the supermarket, and they are gradually distributed to various places on the second basement floor. Shota's eyesight was unusually good, and he saw a little white light in the distance vaguely illuminating the man in his work clothes.

It turned out that this young man turned on all the electrical appliances in the supermarket that could be installed with dry batteries, although every bit of light was very faint, but it was distributed like the stars in the sky, and with a little adaptation, you could see most of the supermarket.

Seven-year-old Zhengtai rubbed his eyes and looked at the supermarket for the rest of his life in his mother's arms—the pipes that almost broke and fell overhead, the shelves that were mostly half collapsed, the broken glass and ceramics everywhere, and the melons and fruits rolling all over the ground. Some of the bodies were lying on the ground, blood pouring from the ground. Some people hide in the corner and cry, and some people scurry around like flies.

No matter how young a child is, they have a natural sense of fear and will feel scared when it gets dark. However, Zhengtai, who was crying and fussing before the earthquake, suddenly saw this shocking scene, but he showed a composure beyond his years, he broke free from his mother's arms, and stood on a floor covered with chewing gum, as if he had long been accustomed to facing disasters. He looked back and saw his mother on her knees, her hair disheveled, her hands hiding her beautiful face.

This is the second time Shota Tamada has seen his mother look so desperate.

Last time, in Japan on the other side of the sea, in a hospital flooded by the sudden seawater, Yoko Tamada looked at the raging and cold water surface full of all kinds of garbage, furniture, electrical appliances, cars, and even the torn roof, but she could no longer find the shadow of that person...... She climbed to the highest roof of the hospital, the water almost knee-deep. Before the helicopter flew overhead to save them, she was so desperate, for her six-year-old son, and for her younger self.

The ensuing nuclear power plant leakage accident made Yoko Tamada dare not stay in Japan anymore. Although that vast continent has problems with food poisoned milk powder and other dangers, Zhengtai has lived in China for several years, and this child is more suitable for the Chinese environment. And with her fluency in Chinese, she is enough to find a job to support her family. Finally, on April Fool's Day, exactly a year ago, she boarded a flight out of Tokyo to say goodbye to her hometown of volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis, and nuclear leaks.

Eventually, she found herself in the flat, vast alluvial plain of rivers on the eastern coast of China, thousands of kilometers away from all the surrounding volcanic seismic zones, a huge metropolis with a maximum earthquake of 4.8 magnitude. She thought that she could get rid of the disasters that had destroyed her life twice in this life, in this life, and even in the future for the rest of her life.

Shota returned to her crying mother, like a mature man, hugged her trembling shoulders from behind, and comforted her softly, "Mom, we'll get out soon." ”

She held her son in her arms and wiped away tears: "Let's go quickly!" Come on! ”

The mother and son walked through the horrific exit of the cash register and stepped over a man who had been hit by a lampshade and died. They had no choice but to step over and bow to the corpse with their palms folded.

The first and second basement floors of the Future Dream Building, both of which belong to Calford Supermarket, have been broken in the earthquake. Yoko Tamada shone a flashlight around and found an escape route among the rubble that seemed to have been bombed, and I was afraid that the survivors had fled.

Walk through the dust and debris to the basement level. Before Shota could see the chaotic world, a large dog pounced on him, and the seven-year-old boy did not panic at all - under the beam of his mother's flashlight, he found that it was a Russian Caucasian fierce dog the size of a bear.

Only then did Yoko Tamada remember that there was a brand chain pet store open at the entrance of the basement floor of Calford Supermarket. She wanted to go to the store to see if there were any pets trapped inside, but she also thought that many people were still alive and dead, and now was not the time to take care of dogs. She left the terrible big dog with her son in her arms, and a mournful bark sounded behind her.

On the basement floor, which was also badly damaged, Yoko Tamada forced herself to compose herself, and she saw a wide escalator. Zhengtai faintly saw a dead man lying next to him, and the mother blocked her son's view and rushed forward quickly.

On the ground floor of the Future Dream Building, there is a huge atrium plaza, which connects several elevators and escalators, and is the hub for entering and exiting the mall and the supermarket. There is a sports car stand in the middle of the mall, which is sometimes converted into an event stage for luxury brand launches or celebrity meet-and-greets. At this moment, only a chaotic black remained, and all kinds of strange and pungent smells were permeated. Dozens of faint beams of light flashed back and forth, and the voices of people were noisy. People on the two basement floors have fled, and many people have fled down the upper floors, and they all want to escape through the ground floor gate, which is the instinct to survive.

Yoko Tamada arrived at the crowd area, and the flashlight shone on many panicked faces. Why don't you run away? There was still no signal on the phone, and no one came to maintain order, so they must have been frightened and fainted, so they just ran for their lives.

Shota saw that there was a place where it was getting brighter and brighter, and the light in everyone's hands shone there. Someone turned on the emergency light with a dry battery, presumably a staff member. Under the yellow light, the "Welcome" billboard and the bronze plaque indicating the floor and the location of the business clearly indicate that this is the gate of the Future Dream Mall, the most convenient and direct escape exit.

However, the wide gate has been sealed by a collapsed outer wall!

Someone brought a shovel or something like that, trying to dig up the rubble and make a way out. Yoko Tamada shook her head, feeling that they were all working in vain, maybe the outside was buried more thickly. She also had a strong feeling: although she was on the first floor of the building, she was not necessarily on the ground, maybe deep underground?

Shota is dragged back into the darkness by his mother, away from the noisy and anxious crowd. More and more people crowded towards the sealed gate, and it was impossible to count how many people had gathered, and it was impossible to see if the ruins had been dug up.

Yoko Tamada didn't expect them to be able to get their way out, so she walked deeper into the ground floor of the mall with a flashlight, the ground covered with scraps of cement and various goods. In the end, she found a corner of the wall, which had not been damaged by the earthquake, and there was no glass or light fixtures around, and it was also far from the atrium, so she didn't have to worry about being hit by falling objects from the upper floors.

April 1. Sunday. Night, 22:40.

Zheng was too sleepy to do it, squinting his eyes and falling into his mother's arms. Yoko Tamada sat at the base of the wall, holding her son in both hands, and turned off the flashlight to save the battery. Through the ruins, she looked at the crowd of people who wanted to escape dozens of meters away.

Before the seven-year-old boy lost consciousness, a sentence vaguely floated in his ear: "Zhengtai, mom is by your side......"