Chapter 1 The Cataclysmic End of the World_1

If one day, disaster strikes, threatening survival and looming with death.

Is it more critical to have strength oneself, or to have the power to mobilise strength?

To the left, choose personal might.

To the right, choose the power of influence.

Half awake, half dreaming, it seemed like two gateways of light appeared ahead. As if guided by the unknown, I headed to the left.

......…

It's August; the high-hanging sun turns the bustling city into an oven, with hot air rising from the pitch-black tarmac.

In an old residential area, in a cramped rented room, a young man swears as he rushes into the bathroom.

"Damn it, I'm definitely not pulling an all-nighter tonight!"

Muffled curses echo in the small room, accompanied by the sound of running water.

Through the sunlight's rays, the room's simplistic set-up becomes clear. A big bed, a fridge, and a wardrobe are placed on the east side of the room. Near the door to the west, a table and chair, with a bathroom further inside.

By the table stands a long red-tasseled spear and an iron sword. But the layer of dust reveals that they have been sitting untouched for years.

Clearly, the result of fleeting interests...

A moment later, Li Ming emerges from the bathroom. He sighs heavily, looking around his small sublet room. After shaking his head, he gets ready to leave.

Like most people, he graduated this year with empty pockets. Renting a room, job hunting - pitfalls everywhere. After half a year's struggle, he finally gets used to this place and quits his previous marketing job.

Although his pocketbook is running thin, he's just been successful in an interview for a good company. A base salary of six thousand, a performance bonus of one thousand five hundred, full attendance award of eight hundred, along with housing, meal, transport subsidies, he would total nine thousand a month.

Additionally, there are several attractive young women in the company. Li Ming greatly anticipates the changes this new job might bring to his life. It even springs up an overwhelming sense of a promising future.

As he reaches the security door of his rented room, he meets a woman in hot pants. Upon seeing Li Ming, she greets him with a smile, "What a coincidence, are you off to work too?"

"Yes, I have to report in at two in the afternoon."

Li Ming glances at her, not daring to look too long at her smooth, delicate legs. He quickly walks through the living room.

This woman is the wife in the couple he rents the room with. They've been married for two years and are also hustling in this city. However, due to personality differences with her husband, they rarely speak, and until today, he only knows her name is Zhang Yuan, and she is a year older than him.

"I'm off then."

"Okay."

After the brief exchange, Li Ming strides downstairs.

Zhang Yuan curiously watches Li Ming leave the building, having some curiosity about the rather unfamiliar neighbour. But their relationship isn't that good, so she stops her thoughts right there.

Although they're flat-mates, due to social norms, Li Ming avoids having too much conversation, afraid he might lose control one day and cause complications. In addition, she and her husband's disapproval of him makes them barely acquainted.

As for the tension with her husband, it's not even worth discussing; after a few times of him not even returning a greeting when paths crossed, he even looked disdainfully at Li Ming.

Of course, Li Ming isn't one to insist on being friendly to such coldness. Plus, he sensed the man was intensely self-centered anyway. Over time, they became strangers. Zhang Yuan's occasional small talk is all that connects the two families.

But even that's limited to just this.

......

Going to the new company for the first time, Li Ming enters energetically. But the whole afternoon ends up being simple training with a few other newcomers; the time is over before he knows it.

By the time he was leaving the subway and hopping onto his e-bike, he had only registered two things: the woman training them had very white legs, and there were a lot of beautiful women in the office!

Li Ming immediately felt he had come to the right place!

On the way home, he happily purchased a bunch of supplies and contentedly brought them back to his place.

Upon arriving at his house, he happened to run into his neighbor, a young married woman who was coming home from work.

"Yo, you're bringing back so many things, big shopping day, huh?"

Zhang Yuan raised her eyebrows slightly, jokingly laughing.

Having just returned from work, Zhang Yuan looked casually refined, her skin below her neck seemed to glow with a faint aroma. Her long legs stood together and her lightly made up face was delicate yet seductive. She had just opened the door and sat in the living room to change shoes.

"Our place was out of food, so I decided to restock."

Li Ming replied nonchalantly, the two often bumped into each other due to their quite similar work schedules. During their conversation, Zhang Yuan's husband, Peng Zhi, heard the noise and glanced over from within their apartment, then paid no further attention.

Li Ming caught Peng Zhi's glance, yet he didn't elaborate further with Zhang Yuan. With a smile, he carried everything back to his room, tidied things up, and couldn't help but sigh in satisfaction.

Then, wiping off his sweat, he was too lazy to go back to the kitchen that he shared with Peng Zhi. Even though his own pot was there, he simply cut open the watermelon he had bought and finished it for dinner.

The coolness of the watermelon was a definite relief from the heat. After finishing it and tossing the rind, he wiped down the table, comfortably lied down on his bed, switched on the fan, and couldn't help but sigh in relief.

"Once the rent is due, I have to find a place with an air conditioner!"

Thinking about the decision he made initially to save money, Li Ming had experienced air conditioning at the office all afternoon and felt its absence at home. Still, he was used to the summer heat and felt that the fan helped manage it, so he didn't worry too much about it.

According to the rental agreement, if he didn't rent for at least six months, he wouldn't get his deposit of 1200 Yuans back from the agent. He only moved in three months ago, so he had to tolerate the current circumstances no matter what.

With these thoughts in his mind, Li Ming scanned his room and his eyes finally rested on his brand-new sword and a red-tasseled pike with a dragon-head tip that were leaning against the long table behind the door.

A sudden desire rose within him to take out and play with these weapons he had impulsively bought on Taobao. Although he had all kinds of aspirations to practice diligently with them when he first got them, he never really got to use them, they had been collecting dust ever since...

Li Ming squirmed a bit thinking about the heat he had encountered while coming upstairs, compared with how comfortable he felt lying on his bed with the fan blowing on him.

And he would have to change his shoes to go outside...

Forget it, he might as well wash up and go to bed.

"I didn't cook tonight, so I have plenty of time. I could chill with some TikToks and still get to bed early."

Li Ming had immediately convinced himself, and he then took a shower, got into his underwear, laid on the bed, and started scrolling through TikTok contentedly.

Scrolling and scrolling, before he knew it, it was 11:47 pm. Li Ming had completely forgotten about the resolution he made in the morning to sleep by 10 pm. He looked at his phone, feeling that since it was already late, he might as well scroll till midnight before falling asleep.

And so, Li Ming actually did scroll till midnight.

At midnight, under the bright moonlight, just as Li Ming was thinking about continuing to scroll, something abruptly popped up in front of him.

[The world is about to descend into apocalypse]

[Rules are changing, adapt to survive, those who can't will become zombies]

[Proficiency panel is now open]

What the hell?

Caught off guard, Li Ming didn't get the chance to look closely before his head went into a daze and he muddled his way into sleep on his bed.

It was as if a hazy black fog swept past, and in an instant, the entire planet fell into silence.