Welcome to the Wasteland

The cause of Zhou Qingfeng's luck and misfortune was a single movie. Since it was the holidays, he finally had the chance to rest at home. Zhou Qingfeng picked a mega-blockbuster film called "Wasteland" from his computer and was prepared to spend his afternoon lazily, relaxing. It was a science fiction film set in the year 2030 in New York, USA. 

The film had a pretty mind-blowing script. One day, all the government bureaucracies, military, police, and business conglomerates throughout the world vanished without a trace. All supplies of electricity and fuel in the United States were cut off; water and food sources became scarce; all kinds of living necessities were extremely hard to come by; there was no longer any restraint on social morality; thugs and criminals ran rampant; society fell into a state of chaos and disorder without a government.

Zhou Qingfeng's first reaction when he saw the setting was—'I want to go there and pick up trash. No… to pick up valuable treasure!' He felt like his heart was about to break when he saw valuable items being discarded at random along with stunning women who seemed lost and helpless.

Picking some of those up at random would be enough to sustain him for a lifetime; bring a few chicks home at random and he would be ready to settle down for life. 

Mm… back to the movie plot. New York had turned into the capital of sin. It focused on the story of how an ordinary family of three managed to survive all kinds of trials and tribulations, waiting for the day the government and other powerful institutions reformed. The family pressed on for about three months before the reformation took place.

Due to their various outstanding feats they achieved during the chaotic time, the family of three was perceived as heroes by the Americans. Since then, it was roses all the way and a bright and promising future could be seen ahead of them. The male protagonist also became determined to enter politics and was eventually elected as the president of the United States.

'Oh… So the government came back? How boring!'

It was a film to promote American culture and values as it focused on positive elements such as love, justice, family, affection, and so on. The film also outlined the colors of individualistic heroism.

The male protagonist used his extraordinary abilities to save society, punish evil, and render the American dream to strive for a better life in a splendid and diversified way. It depicted the idea that even ordinary people could make outstanding contributions and draw the attention of top-notch figures among Americans. 

Alright. The film was not that bad all the way up to this point. At least its special effects were amazing. However, the lousiest thing was captions appeared on the screen after the happy ending. 'What if the government had not returned?' Then, the film continued playing. After pressing on for three months, there was no significant improvement in the lives of the male protagonist's family of three.

The male protagonist took great pains and painstakingly protected his family members. Even when he was riddled with scars each time he encountered a challenge, he still pressed on. The female protagonist also consoled her family members in various ways, no matter how hard it was and how tired she felt, she did not give up. The daughter was quick-witted and courageous too, helping her parents face all kinds of adversity.

Unfortunately, when winter came, there was no glimmer of hope for the survivors. It became more and more challenging for them to collect resources, and the wicked behaviors of society intensified; the repulsive side of human nature magnified intensely, and personal conscience became minuscule and absurd. 

The most insufferable thing was when the film plot reached its lowest point. Glocal nuclear weapons were activated and all kinds of strategic nuclear bombs were launched; they hit all the major cities around the world more than ten minutes later.

Then, as though the nuclear bombs were not enough, chemical and biological weapons followed closely and were released. More than ninety percent of the world's population died in the catastrophe.

However, that was not the end. The entire Earth's biosphere began to become deformed due to biogenetic weapons' attacks. Mutated plants and animals turned extremely aggressive, making it even more difficult for humans to rebuild civilization.

Afterward, the family of three who had escaped New York by luck lived an extremely difficult life. The male protagonist was shot to death when he entered a small town trying to scavenge for food, while the female protagonist was taken away by slave traffickers in an effort to protect her daughter. The film ended with a scene of the poor little girl standing alone, crying in the wilderness.

F*ck! This bad, bad film. Awfully bad film! The scene of the little girl tearing up left Zhou Qingfeng tremendously disappointed.

Zhou Qingfeng thought that the mother and daughter in the film were both stunners. The female protagonist acting as the wife and mother was mature and attractive; the supporting actress acting as the daughter was youthful and beautiful. Initially, Zhou Qingfeng thought that he would be able to give himself a good wank after seeing the happy ending. However, the hellish ending that followed resulted in him being scarred a ton.

F*ck. Where was the love and justice I was promised? What about family and affection? And the so-called happy family starting a blissful life? How can reality be so cruel? Who made this film? Show yourself… Let's see if I'll spare your *ss!

It was rare for Zhou Qingfeng to not turn off the player immediately after watching a film. He patiently waited for the film credits to pop out because he simply wanted to know which bastard of a director had made the trashy film.

As it turned out, the producer, director, script and screenwriter, costumes, props, and so on were all under the same name—GOD!

Who was GOD? Was he not afraid that he would be struck by lightning for using such a kick*ss name? Dissatisfied, Zhou Qingfeng went online to search, trying to find out who the godly figure was. As a result, Baidu gave him a clear answer that GOD literally meant "God".

'You must be kidding me! If the director is god, then I am the Jade Emperor now.'

Zhou Qingfeng searched for the film entitled Wasteland again and realized that there was no mention of the film on the Internet. He was unable to find out the company that filmed it or even who the actors had been involved were. There was no producer, no publisher, no comments—nothing.

'Whoa... Was I hallucinating? Wait... where did I get this film?'

Zhou Qingfeng remembered that he had opened up a certain website willy-nilly and played the movie after clicking on it accidentally. Although the family of three in the film lived a hard life, they were happy and harmonious. It made him feel warm and happy. That was why he had sat down and watched the film for more than five hours straight.

More than five hours! He had never heard of a film that lasted so long. He began watching the movie after eating lunch at noon, and the film ended at dusk, Zhou Qingfeng had watched it with a bellyful of anger. Feeling upset, he found the comment column at the bottom of the page and slammed his bellyful of complaints into the text box without holding back.

"What a bad, trashy film. This film simply goes against humans and society! I want to see a happy ending, not see how miserable humans will be on judgment day."

Zhou Qingfeng hit enter and the comment was submitted. However, just as he was about to close the webpage, the comment column suddenly refreshed. A comment appeared on it: You think that this movie is bad? This is reality.

'Reality my *ss! Do you take me for a fool?'

The user ID for the comment was GOD. Zhou Qingfeng was infuriated when he saw the ID. He replied, "Do you really think you're god? You're merely a director. The purpose of making a film is to entertain the public and to make money. Who would buy tickets to see such a trashy ending? This is intolerable. I'm sure no one would like it."

GOD replied immediately, "I don't care if humans will like this film or not, nor do I care about money. This is just a game for me."

'F*ck me… the younger generation of this pompous world does surpass the older generation indeed! It's been so many years since I involved myself in the pompous world and there are already people surpassing me. Not only does he self-proclaim himself as god, but he makes up stories as if they are real.'

"Do you really think the world will be in chaos without government bureaucracies? How absurd! Government bureaucracies are formed by humans in groups. When the former one disappears, someone will naturally take over. If I was the one in the Wasteland, I'm sure I'd do ten thousand times better than the male protagonist. I'd definitely be able to make it," Zhou Qingfeng said confidently. 

He listed out all kinds of mistakes he thought the actor had made in the film and provided his own solution to each challenge. As he continued talking, he began to feel that living in such a hypothetical scenario would be quite fun!　

This time, GOD was the one who fell silent for a moment on the other end. He replied, "You think you'd be able to survive better in the Wasteland? If I let you go there, would you be willing to?"

'Uh... I wouldn't be willing to,' Zhou Qingfeng thought to himself, 'I would have to be out of my mind to go to that world that is destined to be doomed. There's no food, no drinks, and humans no less than creatures roaming everywhere. I would never go to a world where people kill each other for a piece of bread. Being a keyboard warrior and realistic execution are two very different things.'

"But your life isn't so great right now either. See, you haven't saved up any money even after so many years of working. I don't see any girls dating you even after you went on so many blind dates either. Two days ago, you were also blamed for a very minor mistake when your superior was actually the one who had committed it himself.

"You have no house, no car, no savings, no friends, you don't have everything that you should have. Do you think there is still hope in your life?"

F*ck… GOD's remarks dealt a tremendous blow to Zhou Qingfeng. The latter zoned out for a long time before he typed his reply in the comment section nervously, "Who are you? How do you know about my matters?"

Nevertheless, GOD did not answer his question. Instead, he continued, "I will now give you a chance to change your life and let you wander in another world to strive hard for a living. You will transmigrate three days before the disaster. For every ten days you spend in the wasteland, I will let you come back for three days to fix yourself, as well as allow you to take some loot as a reward.

"I will also give you some transmigration benefits. As long as you manage to survive the three months before judgment day, it can be considered that you've won. At that time, I will open up the gate of time and space and let you pass through it freely. Hit the enter key if you're interested."

After reading GOD's comment, Zhou Qingfeng was stupefied. All kinds of confusing and disconcerting thoughts raced through his mind, eventually converging to a single question—Am I really getting another chance to change my life? Can I really strive hard again one more time? Should I rescue the two beauties?

Oh, whatever, hitting the enter key will not kill me anyway.