Chapter Twenty-Four: Saving Civilization

After the meal, Taishan left in high spirits with his two subordinates, not forgetting to swipe a pack of Zhonghua cigarettes from the coffee table on his way out. Xie Han didn’t mind at all; he had plenty of cigarettes and certainly didn’t begrudge the small gesture of goodwill. Once his hunger was satisfied, he watched Qi Feiwu clearing the dishes and said, “I’m going out for a walk. I’ll leave things in your care for now.” Qi Feiwu was momentarily stunned, and before she could respond, Xie Han had already stepped out the door. She opened her mouth, only managing to call out, “Be careful…”

There were a lot of idlers in the residential area. Those with jobs in the base were perhaps less than one in twenty; most people simply waited around, doing nothing, relying on their rations. Xie Han glanced at the people wandering aimlessly, or lying half-dead under the trees with their eyes closed, and suddenly felt a wave of pity. In this post-apocalyptic world, with zombies everywhere outside, people were trapped inside the base. With little in the way of entertainment, it was no different from a prison.

From Taishan, Xie Han had learned much about the situation in the town. For example, several large machinery factories had been converted into munitions plants to meet the base’s demand for ammunition. Most weapons in town came from these plants. The food factory had produced some biscuits and snacks in the first year, but as the situation worsened, two years ago it was switched to making only steamed buns. In the past six months, even these steamed buns were no longer white, but mixed with coarse grains until they turned gray. Anyone with eyes could see that the base’s food stores were running low.

As for the “hunting” mentioned during the weapons purchase, Xie Han had also gotten clarity from Taishan. “Hunting” was just a euphemism for going out to search for food. As supplies tightened, the base had implemented a mercenary system half a year ago: anyone could sign up at the base to join a food-gathering expedition. Weapons and vehicles were provided by the base, departure was at six every morning. There was no set return time, but the base would close completely at six in the evening. Anyone who missed the closing had to fend for themselves. Because of this, most expeditions lasted from six in the morning to six in the evening—twelve hours—regardless of whether they found anything, everyone aimed to return before closing.

This mercenary system was quite interesting. Upon return, the base would take half of anything gathered, as payment for weapons and vehicles. Though this fee was steep, it didn’t deter those who couldn’t bear their hunger. To fill their stomachs, many people signed up for these dangerous forays, despite knowing the risks.

Wangtian City was vast. As a provincial capital, it had once stored enough food to feed tens of millions for five years. With only a hundred thousand or so people left in the base, it was no exaggeration to say there was enough food for them to last a lifetime. But the larger the reserves, the higher the population had been—fifteen million before the disaster. This daunting figure meant that survivors could only search for food on the city’s outskirts, in sparsely populated areas.

The base also had its own hunting squad, armed with heavy weapons. They sometimes dared to break through streets guarded by tens of thousands of zombies, which meant they could bring back significant amounts of food. From Taishan, Xie Han learned that just last month, the hunting squad had broken into the city’s granary, bringing back ten large truckloads of rice. Unfortunately, not a single grain of that rice made it to ordinary people. According to Taishan’s cynical guess, it was all consumed by those in power.

By now it was nearly noon; the streets were growing busier. Xie Han turned down a couple of streets, slipped into an old alley, and ducked into a dilapidated, shadowy house. After ensuring no one had noticed him, he quickly activated the teleportation function on his space-time watch.

Within seconds, the familiar scent of his own room wafted into Xie Han’s nose. He lay back on his bed and lit a cigarette. Picking up his phone, he turned it on and saw over a dozen messages and nine missed calls. Xie Han smiled wryly. The texts were from a few of his close friends, jokingly asking if he’d already reached the underworld and whether he needed them to burn some hell money for him. He knew what they meant: they must have heard he’d been suspended from his job.

All the missed calls were from his mother. After thinking for a moment, Xie Han decided to call back. After all, he’d made this decision without consulting his family—anyone would be worried. As soon as the call connected, his mother’s anxious voice came through. Xie Han had already prepared his explanation and said, “Mom, listen, I was wrong not to tell you beforehand. But your son is already twenty-four, twenty-five years old. I know what I’m doing. I just didn’t want to stay at that job anymore. I’d rather go out and make something of myself while I’m still young.”

“So, do you have any good ideas?” his mother asked. “Young people always want to change the world on a whim. I’ve been through this too, you know? Do you think I don’t understand?” She didn’t object outright; after all, there was no turning back, and she only wanted her son to think carefully.

Xie Han was a bit stumped by the question. He pondered: Did he have any good ideas? What could he do right now? Was he just going to idle his time away, spending three hours a day before rushing back to the apocalypse? He knew that wasn’t what he wanted. Not only did he need a job to reassure his family, but on a deeper level—had he never thought about saving this world? Was he just going to let it be destroyed in a few decades?

No. He would never allow that to happen. His family was here, his friends were here, and so many lovely people. How could he stand by and watch them become emotionless, soulless zombies? But then, Xie Han realized how bizarre his situation was. Who would believe him? Was he supposed to just march up to the government and tell them what would happen in a few decades? That would get him locked up as a madman—or worse.

Suddenly, Xie Han remembered what Zhou Ruomeng had told him: in the future, the United States had launched the “Savior” spacecraft. If he could, before the catastrophe arrived, develop a spacecraft even more advanced than the Savior, and destroy the meteorite farther out—or divert its course—wouldn’t that avert the disaster?

Xie Han was almost stunned by his own idea. But building something like the Savior was prohibitively expensive and represented the pinnacle of human technology—something no individual could achieve. Reaching even farther than that, not even decades of technological progress would suffice, let alone now.

“Or maybe… it’s not impossible…” Xie Han wasn’t deterred by his own thoughts. He knew that while others might not be able to achieve this, it didn’t mean he couldn’t. He had the space-time watch and could travel between two worlds. In the apocalypse, technology was dirt-cheap—designs for advanced tech were probably as worthless as scrap paper. The once top-tier talent was now reduced to pitiful souls who couldn’t even get enough to eat. “What if… I could bring the technology of the apocalypse to the present, and have the top minds of the apocalypse work for a modern company? What would happen then?”

At this realization, Xie Han’s heart raced. The post-apocalyptic world was an evolution of modern society—if he could master it, he would hold technology decades ahead of his own time, and have firsthand knowledge of economic trends and global power shifts for years to come. Would making money in the modern world be difficult?

With this clarity, Xie Han felt as if a fog had lifted. Into the phone, he said to his mother, “Of course I have an idea—I’m going to start a company!” He hung up amid his mother’s startled silence, rolling excitedly on the bed, his mind filled with visions of founding his own enterprise.

As he reveled in his excitement, his watch suddenly lit up and projected a beam of light onto the wall. Zhou Ruomeng appeared uninvited, smiling gently. “I’m glad you finally understand your mission,” she said. “This is what it means to save and rebuild the civilization of both worlds.”

Xie Han paused. Zhou Ruomeng was dressed formally this time. With a swipe of her hand, the background transformed into the post-apocalyptic world, teeming with surging zombies. The scene shifted, showing human bases falling one after another, their inhabitants slaughtered, until only zombies remained to cover the earth. It was like a film: as humanity dwindled to less than a million, a brilliant comet appeared in the distant sky and, in a flash, struck Earth’s surface. The entire planet was set ablaze, finally becoming a lifeless, burning world.

Zhou Ruomeng spoke gravely, “What you just saw is the final fate of the post-apocalyptic Earth. If nothing changes, the planet will be stripped of all life. Once the geology is utterly destroyed, even after billions of years, life will never rise again. Earth will be finished. For you, in the modern world, you must face the challenge of averting the XR virus crisis. In the apocalypse, your task is to save human civilization itself. This is the mission the Mother System has entrusted to you.”

This time, Xie Han was utterly stunned. He pointed at the ongoing scene—the fiery-red Earth searing his eyes. “Is that really what Earth will become in the end?” Zhou Ruomeng nodded. “That’s right. The data was generated by the Mother System. It’s one hundred percent accurate.”

“How many years until destruction? I mean, how long is it from now to 2060?” Xie Han asked with difficulty, still unable to accept it all. Zhou Ruomeng replied, “The comet impact will occur on July 14, 2088. So, you have thirty years left.”

Xie Han collapsed back onto the bed, murmuring, “Thirty years? But what good is that? I have no way to stop a comet’s impact.” Zhou Ruomeng smiled and offered kindly, “Since the Mother System arranged all this, there must be a way to solve it. It’s just that your data access level is too low to know the specifics yet.”

“So you’re saying that only by desperately raising my level will I learn the secret behind all this?” Xie Han felt his motivation return. As long as there was a way, there was hope—wasn’t that enough?