Chapter 1 – Rebirth
“Bastard! I never should’ve gone soft for a moment and bought that little brat!” Luo Xun cursed under his breath, weaving left and right through the narrow alley, hot on the heels of the scrawny figure slipping away ahead of him like a fish.
One ran, one chased. Street vendors on both sides pointed and whispered as if watching a show. The moment they saw that boy darting by in a ragged potato sack that couldn’t even cover his thighs, everyone knew—the man behind him had the bad luck of losing his “goods.” Tsk, tsk. These days, only the truly rich could afford to buy boys. People like them? To deal with their needs, they’d only spend a few low-grade crystal nuclei on Flower Street for some passable backside.
Left turn, right turn, around the corner—Luo Xun froze at the chaos ahead: a group of brawny men were in the middle of a bloody street fight!
“Damn it, it’s the Flame gang and Chaos!” What rotten luck was this? He’d only wanted to use the crystal nuclei he had saved over the years to buy himself something nice for his thirty-second birthday. But at the street corner, he ran into that trafficker. The kid’s dark, stubborn eyes and the vicious scars across his body stirred an impulse in Luo Xun to buy him on the spot. Yet no sooner had the deal been made than the boy turned and bolted! And now—he ran straight into a gang battle!
The moment the kid had fled, Luo Xun suspected he’d been scammed. Children weren’t real “goods.” Once handed over, as long as no one stole them, they were still yours. Most of these kids colluded with traffickers. Once money changed hands, the child would flee, hide until the buyer gave up, then return to the traffickers for the next con.
Luo Xun had only heard of such things, never experienced them himself—because he had never bought one before. Today was supposed to be special, his birthday, and that boy’s eyes had shaken him. The thought of having a son to accompany him in the years ahead had been more tempting than anything else… Clearly, there was no such thing as “good deeds bring good returns”!
The boy, stumbling into the brawl, froze. He stood there dumbly, not knowing where to dodge, when suddenly a massive fireball flew toward him—thrown by some ability user. Terror surged in his chest. He had endured enough of being treated as a commodity, humiliated and abused, which was why he risked everything to escape his new buyer. But now… was this the end?
A sudden shove from behind knocked him aside. The boy’s dark, wide eyes locked on the man who had pushed him away. He was thin and frail, yet his strength was anything but weak.
It was as if a sigh echoed in the air as the fireball struck the man. The light vanished from those tea-colored eyes.
*
“I’m dead. I’m not dead. I’m dead. I’m not dead…”
On an old wooden bed, Luo Xun stared blankly at the ceiling, muttering to himself.
After repeating the nonsense more than twenty times, he suddenly shot upright with a rustle, rushed to the wardrobe, and stared at the dressing mirror mounted on it—a piece of furniture left by his parents. The reflection gave him a clear, undeniable answer.
He raised a trembling hand to his cheek. Gone was the weariness etched into his face after years of struggling through the apocalypse. Gone were the dry wrinkles from endless labor. Gone was the malnourished, yellowed thinness. This face—this face was ten years younger!
“I… really came back?” He lowered his gaze to his trembling hands. They weren’t delicate, but they were clean, long-fingered—nothing like the warped joints and blackened nails his hands would one day bear after endless toil.
Covering his face with both hands, Luo Xun sank to the floor, tears streaming silently.
He didn’t know what time this was or what had happened to him, but he could feel the difference—the air, the atmosphere, his body, his surroundings.
This was F City—his hometown. His parents had left him this apartment, the only inheritance he had. Here, before the apocalypse, he had lived for twenty-two years. Here was—home.
He sat on the floor until dusk before stiffly rising and heading to the kitchen. He boiled a packet of instant noodles. That taste—it was unforgettable. In the early days of the apocalypse, people could still scavenge such things from chaotic supermarkets. But later, they vanished completely.
Even in the two bases he later lived in, the mutated crops had changed everything. Though dried noodles could still be found, they never tasted the same again.
Now, even if these noodles weren’t the original kind, to reborn Luo Xun they were heavenly. One bowl only sharpened his appetite. In his early twenties, his appetite had always been big—and now, with his post-apocalypse constitution layered on top? A single packet wasn’t nearly enough.
After checking the date three times—September 8th—Luo Xun grabbed his wallet, walked to the door, hesitated for a full minute, then inhaled deeply, opened it, and stepped outside.
With a fruit knife tucked at his waist, he descended the stairs slowly, carefully, until he reached the front gate. When he saw the bustling crowd within the neighborhood, his heart trembled—I really came back. The apocalypse hadn’t arrived yet!
At a noodle shop outside the neighborhood, Luo Xun sat eating beef noodles with a meat-stuffed flatbread in hand. Each bite, each slurp, nearly brought him to tears.
Even later, at A City base, he rarely saw white flour, let alone this once-common beef noodle. For ordinary survivors like him, such food was unattainable. Even if he could afford it with crystal nuclei, no one would sell it. Unmutated grains were state-controlled. Private sales were almost impossible.
“Eh? Isn’t that Luo Xun? Not working today?”
A familiar voice startled him. Luo Xun looked up at an elderly neighbor, holding a black plastic bag—probably seafood. The old man eyed him curiously.
“Uh… ah, nothing much today.” In this timeline, ten years ago, shouldn’t he still be working odd jobs?
“Nothing much?” The old man frowned, then patted his shoulder with a smile. “Don’t worry. That job wasn’t good anyway. You’re young, plenty of opportunities ahead…” He rambled on and on until he finally left. Luo Xun still couldn’t recall his surname—just that he must be a neighbor. But from the same building, or just the same complex? He couldn’t remember.
Work? A job?
Draining the last of his soup, Luo Xun exhaled long and slow, watching the endless flow of cars and pedestrians outside. The apocalypse was only two months away. There was no way he could waste time going back to work.
After paying, he went straight to a real estate agency nearby. Selling online could save some fees, but he had no time. He had to sell his only property quickly and head for A City—the one place that lasted a full decade into the apocalypse, where he had survived for over eight years.
The next day, after listing, buyers began arriving. Even though he priced it slightly below market to sell quickly, he refused to be fleeced. His bottom line was 300,000. He had too many expenses ahead to go any lower.
By the third wave of buyers, a deal was struck. Contracts signed, title transferred, payment received.
The entire process dragged on more than twenty days, but finally, Luo Xun held the money in hand and boarded the high-speed train to A City.
*
Watching the familiar yet strange skyline pass outside the window, a deep melancholy welled up inside him. In his previous life, aside from a childhood trip with his parents, he hadn’t come here again until after the apocalypse had destroyed M City, forcing him to flee here for refuge.
Luo Xun prided himself on being cautious but never cowardly. Otherwise, as a powerless ordinary man with no ability and no connections, how could he have survived ten years through disaster after disaster?
Even his death had been by choice—shielding that boy. That was what brought him back to life. Otherwise, he was sure he could have lived another ten years in A City base.
And now—he had been reborn. He still had no ability. He had no intention of clinging to future overlords. But he had confidence. With caution and wit, he could survive the apocalypse again.
So, his first step was to sell his house and everything in it that would be useless in the apocalypse or impossible to bring to A City. The second step was to head to the southwest district of A City…
After searching one real estate agency after another, he finally found his target at a relatively larger agency.
“…A newly built complex, this unit has just been renovated and has never been lived in before. It’s a duplex on the top floor, with a great view and good air circulation. The price is a bit high, but absolutely worth it…”
The agent chattered endlessly while Luo Xun carefully read over the unit’s details. He could tell—this was the place he’d been looking for.
“Take me to see it.”
“Of course! This way, please.”
