A night without dreams.

At first light Chen Yun opened his eyes. He swung his legs out of bed, washed quickly, and found the apartment noticeably emptier after last night’s tidying. He turned off the apartment’s water and gas valves in sequence, and finally pulled down the main breaker in the fuse box. A soft click, and silence settled over the room.

He stood in the center of the living room and looked around. Tiny cracks branched across the yellowed walls, spiderwebs gathered in the corners—each detail etched clearly in his mind thanks to the enhanced senses from the serum. Three years of his drudge life lived here: late nights at work, the humiliation of scolding by a boss, the brief joy when payday arrived. A faint melancholy rose in him.

“Compared with an uncertain apocalypse, this ordinary life felt… not so bad,” he said to himself, smiling wryly. Then he squared his shoulders. “Look ahead. I have to take revenge and survive the end.”

He swallowed that emotion down and left without lingering. He closed the apartment door, locked it, left the key in the frame as usual, and walked away without looking back.

Morning city traffic was thin—only street sweepers scraping and a few early commuters. He drove his small car along quieter streets; the pickup truck he’d used to shuttle supplies had already been stored in system space at the warehouse. A cool breeze slipped through the cracked window and brushed his face. Skyscrapers reflected the pale dawn, steam rose from breakfast stall steamers, a few tired commuters waited at a bus stop, neon billboards still flickered. The bustle and humanity of the city made him feel something like pity for the unaware masses—ten days from now, how many of them would survive the coming cold?

He had considered telling the public about the imminent extreme-cold apocalypse, but the risks were huge. He might be branded a lunatic or, worse, arrested for spreading rumors. Telling anyone broadly could draw dangerous attention. In the end he chose to focus on surviving himself, hoping—privately—that authorities could save as many people as possible.

The highway left the city behind. He opened the navigation app and set the destination: Pingle Village. It was a remote mountain village in a remote township of a remote county—a long drive from Luoyue City, over ten hours. He’d planned to store his car and take a plane or high-speed train, but nearby cities’ tickets were sold out for the next two days. There was no choice but to drive home.

He sighed and followed the route. Night finally fell. At exactly ten o’clock the navigation voice announced, “Proceed straight 1.5 kilometers to reach Pingle Village.”

Chen’s heart jumped. In the darkness ahead, scattered lights sketched the village silhouette. “I’m home…” he murmured, pressing the cold metal key to his palm.

At 22:20 he parked in front of the rusted iron gate of his family yard. The car’s headlights lit the mottled courtyard wall and the overgrown grass. He found a roughly level spot to leave the car and stepped up to the gate. Moonlight painted the path silver; he slid the key into the lock and turned.

The gate hissed open, its hinges complaining across the midnight stillness. Grass brushed his shins as he crossed the yard toward the familiar house. Memories flashed—how the village boss’s son and his gang smashed this very gate and stormed into the house the last time. He used the same key, the door groaned, and stale, dusty air rolled out.

The house was more than a hundred square meters, empty and cold. Furniture lay under thick dust; the floorboards creaked. He switched on his phone torch and found the main breaker, flipped it up, and then pressed the wall switch. Warm, soft light filled the living room.

After sweeping a little, he arranged a place in the bedroom where he could sleep. “This will be my survival base in the end,” he told himself as he lay down and began to plan the retrofit.

Ding—

The system chimed abruptly in his mind.

[Detection: Host has located a suitable survival base.]

[New system task issued.]

[Task: Foundation of Survival]

[Objective: Renovate, reinforce, and complete the survival base as much as possible so it can provide stable, secure shelter during the apocalypse.]

[Time: Long-term.]

[Note: This is a long-term task and will evaluate the base in phases. Higher evaluation levels grant richer rewards.]

[Rewards: Points and survival items.]

Chen Yun paused—he had only just finished the previous mission, and another task already appeared. Then the system chimed again.

[Daily points settlement initiated.]

[Settling…]

[Base points today: 24.]

[Survival assessment today: Long-distance driving (survival exploration): 10.]

[Found and preliminarily confirmed survival base (survival prep): 40.]

[Settlement complete. Current survival points: 1824.]

Chen blinked at the near-two-thousand-point balance, feeling the corners of his mouth lift. “So many points—don’t know how to spend them yet.” He decided to plan tomorrow and sleep.

But the sleep came with a nightmare: icy cold and suffocating fear swallowed him as he drifted into a troubled sleep.