49 Apocalypse Rules

"Call the guys at the factory later. Tell them to hurry over and move all these supplies."

The few pharmaceutical factory workers guarding the warehouse entrance were discussing this amongst themselves.

"With the supplies in this warehouse, we can definitely survive this month, even without a rescue team!"

"Group Leader, you don’t think the Sheriff will come after us later, do you?"

"So what if they do! This is an emergency. I’ve read the law. What we’re doing is called ’emergency necessity.’ It’s not illegal at all!"

"Huh? Really?"

"Oh, I see! In that case—"

THUD!

Before the factory worker could finish his sentence, he felt a sharp pain on the side of his face. A massive force slammed into him, and he crashed to the ground, knocked out cold.

The other factory workers stared in stunned silence, only then realizing that someone in a hood, scarf, and mask had just punched their buddy to the ground.

"Who the fuck are you! You looking to die?!"

"Son of a bitch, get him!"

"How dare you hit someone?!"

The factory workers, enraged, couldn’t believe someone actually dared to fight them. The passersby who hadn’t left yet were also shocked, surprised that a true hero would step up to teach these thugs hoarding supplies a lesson.

In an instant, six or seven factory workers surrounded him. To everyone’s astonishment, however, the attacker seemed to have eyes in the back of his head. Two men who tried to ambush him from behind were easily dodged.

He was fast and incredibly strong, his movements decisive and clean. In a flurry of punches and kicks, he had already knocked out five of them. The remaining three or four panicked, realizing this masked man was probably a trained fighter and they were no match for him.

The small-time leader the other workers called "Group Leader" had a vicious glint in his eyes. He swung the iron tongs in his hand, aiming forcefully for the man’s head!

The crowd gasped. If that blow landed, someone could die!

THUD!

The man dodged just in time, avoiding his head, but the tongs smashed into his shoulder.

A look of glee spread across the group leader’s face. A hit to the shoulder with such heavy tongs should have been unbearable!

But in the next moment, his face was a mask of terror.

The man who had just taken the heavy blow to his shoulder acted as if nothing had happened, showing no sign of injury. His body didn’t even flinch. He didn’t so much as grunt in pain, remaining completely silent.

This eerie silence filled the group leader’s heart with a profound sense of dread.

SNATCH!

The next instant, the gloved man snatched the tongs from his hand, swung them back around, and brought them down, smashing the leader to the ground.

Seeing the group leader fall to the ground bleeding, the surrounding crowd panicked and screamed, "Something’s happened! Someone’s been killed!"

People scattered and fled. The two remaining factory workers, terrified, dropped their weapons and ran for their lives. A moment later, only the "hero" was left.

Shadow returned to the milk tea shop where Guan Tong was hiding. It dematerialized, its clothes falling to the floor. Guan Tong put them on, entered the supply depot warehouse, and quickly found and grabbed the things he needed.

Food, a flashlight, batteries, a sleeping bag, a multi-tool, a windproof lighter, electrical tape, a small stove canister, a small water filter, a portable first-aid kit, personal hygiene items, and more.

Guan Tong packed the items into two backpacks, strapped the sleeping bag to them, and hoisted them onto his back. After a moment’s thought, he also picked up the group leader’s "iron tongs." Shadow had found them quite handy just now, so they were worth taking.

He then immediately left the supply depot and headed to a nearby ride-sharing station.

In the world Guan Tong came from before he transmigrated, the sharing economy was already well-developed. But in this world, it was even more advanced. The station had everything from bicycles and hoverboards to cars.

He found a black SUV, scanned the code to get in, and tossed his backpacks into the back seat. Sitting in the front, he pulled off his snow-covered hood and opened the navigation map, setting a destination on the edge of the city.

After he pressed the "Proceed to Destination" option, the shared SUV automatically began to follow the navigation route.

From what Guan Tong could tell, this world’s technology level was about ten to twenty years ahead of his original world’s. Self-driving technology was already fully functional within cities that had detailed electronic maps.

Therefore, he didn’t need to drive himself right now. Once he set the destination to the city’s edge, the car would drive there on its own. When he reached the area outside the city where self-driving wasn’t available, he would take over and drive to his final destination: Mingdao Mountain.

The vehicle began to move. The Apocalypse Rules had only been in effect for about half an hour. Although the snow was heavy, it hadn’t accumulated too much on the roads yet, so vehicles and even pedestrians could still move about without much trouble.

There were still quite a few vehicles on the streets, likely people heading to their chosen Gathering Points.

About ten minutes later, Guan Tong suddenly heard the WHIR-WHIR-WHIR of rotor blades. He leaned toward the window and saw helicopters circling in the sky, scattering something onto the roads below.

’Is that de-icer, or some other chemical to slow snow accumulation?’

Guan Tong wondered. Just then, he saw a convoy approaching in the opposite lane—it was an open-topped military convoy!

Through the window, he saw that these open-topped military vehicles were filled with fully armed soldiers carrying live ammunition. They sat ramrod straight, gripping their rifles, looking as if they had just received orders for a mission.

Guan Tong thought for a moment and understood. With large crowds gathering, chaos could easily break out. A large-scale conflict would only lead to unnecessary casualties.

But if armed personnel were stationed at every Gathering Point, at least no one would dare cause trouble so openly.

It was just like the self-service supply depot earlier. If armed guards had been on-site, even if you gave those factory workers twice the courage, they wouldn’t have dared to use wrenches and axes to claim all the supplies for themselves.

Thinking this, Guan Tong took out his phone and connected to the internet.

He searched for the keyword "snowfall amount." Sure enough, though it had only been a little over half an hour, someone had already discovered the hidden rule.

A netizen with an IP address in "Nargum" had posted a short video showing the snowfall in their area.

On a vast, grey expanse of land, snowflakes drifted down listlessly, almost non-existent. Compared to the overwhelming blizzards in major cities like Yong’an and Yunhua, it was the very picture of "peaceful times."

The netizen who shot the video said, "Wait, is it really snowing that hard in the interior? It seems pretty normal here. It’s not even snowing as much as it usually does in winter."

The video’s comments had already surpassed tens of thousands and were still climbing rapidly.

"This video’s gotta be fake, right???"

"For real?! Does anyone know where Nargum is?"

"I remember Nargum is a no-man’s-land in the Southern Border region... Wasn’t there a news story last year about a group of trekkers who tried to cross Nargum and ended up disappearing...?"

"What the hell? Heavy snow in some places and light snow in others?!"

"Holy shit! Why are the Fire Thieves so cruel (crying my eyes out)! They give us so much snow and you guys so little!"

"So snowfall varies by region? Has this been officially confirmed?!"

"I just called the official hotline! The staff said they were already aware of the situation and are conducting an emergency investigation!"

Guan Tong turned off his phone screen at this point to save battery.

He knew the authorities must have noticed this situation by now. The only question was how they would respond.

Would they do a 180 and change the policy from gathering people for rescue to dispersing them for evacuation, or would they stick to the original plan?

But no matter what the authorities did, Guan Tong knew he had already made his decision.

He glanced at the shared car’s battery level. On a full charge, it had a maximum range of 1,000 kilometers. The distance to his destination, Mingdao Mountain, was over 700 kilometers. Factoring in the power loss from the cold, it would definitely be enough to get there without needing to recharge.

He just didn’t know what the situation was like at Mingdao Mountain.

Guan Tong considered his choice. He had chosen Mingdao Mountain because it was an undeveloped, wild mountain. Aside from a few trekkers who enjoyed hiking off the beaten path, very few people ever went there.

After the Apocalypse Rules descended, it was even less likely that anyone would go there.

Therefore, within the radius Guan Tong could reach by car from the center of Yunhua City, Mingdao Mountain was definitely the place with the lowest population density. All the other counties and villages were much more densely populated.

’I hope the snow isn’t too heavy there,’ Guan Tong thought. ’That way, I’ll have enough food, and if I run low on water, I can filter melted snow. Plus, with Shadow as a "laborer with limited uptime but infinite stamina," surviving for a month shouldn’t be a big problem.’