49 Apocalypse Rules

"One, two, three, lift!"

At the entrance of the Li Mei Hotel, people in light clothing and masks worked together, lifting the bodies moved from the hotel rooms onto a truck.

The vehicle was a body transport truck dispatched by the authorities. On the first day after the Apocalypse Rules ended, a large number of these trucks crisscrossed the city’s main roads, collecting bodies from the various Gathering Points.

Towards the end of the Apocalypse Rules’ effective period, the temperature had dropped to tens of degrees below zero, so temporarily storing the bodies indoors hadn’t been an issue. But now, with the scorching sun overhead and temperatures climbing, failing to transport them quickly risked the outbreak of disease.

"One, two, three, heave!"

Another group of people lifted a body onto the truck. In the process, a pair of glasses fell out of the bag shrouding the corpse.

Xu Xiaotian bent down and picked them up. He remembered they were Feng’s glasses. The teacher had developed a high fever and hadn’t managed to pull through, dying during the Apocalypse Rules.

Once all the bodies had been loaded onto the two trucks, the crowd watched the body transport trucks drive away, their expressions somewhat numb.

The Apocalypse Rules were over, but the psychological scars they left on people would not disappear.

To keep their minds off things, many people didn’t wait for the official call to action. They grabbed tools and spontaneously went out onto the streets to clear snow and demolish the ice walls.

Others packed their belongings immediately, preparing to leave as soon as the snow melted, to get away from this place that had left them with such trauma.

Only the original residents who had first moved into the Li Mei Hotel had no plans to leave.

Even though the hotel was now a shadow of its former self—with its collapsed sign and entrance, a swimming pool filled with plastic bags of excrement, and multiple guest rooms reeking of death—they still decided to stay.

The hotel had become like a home to them, and the people who held daily support group meetings felt like family. No matter how foul the place had become, as long as everyone stuck together, they could take their time and slowly clean it up.

After finishing with the bodies, Xu Xiaotian returned to the lobby and packed his own things. He planned to head to Capital Yong’an as soon as transport was restored and join the academy when it opened.

Like many others, he had been left with significant psychological trauma from the Apocalypse Rules. To him, Yunhua had become a place he wanted to leave, a place to escape.

BING.

Just then, his phone chimed in his pocket. He pulled it out, and his face immediately lit up with joy.

...

Guan Tong had turned off his phone midway through the Apocalypse Rules to save power.

Today, after finishing his July plan, he turned it on and saw it still had 37% battery.

He was about to go online to check the current social situation when a notification popped up: a text message from Xu Xiaotian, sent yesterday, on the 1st.

"Tong, are you still alive?"

Seeing the message, Guan Tong sent a simple reply: "Still alive."

’Having someone I know survive the Apocalypse Rules is a rare bit of good news.’

After replying, he browsed for information online.

As expected, most of the information was related to the disaster’s impact in various regions. The most tragic situations were in the villages near large cities.

Villages in remote areas suffered less severely due to lower snowfall. But the villages near large cities had the disadvantage of high population density without the advantage of a large city’s concentrated disaster relief efforts.

This led to the horrific sight of many such villages being entirely buried by the blizzard.

Guan Tong watched some drone footage of the villages, and it was too gruesome to bear.

A drone flew from one end of a village to the other, revealing houses almost completely crushed and buried by the snow. Not a single person could be seen; the entire village had vanished into the white expanse.

With a scene like that, one could only imagine the fate of the villagers. What was even more tragic was that there was no telling when their bodies might be recovered; after all, a city’s disaster relief forces would prioritize the city itself.

’In that case, the population distribution will probably polarize in the future,’ Guan Tong thought. ’One extreme will be an over-concentration of people in megacities, while the other will be people choosing to move away from the cities, living reclusively off-the-grid in remote areas, leading self-sufficient, pastoral lives.’

Guan Tong tried searching for "Yunhua City" and found quite a few videos as well.

Clicking on them revealed a cityscape filled with ice walls, entire streets of collapsed storefronts, and large swathes of buildings with caved-in roofs.

If not for the ice walls, the city would look like it had been through a war or an earthquake—a scene of utter devastation.

Guan Tong guessed that after this round of Apocalypse Rules, the country’s major cities would likely undergo drastic, collective restructuring.

For example, since the dawn of the Apocalypse Rules, most roadside shops had been empty. With no employees and no customers, they no longer had any reason to exist.

Even without the push from this recent event, the authorities were surely already planning to demolish all these shops to make way for other construction projects more beneficial to the survival of the populace.

For instance, building a large supply warehouse in every district. That way, if a similar natural disaster occurred, refugees could receive aid quickly, instead of having to rely on the inefficient deployment of transport vehicles like this time.

Of course, Guan Tong had no idea what the higher-ups were actually planning. ’It’s not my place, and it’s pointless to worry about it. I’d better focus on things that directly concern me.’

He then searched online for "tradable items." As expected, many people were just as concerned about this issue as he was.

Someone posted that the introduction of tradable items would lead to a Matthew effect, where resources would be siphoned off by powerful individuals and organizations at an astonishing rate.

Others believed that powerful organizations, like the government, would likely concentrate resources on a few elite Ascenders. This would accelerate their strengthening, allowing them to secure more resources for the organization and create a positive feedback loop.

In addition, many people shared Guan Tong’s worries. They believed that the emergence of tradable items would be a devastating blow to solo Ascenders, turning them into "unclaimed spoils" in the eyes of major organizations, each wanting to take a bite. 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

After browsing online for a while, Guan Tong felt that the social situation was developing much as he had predicted. He stopped looking and began to act on his plan.

Over the next few days, while waiting for the snow to melt naturally, he systematically went about adding a character, stockpiling bullets, and opening a new page in the Wordless Book.

The mother-daughter duo, Wang Yan and Chen Na, also followed Guan Tong’s advice, using their free time to increase their Psychic Power limits and further develop their items.

They both worked hard at it. Even 12-year-old Chen Na had come to vaguely understand a certain truth after the latest Apocalypse Rules: to survive, you had to rely on your own strength.

A few days passed like this. By July 8th, the trio’s food supply was completely gone, and the snow on Mingdao Mountain had mostly melted.

Although there was still some snow on the highway, it would only be a problem for small cars. A large truck like Wang Yan’s would have no trouble driving on it.

After discussing it, the three of them decided to set off for Yunhua City the next morning. First, they would go to the hospital to get Wang Yan’s stomach condition checked. If it was nothing serious, Wang Yan planned to check the conditions of the national highways. If they were clear, she would take Chen Na to Capital Yong’an.

Guan Tong would also ride with them back to Yunhua, though he had no intention of going to the Capital. He just planned to find a place to settle down and complete his July plan. Everything else could be figured out later.

The night before their departure, Guan Tong opened the Wordless Book. He had prioritized and already completed adding the character to the first page.

Looking at the words "Shapeshifting Entity Guan Tong" on it, he infused his Psychic Power and summoned it.

After the phantom-like humanoid shadow appeared, Guan Tong mentally commanded it to change shape. The next moment, it transformed into a long, straight line, just as he had willed.

Guan Tong glanced at the Terminal Panel. To his delight, shapeshifting in this phantom state did not consume any Psychic Power.

With a thought, he once again commanded the shadow to transform according to his will. The shadow immediately changed from a straight line into something that looked like a suit of armor.

Guan Tong had it cover his body in this form, then expended Psychic Power to make it corporeal. The next instant, a suit of pure black "Shadow Armor" materialized, enveloping his entire body.

"It actually works!"

Guan Tong was overjoyed. Having the shadow transform into wearable armor for defense had just been an idea, but now he had actually made it a reality.

This way, as long as an attack couldn’t pierce the corporeal shadow, he himself would remain unharmed. And as long as his Psychic Power wasn’t depleted, the Shadow Armor could be maintained indefinitely.

"Not bad." He nodded in satisfaction. ’With the Shadow Armor and this [Multi-functional Protective Suit] I’m wearing, under this double layer of defense, ordinary attacks shouldn’t be able to hurt me easily. I’m a lot safer now.’