System 003 had thought its Host was going to ask something important, but it turned out to be this instead.
“That’s easy, Host,” it said simply. “Just register a studio business license using your home address. From then on, all future earnings will be deposited directly into your studio’s account.”
“And you don’t need to worry about the financial regulators either. I’ll handle everything for you cleanly, so there won’t be any problems whatsoever.”
System 003 sounded extremely proud. Its capabilities were not to be questioned by anyone.
Hearing that, Xia Mu was finally relieved. Soon afterward, her parents urged her to report to her Fourth Uncle’s company.
Her mother, Jiang Qiao, happened to have the day off and was planning to accompany Xia Chengren to the hospital for his medication and treatment.
Looking at the happy expressions on her parents’ faces, Xia Mu found herself even less able to tell them she didn’t want the job.
As she stepped out of the house, several neighbors in the courtyard who were washing up noticed how neatly she was dressed, making everyone’s eyes brighten.
“Oh? Mu Mu, heading to another interview?”
Xia Mu merely nodded without much expression. She had never liked the woman who spoke.
She was Aunt Zhou, the neighbor who had wanted to rent their house.
Seeing Xia Mu’s indifferent response, Aunt Zhou let out a dry chuckle, her eyes full of contempt.
A graduate from a third rate university with such an impractical major couldn’t even find a proper job.
What was there to be so arrogant about?
She had been eavesdropping beneath the window earlier and had heard everything clearly. Xia Chengren had called his younger brothers, asking them to arrange a job for Xia Mu.
Second Uncle and Third Uncle had both refused, while Fourth Uncle had finally agreed to arrange something.
But so what?
She would still end up working for someone else. Her own son held a PhD and had been hired by a company in Sichuan Province immediately after graduation.
His monthly salary was fifty thousand yuan, with free room and board, and it would only continue to increase in the future.
Ignoring the looks from the neighbors, Xia Mu straightened her back and walked out of the courtyard.
She firmly believed that her future would be a good one.
Her Fourth Uncle’s real estate company was located in Dake Tower, a well known office building.
Standing downstairs, she took out her phone and called him.
The call wasn’t answered until quite some time later.
“Hello, Mu Mu. Have you arrived at my company yet?”
“Fourth Uncle, I’m downstairs at Dake Tower. I don’t know which floor your company is on.”
“Oh, then you don’t need to come upstairs. Your father called me yesterday about your job. Everyone I hire here has a postgraduate degree, while you’ve only got a bachelor’s degree.”
“So you don’t meet the requirements to work here. But you’re my own niece, and your father is my eldest brother, so I can only make room for you somehow. One of the residential property management companies under us needs a cleaner.”
“You can work there instead. Well… I can’t provide social insurance or the housing fund for now, and the salary is a little low, just two thousand yuan a month. If you’re willing, go ahead. If not, explain it to your father yourself.”
“I’d rather not tell him. Otherwise, he’ll think I simply refused to arrange a job for you…”
Xia Mu felt her scalp go numb.
A cleaner? Two thousand yuan a month?
No social insurance or housing fund?
How fitting of her dear Fourth Uncle.
Interrupting him, Xia Mu took a deep breath and suppressed the emotions surging inside her.
“Fourth Uncle, do you, Second Uncle, and Third Uncle really have to treat our family this way?”
“Is it because we’re poor that, in your eyes, we don’t even deserve to trouble you?”
Silence came from the other end of the phone.
Instead, she heard a woman’s mocking snort.
Xia Mu recognized it immediately.
It was her Fourth Aunt.
With a cold laugh, she hung up the phone and looked up at the towering building, her eyes filled with icy resolve.
Very well.
If they didn’t want to acknowledge her family as relatives, then they never would again.
“System, you really aren’t lying to me, are you? Can I really make money?”
Hearing the sorrow in its Host’s voice, even System 003 couldn’t help feeling distressed.
“Host, it’s true. I’m already speeding up the connection to that world. If you’re willing to take on a debt of 100,000,000 Interstellar Federation Credits to purchase the Space Time Gate Energy Box…”
“Once the connection is complete, you’ll be able to travel to the Apocalypse.”
Should she shoulder a debt of one hundred million Interstellar Federation Credits, or endure the humiliation of becoming a cleaner because of her relatives?
The choice was obvious.
~~
When Xia Mu returned to the courtyard, everyone asked how her interview had gone, but she merely smiled and had no intention of answering.
The side room where her family lived was locked, so her father and mother had evidently not yet returned from the hospital.
She took out her key, unlocked the front door, and climbed up to the attic through the side entrance.
Once inside her tiny attic room, Xia Mu said calmly, “003, you can begin.”
System 003 was thrilled.
After wandering through the universe for so long, it had finally found a Host, and at last it could begin its mission.
It was overjoyed.
“Ding! Activating the Space Time Gate Energy Box.”
A black box flew into the wooden attic door and instantly merged with it.
The next moment, a circular dial appeared in the middle of the door, one half black and the other half white.
“It’s ready, Host. Just turn the pointer to the white half, then open the door, and we’ll arrive in the Apocalypse.”
Excitement was obvious in System 003’s voice.
Xia Mu stared blankly at the wooden door.
Finally, she took a deep breath, stepped forward, and turned the dial until the pointer rested on the white section.
Her slender hand gripped the doorknob.
Closing her eyes, she pulled it open in one swift motion.
A brilliant white light enveloped her, and in the next instant, Xia Mu disappeared from the attic.
“Host, you can open your eyes now. We’ve arrived in the Apocalypse,” System 003 called.
Xia Mu slowly opened her eyes.
The moment she saw where she was standing, she froze.
“Isn’t this… the first floor of my house?”
The layout was exactly the same.
The furniture inside was identical.
“Host, why don’t you open a window or the front door and take a look?” System 003 suggested.
Following its advice, Xia Mu opened the front door.
An icy wind struck her face.
The cold was instantaneous, even harsher than winter in the capital.
Everything before her eyes was a world of pure white.
The neighboring houses in the courtyard were gone, replaced only by frozen concrete buildings and roads buried beneath thick ice.
“So… this is the Apocalypse?”
Xia Mu found it difficult to believe.
Was this really the Apocalypse?
Wasn’t the Apocalypse supposed to be bleak and lifeless?
Why was everything covered in ice instead?
The crystal blue ice was breathtakingly beautiful.
But when her eyes fell upon the people frozen solid on the road ahead, she instinctively staggered backward, her face turning deathly pale.
Her gaze shifted to the side.
The sight there sent a chill through her entire body.
“Th… that’s a zombie?”
At that moment, System 003 explained, “Host, this Apocalypse is a frozen world. The zombies here aren’t affected by the cold, and they’ve evolved to move extremely fast.”
“This planet has already been in the Apocalypse for twenty four years. The temperature outside is minus sixty degrees Celsius, so don’t leave the house without proper preparation.”
“As for the people trapped in the ice, we don’t need to worry about them. Once you have enough money in the future, you can clear away those unsightly buildings and frozen statues.”
“But the frozen zombies are different. Those can’t be removed. The ice has to melt first before they can be killed.”
Xia Mu’s face remained pale as she stood frozen in place, too frightened to step outside.
Everything here was terrifying.
Not a single sound could be heard.
Outside were frozen corpses and grotesque zombies.
Some of the frozen people had died with expressions of unbearable agony, others wore peaceful smiles, while still others looked completely resigned.
Every face told a different story, and Xia Mu found it impossible to accept.
Back in China, it was rare to ever see a dead body.
She had lived for twenty one years without seeing one.
When the elderly neighbor had passed away, all she had seen was an urn.
Yet on her very first day in the Apocalypse, she was confronted with frozen human corpses.
It was a tremendous psychological shock.
System 003 was a thoughtful system.
“Host, why don’t we take a look at the shop instead? You can see what you’ll be able to buy once you’ve earned enough Interstellar Federation Credits.”
Xia Mu immediately nodded.
She desperately wanted something to distract herself from the frozen dead and the suffocating silence outside.
After closing the front door and facing the familiar interior of her home once again, her heart finally settled.