Cheng Lin was awakened by a sudden, suffocating pain that seized her heart.
The moment her consciousness returned, what greeted her was not the familiar desk lamp of her rented apartment, but the wooden grain of an upper bunk bed. A faint scent of laundry detergent lingered at the tip of her nose, mixed with the bitter aroma of instant coffee. She blinked with difficulty, her vision shifting from blurred to clear. What came into view was a ceiling plastered with cherry blossom posters, while the steady breathing of her roommate echoed beside her.
It felt as though an entire film had been forcibly stuffed into her mind. Chaotic fragments of memory surged in—Cheng Lin, a senior student in the Landscape Architecture Department at H University, sharing the same name as her. Because of disagreements over post-graduation plans, she had fallen into a cold war with her boyfriend, Jiang Yi. Cheng Lin wanted to stay at the university or secure a stable local government job, while Jiang Yi had received an offer from a major IT company in S City. He wanted to give her a better life, but she only wanted companionship. The fear of a long-distance relationship coiled around her like creeping vines. After multiple failed attempts at communication, three days ago, she had gritted her teeth and sent a breakup message: “Long-distance relationships are meaningless. Don’t contact me again.”
After sending the message, the original owner never received a reply from her boyfriend. The more she thought about it, the more heartbroken she became. She buried herself under her dormitory blanket, flipping her days and nights while binge-reading tragic apocalyptic novels, trying to numb her own turmoil with the sorrows of others. After three sleepless days, at three in the morning, her heart finally gave out from exhaustion, and she bid farewell to the world.
And she—Cheng Lin, a lowly overworked employee who had endured seven and a half years of relentless 996 schedules at a landscape design institute—had been hunched over her computer just a moment ago, rushing to finish a project presentation. The next moment, her soul had transmigrated into this girl of the same name, in the year 2070.
She reached for the phone beside her pillow and lit up the screen. The date displayed clearly: May 13, 2070.
A blind-box start, set to hell difficulty.
Cheng Lin curled her lips slightly, feeling her eyelids grow as heavy as lead. She did not want to do anything right now—she only wanted to fall asleep, preferably restart her life entirely.
At that moment, an emotionless mechanical voice abruptly exploded in her mind:
“Ding! Please bind with the Apocalypse Salvation System within 30 seconds.”
Cheng Lin: “……”
Apocalypse salvation?
As a seasoned reader of persimmon novels, she was thoroughly familiar with this trope—bind to a system, fight monsters, level up, save the world, and ultimately rise as a powerful heroine. But she was tired—truly exhausted. In her previous life, she had worked like a beast in a design institute. In this life, she only wanted to lie flat, drink milk tea, watch dramas. Saving the world? That was the protagonist’s job. She just wanted to be a salted fish.
Cheng Lin turned over, burying her head in the pillow, pretending not to hear anything.
The mechanical voice persisted relentlessly:
“Ding! Please bind Heheda, warm the male lead, save the apocalypse, and usher in a new era!”
Heheda? The name was quite unique.
Cheng Lin let out a soft scoff. She fumbled around the bedside, took out her Bluetooth earphones, and skillfully put them on. Turning the volume to maximum, she began playing soothing instrumental music.
Blocking out noise starts with me.
“Ding! Final warning. Please bind with the system. Forced binding will commence in 1 second.”
“Ding! Welcome, Host, for binding with the Apocalypse Salvation System. System Heheda is at your service!”
Cheng Lin suddenly sat upright. The Bluetooth earphones fell onto the blanket with a soft “pat.” Her eyes widened as she roared in disbelief within her mind:
“What?! Forced purchase and sale, is it? I want to file a complaint!”
“Request denied,” the system’s mechanical voice seemed to carry a hint of schadenfreude. “You must upgrade to contact the main system. Please level up as soon as possible!”
“Please receive the original storyline—warm the male lead, prevent world destruction, save the apocalypse, and create a new era together with the male lead.”
Cheng Lin rolled her eyes and collapsed back onto the bed, her tone languid in her mind:
“I can’t even save myself, and you expect me to save the apocalypse? Are you trying to turn a salted fish into Athena? Keep dreaming. Hurry up and reset yourself at the factory. Stop bothering me!”
She was just an ordinary college student with no strength to even truss a chicken. Forget saving the world—even grabbing discounted milk from the convenience store downstairs, she might not be able to outcompete the aunties. Competing with elderly people for eggs was utterly unthinkable.
The system fell silent for a moment, then dropped a bombshell:
“After successfully saving the apocalypse, Host will receive a reward of ten million, and may return to the original world for retirement spending. Time and body in the original world are frozen. Upon mission completion, you may directly resign and live freely!”
Ten million?
Cheng Lin’s heart skipped violently.
What she lacked most in life was money. She had worked herself to death at the design institute, with most of her salary going toward rent and daily expenses. Retirement was out of the question—even saving enough for a trip was difficult.
Before she could fully process the temptation, the system struck again:
“To prevent passive sabotage, the System Bureau has regulations: the Host must complete the mission to return to the original world and revive for retirement. Any injury or death in this world is real damage. Life is precious; freedom will come again. Please accept the storyline as soon as possible!”
What was this? Being forced onto the stage.
Cheng Lin bit her lower lip, calculations rapidly clicking in her mind. Refusal meant certain death. Acceptance at least offered the hope of ten million. If she actually succeeded, wouldn’t she ascend straight to the peak of life?
She sighed and resigned herself:
“I accept the storyline.”
“Zzz—”
A burst of static echoed in her mind. Immediately after, a complete storyline flooded in.
This world was an apocalyptic novel. The original owner was the male lead Jiang Yi’s white moonlight first love. Thirty days later, the apocalypse would descend, and a zombie virus would sweep across the globe.
When the apocalypse began, the original owner had been attending a lecture. Amid the chaos, she and her classmates hid in the canteen, where they encountered Shen Yu, a senior graduate student.
Shen Yu was gentle, wealthy, and refined. Even before the apocalypse, he had secretly pursued the original owner—buying her an extra cup of milk tea one day, bringing an extra umbrella the next. His care was subtle and persistent, yet he never confessed his feelings outright. After the apocalypse, with panic spreading and the original owner left with no one to rely on, she could only follow Shen Yu to survive.
Tragically, she never awakened any special abilities and could only cling to life under Shen Yu’s protection. Until one day, during a zombie siege, she was accidentally scratched. Shen Yu then discovered that her blood had the miraculous ability to purify the zombie virus.
From then on, she became Shen Yu’s “exclusive mobile blood bag.” Maintaining an ambiguous relationship with him, she strung him along just enough to survive in the apocalypse for four years.
Until one day, Shen Yu’s sworn younger sister was scratched by a zombie and on the brink of death. Soft-hearted, the original owner used her blood to purify the virus and save her. Yet she never expected that this girl, whom she had saved, had long harbored feelings for Shen Yu and resented her existence.
The sworn younger sister immediately exposed her secret to the largest gene laboratory in the apocalypse.
When the original owner was captured, Shen Yu was not far away—yet he did not extend a hand to help.
She was imprisoned in a cold laboratory, where she was subjected to endless blood extraction and dissection, enduring unimaginable pain day after day. In the end, the laboratory used her blood to develop an anti-zombie virus serum, which became widespread among survivor bases. The laboratory’s status soared.
By then, Jiang Yi had already become the overlord of a major base. When he learned the origin of the serum, he finally realized that the white moonlight he had longed for over four years had long since turned into a pile of bones in a laboratory.
That day, heavy snow fell across the base.
Jiang Yi’s hair turned white overnight. Alone, he crushed the gene laboratory and slaughtered Shen Yu’s base. In utter despair, he devoured the zombie king’s crystal core and became a generation’s zombie emperor.
Standing atop mountains of corpses and seas of blood, he gazed upon the devastated world and let out a soft laugh.
Then, he massacred cities.
Destroyed the world.
End of the story.
Cheng Lin felt a chill run through her entire body, goosebumps rising all over her skin.
Wasn’t this the very novel she had stayed up late reading just days ago—“《Apocalypse Emperor’s Path》”?!
Back then, she had sighed over Jiang Yi’s deep devotion and shed tears of sympathy for the original owner’s tragic fate.
Never had she imagined that fate would turn, and she would transmigrate into this doomed white moonlight supporting character who died such a miserable death!