At the desk, she opened the old laptop whose keyboard had almost been worn smooth from years of use, a machine that was nearly obsolete.
The screen flickered dimly to life, its pale glow reflecting off her bloodless face.
Her fingers rested on the keyboard, cold and stiff.
She did not hesitate even for a moment. In the search bar, she typed forcefully.
She needed to rent a place somewhere higher. When the Torrential Rain arrived, she would need a place that could avoid the Flood. She clearly remembered that in her previous life, on the fourth day of the Torrential Rain, the residential community where her family lived had already been completely submerged.
She had to do it herself.
She had to build a shelter.
For the life she had managed to reclaim.
And even more so for the three people outside that door—the three she would risk her life to protect.
The next day, the sun hung overhead like a red-hot iron ball, pressing the entire city down into a gigantic, airtight oven.
The asphalt roads had softened under the heat. Each step felt sticky, as if the soles of one’s shoes might cling to the ground.
Lin Wan stood inside the office of the director of the National Botanical Garden.
The air conditioner hummed steadily, releasing a faint stream of cool air.
She gently placed a printed sheet of paper on the director’s wide redwood desk.
The bold black characters on it were especially striking.
Resignation Letter.
“Little Lin?!”
The elderly director, his hair already white, had been wearing reading glasses while reviewing documents. When he looked up and saw the letter, he was stunned.
“What… what is this supposed to mean? You’re one of the key talents our garden has been cultivating! You have such a bright future ahead of you! And the research project you’re leading—‘Plant Tolerance Under Extreme Climate Conditions’—didn’t it just make a breakthrough recently? Why… why would you suddenly drop everything and quit like this?!”
“Something… something came up at home. I really don’t have any other choice.”
Lin Wan lowered her head. Her voice sounded dry and stiff, and she did not dare to look at the director. It was the most universal excuse she could think of.
She dared not say another word.
Because her research project itself was the very proof that she could foresee the future. The data, the models—every single one of them screamed the same silent conclusion.
Disaster was coming.
The old director felt both heartbroken and anxious. He tried again and again to persuade her, speaking about her academic future, about the importance of plant conservation to the nation.
But Lin Wan simply stood there with her head lowered, like a silent stone.
Seeing that she refused to budge no matter what he said, the old director finally let out a heavy sigh. He picked up a pen and signed his name on the letter, regret evident even in his handwriting.
“Sigh… Little Lin… if the situation at home gets resolved, you’re always… always welcome to come back.”
Lin Wan picked up the signed letter and gave a slight bow.
“Thank you, Director.”
Then she turned and walked out of the office that had held seven years of her youth and countless hours of her hard work.
When she pushed open the heavy gates of the Botanical Garden, a violent heatwave struck her face head-on, as if it might knock her over.
She instinctively raised her head and looked at the sky—
Her heart instantly sank to the bottom of an icy abyss.
The sky was neither blue nor gray.
It was a suffocating, oppressive lead-gray.
Thick clouds hung above the city like filthy cotton soaked with water, pressing down so low it felt as if one could touch them by simply reaching up.
What was strange was that although the clouds were so dense, there was not the slightest sign of rain. Instead, they sealed the entire earth like a gigantic steamer, trapping the heat inside and making the world unbearably suffocating.
Lin Wan’s breathing stopped.
This was… a typical sign that artificial climate intervention had failed.
To combat the deadly heat and drought, the government must have already activated the Climate Regulation Plan, attempting to force rainfall through artificial means.
But memories from her previous life pierced into her mind like icy spikes.
This intervention would not only fail completely—
It would become the first spark in a chain of disasters.
A chain reaction that humanity simply could not withstand.
It was over.
The gears of natural disaster had already begun to turn, unstoppable.
Before the enormous machine of society completely fell apart and collapsed into chaos, she had to seize the thread of fate firmly in her own hands.
In the evening, the bus heading home was like a massive metal can packed full of people—sweaty, exhausted, and drooping with fatigue.
The air conditioner struggled weakly, the air it blew out lukewarm and carrying a strange, murky odor.
Lin Wan got off one stop early. She wanted to stop by the pharmacy at the street corner to stock up on more antibiotics and disinfectant.
As she hurried along, she mentally reviewed her growing list.
The air on the street was so hot and heavy that it was hard to breathe. Pedestrians wore tight frowns, walking quickly, eager only to escape the heat and return home as soon as possible.
Suddenly, a small disturbance rippled through the crowd ahead.
People hurriedly stepped aside in alarm, parting to make way.
Lin Wan saw that on the sidewalk, an old man wearing a faded robe—so washed out that its original color could no longer be seen—collapsed without warning.
He fell straight down like a piece of dead wood blown over by the wind.
The surrounding area immediately cleared. People stood at a distance, pointing and whispering among themselves, their faces full of fear and avoidance. Yet no one dared step forward.
“Move aside! I’m a doctor!”
Lin Wan shouted impulsively, not even caring whether anyone believed her. She pushed through the crowd blocking the way and rushed forward.
The old man was curled up on the ground, so thin that he was little more than skin and bones.
His face carried a lifeless gray pallor, and his lips were an alarming bluish-purple.
Lin Wan’s heart leapt into her throat.
She crouched down and forced her trembling fingers toward the artery at the side of the old man’s shriveled neck.
The pulse beneath her fingertips was so weak it was almost impossible to detect. It was irregular as well, like a string that might snap at any moment.
“Sir! Sir!”
She called urgently while pinching the acupoint beneath his nose. At the same time, gritting her teeth, she used all her strength to half-lift and half-drag him into the thin strip of shade beneath the eaves of a closed shop nearby.
She unscrewed the half-empty bottle of mineral water she carried with her and carefully brought it to the old man’s cracked lips, trying to feed him a little.
A few drops of cool water slid down his throat.
The old man’s lips trembled faintly.
Then, the eyes that had been tightly shut the entire time—so cloudy that the pupils could barely be seen—slowly opened.
Lin Wan’s heart had not even begun to settle before those eyes fixed firmly on her.
Within the murky whites of those eyes, an extremely strange and sharp light suddenly burst forth.
It pierced through the cloudiness and locked directly onto Lin Wan’s face.
That gaze was indescribably complex.
There was shock.
There was realization.
And there was something else—
A kind of fated understanding.
“It’s… it’s you…”
The old man’s voice was as thin as a thread, as though it did not come from his throat at all but drifted from some distant place, echoing in a way that made one’s hair stand on end.
“You… saved me once…”
His thin, skeletal fingers suddenly exploded with astonishing strength and grabbed Lin Wan’s wrist—the one holding the bottle of mineral water.
Lin Wan felt a sharp pain in her wrist and instinctively looked down.
And in that instant—
She clearly saw that in the center of the old man’s open palm, covered with age spots and grime, there lay something quietly resting there.
A simple, ancient round jade pendant.
Its color was dull, as though covered with the dust of ages. Strange twisted patterns were carved upon it—symbols she could not recognize at all.
She had no time to react.
She had not even seen how the jade moved.
At the very moment she lowered her head, the old man’s hand suddenly loosened.
His entire body went limp like a puppet whose strings had been cut, collapsing completely.
The light in his cloudy eyes went out.
“Sir! Sir!”
Lin Wan cried out in alarm.
At the same time, an indescribable, piercing, bone-burning heat surged into her palm.
“Ah!”
She gasped in pain and jerked her hand back.
When she looked again—
Her palm was empty.
The jade pendant was gone.
It had not fallen to the ground. Lin Wan was absolutely certain of that.
In that split second just now, the jade pendant had seemed to come alive.
Like a drop of molten iron, it had suddenly drilled straight into her palm.
Then, unbelievably and silently, it had passed through her skin…
And merged into her flesh.
Now the burning pain had not faded. Instead, it spread wildly from deep within her palm like a wildfire.
Hotter.
Sharper.
More unbearable by the second.
A faint circular mark—so light that its outline was barely visible—began to appear beneath the skin of her palm.
It looked like a freshly branded seal.
“Ugh…”
Beads of cold sweat the size of soybeans instantly formed on Lin Wan’s forehead. Her body began trembling uncontrollably.
The surrounding crowd…
The shrill wail of an approaching ambulance…
The scene of medical workers rushing down to administer emergency treatment…
The voices of police officers asking questions…
All the noise and color of the world rapidly faded, blurred, twisted, and receded.
The entire world shrank to a single point—
The unbearable pain in her palm, growing clearer and more intense, as though it would burn straight through her soul.
Pain.
So much pain.
And at the distant end of that boundless darkness of agony, she vaguely sensed something.
Something cold.
Something enormous.
Something that had been dormant for countless years.
Disturbed by the burning heat, it slowly awakened deep within her mind…
And quietly…
Opened its eyes.