By the time Fang Yangyang realized she had transmigrated into a novel, she was already sitting on a bench at Chengyi Square with a group from her college club. All around her, members were busy setting up promotional posters for the autumn sowing season.
The midday sun beat down mercilessly.
Passersby couldn’t help but steal second glances at the girl in the light. With skin as pale as snow and eyes like stars, her beauty was matched only by her sorrow.
She stared at her slender, fair fingers, her brow furrowed. Slowly, as if in a trance, she turned her hand over, examining the palm and then the back. After a long moment, she covered her face with her hand and let out a helpless sigh.
She had transmigrated into a book.
There was no doubt about it.
Fang Yangyang recalled the apocalyptic novel she had read while hospitalized. The more she thought about it, the more she pressed her lips together in a thin line.
It had been a male-oriented “leveling-up” story, the kind her sister had bought from a roadside bookstall. The plot followed the male lead and his companions—the second and third leads, and various supporting characters—as they fought and struggled through the apocalypse.
They eventually succeeded in building a secure base where the remaining human population could migrate. Through a series of long and arduous experiments, humanity developed a cure for the mutated animals and plants that had grown vicious and terrifying after the awakening of ability.
In the end, the novel concluded with the dawn of a new era.
Newborns would inherit the ability awakened by their parents. They would grow up in a stable environment, free from the threat of mutated flora and fauna.
The era of ability had officially begun.
The apocalypse ended, and from the ruins, the rest of the world began to rebuild. Across the entire planet, biological genes had undergone a further fission and leap forward.
***
Fang Yangyang stared at the back of her hand for a long time, her lips pressed tight.
She gently rubbed the smooth, flawless skin with her fingers. After her diagnosis, she had never left the hospital. Her veins were too thin, leaving countless bruises from the initial needles, and the puncture marks on her hands had never fully faded—even after they switched to an IV port in her arm.
She had woken up from a nap in her single dorm room half an hour ago. At first, she thought she was having a lucid dream. During her chemotherapy, she’d drifted through a haze of feverish visions, but she never expected one this vivid.
After waking, she’d seen a message on her phone and joined the rest of her club members gathering downstairs. She had assumed it was all just a chaotic dream.
Until ten minutes ago, when she heard someone mention the date: September 3rd.
Then, she heard the name of the male lead from that apocalyptic novel—Yan Fengji.
“Did you hear? Yan Fengji from the Medical School got guaranteed admission to grad school here. His advisor is already taking him on.”
“What? Isn’t he only a senior?”
“He’s a god-tier student. Do you really think he’s like the rest of us?”
The name Yan Fengji sounded a bit too eccentric and pretentious in the real world. But the moment it reached her ears, Fang Yangyang froze. Only then did she begin to truly register her surroundings.
Fang Yangyang’s real world was still in the early chill of March.
But here, the sun was beating down on a subtropical landscape where September’s heat still lingered, refusing to give way to autumn.
The sounds of a nearby tea shop announcing its newest drinks drifted over from Chengyi Square. Her phone chimed—a message from someone asking what she wanted to drink.
Fang Yangyang stared blankly at the screen, the words refusing to sink in.
The realization finally hit her: she had transmigrated into a novel. And she had arrived exactly fifteen hours before the apocalypse.
In fifteen hours, a genetic fission would sweep across the planet.
Everything—from the simplest roadside trees and the scruffiest stray cats and dogs to the ferocious tigers and lions in the zoo, and the countless macaques on the nearby Monkey Mountain—would mutate.
This mutation affected animals and plants far more effectively than humans. As a result, the early survivors found themselves completely outmatched in the fight against the newly transformed creatures.
Only later did humanity learn to hunt these mutated beings and harvest the Crystal Cores from their remains. By absorbing the energy from these cores, people could awaken and strengthen their own ability, eventually evolving into powerful ability user capable of killing mutant flora and fauna single-handedly.
However, Fang Yangyang thought, none of that has anything to do with me.
Fang Yangyang was a cannon fodder female supporting character in this apocalyptic novel. On the very first day of the apocalypse, the plants she kept in her dorm room mutated, their vines sealing the door shut and trapping her inside.
Without food or water, she managed to survive for seven days before dying at the very beginning of the story.
The original novel only briefly mentioned her attempt to awaken a ability: Global mutation. On the fifth day, humans began to awaken abilities. Fang Yangyang, struggling to survive in her dorm, failed to awaken any. Any of the five elements—Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, or Earth—could have saved her from her dire situation, but she awakened none. In the end, she died in the Spring Bud Dormitory at Xichi University.
A shiver ran down Fang Yangyang’s spine. She made a decision: before the apocalypse struck, she would pack her clothes and daily necessities and never return to the original host’s dormitory.
The thought that the original host lacked the talent to awaken a ability deepened her despair. For a moment, she couldn’t tell if transmigrating into the novel was a blessing or a curse.
Back in her own world, she had pancreatic cancer—one of the most aggressive and hardest-to-treat malignancies. Even with hospital treatment, she wouldn’t have lived past twenty.
Now, she had transmigrated into an apocalyptic novel as a cannon fodder character destined for an early death, and one who couldn’t even awaken a ability… Even if she escaped her original fate, how long could she possibly survive in such a brutal environment?
Fang Yangyang fell silent.
Anxious and tense, she raised her hand to bite her knuckle, her gaze sweeping around the area.
Xichi University was the most prestigious institution in the country, admitting only the top one hundred students from each province. After the apocalypse, the university’s high survival rate—a staggering sixty percent—was credited to the strategic leadership of its professors and the resourcefulness of its students.
This collaboration preserved Huaguo’s most elite minds, laying the groundwork for humanity’s future revival.
The novel’s male leads—the first, second, and third—were all students here.
Yan Fengji, a senior in the School of Medicine, was a guaranteed graduate student and a true elite among elites. He would go on to organize the survivors at Xichi University, his wise decision-making saving countless lives and leading them to safety.
Meng Zizhao, a sophomore in the Aviation Academy, possessed a formidable physique and a family background in aviation. He had already obtained an international pilot’s license, making him a crucial asset for aerial transportation in the later stages of the apocalypse.
Dou Qing, a junior in the Institute of Information Security and Big Data, was a brilliant student of bioinformatics. He would eventually make a monumental contribution by developing the medicine used to treat mutated plants and animals.
***
Fang Yangyang scanned her surroundings, stunned to find all three male leads within a hundred meters of her.
Not far away, Dou Qing sat on a bench, tablet and stylus in hand, working through a practice exam.
Over at Chengyi Square, the Aviation Academy’s designated training ground, students were practicing anti-vertigo drills on single-person rotating platforms. Meng Zizhao was among them. He handed a bottle of water to a fellow student before leaping onto a platform, gripping it tight and spinning in a straight line across the grass for over ten meters.
And Yan Fengji stood outside a bubble tea shop, likely waiting for an order for his classmates. His back was straight, his white shirt and black trousers crisp. His profile was cool and detached as he tapped at his phone, reading a message.
Fang Yangyang took a deep breath.
She wanted to survive. And if she wanted to survive, she needed to find a powerful patron.
She recalled their ultimate fates from the novel.
The male lead, Yan Fengji, would become a founding member of the post-apocalyptic base. He would never lack for women, many of whom would eagerly offer him their beds.
The second male lead, Meng Zizhao, would see his family survive to the novel’s end. After humanity finally solved the problem of mutated flora and fauna, his family would arrange a blind date for him with a young woman of equal social standing.
The third male lead, Dou Qing, an orphan from a welfare home, would use his genius mind to develop the cure, becoming one of the greatest contributors to humanity’s revival. He would remain single from the beginning of the apocalypse to its end…
Fang Yangyang bit her lip.
Her gaze fixed on the young man on the nearby bench, head bowed as he worked through a practice exam on his tablet.
Gold-rimmed glasses. Pale skin. Handsome, refined features. The only thing out of place was the mess of stray hairs falling over his forehead—the mark of someone who rarely bothered with his own appearance.
Mustering her courage, Fang Yangyang checked her watch. Fourteen hours and thirty-five minutes until the apocalypse.
A beautiful young girl in a snow-white dress. The sunlight caught the fabric, sending a soft, iridescent glow dancing across the ground. Her figure, framed by delicate lace, seemed to drift into a dreamlike haze in the gentle breeze.
Her cheeks were flushed like clouds, her eyes bright as stars. Softly, she sat down beside him.
Dou Qing’s finger trembled slightly on the tablet screen.
Before he could utter a word, a soft, sweet voice drifted past his ear, light as a cloud.
“Dou Qing, I’ve liked you for a long time… Will you be my boyfriend?”
His hand jerked violently, closing the app with the unfinished grad school practice exam.
His throat tightened. He stared at her for a half-second, his voice hoarse and strained when he finally nodded.
“Yes.”
The abruptness of his answer clearly stunned her, leaving her frozen for a moment.
Dou Qing swallowed slowly, his Adam’s apple bobbing.
“I mean… yes. I’ll be your boyfriend.”