Every freshman at Xichi University received a campus map upon enrollment, available as a physical printout or a digital download from the official website.
Many students still had that digital copy saved on their phones, though it served little purpose now.
Cities prioritized green spaces, and university campuses were no exception. By law, higher education institutions had to maintain a certain percentage of greenery. Since its founding, Xichi had consistently yielded ground to vegetation whenever planning and constructing new functional zones.
In past years, boasting one of the highest greening rates among universities in Jia City, the school had regularly won praise and awards from relevant departments for its environmental efforts.
Now, that once-praised greenery had turned the entire campus into a grim, overgrown jungle.
“Only a few open squares don’t have trees around them,” one student said, resting a tired hand against her forehead.
She used to jog every morning, running over ten kilometers along the campus paths each day before the apocalypse. Because of that, she knew the school’s layout and vegetation by heart.
“Chengyi Square, the plaza in front of Yifu Library… oh, and aside from the running track, there are the tennis courts.”
Those were the only landmarks she was certain wouldn’t be blocked off by mutated plants.
Mutated flora and fauna posed entirely different threats.
Mutated animals were dangerous because of their bloodlust. Enhanced in every way, their mere presence threatened human survival. Put simply, it was as if fierce lions and tigers had broken out of a zoo and into populated areas.
Massive, terrifying, and dripping with saliva from wide, gaping jaws, they stalked the unwary, waiting for the right moment to tear flesh from bone and claim human lives.
Mutated plants, especially tall trees, created massive obstacles along the campus roads. Their swollen roots, overgrown branches, and sharp thorns severely damaged power facilities and cell towers. Thick carpets of mutated weeds and shrubs also slowed their travel on foot, forcing them to find alternate routes.
Yan Fengji noted down the details his companions provided, then turned to Meng Zizhao. “Have you tried burning them?”
“I did,” Meng Zizhao replied with a subtle expression. Small flames danced across his fingertips like bright lamps, shifting from pale orange to light purple as they wound around his hand. “They catch fire, but I stopped because I was worried about sparking a wildfire.”
Yan Fengji nodded. His own wood ability clearly shared no origin with the mutated flora outside.
Each person’s power responded to their will. Those with strong control were already using their gifts to make daily life easier.
Meng Zizhao helped out in the kitchen, driven by an unusual passion for cooking that resulted in genuinely good meals.
Dou Qing’s ice-type ability carried an unusually lethal sharpness. Within moments, he could precisely control whether a mutated animal was merely immobilized or frozen to death.
Seeing how effortlessly he managed it, his senior, Wen Qing, clapped her hands in mock despair, lamenting that they were not in a laboratory.
“Otherwise, I could have Dou Qing freeze a few mutated animals so I could draw blood, take tissue slices, and gather some data.”
Even so, what Yan Fengji saw most often was Dou Qing using his power to freeze dragon fruit and yogurt for Fang Yangyang.
Dou Qing had upset Fang Yangyang the day before, and she had given him the cold shoulder all evening. When she woke the next morning, she barely acknowledged him, slipping away to the back kitchen to help with cooking and lingering there for hours. It was only when Dou Qing took the opportunity to deliver ice to preserve the food, murmuring a few apologies, that she finally broke into a smile.
After lunch, everyone gathered to discuss their next steps.
Fang Yangyang sat cross-legged beside Dou Qing. A tiny peek of green poked out from her jacket pocket, the small vine flower Yan Fengji had given her.
Watching her listen intently to the others, the handsome young man quietly brushed a stray strand of hair behind her ear.
His fingers were warmly hot against Fang Yangyang’s cheek, prompting her to glance up at him. She seemed to be in good spirits, her eyes curving in a smile.
It was the kind of shared smile typical between couples.
Yan Fengji calmly withdrew his gaze and returned his attention to their companions discussing familiar campus locations.
“Little Back Mountain at the College of Agriculture must be completely overgrown by now,” one young man said with a bitter laugh.
“If I remember right, that whole area is where the agriculture students usually plant their crops and trees, isn’t it?”
Hearing a question she could answer, Fang Yangyang tilted her head up and chimed in crisply, “Yes, it is.”
The original Fang Yangyang had joined the Agricultural Research Society, so she knew where the agriculture students spent their days planting. Naturally, most of what she knew came from the details in the apocalyptic novel, but leaning on the original owner’s personal club experience made her words thoroughly credible.
“For this autumn’s planting season,” the beautiful girl said, her voice sweet and clear like a bubbling spring, “I know a lot of students already went out to Little Back Mountain to sow seeds.”
“Damn.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me…”
At these words, everyone buried their faces in their hands. No one even wanted to guess what the seedling emergence rate was. Even if only one or two seeds out of ten had sprouted, with the mass mutation taking place, they could easily imagine what Little Back Mountain looked like now.
The entire plantation was likely overrun with mutated plants, making it impossible to pass through.
Fang Yangyang knew more details than anyone else. In the future, food would become humanity’s greatest concern. Years ago, Old Yuan had solved the nation’s food crisis through hybrid rice technology. But when the apocalypse arrived and plants mutated, crop seeds were no exception.
High-yield, reliable crop varieties mutated without fail, no longer producing edible food.
All the effort researchers had poured into food crops was wiped out. They were forced to search through updated gene pools of mutated plants for crops fit for human consumption.
Fortunately, wood-affinity ability users would eventually ease the shortage. Fang Yangyang glanced quietly at Yan Fengji.
In the apocalyptic novel, Yan Fengji rose to fame as the nation’s strongest wood ability user. Medical knowledge allowed him to save lives, while his power to germinate and root crop seeds resolved critical food shortages across the base.
Food was the foundation of human survival. His standout presence throughout the story stemmed directly from this unique ability and his relentless efforts to keep humanity’s spark alive.
Fang Yangyang pulled her gaze back and continued, “The boardwalk leading to Little Back Mountain is also surrounded by course projects from the College of Agriculture students.”
Silence filled the room. Everyone listened intently to the only person who understood the college’s planting schedules and field assignments on Little Back Mountain. Her grasp of Xichi University’s agricultural program was remarkably thorough, every point well-reasoned and precise.
“A lot of those assignments involved planting various flowers, plants, and trees under their professors’ instructions…”
Asking a nearby student for a pen and paper, she quickly sketched the route she knew so well.
The College of Agriculture’s Little Back Mountain was a full three kilometers from Jiangpu Canteen. A person typically walked four to four and a half kilometers an hour, meaning that even in the best-case scenario, reaching the hill would take forty-five to fifty minutes.
“It’s a kilometer from the forest boardwalk to here, and there are plants all around.” Fang Yangyang’s pale, slender fingers moved gracefully across the paper. As she bent over to sketch the route, those leaning in could catch sight of the delicate pink tint on her fingertips.
“When we gather later, we definitely can’t take this path.”
Yan Fengji noted this down.
The discussion moved on from the College of Agriculture as others shared what they knew about key campus landmarks and notable areas. Yet no one could match the clarity of Fang Yangyang’s descriptions. Most students spent their days shuttling between classrooms, dorms, and the library. Even those with sharp memories had never paid attention to the cultivated plants along the paths.
As the meeting among the eighty-odd people in the cafeteria wrapped up, someone asked Yan Fengji, “Are we just waiting for the government to rescue us now?”
“There’s no signal at all. How are they supposed to rescue us?”
“Sigh…”
Sighs and sobs filled the room. On the seventeenth day of the apocalypse, people of all ages couldn’t help but think of their families. Low murmurs spread from one person to the next, thick with overwhelming grief.
“I have a dog at home. I don’t know if my parents were…”
A boy wiped away tears, his eyes red and his face twisted in pain. After so many days, even a fool knew that the animal mutations were universal. Not a single creature had been spared.
Human abilities had only begun to awaken on the fifth day of the apocalypse.
In modern times, people kept pets for emotional comfort, companionship, or simply out of love for animals. Who could have imagined that those once clever, adorable cats and dogs would mutate into terrifying monsters? Unarmed and fragile humans stood little chance against them, with only one grim fate awaiting them.
Emotions needed an outlet. In the first few days of the apocalypse, relentless crying had been the norm in the cafeteria.
After so many days, the long-suppressed grief and heaviness quietly resurfaced.
One of the boys broke down, sobbing hoarsely as tears and snot streamed down his face. Beside him, a red-eyed companion shoved some tissues into his hand.
Fang Yangyang remained quiet. Her fingers curled around the hem of Dou Qing’s shirt, and she rested her face against his shoulder. Gently, Dou Qing wrapped an arm around her.
He had worried she might start crying, but even after everyone else began to settle down, his shoulder stayed dry.
Taking her other hand, Dou Qing called softly, “Yangyang?”
“Hmm?”
She looked up obediently just as he glanced down. By pure coincidence, her lips brushed against his chin, soft as dew-kissed petals.
She froze.
Dou Qing froze, too.
Both sat there in a daze. A flush crept across Dou Qing’s face, an electric tingling stirring within him that defied description.
Fang Yangyang tried to stay composed, but failed just as miserably. Counting on her fingers, she realized that before transmigrating into the book, she had fallen ill and was hospitalized without ever dating anyone.
After transmigrating, she started seeing Dou Qing. Today marked the seventeenth day of the apocalypse, which meant it was only their eighteenth day together.
Fang Yangyang was speechless.
Plucking up her courage, her voice trembled slightly. “What did you want to say?”
Dou Qing struggled to regain his composure. “I… I just wanted to call your name.”
He had never anticipated the coincidence of her turning and kissing him.
Her fingers loosened their grip on the hem of his shirt. Pretty and vivid, she feigned nonchalance, glaring at him with a mock fierceness. “Oh.”
That single syllable made Dou Qing’s heart skip a beat. Was she angry out of embarrassment?
“…Yangyang, do you want to see the new ice sculpture I made?” He tried, with clumsy earnestness, to please his girlfriend.
Puffing out her cheeks, Fang Yangyang watched him open his palm. Under the precise shaping of his ability, a smooth orb of ice slowly transformed into a blossom.
It was a rose.
The delicate flower gleamed in a translucent, light blue.
“The little dragon from before melted, but I’ve learned to make a lot of other things. I can keep making them for you later, all right?” Dou Qing bowed his head, his tone soft and coaxing.
Fang Yangyang reached out to accept the rose, faint laughter shining in her eyes like starlight.
…
Yan Fengji watched everything unfold between Fang Yangyang and Dou Qing, from the moment she kissed him to the blush spreading across her ears as she took the rose.
He had not looked away for a single second.
Swallowing down a bitter wave of unspeakable jealousy, his eyes suddenly met those of Meng Zizhao, who had witnessed the same scene.
Meng Zizhao still wore a pleasant smile, though he clearly was not in high spirits either. A spark of flame danced like drifting clouds across his fingertips.
Passing Yan Fengji, he murmured in a bright, lightly amused tone, “That flower really is an eyesore, isn’t it?”