It was the fourth day of the apocalypse, the final day of the “Four Days of Darkness.”
Fang Yangyang helped the canteen worker prep partially spoiled vegetables, trimming rotten ends from eggplants and peeling radishes. The woman guided her on how to cut the eggplant properly. “Slice it here. Right, cut at an angle.”
Including Fang Yangyang, only five or six people were working in the kitchen.
When Meng Zizhao stepped inside, she was rinsing rice under the tap. The water supply was still functional, running clear and cool against her skin in the September air as it slipped through her fingers into the sink.
“Xiao Meng, here to help?” the canteen worker asked, glancing at him.
“Yes. Is there anything you need a hand with?” Meng Zizhao replied.
He walked over to Fang Yangyang and lifted the basin of rice for her. She looked up at him, her brow furrowed like a pouting child.
Meng Zizhao held back a laugh. He emptied the rice into a large pot, added water, and lit the gas stove.
The canteen worker silently calculated the rations for the day. A few sacks of rice stacked in the corner would last them a while, but their supplies were visibly dwindling. She cast a worried look over the remaining food in the kitchen, keeping her concerns to herself.
To conserve gas, they cooked only twice a day. They made extra rice porridge in the morning so the leftovers could be reheated for lunch, and then cooked a proper pot of steamed rice in the evening to fill their stomachs.
No one complained. At a critical juncture like this, shielded by the cafeteria’s patented glass walls with enough provisions to last a while, they were far better off than most.
When Meng Zizhao snatched away the task Fang Yangyang was working on, she was left standing blankly by the sink. She shot him a sulky glance. Though she kept quiet, her pale cheeks puffed out in obvious annoyance.
Meng Zizhao found teasing her endlessly amusing.
With a beaming smile, he tilted his chin. “Yangyang, is there anything else you need a hand with?”
“No,” she said with a scowl, gently nudging him away. “I can work on my own. Stop bothering me.”
They had only met a few days ago, yet he called her “Yangyang” as if they had known each other forever.
Fang Yangyang paused, then lowered her voice so the others wouldn’t hear. “We only just met a few days ago.”
Meng Zizhao caught her unspoken meaning at once and raised an eyebrow, entirely unfazed. “Really? But I’ve known about you for a long time.”
“…”
Fang Yangyang gave him a blank look, rendered speechless by his remark. Deciding out of sight was out of mind, she turned her back on him and refused to engage any further.
Meng Zizhao chuckled. Watching her back, he hummed a cheerful tune to himself.
***
On the fourth day of the apocalypse, time drifted quietly from morning to evening without incident.
The early crises awaiting Fang Yangyang after transmigrating into the novel—being trapped in the dorm and surviving the Four Days of Darkness—had all been successfully navigated.
All that remained was to wait patiently for humanity’s special abilities to awaken.
Toward the evening of that fourth day, she brought Dou Qing with her toward the canteen’s public restroom.
It was September, and seventy-nine people were packed inside the building. None of them had brought spare clothes, but if someone truly wanted to clean themselves up, there were still ways to manage.
Fang Yangyang had done a fair share of chores in the kitchen that day, leaving her sweaty and sticky. Unable to stand the feeling, she waited until Dou Qing finished discussing the mutated animal data with his senior sister Wen Qing and the others, then had him stand guard outside the restroom door.
With only plain water for a shower and no towel to dry off, she had to wait for the mild room temperature to air-dry her skin before slipping back into her clothes. When she stepped out, she noticed a flush on Dou Qing’s cheeks. He averted his gaze, not daring to look at her.
Fang Yangyang smiled inwardly and waved a hand in front of him. “Do you want to shower? I’ll keep watch for you.”
Dou Qing coughed, rubbed his nose, and agreed.
He was much faster than her. Waiting by the door, Fang Yangyang saw him emerge with wet bangs clinging to his forehead. Catching her eye, he smiled with shy hesitation.
When they went to sleep that night, they kept to their routine from the past few days. Dou Qing draped his jacket over her, and she curled up in his arms.
In the middle of the night, Fang Yangyang was startled awake by low groans of pain and ragged breathing. The cool, clean skin from her shower was now smothered in heavy heat as the young man held her close.
Sweat dripped from Dou Qing’s forehead, splashing into the hollow of her collarbone.
His bare arms encircled her like a blazing furnace, locking her tightly against him so she could hardly pull away.
Fang Yangyang opened her eyes, managed to pull her phone from her pocket, and turned on the flashlight.
The canteen was vast. Some people slept leaning against the walls, others lay flat on the floor, and a few slumped over the tables from their chairs. The beam of light swept across the room, illuminating their varied expressions in sleep.
Dou Qing panted softly, groans of pain escaping his throat. He trembled all over from the agony, yet never loosened his tight grip around Fang Yangyang. His eyelids were clamped shut, as if trapped in a terrible nightmare.
She recalled the details describing humanity awakening their abilities on the fifth day of the apocalypse from the apocalyptic novels she had read. In those stories, human awakening was far from the silent mutations seen in plants and animals.
The clash between human genetics and the nascent powers brought high fevers, intense physical pain, and even loss of consciousness. Those with weaker constitutions could not endure the process and perished midway.
A fractured world, genetic recombination, awakening abilities.
She shone the flashlight over everyone in the canteen. Aside from her, every single person was deep in slumber, letting out faint, agonized murmurs.
In that moment, Fang Yangyang felt a faint flicker of envy toward these people. Though they were suffering now, they would awaken special abilities gain a far better chance of surviving the apocalypse.
Dou Qing still held her tightly in his arms. She made no move to pull away, merely resting her cool hand against his sweat-drenched forehead.
He seemed to crave the relief, letting out a long sigh as his sleeping body instinctively pressed closer to the coolness.
Clung to like a personal ice pack, Fang Yangyang found it impossible to pry him off.
Speechless, she let out a sigh, switched off her phone’s flashlight, and pinched Dou Qing’s arm. “You’re dead meat when you wake up tomorrow. I just took a shower.”
Annoyed and stifled by the heat, she finally drifted into an uneasy sleep. Her warm breath fell softly against him, fair and delicate as a pretty doll nestled in her boyfriend’s embrace, tiny beads of sweat gathering on the tip of her nose.
***
The fifth day of the apocalypse.
When humans awakened their ability, the five basic elements of metal, wood, water, fire, and earth were only the foundation. Later generations classified them as basic elemental abilities, and most abilities were simply extensions or variations of these five roots.
For instance, even if two people both wielded the water element, their powers could manifest in entirely different ways. One might conjure clear water, while the other produced ice.
Though their abilities shared the same elemental root, their branches diverged. Due to the mystery of human genetics, surviving humanity would fail to fully grasp the profound secrets hidden in their DNA for decades to come.
Beyond the basic elemental powers, there were also offshoots and evolved variants like thunder, electricity, and wind. Rarer, more specialized abilities existed as well, though their low probability meant they seldom appeared in the original text.
When Fang Yangyang woke up dazed, her skin was sticky with sweat. The cafeteria around her buzzed with the astonished cries of dozens of people.
“Holy crap! Did water just shoot out of my hands?”
“Last night was miserable. I think I’m still running a fever.”
“…”
“…”
“Yangyang?” Dou Qing gently nudged her.
Fang Yangyang stretched lazily, her unfocused gaze landing on him.
“You were sweating all over last night,” she mumbled. “I almost died from the heat.” She lifted her arm, sniffed herself, and wrinkled her nose in disgust.
“I really stink.”
Dou Qing’s face flushed with embarrassment. Eager to please, he reached out and pressed a piece of cold ice into her palm. “Look at this.”
In the original apocalyptic novel, the ability of the male lead, second male lead, and third male lead corresponded to wood, fire, and water. Later in the story, their powers grew steadily until they became the pinnacle figures of these three elements.
At this moment, however, Dou Qing was merely an idiot who had just awakened his ability, using it only to conjure a block of ice to cheer up his girlfriend.
As the cold ice rested in Fang Yangyang’s hand, she let out a soft sigh of relief, the chill dispelling the heat inside her.
Seeing how much she enjoyed holding it, greedily pressing the ice against her cheek for coolness, Dou Qing put in all his effort. Clumsily yet determinedly, within just a few minutes, he mastered his new power far faster than anyone else who had just awakened theirs.
He conjured small ice spheres one after another, carefully placing them into Fang Yangyang’s hands.
“Here, Yangyang. You can play with these.”
Nearby, Meng Zizhao was marveling at the fire springing from his fingertips. Catching sight of the small flame, the canteen worker chuckled. “Not bad, Meng Zizhao. You can come to the kitchen later and help me cook.”
Her own ability was also fire-related, though whether due to age or some other factor, her flame burned considerably stronger than anyone else’s.
Those who had awakened their abilities treated them like fascinating new toys, constantly testing where the powers originated and how they worked.
“Animals mutate, and humans… develop abilities, I suppose?” their senior, Wen Qing, mused.
“Yes, abilities,” Yu Zhi agreed, turning his palm over in fascination as sand trickled from his hand. “Incredible. This completely defies the law of conservation.”
Wen Qing reasoned, “Perhaps the sand is being transported to your hand from somewhere else in the world.”
“That opens up a much broader scope. Spatial transmission? Spatial transfer?”
The academics were already speaking in low voices, discussing how they had mysteriously gained these ability upon waking.
Meng Zizhao was not as cerebral as that group. He spent some time fooling around with his fellow flight majors, one of whom joked that the tiny flicker of flame on his fingertip was perfect for lighting cigarettes to show off.
He burst out laughing.
Once his laughter faded, Meng Zizhao glanced instinctively toward Fang Yangyang, curious about what ability she had awakened.
While everyone else eagerly tested their newfound abilities, she simply sat beside her boyfriend, cradling a round ice orb in her hands with a soft smile on her face.
Beside her, Dou Qing was still straining to produce more ice for her.
Within minutes, he seemed to hit his stride. Meng Zizhao watched in disbelief as the ice grew from the size of a knuckle to a full finger’s length, and finally into an orb as large as a man’s palm.
“Wow,” Fang Yangyang gasped.
In a daze, Meng Zizhao looked down at the pathetic flicker of flame in his own hand, suitable only for lighting a cigarette. After a long silence, he muttered, “Holy shit.”