“Recently, mass marine life die-offs have been reported along the coasts of Jintan in Suizhou, Zhulong Bay on the Huai River, and several other locations. Large numbers of dead sea creatures have been carried ashore by ocean currents. The exact cause is still under investigation. Coastal residents are advised to suspend all activities involving the water and await further announcements.”
Thick black clouds churned endlessly across the sky.
Inside the cramped dorm room, darkness reigned. The only source of light came from behind the curtain of the bed by the window.
Lying on her bed, Wendy frowned as she watched the video on her phone. A moment later, she turned it off and pointed the camera at her lower leg.
Where smooth skin should have been, blue-green scales now covered her calf. They felt slick to the touch…
Just like the scales of a fish.
Click.
The dorm room door unlocked.
Wendy immediately pulled down her pant leg and turned off her phone’s screen.
“Wenwen!”
Her friend Tong Yu’s voice drifted closer along with approaching footsteps.
“We’re back!”
A trace of confusion flashed across Wendy’s eyes as she pulled open the bed curtain.
It was only ten o’clock in the morning.
Normally, the sun would be shining brightly at this hour, yet outside the window it was as dark as midnight.
Layer upon layer of heavy storm clouds covered the sky as though they were about to crush it, allowing not a single ray of sunlight to pass through.
At this time of day, Tong Yu and their other roommate, Feng Jianan, should have been in class.
“Why are you sitting in the dorm by yourself without even turning on the lights, Wenwen?”
Tong Yu flipped on the light switch. Perhaps because the air was so damp, the fluorescent tube flickered a few times before finally stabilizing.
“It’s too humid. The bulb could blow.”
Wendy’s gaze swept over Tong Yu’s bulging backpack. Even the angle of the buckle was exactly the same as when she had left that morning.
“Weren’t you two in class? Why are you back already?”
“Classes were canceled.”
Tong Yu returned to her desk and began packing while explaining.
“The weather’s way too abnormal. It’s so dark we can’t even hold classes, and no one knows when it’ll start raining. Once it does, it’s definitely going to be a massive storm, so the school canceled everything. The notice should already be in the class WeChat group.”
“Students from the city can go home. Come back with me. Mom and Dad would definitely want you there too.”
Wendy was an orphan who had grown up in a welfare home.
By this era, social classes had become almost completely fixed. Welfare homes only supported children through junior high school. After that, they were on their own.
Those who were never adopted had no choice but to enter society, becoming fuel for the nation’s ever-turning machine.
Wendy had always been extraordinarily intelligent.
Things that took others weeks or months to learn only required a single glance from her.
During her second year of middle school, an educational inspection team from the provincial capital visited her county. Tong Yu’s father, a senior teacher at Huaijiang No. 1 High School, was among them.
Wendy’s long record of ranking first in the entire school caught his attention.
After careful consideration, he decided to sponsor her education.
Thanks to his support, Wendy was admitted to Huaijiang No. 1 High School in the provincial capital and later entered Huaijiang University.
By coincidence, she and Tong Yu ended up as roommates.
“Okay.”
Wendy nodded.
Just then, her phone vibrated.
A text message had arrived.
She tapped it open.
It was from an unfamiliar number.
The ocean is about to swallow the land. Humanity faces extinction. Come to Northern Tibet immediately.
—S
At that exact moment, Tong Yu, who had been packing, suddenly cried out.
“Come look at this! What is this?”
She was holding a sheet of paper.
Wendy climbed down from her bed.
Hearing the shout, Feng Jianan also walked over.
Written across the note were the words:
A world-ending rainstorm is coming. The land will be swallowed by the ocean. Come to Northern Tibet. It’s humanity’s last hope.
The handwriting was rushed and uneven, but it was unmistakably that of their roommate, Pei Xiao.
“What… what the hell is this supposed to mean?”
Tong Yu was the first to break the silence.
“It has to be a joke… right? There’s no way.”
After another three seconds of silence, Feng Jianan let out an awkward laugh before returning to her desk.
Wendy lowered her eyes, concealing the emotions in them as the mysterious text message resurfaced in her mind.
The contents were almost identical.
Outside the dormitory window, black storm clouds blanketed the entire sky.
Compared to when they had first appeared, the clouds had grown several times thicker over the past two weeks.
Today marked the fifteenth day.
Yet despite the increasingly suffocating sky, not a single drop of rain had fallen.
Mainstream media claimed it was the result of a worsening El Niño phenomenon and urged the public to protect the environment.
Climate anomalies had indeed become increasingly common over the past decade.
With an official explanation in place, no matter how uneasy people felt, life continued as usual.
Still…
Wendy frowned.
Come to think of it, she hadn’t seen comments from overseas accounts on social media in quite some time.
She looked up.
Tong Yu was on the phone, absentmindedly rubbing the note Pei Xiao had left between her fingers.
A few moments later, she lowered the phone.
When Wendy met her eyes, they were filled with anxiety and confusion.
“They said…”
“Pei Xiao’s phone is out of service.”
Feng Jianan froze for a moment before quietly resuming her typing.
“Let’s pack first.”
“We’ll talk after we see Uncle Tong and Auntie.”
Wendy made the decision immediately.
The two of them quickly packed their belongings and hurried out of the university.
Their dormitory building was closer to Gate No. 2 on Xuefu Road along the west side of Huaijiang University.
The moment they scanned their faces and stepped onto the sidewalk outside campus, a heavily armored military vehicle roared past at full speed.
The students who had just exited the school erupted in surprised cries.
Wendy frowned.
Following the direction the armored vehicle had gone, she watched it speed through the intersection before turning left…
Toward Huaijiang University’s main gate?
“Wenwen!”
Tong Yu called out.
“I got us a ride. A silver electric taxi. License plate ending in 9978.”
“Got it. I’ll cancel mine.”
Since the sun had disappeared for nearly half a month, the widely used solar-powered hover vehicles were no longer operational.
There were far fewer cars on the streets than usual.
After waiting outside the university for quite some time—using both ride-hailing apps and waving down passing cars—they finally managed to catch an old-fashioned electric taxi.
Although it was only April, the temperature had already climbed to 38°C.
Indoors wasn’t too bad.
Outside, however, the heat and humidity turned the city into a gigantic steam cooker.
It was almost impossible to breathe.
By the time they got into the taxi, both of them were soaked in sweat, their clothes clinging tightly to their bodies.
Even though it was still morning, the thick clouds had plunged the city into darkness.
Streetlights lined both sides of the roads.
Storefront signs glowed brightly.
Colorful neon lights illuminated the bustling metropolis, making it appear as lively as ever.
Through the taxi window, Wendy stared at the massive clouds rolling overhead.
The mysterious text message from the unknown sender matched almost perfectly with the note Pei Xiao had left behind.
The message was signed simply with the letter “S.”
The sender clearly wasn’t Pei Xiao.
If the warning was fake…
Why were the two messages so nearly identical?
Could this really be nothing more than a carefully planned prank?
If it was real…
Where had Pei Xiao gone?
How had she learned this information?
Who was “S”?
Why had they sent the message specifically to her?
And where had any of this information come from?
Wendy carefully searched her memory for anyone she knew whose name began with the letter S, but couldn’t think of a single plausible candidate.
Every lead ended in a dead end.
Lightly tapping the seat with her fingers, she reorganized the information in her mind.
Assuming the apocalypse was real, then the confirmed information was:
Both the mysterious text and Pei Xiao’s note referred to Northern Tibet as humanity’s final refuge.
If the ocean truly was going to engulf the continents…
What difference would going to Northern Tibet make?
Would the flood never reach it?
Or was there something there capable of protecting humanity?
Wendy lowered her gaze.
Her eyes fell upon the leg completely concealed beneath her long pants.
Ever since the strange clouds had first appeared half a month ago, her body had begun to change.
Scales had grown on her legs.
Her five senses had become unnaturally sharp.
Her strength increased day by day.
And from time to time, she heard a ringing in her ears that sounded eerily like crashing waves.
The ocean will swallow the land.
Could the changes happening to her body be connected to all of this?
“Wenwen…”
Tong Yu, seated in the front passenger seat, suddenly turned around anxiously.
“A classmate from Pei Xiao’s department just said… no one’s seen her attend class for more than half a month.”
More than half a month?
It happened to coincide exactly with the time when dark storm clouds began covering the sky.
The relationships in their dorm had always been delicate.
Wendy and Tong Yu had known each other since high school, so they were naturally close.
Feng Jianan was quiet and overly sensitive by nature. Because of various issues, there had been some friction between them in the past. Wendy had sensed Feng Jianan’s hostility, so they rarely interacted.
As for Pei Xiao, aside from the first day they moved in, she hardly ever stayed in the dormitory. None of the three knew much about her. All they could tell from her clothes, lifestyle, and demeanor was that she came from a wealthy family.
However, these days, anyone who could get into Huaijiang University was either an exceptional student capable of breaking through class barriers with outstanding academic performance or someone born into wealth and privilege. More often than not, they were both. So although they had guessed that Pei Xiao’s family background was extraordinary, no one found it particularly surprising.
But now, if the news about the apocalypse was true, then their roommate was clearly much more than just rich.
The taxi drove into an upscale residential community. After winding through roads that resembled those of a park, it finally stopped in front of a high-rise building.
Tong Yu’s father was already waiting at the entrance. The moment he saw the two girls getting out of the taxi, he hurried over to help with their luggage.
“It’s good that you’re both back. This crazy weather has been so strange. I was worried a torrential downpour would trap you at school.”
“As long as you’re home, everything’s fine. Once you’re home, you can relax. Your mom made a whole table of your favorite dishes for you and Wendy. She’s been waiting for you two.”
“Speaking of which, food prices have been skyrocketing lately. Luckily your mom had the foresight to stock up on rice, vegetables, and all kinds of groceries ahead of time.”
Inside the elevator, Tong Yu’s father chatted away nonstop, clearly delighted that the girls had returned safely.
Tong Yu nodded absentmindedly in response while shooting Wendy pleading glances, her eyes filled with anxiety.
Should we tell him or not?
Even Tong Yu thought the idea of an apocalypse sounded absurd. Her parents still had to go to work, and the university had only suspended classes temporarily. If she suddenly told them that the apocalypse was coming and that they needed to flee to northern Tibet, let alone whether her parents would believe her, even she felt it sounded ridiculous.
Yet the unprecedentedly bizarre weather and their roommate’s disappearance left her mind in complete turmoil.
Everything was just too abnormal.
The note Pei Xiao had left behind magnified the faint unease that had been lurking in Tong Yu’s heart ever since the dark clouds first appeared. She desperately wanted to believe it was all some elaborate joke, but the strange events unfolding around her made it impossible to ignore.
What if…
What if it’s real…?
Sensing her friend’s distress, Wendy gently took Tong Yu’s hand, silently helping her steady her emotions.
The elevator climbed to the twenty-second floor.
The moment the doors opened, a series of shrill, frantic barks echoed through the hallway.
“I don’t know what’s gotten into the dogs upstairs lately,” Tong Yu’s father explained. “Each one has been barking more fiercely than the last.”
Wendy suddenly recalled passing a pet shop a few days earlier while leaving campus. Every cat and dog inside had been frantically clawing at their cages, as if…
…as if they were desperate to escape.
Her thoughts then drifted back to what had happened at the school gate earlier.
When the armored vehicle had passed by them, everything had seemed to slow to a crawl. Through the small wire-mesh-covered viewing window, she had seen soldiers inside, gripping rifles and standing on full alert.
A shadow crossed Wendy’s eyes.
She hurriedly grabbed Tong Yu’s father by the arm. But before she could say a word, a piercing alarm suddenly blared from his phone.
On the incoming call screen, several bold characters were displayed:
Ministry of National Security.
Author’s Note:
(Runs over excitedly and sets up a little promotion booth.)
My dears, please check out my upcoming novels:
Please add whichever one interests you to your bookmarks. My next novel will be whichever gets more support and favorites.