HBWnovel Chapter 1: Earth's Apocalypse Update
Chapter 1: Earth's Apocalypse Update
"I'm alive again!"
Anhai City, in the seaside park.
Li Xiaming, who was sitting on the bench, suddenly opened his eyes, clutched his chest, and gasped for breath.
Those who saw Li Xiaming behind him quickly moved away.
"Damn, how can anyone be wearing such thick clothes in the sweltering heat of August? They're bundled up like giant rice dumplings. Did they just come back from Antarctica?"
"He was so dirty, like a refugee in the news."
Ignoring the stares from passersby who looked at him like he was a freak, Li Xiaming stood up and gazed at the towering buildings beyond the park with shining eyes.
"I'm really back."
"I activated my superpowers and traveled back four years to before the Ice Age apocalypse!"
Li Xiaming first realized he had superpowers on the day of his elementary school field trip.
At the time, a primary school bus full of students was traveling when a illegally overloaded bus suddenly lost control and crashed into it.
After the excruciating pain subsided, Li Xiaming opened his eyes again and found himself back a month earlier, still wearing the clothes he had worn on his spring outing.
He didn't know if it was a miracle or a superpower.
But taking advantage of this opportunity, on the day of the spring outing a month later, he reported the license plate of the illegally overloaded Dayun vehicle in advance.
The lives of a whole busload of children were saved as a result.
After that, he also wondered if he could reactivate that time-rewinding ability and return to the past.
For example, try committing suicide again?
But Li Xiaming ultimately didn't dare to gamble.
What if that miracle of reversing time only happens once?
So Li Xiaming returned to an ordinary life:
I got into an ordinary undergraduate university, met my first love, graduated, and then got dumped.
If nothing unexpected happens, he will be like most people: first depressed, then cheered up, and after working for a few years, he will eventually embark on the path of blind dates through introductions from his parents and relatives.
But next month, all the ordinary routines came to an abrupt end.
[Earth's End Version 1.00 Update:]
Due to the rapid decline of solar nuclear fusion reactions, the world enters an ice age; this scenario is expected to last for three years.
On this day, these words resonated simultaneously in the minds of all humanity, in different languages.
Then, within just one day, everyone felt that the sun in the sky, which should have been shining forever, had dimmed.
In just a few days, the global average temperature plummeted by ten to twenty degrees Celsius, and the drop continues.
In high-latitude regions like the North, large areas quickly plunged into freezing, near-zero temperatures, with life on the surface almost disappearing.
What followed was the largest global famine in human history.
Extreme cold and reduced sunlight destroyed food production in various countries, and without feed, livestock farming also collapsed.
Furthermore, due to the frozen seas, oil tankers were unable to set sail, and oil pipelines were also frozen in the extreme cold, plunging countries into an energy crisis once again.
In extremely cold climates, countless people around the world cannot even keep warm, and hundreds of thousands of people die every day from famine and cold.
The year after the Ice Age, 90% or more of the world's population had perished.
Small island nations like Xiao Rizi, surrounded by icy seas and isolated by scarce resources, have perished one after another.
Human civilization has reached a precarious state.
It happened on a morning in the second year after the Ice Age.
Li Xiaming was also out of ammunition and food.
He finally had the courage to put his long-held suspicions into practice.
"After I die, will time rewind? If it can, can I... save everyone?"
……
"Xia Ming, Xia Ming!"
What are you standing there for?
"Come on, weren't you crying and begging me to go with you to apologize to your girlfriend and try to win back your relationship last night?"
"If you keep spacing out, that woman might just fly to the US."
A young man with curly hair yawned and whispered something in Li Xiaming's ear.
Li Xiaming was pulled back to his senses by the voice. He turned around and stared blankly at the curly-haired youth.
"Qin Dongyu?"
"What's wrong? Why are you looking at your dad so affectionately? It's like you're seeing me come back to life. It's disgusting..."
And I was just about to ask that.
"In this sweltering heat, Xia Ming, why are you dressed like a dumpling? And you're so dirty. Did you just come out of a coal mine?"
Before Qin Dongyu could finish speaking, Li Xiaming suddenly pulled him into his arms.
"Why are you hugging me? Get off me, it's so hot!"
Qin Dongyu patted Li Xiaming on the shoulder with displeasure and finally pushed him away.
"Damn it, why are you hugging me? Hurry up and go to the airport to hug your girlfriend. Once she leaves the country, you'll never have another chance..."
"It doesn't matter."
Qin Dongyu was interrupted by Li Xiaming before he could finish speaking.
"Girls don't matter anymore."
Qin Dongyu stared blankly at his best friend, whom he had known since elementary school.
He knew Li Xiaming's personality; the other party wasn't joking.
"But...but didn't you cry with me all night last night?"
How could you just give up like that this morning? Even Sichuan opera face-changing isn't this fast!
Li Xiaming stood up and said:
"Because I have a more important mission now."
"What?"
"Save the world."
"I also saved the entire universe."
Qin Dongyu stood up and lightly punched Li Xiaming.
"Damn it, you're not even chasing after a girlfriend anymore, and you're waking me up so early in the morning? I'm so sleepy... I'm going back to catch up on my sleep."
Qin Dongyu waved his hand and was about to leave, but Li Xiaming called him back.
"Dongyu, I want to see your grandfather."
Upon hearing this, Qin Dongyu's previously lazy expression immediately turned serious.
"Xia Ming, you should know who my grandfather is, right?"
The old man is a figure in the field of nuclear energy who's written into textbooks; you have to undergo a background check to meet him.
Li Xiaming didn't speak, but instead took out a thick bag of documents wrapped in kraft paper from his thick coat.
He handed the document to Qin Dongyu and said:
"Dongyu, give this to your grandfather. Let him decide whether or not to see me. Don't let anyone see it before then."
Looking at Li Xiaming's serious expression, Qin Dongyu had a lot of questions he wanted to ask, but he held back in the end.
"Anything involving my grandfather is a serious matter. If you dare to joke about it... I can't protect you!"
……
……
It's 11 p.m.
A car, secretly escorted by security personnel, drove into a residential area.
"Old Qin, say goodbye to your family properly tonight. Tomorrow, the two of us are going to that place, and we may not be able to come home for the next ten years."
"Old man, take care of yourself, don't worry about me."
Academician Qin got out of the car, chuckled and cursed into his phone, took a deep breath, and went into his home.
Inside the house, a kind old lady had already prepared a table of food.
"You came home quite early today."
"I'm going on a business trip. This is the last time I'll be back. This trip... might last a long time."
The old lady paused for a moment, then sighed and said:
"Don't worry, everything's fine at home. What you need to do is the most important thing."
Looking at his wife, whom he had been married to for decades but had hardly spent any time with, Academician Qin felt a pang of guilt and fell silent.
Just then, Qin Dongyu came downstairs and said to Academician Qin:
"Grandpa, my friend... Li Xiaming, who used to come to our house to play all the time, has something for me to give you today."
As he spoke, he took out an inconspicuous brown paper document bag.
"Li Xiaming?"
Academician Qin frowned, then seemed to remember something.
He had a strong impression of this friend of his grandson.
Because Li Xiaming had called the police in advance to deal with an overloaded truck incident before his grandson's elementary school field trip.
Later, Academician Qin also checked and found that if the large truck had not been stopped in advance, it would very likely have passed through the route of the primary school bus.
If it weren't for Li Xiaming's phone call, which led to problems with all the children in the car, Academician Qin simply couldn't imagine the consequences.
"Bring it over here so I can take a look."
Thinking of this, Academician Qin reached out and took the document bag.
It felt heavier than he had expected.
He sat down on the sofa and untied the cotton thread at the top of the bag.
The first thing to slide out was a thick stack of blue drawings, the edges of which were slightly curled, as if they had been repeatedly rubbed.
His gaze casually fell on the title bar, then he held his breath.
Assembly Drawings of the Main Confinement Field Coil System of the "Longyuan" Nuclear Fusion Demonstration Reactor (Longyuan-D) (Revised Edition VII)
This plan...isn't this a project that their research institute is currently working on?
And... what the heck is the VIIth revision?
Even I, the person in charge of this project, didn't know there were so many versions!
Academician Qin suddenly looked up at his grandson, his voice more serious than ever before: "Where did Li Xiaming get this bag?"
Qin Dongyu had never seen his grandfather so serious in front of him before. He subconsciously sat up straight, secretly annoyed at Xia Ming for making him hand over something!
"I...I don't know..."
Seeing that his grandson really didn't know, Academician Qin didn't ask any further questions.
He lowered his head, his eyes urgent yet extremely careful as he flipped through the subsequent documents:
Detailed Specifications for the Tritium Self-Sustaining Cycle Subsystem, Final Report on Stress Simulation of First Wall Material under Extreme Cold Conditions, Summary of Experimental Data for Non-Inductive Current Driven Module (2035-2037)...
"2037... Why is there data from two years in advance here?"
Academician Qin's first reaction was that this thing was fake!
However, after he opened it, he found that the data inside was quite detailed, rigorous, and professional, making it highly unlikely that it was forged.
But... what exactly is the data like two years from now!
Could it have been sent from the future? How could that be!
Academician Qin smiled as if to console himself, and then a piece of letter paper accidentally fell out of the documents.
He looked down and saw that the words on the envelope were familiar.
The above content is: "To Myself Two Years Ago – Qin Wensong"
"..."
"Dong, Dongyu".
"What's wrong, Grandpa?"
"Call Li Xiaming and tell him to stay home and not move, and not to see anyone. Someone will be coming to pick him up soon!"