“West District, Building 32, Room 1203...”
Yue Shi looked up at the residential building before him, which stood at least eighty stories tall.
The snow leopard cub in his arms also tilted its head up, giving its tail a light flick. It seemed to have little interest in the massive structure, burying its head back into the crook of Yue Shi's arm.
The residential buildings in Liming City were somewhat different from those Yue Shi had seen in Forging City. The structures here were taller and more imposing, square in shape, appearing heavy and conservative.
Looking up from Yue Shi's perspective, there were no balconies—only smooth walls punctuated by recessed rectangular windows.
Entering Building 32, Yue Shi discovered through the directory at the entrance that the building itself was a miniature community.
The sign indicated that several floors were not for residents but were instead filled with shops.
For instance, one floor was dedicated entirely to dining, while another was an entertainment zone featuring small venues like bars and cinemas.
The center of the building was hollowed out, with no covering at the top. When it rained outside, it rained inside as well.
The design was reminiscent of a traditional courtyard house, albeit a vastly heightened and enhanced version. Rainwater poured down from the opening overhead, creating a dense, rhythmic splashing sound in the central atrium.
The snow leopard pricked up its ears, staring at the curtain of rain for a few seconds before turning away. He did not like water.
Yue Shi walked along the corridor toward a nearby elevator. The elevator cars were externally mounted and quite large. The surrounding area was semi-exposed, and looking up, one could see raindrops hammering against the elevator roof.
The snow leopard looked up as well, watching the sliding droplets and splaying its paws in interest until Yue Shi gently pressed them down.
Above the fifth floor, certain sections of the corridors lacked protective walls, replaced instead by external platforms.
These were flight craft docking areas.
Technology in Zhongzhou had advanced to the point where flight craft, flying motorcycles, and airships were used as transportation, though they were beyond the means of the average person.
Ding. The twelfth floor arrived.
The floor was lined with rows of vending machines and featured a public fitness area.
There was also a large trash can and several puddles on the floor. The walls looked like they had been in disrepair for years; clearly, this was not a high-end residential area, which was to be expected.
After all, Yue Shi had simply picked a temporary place to settle down.
Opening the door to Room 1203, the lights flickered on automatically. The snow leopard jumped from his arms and dashed inside first, circling the room and sniffing everywhere.
The room was decent enough. While it didn't match the living conditions Yue Shi once had in Forging City, it was clean and spacious—far better than his old rental in Amber City.
Yue Shi took out his computer. The snow leopard immediately jumped up and stepped on the keyboard a couple of times before Yue Shi picked him up by the scruff of the neck.
After checking the entire room and taking a moment to rest, Yue Shi reached out and rubbed the snow leopard's ears.
Rain continued to fall outside the window, sounding like a melody of white noise.
...
Sitting down at the computer, Yue Shi pressed the power button.
“Ghost.”
Ghost drifted out from a button on his collar, hovering in mid-air.
“Look into the events of the last thirty years. I want to know how much Zhongzhou has changed.”
Ghost nodded, transforming into a stream of data that dove into the computer.
The screen flickered, windows of code and data streams scrolling rapidly.
Yue Shi waited quietly, slowly stroking the snow leopard's back. The leopard found the touch very comfortable, resting its head on his wrist and squinting its eyes.
There was too much information.
Thirty years was enough for a country to be turned upside down.
Yue Shi was in no hurry; he waited for Ghost to filter out the core information first.
After a few minutes, the scrolling data on the screen slowed down, eventually stopping on a clean interface.
Ghost drifted back out of the screen, hovering beside Yue Shi with an expression that was a bit more serious than usual.
He pulled up a file with a title in bold red font: 《Investigation Report on the "Day of Forging City's Fall" Incident》.
Yue Shi stared at the title for a few seconds. “The Fall? That's a good name for it.”
Ghost expanded the file, and the screen filled with dense text, photographs, and data charts.
Yue Shi scanned the contents quickly.
On that day thirty years ago, Forging City had been wiped off the map.
The official initial report called it a 'serious abnormal incident.' However, as time passed and more details were disclosed, the truth gradually surfaced.
The source of the disaster was a celestial body falling from the sky. It had caused extreme physical destruction and carried a form of intense contamination.
The corners of Yue Shi's mouth curled upward as he continued reading.
Following the destruction of Forging City, the facade of peace the Zhongzhou government had maintained for nearly a century was shattered.
There was pressure from abroad, and internal issues had arisen as well.
Since then, various abnormal incidents had begun to erupt across Zhongzhou.
Supernatural creatures roamed the cities and soared through the skies, marking the beginning of a new era.
An era of chaos, bloodshed, and unknown terror.
Ghost flipped to the next page.
In the first year after the Forging City incident, a large number of eerie Sea Sirens appeared in coastal regions. They emerged from the deep sea with translucent, gelatinous bodies. They could sing, and their songs induced hallucinations, causing people to walk into the ocean of their own accord.
Countless people died in several coastal cities within just a few days. The sirens also triggered a massive tsunami over thirty meters high. The immediate death toll exceeded two hundred and seventy thousand, while the subsequent floods and infectious diseases resulted in millions of casualties.
It was the most severe disaster Zhongzhou had faced in nearly a century.
The following year, a "Fairytale Disaster" broke out in the inland regions.
Several cities were transformed into fairytale towns overnight. Streets became candy, houses were built of gingerbread, and rivers turned into chocolate sauce.
Residents who failed to evacuate in time were transformed—some into talking bread-people, others into walking jellybean-people.
The Management Bureau did not know what power had caused it, nor did they know how to change them back.
Those cities remained high-risk forbidden zones to this day, designated as 【Fairytale Town】.
Ghost flipped another page.
More disasters erupted with increasing frequency and in increasingly bizarre forms.
Cultists summoned evil gods within cities, and unspeakable contamination spread throughout entire urban areas in a very short time, driving tens of thousands of people into madness.
Rifts to otherworlds opened in the skies above cities, dropping all sorts of strange objects.
Subsequently, a certain virus spread through the population. Those infected would slowly turn to stone, starting from their toes and spreading upward bit by bit until the entire person became a silent statue.
Looking at the scope and frequency, the disasters that had occurred in Zhongzhou over the last thirty years seemed to have surpassed the total of the previous century.
As Yue Shi looked at the startling data, a faint smile finally appeared on his face.
“Now that's more like it. My life hasn't been exactly pleasant; why should anyone else get to be stable and happy?”
“No one gets to live a good life~”
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