Chapter 5: , Long Review 5: I Hope It Gets More Exciting—After All, My Name Is

Bian Changxi rented an apartment in Xinfeng Community, a newly built residential area on the edge of the city. There weren’t many residents, so after the apocalypse, there wouldn’t be many zombies here either. The location fit perfectly with Bian Changxi’s plans.

After saying goodbye to Bian Kuang, she pushed her modified knockoff motorbike to the bottom of Building 5, parked it, and walked up the stairs to the third floor.

The third floor wasn’t too high, but not as vulnerable as the first floor—just right.

Each floor had four small apartments facing each other, separated by a central corridor. Bian Changxi lived in 303. She took out her key, glanced at 304 across the hall. Besides her, 304 housed a family of four. Living face-to-face meant if anything happened over there, she could keep an eye on it through the peephole.

She entered, turned on the light. It was a one-bedroom apartment, fully furnished. The living room was a mess, piled high with things she’d bought earlier. She gave it a quick look, set down her three knives, pulled out a bottle of mineral water, and sat on the sofa as she drank.

From her pocket, she took out a small wooden box. Inside was a white jade bracelet.

The fine, creamy jade glowed warmly under the chandelier. This was a keepsake from her mother, supposedly with quite a bit of history.

In her previous life, Bian Changxi had never figured out the secret of the bracelet. She just carried it as a memento—until three months after the apocalypse, when she accidentally discovered it contained a storage space.

After the apocalypse, some humans developed supernatural abilities, including spatial powers. Compared to elemental abilities, spatial ones were much rarer and more valuable, so ability users kept their powers secret. Naive as she was, Bian Changxi thought she was a spatial ability user. Later, she accidentally discovered she could use her mind to plant seeds in the soil inside the space, but the growth rate was painfully slow. She never researched it further.

It wasn’t until she met Zhu Yunhua that things changed. A girl in Zhu Yunhua’s group, who had a strange artifact for exploration, discovered her secret. After they got close, Zhu Yunhua’s old classmate and tech maniac, Qu Yi, suggested researching the bracelet’s space...

Thanks to Qu Yi’s research, the bracelet’s space gradually expanded: fertile soil, rivers, houses, warehouses appeared, and the efficiency of farming and animal husbandry slowly increased. It became a real farm. Eventually, the owner (her) could freely enter and exit the farm.

Because of this, although the farm technically belonged to her, anyone could use it. Maybe that’s why Zhu Yunhua got greedy? But Qu Yi never figured out that she and the bracelet were deeply connected—if she died, the bracelet would be destroyed, and the farm and warehouse inside would collapse and vanish.

She really wanted to see Zhu Yunhua’s face at that moment. It must have been... quite a sight.

Bian Changxi gave a cold, faint smile, then sighed and pulled herself out of her thoughts.

Her gaze fell back on the bracelet, her brows furrowing slightly.

She didn’t know how Qu Yi had done it, and she’d forgotten what triggered her discovery of the bracelet’s space in the first place.

She turned the bracelet over and over, rubbing it with her fingers, trying to trigger some hidden mechanism. She even pictured the farm from her previous life in her mind and silently called out to enter...

Nothing happened.

She thought for a moment, then took a kitchen knife and cut her index finger, letting a drop of blood fall onto the bracelet. The blood was absorbed, which made her ecstatic—but still, nothing happened.

Bian Changxi gave a bitter smile.

Before discovering the space in her previous life, she’d been injured plenty of times, and her blood had dripped onto the bracelet more than once, but the space never appeared. As Qu Yi said, at most this meant the bracelet recognized her as its owner, but it wasn’t enough to activate the space, let alone the higher-level farm.

“What do I need to do?” Bian Changxi fell into deep thought.

The farm was her biggest asset in the apocalypse. It would determine whether she struggled to survive like everyone else or had an extra layer of security and could live freely and safely. It was practically a cheat device, a plug-in, a paradise.

Think about it: while others agonized over how much supplies they could carry, she could just stash everything in the farm and carry a backpack for show; when others entered a base and felt the pain of handing over their hard-earned supplies, no one would know she was secretly rich; in battle, she could pull out the best weapons from the farm at any time; when others were surrounded by zombies, struggling in filthy, dangerous conditions, she could hide in the farm, eat and drink her fill in peace—no flood or disaster outside could touch her...

There were just too many advantages. The farm was far too important—she had to find a way to unlock it!

Suddenly, Bian Changxi remembered an incident: once, after a bumper rice harvest in the farm, the grain filled the base’s first warehouse. Everyone was thrilled, and they threw a celebration. Qu Yi got dead drunk and told her, “What a waste! You wasted so much before! If only you’d used the farm earlier... If I had the chance to go back before the apocalypse, I’d find you, steal this bracelet, and unlock it as fast as possible.”

“You know how to unlock it?”

“Not sure, but I’m pretty close.” Qu Yi suddenly got serious, looked around, and whispered, “The first three days! You know, I’ve done my research—almost all the top ability users awakened in the first three days of the apocalypse! Those three days were magical: zombies were non-toxic and weak, mutant plants and animals had no shadows, and the strongest ability users kept appearing... It was like God gave humanity a buffer, a chance to awaken their gifts. The farm’s trigger should be in that window, what’s missing is activation energy.”

“What kind of energy?”

“Zombies! Five—no, ten zombies, maybe more. Kill them, and their energy will be absorbed by the bracelet... But who can say for sure...”

“Who can say for sure?” Bian Changxi murmured. She’d never taken Qu Yi’s words to heart. Turning back time, starting over—how fantastical, how impossible. Since it couldn’t happen, why dwell on it? She’d always been someone who looked forward, but who would’ve thought the impossible would actually happen.

“No matter what, I have to try!”

First goal for the apocalypse: kill ten zombies in the first three days.

Compared to the uncertainty of unlocking the farm, she was much more confident about awakening her powers in the first three days—thanks to Qu Yi, she knew exactly how.

So, second goal: awaken her powers within three days.

This time, she was determined to become strong!

It was destined to be a restless night. Because of a single post, some people argued online, some cursed, some didn’t care or knew nothing, while others joked and made plans to wait together.

Under the city lights, in a luxury villa community on the outskirts, seven or eight young men and women gathered in a villa, directing trucks loaded with supplies into the garage. Two people were carefully taking inventory. A red-haired guy ran over and punched Bian Kuang on the shoulder. “Hey Kuangzi, you really believe that bullshit post? You got a fever or something?”

Bian Kuang kept writing, smiling. “Nothing better to do anyway, might as well have some fun. Don’t you think it’s interesting? By the way, did you bring your car?”

The red-haired guy swore, “Brought both the Land Rover and the big Dongfeng truck. My old man nearly killed me for going out in the middle of the night. You owe me a big meal!”

A scholarly-looking young man pushed up his glasses, glancing over from the trucks. “That might be tough. Kuangzi spent all his savings and pulled a lot of family strings. If the apocalypse doesn’t come, he’ll get a beating at home. If it does, we’ll all have to stick close to him—forget about dinner.”

Bian Kuang finished his notes, raised an eyebrow. “Almost done. Let’s head inside. Who knows what will happen at midnight? Let’s wait and see.”

As the seconds ticked down, somewhere on Earth, in a room with the curtains tightly drawn, a computer glowed blue. A slender, elegant hand moved the mouse, habitually opening the email inbox—only to find a new message.

The owner of the hand was surprised, hesitated a moment, then clicked it open.

“Aheng, you must be surprised to get an email from me.”

The hand on the mouse trembled, as if in shock, then scrolled down eagerly.

“These past three years, you changed your number, your name, your identity—vanished from the world. This email seems to be our only connection. I’ve wanted to write to you so many times, but always held back. But this time, I know if I don’t write, it’ll be too late.

“What you’re about to read will shock you, maybe even make you laugh, or think I’m delusional. But everything I say is true. I wanted to tell the people around me, but I couldn’t. Call me cold or cruel, but if anyone let this slip, the consequences would be disastrous. But with you, I can’t and won’t hide it.

“Since I’m being so serious, if there’s anyone with you, please ask them to leave. And please keep the contents of this email strictly confidential.

“Remember that show we watched together? I was so scared, I told you if the world ever turned out like that, I’d rather end it all before things got that bad. But now I have to tell you—the world we live in really is about to become like that.”

******

Just got a message about a contract, so posting this chapter early to celebrate!

Since starting this story, the click rate has been better than my last two books~ (^_^)~ But why hasn’t anyone given me a recommendation vote?! Early stats are super important for new books, please vote for me, pretty please..."