Principles and Bottom Lines

53:01:56

Around four in the morning.

Liu Yuqiang sat in his chair, feeling that he was nearing the limit of what he could endure on his own.

He was now close to fifty, and his energy was far less abundant than it had been in his youth.

In his twenties and thirties, he could work nonstop for over thirty hours, but that had been when he was young.

Liu Yuqiang silently summoned his Personal Terminal, then held out his hand.

At his mental command, an unremarkable round Mint Candy appeared in his palm.

Liu Yuqiang had built himself up from nothing and carried plenty of heavy loads. He could hold a box weighing dozens of pounds steady in his hands.

But at this very moment, such a tiny Mint Candy, whose weight was practically negligible, made Liu Yuqiang's rough palm tremble uncontrollably.

He knew very well that it had been bought with a human life.

Only he knew how much it truly weighed.

Liu Yuqiang took a deep breath and put it into his mouth.

The Mint Candy melted as soon as it entered his mouth. In an instant, he felt incomparably alert.

The fatigue and drowsiness vanished completely at that moment! In their place came clarity, precision, and sharpness!

Joy flooded Liu Yuqiang's eyes before he could suppress it. He felt as if his mind had returned to the days when he was at his youngest and strongest!

"Good stuff, truly good stuff..."

Liu Yuqiang took out his phone and opened the Green Plum Association's private chat app. He wanted to see how the other members felt, whether they were the same as him.

Many members were sending messages in the group.

"Old Zhao, we have you to thank for the news!"

"Brother Zhao, your information saved the lives of more than a dozen people in my family. I truly don't know how I could ever repay you!"

"This Mint Candy is unbelievably effective! My mind has never been this clear before!"

"Yeah, I feel incredible after eating one!"

The members were all expressing their gratitude toward Zhao Jiping and marveling at the effects of the Sobering Mint Candy.

Without the information Zhao Jiping had provided, even a fortune worth tens of billions would have been utterly useless before the rules.

Liu Yuqiang saw that Zhao Jiping had also sent a new message.

"Friends, there's no need to be so formal. It's my honor to be able to help. I'll say it again: since these 'Sobering Mint Candies' can't be given to others, only the person who obtains one can use it. So you may tell your immediate family members about this. But only immediate family. It won't be good if too many people find out."

"Brother Zhao is right. If this secret gets out, order will collapse immediately. That won't be good for us."

"I just checked. Information about this secret has already been blocked online. The people at the top must have learned about it at First Time."

"That's for certain. But the people at the top also chose not to make it public because they have the same concerns as us. They're worried that order will fall apart."

"I think that aside from using them themselves, the people at the top will secretly pass the information to Public Security Bureaus around the country. As long as the Public Security Bureaus don't collapse, things won't descend into chaos everywhere."

"What do you think they plan to do about the candy?"

"Isn't that obvious?"

"Stop discussing other people. I think what we should be doing now is stockpiling more candy."

"To be safe, I've already gotten twenty. One every three hours, to make absolutely sure."

"I got more than a dozen too."

"There are a lot of people at my company. There are already thirty in the Storage Box."

Liu Yuqiang froze when he saw this message from "Firebird Finance Chairman—Yu Feiwei."

He immediately sent a message asking, "Director Yu, one can last three hours. Why did you get so many?"

The rules would only be in effect for seventy-two hours in total. Thirty Mint Candies were enough to keep someone awake for ninety hours, far more than necessary!

Yu Feiwei replied, "Yuqiang, you're still young. Your mind isn't flexible enough. These candies don't even have an expiration date. Once Rule Time is over, they can still be used to refresh the mind. Besides, who can guarantee there won't be similar Apocalypse Rules later that require us to stay awake? Better safe than sorry."

"Director Yu is right."

"As expected of someone in finance, Director Yu's mind works fast."

"I'll learn from Director Yu. I'm going to stock up too. Just as Director Yu said, better safe than sorry. Hehe."

"I envy you all. I'm at a villa in the suburbs right now. There aren't many residents around here, so it's Not Easy to get more candy."

Seeing these messages in the group, Liu Yuqiang suddenly felt nauseated.

That was right. He had preyed on others so that he himself could survive.

But he had only done so for necessary survival! Beyond what was necessary, he would not take any more from others.

Yet Yu Feiwei... and some of the people in the group seemed not to care at all, ignoring the fact that every piece of so-called "candy" had been bought with a human life.

Liu Yuqiang, who had been born poor and built himself up from nothing, felt a powerful sense of discomfort rise within him.

He hurriedly turned off his phone's screen. Looking at his reflection in the black display, he took deep, heavy breaths to calm himself.

After calming down, he began to think as well.

Should he follow their example and get more candy, just in case?

There were still quite a few people at his company. Those employees would not be wary of him, their chairman. As long as he was careful, he could easily...

"No..."

Liu Yuqiang shook his head.

"Other than what I need for survival, I won't get any more. That's right, I must set a bottom line for myself. Principles..."

Liu Yuqiang took out a notebook and recorded the resolve he had made at that moment.

The hand holding his pen even trembled slightly with fear...

Liu Yuqiang knew that he was afraid he would become like Yu Feiwei and the others, completely losing his respect for life...

Time passed.

48:00:00

Nine o'clock in the morning.

The first twenty-four hours had passed. Countless people online posted exactly on the hour to celebrate that they were still alive.

"Congratulations to me for still being alive!"

"The first twenty-four are over. Forty-eight left. Perseverance is victory!!!"

"As a sleep-deprivation expert, this is it? If my eyelids even droop, I'm not professional enough!"

"I've been grinding FPS games for a day and a night. I feel like I can keep fighting for another forty-eight hours! I'm just afraid I won't fall asleep by then, but instead wreck my wrists from exhaustion!"

But at the same time, many people posted that they were almost unable to hold on.

"You guys can really stay up. I feel like I'm about to give out..."

"Since yesterday, I've drunk an entire pot of green tea, and my eyelids are still fighting each other... I'm really worried I'll accidentally doze off and die!"

"There are still forty-eight hours... I can't do it anymore. I'm about to burn out..."

"Is this as far as I go? Everyone, I'm afraid I'll have to leave first... I can feel my bed calling to me, my pillow tempting me..."

Even more people were closely following global news and developments.

"Anyone from Heizei City? Last night, truckload after truckload of people were taken away. Who knows how many!"

"Every city probably has this situation..."

"How many of the world's ten billion people do you think are left now?"

"There's no way to count it right now..."

"Probably quite a lot are gone, especially the elderly. Don't let the online activity fool you—it's mostly Teenagers and adults who use the internet. Old people hardly use it, and they can't match young people's energy. How can they stay awake for seventy-two hours?"

"The commenter above is underestimating old people. My grandpa and grandma usually only sleep four or five hours a day. They can stay up far better than young people. The older people get, the less sleep they need."