How? Was I the Only One Who Hadn't Regressed?

In an instant.

Chu Yunyi remembered what his roommate had said—the apocalypse, the Gluttony Virus.

Damn it. This kind of clichéd plot had actually happened to him.

What was he supposed to do?

Grab a table leg and fight the restaurant owner? Or run home along the path?

In that instant, Chu Yunyi thought of many things, but before he could do anything, the restaurant owner made the first move.

The owner crossed the distance in a flash, turning three steps into two, and appeared right in front of Chu Yunyi.

The owner abruptly raised his hand and spoke.

"A four-yuan bowl of mutton soup, and you expect to find a gold tooth instead of a fingernail? Heh-heh-heh!" he trilled.

Hearing the owner's teasing, Chu Yunyi froze.

As soon as he finished speaking.

The owner's wife emerged from the kitchen holding nail clippers. "Sorry, kiddo. We won't charge you for this meal, and we'll throw in half a roasted lamb leg."

After hearing that, Chu Yunyi silently sat back down.

Damn, false alarm.

He felt like Cao Cao, who had deducted food from someone's bowl only to painstakingly put it back piece by piece—full of pent-up frustration with nowhere to vent it.

That was Heitu Town for you: absurd.

Chu Yunyi's own level of absurdity could only rank in the lower-middle tier in Heitu Town.

Why had this dog meat restaurant become a mutton restaurant?

Wasn't it because the old owner of the dog meat restaurant had killed someone, minced the body bit by bit into stuffing, and fed it to the dogs?

In the end, he had still been caught.

Because there was an old man in Heitu Town who loved feeding other people's dogs right in front of his own dog.

When the old man got to the dog meat restaurant, he saw that big black dog, which usually took huge yellow dumps, suddenly come down with diarrhea.

There were bone fragments and hair mixed into it, so the old man called the police on the spot.

But if you asked Chu Yunyi.

The one who should have called the police was that dog.

It chewed human bones every day until its stomach was ruined, then got eaten for meat after shitting itself half to death. Where was the justice in that...?

Mutton soup with mutton shumai, plus a roasted lamb leg.

Extra cilantro, and plenty of bright red chili oil.

Starving all day, Chu Yunyi wolfed it down in a few bites. Just as he was about to pay the bill.

Someone else suddenly entered the restaurant.

The man's cheeks were a little puffy, and one glance was enough to tell that he was not in good shape mentally.

He looked like the sort of person who regularly stayed up until two or three in the morning and never exercised.

The moment he sat down, he immediately shouted.

"Bring me one of everything you have!"

"I'm hungry! So hungry!"

The owner was clearly used to this sort of thing and immediately brought over a steamer basket of mutton shumai.

The owner's wife had finished clipping the nail and was still busy in the kitchen.

Chu Yunyi watched him for a few more moments as he waited to pay.

But then.

This man quickly left both Chu Yunyi and the owner staring in shock.

He saw it.

The man did not even use chopsticks. He grabbed a piping-hot mutton shumai and shoved it directly into his mouth.

You had to understand.

The shumai here were different from those in the south. They were filled with mutton rather than glutinous rice, large and scalding hot with juice. Even a young man like Chu Yunyi had to eat one in three bites.

But this man looked like a starving ghost reborn.

As if he were sucking down jelly, he swallowed one whole without even chewing, and it vanished into his stomach in an instant.

Both his hands flew about. He could grab three mutton shumai in one hand and toss them straight into his mouth.

The sight left both the owner and Chu Yunyi stunned, and they completely forgot about settling the bill.

"Good lord. I've seen people who can eat, but never anyone who eats like that."

"Slow down. No one's taking it from you."

"Eat slowly. Dip them in vinegar. Don't burn your esophagus," the owner kindly reminded him after swallowing nervously.

The man seemed not to hear him at all. He grabbed handful after handful of mutton shumai and emptied the entire steamer basket.

"More! I'm still hungry!" the man shouted.

Chu Yunyi looked at him. His hands and mouth were covered in grease, but he seemed completely unconcerned.

Right after that.

The owner brought over four huge bowls of lamb offal soup, three stacks of fried flatbread, and three more steamer baskets of shumai.

Without exception, the man devoured all of it at lightning speed.

If all that food had been put into a basin, the basin would have bulged.

Yet when Chu Yunyi looked at the man's stomach, it had nearly flattened again after only a few breaths.

If not for the grease on the man's hands and mouth growing ever filthier, Chu Yunyi would not have believed he had eaten so much.

"Good lord..." the owner marveled.

At that moment, Chu Yunyi came back to himself and asked the owner how much he owed.

He scanned the QR code, paid, and left.

He had no interest in watching any longer.

At first, he had thought the man was just a competitive eater. But if he kept watching, something would start to feel wrong.

The man kept shouting that he was hungry, yet the hunger in his eyes did not diminish in the slightest.

Those were not the eyes of a hunter, like a cheetah or tiger.

They were more like...

A goat's—rectangular pupils, obsessed only with eating grass, utterly unmoved even when its companions were being preyed upon.

After returning home.

Chu Yunyi immediately locked the door from the inside.

It was not that he was particularly cautious. The main issue was that the door was old.

At first, it had merely creaked. Opening or closing it made a constant squeaking sound. Then Chu Yunyi bought a can of WD40 and sprayed half of it into the crack around the door.

After that.

The door stopped making strange noises and became smooth as hell.

It was just that whenever the wind blew, the door tended to open by itself...

After plugging in his phone to charge, Chu Yunyi lay on the bed and sorted through his thoughts.

His occupational habit as a professional writer had kicked in again.

If the apocalypse really broke out, what could he do?

First.

The usual novel formula was to take out loans, stockpile supplies, and seize the initiative after regressing.

But.

Chu Yunyi opened Huabei.

And took a look.

A whopping credit limit of four hundred yuan. It was practically enough to last him the rest of his life! If he died tomorrow, that was...

As for stockpiling supplies, did the twelve packs of black pepper chicken breast in his drawer count?

He had bought that chicken breast a year ago when he had wanted to start working out.

Although he had kept up the exercise a little, he had never touched the chicken breast again. Aside from not literally being shit, the stuff was basically shit.

As for regressing...

At that moment, Chu Yunyi heard movement from upstairs.

"Dad, Mom! Thank you for believing me!"

"In my previous life, I was kind-hearted, only to be killed by the neighbor I helped!"

"In this life, I'll make that bitch Liu Ruyan regret it! I'll take you with me and survive until the end!"

Hearing the speech from upstairs, Chu Yunyi frowned, clicked his tongue, swallowed, and grimaced so hard his whole face twisted.

Good lord.

So everyone had regressed, and he was the only one being left out?!

Suddenly.

Whether because the person upstairs was shouting too loudly or because something had been drawn in by his grand "thirty years east of the river, thirty years west of the river" aura.

Boom!

Bang!

Violent pounding suddenly erupted against the door upstairs, each blow fiercer than the last.

"Fuck, are you demolishing the building?!" the neighbor next door upstairs opened their door and cursed, only for the words to be swiftly replaced by screams.

"What are you doing? What are you doing?! Aah! Aahhh!!!"

What followed.

Was the sound of crisp bones being chewed.

"Crunch..."

"Crunch..."

A faint smell of rust spread through the entire building.

Only then did Chu Yunyi realize.

The so-called apocalypse.

Had truly arrived.