Past

Summer of 2019, a residential complex in a certain county, city, and province.

The complex was built at the beginning of the twenty-first century; by today's standards, its design and planning left much to be desired.

As night fell, Lin Chenxing dragged his exhausted body back home.

Standing before his front door, he glanced at the entrance of the neighboring villa, his lips curling slightly as his eyes betrayed a mix of helplessness and annoyance.

"The way these wires are strung is getting ridiculous. They used to at least use clips, but now they're just dangling there. Whatever, let it be. If the wires cause trouble later, it's none of my business anyway."

Lin Chenxing muttered to himself, complaining about the neighbor's habits.

It was true, though; the neighboring villa was adorned with a massive array of lanterns, surveillance cameras, and light strips, plus an electric bike shed. Naturally, more and more wires had been strung up, making the whole setup look increasingly chaotic.

After entering his home, Lin Chenxing habitually turned on the air conditioner, opened the fridge, grabbed a bottle of soda, and slumped into a chair.

Gulp, gulp.

The bottle of soda was already bottoming out.

"Ah~, this is the life."

"I'll go to bed early tonight. I didn't sleep well last night; I'm exhausted."

Lin Chenxing squinted his eyes, starting to hiccup.

Suddenly, a series of crackling sounds erupted from outside.

"Is someone setting off firecrackers at this hour?" Lin Chenxing looked out the window in confusion, then his eyes widened abruptly, and he couldn't help but blurt out, "Holy crap!"

After the initial shock, he watched the fire grow larger. Neighbors began to emerge from their homes, gathering to watch.

A few people realized what was happening and started shouting, "Fire! Help put it out!"

"Anyone with a fire extinguisher, bring it over!"

Lin Chenxing finally snapped to his senses. He rushed to where he kept his fire extinguisher, shouldered it, and sprinted toward the burning shed next door.

By now, the fire had spread from the grass beside the shed toward the house itself.

The surrounding residents, some with buckets and others with extinguishers, began to fight the blaze.

As the fire gradually weakened, everyone began to breathe a sigh of relief.

Lin Chenxing also used his extinguisher to put out the last of the flames inside the shed.

Looking at the scorched remains, Lin Chenxing wiped the sweat from his forehead, preparing to relax for a moment.

"Young man, run! It's dangerous!"

He saw an elderly man with a panicked expression, waving frantically at another young man.

Lin Chenxing looked confused, slowly tilting his head to look at where the young man was sitting.

As it turned out, the wires tangled above the shed were directly over the young man's head. The wires had been burned through, detaching from their clips, and were about to plummet down while the young man sat on the ground resting.

But the warning came a second too late; the young man had no time to stand up and run.

While he was still hesitating, wondering what was happening, one end of the wire lost its support entirely and plummeted downward at high speed.

Lin Chenxing's brain hadn't even processed the situation, but his body had already instinctively lunged toward the young man. He shoved him hard, saving him, but for Lin Chenxing himself, it was already too late.

In another world, in June 1992, a new life was born in Xinan County, Su Province.

From his first babbling words to the end of kindergarten, this new life showed nothing out of the ordinary.

But everything changed the moment he entered elementary school.

Memories of Lin Chenxing gradually began to emerge in his mind, bit by bit.

Through constant observation, he discovered that this world was not much different from his original one, save for a few subtle discrepancies in historical figures and events—different names, or the rearranged order of minor incidents.

Since he had transmigrated into a similar world, it would be a waste not to utilize the memories slowly resurfacing from his past life.

In 2010, Lin Chenxing graduated from high school and enrolled in Jiangzhe University, one of the top-ranked universities in the country.

At university, he successfully joined the student council and began making contact with high-level corporate executives, leveraging his past experience and knowledge to establish partnerships with several company heads.

In mid-2011, under the leadership of a major boss from a chemical company, several enterprises collaborating with Lin Chenxing were integrated. The new company was named Xingyan Chemical, taking the "Xing" from Lin Chenxing and the "Yan" from the major shareholder, Chen Yanbing.

By mid-2012, the company's annual profit successfully exceeded five billion, and they began planning to build a group.

At the end of 2012, the group was established, and the protagonist became a shareholder.

Under the guidance of the group's other shareholders, Lin Chenxing began to focus on physical fitness and wellness, even following one of the shareholders to visit martial arts masters across the country to begin learning various styles of boxing and spear techniques.

In 2013, the R Virus broke out.

Lin Chenxing began to renovate and adjust multiple company bases, installing integrated entry inspection and disinfection equipment and strictly controlling personnel movement to prevent the R Virus from spreading on a large scale within the company.

It was precisely because of this move that Xingyan Group advanced rather than retreated during this disaster.

In mid-2013, the group formed a joint venture with a pharmaceutical company, beginning its foray into the medical industry.

In 2014, thanks to his outstanding performance, Lin Chenxing was admitted to graduate school at Jiangzhe University without an entrance exam, beginning to build a bridge of cooperation between the group and the university's research institutes.

However, 2015 was destined to be the beginning of the most painful era for all humanity on Blue Star.

In just three months, everyone witnessed the arrival of the Grim Reaper.

The emergence of the RR Virus made people realize that the disaster was far from over.

The sight of one person after another falling around them felt like the coming of the apocalypse, a doomsday that left people feeling utterly powerless to resist.

Because the group had installed integrated inspection and disinfection equipment at all base entrances and established medical infirmaries, employees were sent for treatment immediately upon infection, keeping the mortality rate to a minimum.

However, this minimum was only relative, for against a global mortality rate of nearly thirty percent, the group's rate remained under twenty percent.

Just as people were nearing despair, the tolling bell of death seemed to come to an abrupt halt.

At this moment, everyone was astonished to discover that their physical fitness had improved significantly.

Their bodies had become stronger; the strength, speed, cell activity, and skin resilience of almost every individual had more than doubled! Even an ordinary person could easily shatter the previous world records for weightlifting and the hundred-meter dash.

All of this sent shockwaves throughout the entire world.

Fortunately, human reaction speed still struggled to surpass the velocity of a bullet, and after various regions employed certain measures, stability gradually returned across the globe.

A world of prosperity following the disaster, a world waiting to be rebuilt from the ruins, a world where all markets and orders awaited restructuring, seemed to appear before everyone's eyes.

After months of restructuring the world order, everything was extremely peaceful and stable, and everything had become remarkably harmonious and orderly.

Until that day, when everything began to change.

Incidents of pets attacking people began to appear in certain regions.