After the Great Fog, Contamination Zones Upgrade!

On the twenty-seventh day, you asked Chen Keqing again whether she wanted to become an Awakened. She refused and said she wanted to cling to your thigh until she died...

On the twenty-eighth day, you asked Chen Keqing again whether she wanted to become an Awakened. She thought you had grown tired of her and were deliberately sending her to her death, so she broke down in tears...

You coaxed her for quite a while and promised to prepare an unimaginable birthday gift for her.

On the twenty-ninth day, you explained to Chen Keqing that you had asked whether she wanted to become an Awakened because you had mastered a method with a one hundred percent success rate. She did not quite believe you...

You roughly drove Chen Keqing and used Healing Energy on her. Now, she believed you a little more than before.

On the thirtieth day, you filmed a short video on your phone. In it, you watched over a passerby having a nightmare and undergoing a trial. The person failed the Nightmare Trial, but you treated them in time and saved their life...

You showed the video to Chen Keqing, but unexpectedly, her attention was focused on why your phone still had power.

On the thirty-first day, you brought Chen Keqing into contact with a Pollution Source.

On the thirty-second day, with the intelligence you provided, Chen Keqing became an Awakened without any real danger.

It really worked...

It seemed that the version of himself in the simulation had already found the true trick.

Unfortunately, the simulation did not explain it in detail.

He wondered whether later simulation content would reveal related information.

In any case, there was no rush. He had plenty of simulation time left.

On the thirty-third day, you spent the entire day in bed with Chen Keqing. Chen Keqing asked for her birthday gift in advance, but you refused and continued to keep it a mystery.

On the thirty-fourth day, a conflict broke out between Awakened within the Safe Zone. You stepped in to stop it and calmed the dispute. One of the administrators you had selected suggested reshaping the order within the Safe Zone...

On the thirty-fifth day, you killed more than a dozen outside Awakened. Your record struck fear into people's hearts.

On the thirty-eighth day, Chen Keqing's birthday, you gave her the birthday gift she had been longing for—you showed her Avalon and introduced the room you had designed for her...

She was so happy that she fainted. You gave her artificial respiration, and then you slept together.

He had finally taken it out...

If he had not, Su Ze himself would have started to wonder whether something had gone wrong.

Whether he had accidentally caused Avalon to collapse during its creation.

That was why the simulation had not mentioned Avalon at all during the first thirty-odd days.

Fortunately, he was not that unlucky.

When the time came to bring it out, he still brought it out.

As for why he had held back for so long before revealing Avalon?

The explanation Su Ze could think of was...

It was like the famines of ancient times. The imperial court did not actually lack grain, yet it deliberately stood by and watched disaster victims die. Only after many victims had died would it open the granaries, distribute food, and begin saving people...

Of course, the imperial court could have opened the granaries earlier.

But if it distributed grain too soon, the disaster victims who had not truly experienced the horror of famine might not feel grateful to the court at all.

Some might even blame the court for responding too late.

But if it waited until many disaster victims had died before distributing grain to save lives, then every survivor would kneel and kowtow in gratitude to the court...

The same principle applied.

If Su Ze had revealed Avalon to Chen Keqing on the first day of the apocalypse,

Chen Keqing might not have been so excited and happy afterward.

It had to be said...

That was pretty calculating.

But it was indeed something Su Ze would do.

On the fortieth day, you accepted some people's suggestions and reshaped the order of the Safe Zone. You gave Awakened relatively higher status. They could receive more supplies, but they had to remain ready for deployment at all times...

Other than that, you maintained the original social rules. There were almost no voices of opposition within the Safe Zone.

→

On the forty-first day, order within the Safe Zone was good.

On the forty-second day,...

On the fifty-first day, because your Safe Zone was well ordered, more people relocated from several nearby Safe Zones, as the Safe Zones they had originally been in were poorly managed.

On the fifty-second day, you killed more than a dozen Awakened again, completely eliminating several potential threats.

On the fifty-third day, your Safe Zone was managed in perfect order, but the shortage of supplies remained a problem that had to be considered...

Chen Keqing secretly asked you why you did not take food from Avalon. You simply answered that you were a bad guy who liked watching others suffer. Chen Keqing had been led astray by you and spent the entire day outside watching others suffer.

On the fifty-fourth day,...

On the fifty-seventh day, the Awakened under your command entered a Contamination Zone in search of supplies, only to be attacked by monsters in the Contamination Zone. They suffered devastating casualties.

The simulation progressed steadily.

The entire Safe Zone seemed to have become something in the palm of his hand...

"Even Awakened can't come and go freely in the Contamination Zones, although they no longer need to worry about the Nightmare Trial..."

At the desk, Su Ze rested his chin on one hand and tapped the tabletop with the index finger of his right hand, deep in thought.

Awakened could naturally act more freely than ordinary people.

After all, they no longer had to worry about dying in their dreams.

But the dangers within Contamination Zones were not something Awakened could ignore.

For example, the mutated animals that had appeared in the simulation before.

Some of those monsters could bite through the front end of a car in a single bite.

Ordinary Awakened, armed with normal weapons, had no way of dealing with such monsters.

There were also invisible threats, such as red-eye disease.

One wrong move and they could be infected. It was even harder to guard against than the flu.

"Although there are threats, they aren't as fatal as before..."

"So, is the end point of this apocalypse for everyone to evolve, become Awakened, and then enter a new era of civilization?"

This thought surfaced in Su Ze's mind.

But the simulation soon told him...

This was only the beginning of the apocalypse.

On the sixty-first day, there was a Great Fog, but nothing happened.

On the sixty-second day, you heard that changes had occurred in the Contamination Zones. The threats that had existed within them had taken on a different form. You sensed that the danger seemed to have escalated, but you did not know what had happened...

On the sixty-second day, the talent Father God's Listening took effect. Now, you knew what had happened...

The Contamination Zones seemed to have all upgraded overnight. Every Contamination Zone had become more deadly than before.

On the sixty-third day, the routes for obtaining food were blocked by monsters. You had no choice but to personally lead a team and barely bring back supplies...

On the sixty-fourth day, the other Awakened struggled to act, and you had no choice but to become busy...

Chen Keqing was unwilling to stay inside Avalon and acted alongside you. You knew Avalon's strength. If you truly encountered deadly danger, both you and she could hide inside. So long as you did not open the door, no one could enter Avalon—not even the monsters of the Contamination Zones.

The Contamination Zones could actually upgrade!

This information surprised Su Ze somewhat.

According to the previous intelligence, as long as the Pollution Source was not destroyed, a Contamination Zone would not change.

But now, every Contamination Zone had suddenly upgraded, becoming even more threatening...

All he could say was...

Fortunately.

He had Avalon.

And judging from the simulation's description, Avalon truly was the top-tier Safe House he had wanted. It could completely isolate outside threats...

If things really pushed him too far, he could take Chen Keqing inside and hide there. They could simply never come out, even if they died of old age inside.