The Prelude to the Apocalypse Has Arrived!

In the blink of an eye, it was time for the senior year classes to end.

A fine drizzle fell from the sky.

Suzhou City was a southern city. Even on the coldest days, it usually only saw a light snowfall.

Snow was even rarer in the city proper.

At that moment, Su Ze stood at the school gate beneath an umbrella.

Looking up at the falling raindrops, he wondered whether he would still be able to see rain like this after the temperature plummeted on the second day of the apocalypse...

"Su Ze."

Chen Keqing's voice pulled Su Ze from his thoughts.

With her lips pursed, she emerged from the tide of students and slipped beneath Su Ze's umbrella...

Should I link arms with him...

It's a little embarrassing. I wonder how that woman yesterday managed to link arms with him so naturally...

Just as her inner voice suggested, Chen Keqing's pretty face was flushed with shy embarrassment.

She had clearly already placed herself in the role of his girlfriend...

But as someone experiencing love for the first time, she was obviously quite clumsy about it.

If she had been a girl with even a little experience, she would have grabbed Su Ze by now and made him acknowledge their relationship first.

Yet Chen Keqing had not even considered that...

She simply took it for granted that Su Ze probably liked her quite a bit too.

Wasn't that enough...

If Chen Keqing had really asked what their relationship was right now, Su Ze would have found it rather difficult to handle. After all, he was a scumbag who believed in "not initiating, not refusing"...

Just like now.

Even though he had overheard Chen Keqing's conflicted, bashful thoughts, he did not take the initiative. He merely held the umbrella, kept a proper distance between them, and casually chatted about unrelated things.

Before long, they got into the car. Chen Keqing fastened her seatbelt in the passenger seat...

Wow, this feels like when Mom and Dad used to pick me up after school...

Is this what being in love feels like? Hehe, I love it...

Eh, there seems to be a perfume scent. It feels like another girl sat in this seat before...

Being able to smell the lingering fragrance left in the air by a vixen seemed to be a woman's innate skill.

Fortunately, Su Ze had prepared for this.

"Qin Yushi came to see me and sat in your seat for a while." Su Ze started the car and smiled calmly. "She's the informant I told you about. If anything happens, she'll notify us in advance."

"Oh..." Chen Keqing blinked her clear eyes, not suspecting a thing.

"Is there anything you want to buy?" Su Ze changed the subject.

"Mm... I want to buy some snacks." After thinking about it, Chen Keqing answered honestly.

Su Ze had not expected Chen Keqing to suddenly think of buying snacks in bulk the day before the apocalypse arrived.

He could only indulge her wish and take her to his convenience store.

"Take whatever you want from the store."

"Really? Then I'm going!"

As though she had won the grand prize in a mall promotion, Chen Keqing's pretty face glowed with happiness as she grabbed a bag and went off to load up her spoils.

Meanwhile, Su Ze spoke with the store manager at the counter.

He had originally planned to close the store the day after tomorrow, but since he happened to be there now, Su Ze casually made up an excuse and told the manager not to open tomorrow, instead taking a few days off.

Not long after.

Chen Keqing carried several large bags of snacks and daily necessities and placed them in the back seat.

Since she had just moved, there were still things she had not fully stocked up on, so she picked out a few items she might need while she was there.

Since it was Su Ze's own store, she did not stand on ceremony.

Although they had moved into a new home, the atmosphere was much the same as last night.

Quite peaceful.

Chen Keqing leaned over the desk and worked on practice papers for a little while before Su Ze urged her to shower and go to sleep.

Is it finally happening...

Is he telling me to wash up and wait on the bed for his favor...

Huff—huff—don't get excited—I'd already decided yesterday that I have to refuse at least three times. Uh, twice, then. At least twice. Otherwise, what if he doesn't cherish me...

The girl's inner thoughts were as amusing as ever.

Unfortunately...

According to Su Ze's plan, she would not even get a single chance to refuse.

Of course, that plan was not going to be carried out now.

Time until the apocalypse: 23 hours 58 minutes

Apocalypse Simulator cooldown remaining: 5 hours 3 minutes

The time until Apocalypse's Arrival was drawing ever closer.

Su Ze was not exactly pressed for time, but neither did he have much to spare.

He had to continue constructing Avalon while the Simulator was on cooldown. Once the cooldown ended, he would immediately have to devote himself wholeheartedly to the Doomsday Simulation again...

During these final dozen or so hours.

He had to make full use of every moment.

Only after he had uncovered all the apocalypse intelligence he wanted and could obtain would he choose a simulation reward.

Then he would end version 1.0 of the Simulator and quietly await the apocalypse's true arrival.

In the blink of an eye.

It was nearly five in the morning.

The Simulator's cooldown was about to end.

Su Ze took a deep breath and pulled his attention away from Avalon.

He got up, went to the kitchen to pour himself a cup of hot water, then returned to sit at his desk.

The new home was somewhat more luxurious than where he had lived before.

This was already an upscale residential complex, and both the land and housing prices were far higher than before.

At that moment, the view from the new study was also different. Beyond the wider floor-to-ceiling windows, he could even make out traces of the tranquil night.

As he waited for the final moments of the cooldown, Su Ze casually unlocked his phone.

A news headline that caught his attention popped up in the built-in browser...

"Hmm?"

Su Ze let out a quiet sound of surprise, then opened the news article.

"An anomaly has already appeared on the other side of the planet..."

The contents of the news surprised Su Ze for several seconds.

The report was still rather vague. It only said that the moon over there seemed wrong, with both its color and size appearing unusual.

Perhaps many people who saw such news would only think the media was making things up again, but Su Ze knew this was likely what had been mentioned in the simulation text...

The Blood Moon hanging in the sky.

"So the apocalypse came early?"

That thought lingered in Su Ze's mind for only a fraction of a second.

Because he quickly realized that his preconceived notions had been shaped by humanity's understanding of time.

The apocalypse had not "arrived early." It was merely descending upon this world slowly, in the manner it was meant to...

In other words.

The apocalypse did not suddenly occur at a single instant, like a meteor crashing into Earth.

It unfolded gradually over a period of time...

Just as humanity used the time it took for the planet to complete one rotation to mark twenty-four hours in a day.

If humanity still had a future, it would use its existing concept of time to record that a certain day in a certain month of a certain year was the first day of the Apocalypse Era.

But in truth, even before that day, the apocalypse had already performed its terrifying prelude in this world...

The Apocalypse Simulator had clearly appeared in Su Ze's sight precisely at midnight a few days ago based on this same concept...

Simulator cooldown has ended...

Text from the Simulator flickered in his field of vision.

Su Ze withdrew his gaze from his phone, a smile appearing on his face.

"The apocalypse is here, but fortunately, I have the Simulator."

Doomsday Simulation has begun...

Please choose one of the following three talents as this simulation's innate talent!