A month later, in the apocalyptic world.
Sun Ping jolted awake from his sleep. A warm-toned bedside lamp, set to its lowest brightness, gave off a cozy, secure feeling. The immaculate white ceiling showed not a trace of discoloration, yet reflected no glare. For a moment, Sun Ping felt as though the apocalypse had been nothing more than a dream, and he was still a carefree middle school student—commuting rather than boarding, living at home with his parents.
Time passed quickly, seeming to roll from one year into the next. Yet it could also crawl unbearably slowly; whenever he could not focus on studying, every day felt like a year. His family discipline was strict. As for his phone, apart from the brief two-hour homework period after evening self-study, when he could use it to look up information, he had to hand it over to his mother at all other times.
Even so, over that long stretch of time, he had taught himself how to steal moments from the cracks of his day to secretly play on his phone.
Compared with the school routine that repeated day after day without the slightest spark of life, the vast world inside his phone was undoubtedly far more interesting and exciting.
Earlier still, back in middle school, he had liked reading on his phone. Watching the protagonists in those books battle Heaven and earth, slaughter gods and extinguish Buddhas, he had felt as if he himself were taking part, growing alongside them.
But by the time he was nearing the end of high school, he preferred watching short videos during those scattered scraps of time. As for books, he liked to devour them all in one go when he had enough time. Yet because of his studies, opportunities like that were rare outside