The Messenger of the God of East Wind

Li Chuhang's diary came to an abrupt end there.

Although there were still some scattered entries afterward, they were all confessions about things from before his death and fear of dying.

He had probably written them in the last few days of his life to ease the pressure on his mind.

From the current situation, the city outside had once been shrouded in a cloud of radioactive dust, and Li Chuhang had starved to death here.

Before dying, he had tried to stave off his hunger with the cash here, but it had done him no good.

He was a pitiful man.

Shen Feng carefully reviewed the diary's contents once more before closing it.

According to the diary, the nuclear war had supposedly broken out because of the Crimea issue, causing Bear Country to launch a direct nuclear strike against Eagle Country.

In the end, the nuclear binding strategy of the world's nuclear powers had been triggered, setting off a global war of nuclear annihilation.

So-called nuclear binding was, in fact, a form of nuclear deterrence.

More specifically, the nuclear strike systems of several nuclear superpowers were not aimed at a particular enemy nation, but at the capitals and major cities of the world's principal countries.

The main reason for this was that almost no nation could survive the first wave of nuclear strikes intact. At the very least, it would be reduced to a complete third-rate nation.

To ensure that their own country would not fall into a disadvantageous position in the international order afterward, they had to inflict nuclear strikes of equal force upon other countries and drag everyone down to the same level.

Put bluntly, it was a mutual-destruction deterrence system built on a chain of suspicion.

No one knew whether the other side would truly drag them down into mutual destruction, but neither could they guarantee that the other side would not. So they might as well strike first and perish together.

Yet Shen Feng felt there was something wrong with the origin of the war described here.

He knew a little about the Crimea issue. It was not something that had arisen overnight, but a historical issue left over from hundreds or even thousands of years ago. Bear Country had been entangled in it for a long time; there was no reason for it to declare war on other great powers over this, much less launch a direct nuclear strike.

The reactions of the other nuclear powers had also been far too extreme. If this world's history resembled that of the Earth he came from, then by the time the nuclear war broke out, it should no longer have been the Cold War era.

After all, the diary did not use the term "Soviet Union," but Russia.

Real Doomsday Game had not issued a reward, which clearly meant it did not acknowledge this vague explanation either.

Looks like I'll have to find the answer in a settlement of ordinary people...

With that thought, he put the war diary into his backpack and walked outside.

Seeing Shen Feng leave, Firefly looked at the corpse in the vault and hurriedly asked, "Shen Feng, you... you don't want these treasures?"

Shen Feng's calm voice drifted back. "They're yours."

Firefly's eyes immediately lit up. She pounced straight toward Li Chuhang, first collecting the pen and the dust-covered glasses, then stripping off Li Chuhang's coat and shoes.

Seeing the underwear that had already stuck to his body, Firefly thought for a moment and did nothing further.

Then she shoved over a stack of banknotes and buried Li Chuhang beneath them, making a tiny grave.

She grabbed another handful of banknotes before leaving in satisfaction and catching up with Shen Feng.

As for the vault door, she closed it again.

She had carefully watched Shen Feng's movements when he opened the door and had already learned how to open it. She could slowly move the waste paper inside out later.

Although her hands were bound, she was remarkably nimble at these tasks. The way she looked at Shen Feng had also changed, from her initial vigilance and fear to a glittering golden gleam.

This boy who had suddenly appeared was practically her god of wealth.

After the two mounted their horses, they crossed the ruins of the city and headed in the direction Firefly had indicated.

According to her, they only needed to travel for one more day to reach Nameless Town.

That evening, they arrived before a crumbling stretch of highway.

Just as they were about to cross it, the Geiger counter hanging from Shen Feng suddenly began blaring an alarm!

Shen Feng frowned. Could there be another radiation zone ahead? Had Firefly lied to him?

Just as he was about to question Firefly, two dim yellow beams pierced the darkness, rumbling toward them along the distant road.

The Geiger counter's alarm grew louder and louder, rapidly climbing from over eighty to more than two hundred!

The enormous thing behind the twin beams swiftly reached them, streaking past them at tremendous speed.

Shen Feng's eyes widened as he stared at the monster charging out of the darkness, scarcely able to believe what he was seeing.

It was a tracked missile launcher. Its mottled army-green cab had two xenon headlights that looked like the eyes of a giant beast in the darkness.

On the beast's back rested an intercontinental missile one meter in diameter and over ten meters long!

The missile's body bore the striking designation: "DF-36."

What shocked Shen Feng most was that inside the missile launcher's cab sat a skeleton wearing a military uniform and helmet!

The former driver had died who knew how long ago, yet the missile launcher continued to travel across this land shrouded in nuclear radiation like a ghost.

As the missile launcher passed beside Shen Feng, the Geiger counter's alarm became shrill, once reaching a reading of 400.

When the tracked launcher moved away, the Geiger counter's alarm quickly weakened as well, finally fading along with the missile launcher's silhouette into the darkness...

Firefly, however, had already dismounted and fallen to her knees in the dust, muttering under her breath with a devout expression.

Only after the launcher had gone far away did Shen Feng ask, "What are you doing?"

Firefly climbed up excitedly, staring without blinking in the direction the missile launcher had gone. Her eyes were filled with reverence as she said, "We're so lucky! That was a messenger of the God of East Wind! Legend says that if you encounter a messenger of the God of East Wind, you must make a wish quickly. It's very effective! I just wished to the God of East Wind that this year's Rebirth Day would let me be reborn."

God of East Wind?

Rebirth Day?

Shen Feng gave the direction the missile launcher had vanished in a long look and said nothing.

Clearly, after the nuclear war, worship of the East Wind strategic missile had developed into a faith.

The people who were still alive had long forgotten what it actually was and regarded it as a god walking the world.

Time could change everything. Strategic nuclear missiles could be deified as well.

But why were missile launchers still operating now?

And it even looked as though it was maneuvering along an altered route to evade enemy reconnaissance.

Had its internal control units become intelligent?

Even if that were the case, how were these missile launchers maintained? How was their energy supply guaranteed?

Shen Feng suddenly regretted not enduring the nuclear radiation and taking a look inside the cab earlier.

After all, at 400 microsieverts, staying for a few minutes should not have been a problem.

Probably...

Fortunately, since there was a legend about the God of East Wind, the settlements of ordinary people should have more detailed information.

Everything could wait until they reached Nameless Town.

The night passed without incident. The next day, the two continued on their journey, and shortly before noon, they finally entered a small town filled with broken walls and ruins.

As they walked through the town's streets, ruined buildings lined both sides. Fortunately, there was no radiation.

Firefly said with a smile, "There, this is Nameless Town. It's the biggest town around here. Isn't it lively?"

Shen Feng looked at the dilapidated buildings and hollow doors and windows around him, then frowned.

There was no one.

Recommended reading: The Master Collector of Online Games. Interested readers can check it out.