Light and Fire

"Phew... phew..."

Shen Feng leaned against the tiger's corpse, gasping for breath, gripping the shotgun tightly in his hand with several rounds of ammunition still in his pocket.

He had reloaded the gun's magazine, and after carefully familiarizing himself with its structure, he had mastered a series of skills such as loading it and releasing the safety.

Only by gripping this gun tightly could he feel safe now.

After resting for a while longer, his taut nerves relaxed slightly, and strength gradually returned to his aching legs. Shen Feng stood up, shut the door, raised the heavy shotgun, and began exploring the police station.

A colony of bats had already taken up residence in the gloomy building. Startled by the gunshots earlier, they flew in and out.

Other than that, there were insects and the like, but no large animals.

After all, this was the tiger's territory, and it naturally intimidated other animals.

There were still quite a few stone statues in uniform inside the building. Shen Feng went around them and found the police armory on the basement level.

The armory door was tightly locked, but with the shotgun, it was naturally no obstacle to Shen Feng.

Shen Feng pressed the muzzle against the lock and blasted the door open with a single shot. The sight inside the storeroom made his eyes light up.

Before Stone Statue Disease had fully erupted, the world had clearly already been in chaos, so the police had increased their firepower as well.

Rows of pistols and submachine guns hung from weapon racks, alongside crates of ammunition and even grenades.

The entire armory contained thirty or forty pistols, five submachine guns, two shotguns, five grenades, as well as several tear gas launchers and net guns.

There were also quite a few bulletproof vests, riot shields, batons, and other equipment.

As he entered the armory and ran his hand over the guns and ammunition, Shen Feng felt a profound sense of security rise within him.

With these powerful weapons, he was the king of beasts in this urban jungle!

Before the fruits of human civilization, no beast stood much of a chance.

At that moment, he could not help feeling grateful for the shooting games he had played and the gunfight movies he had watched.

It was only with the experience he had gained from those works of fiction that he could barely use these weapons.

After some simple trial runs, Shen Feng quickly got the hang of them. Then he put on a police stab-resistant vest and a backpack and began arming himself.

Two police pistols, one submachine gun, one shotgun, four grenades hanging from his waist, plus a huge supply of ammunition—he stuffed himself to the brim.

Besides food and daily necessities, his backpack was also filled with plenty of ammunition.

After the tiger's sudden attack earlier, he had developed an obsession with firepower.

All of it together weighed dozens of pounds, making it difficult for Shen Feng even to walk.

But he did not remove any of it.

In the days ahead, he would likely need to remain armed at all times, so he had to get used to it as quickly as possible.

Once he had equipped himself with weapons and ammunition, Shen Feng went to the huge floor-to-ceiling window in the second-floor lobby. He set up a pot he had found in the police station kitchen, piled firewood beneath it, and began cooking.

He took out a can of braised pork that had expired but had not yet swollen, along with two bags of dehydrated vegetables, tossed them into the pot, and began making soup.

Shen Feng also cut off half of the remaining venison, tore it into chunks, and threw it in.

The aroma of meat soup soon spread through the air. Shen Feng pulled out a palm-sized compressed biscuit from his bag, smashed it with the gunstock, and tossed it into the pot bit by bit.

The ladle was enormous, probably meant for cooking large pots of food, but Shen Feng could not worry about that. He slowly stirred the contents of the pot.

The compressed biscuit, which had existed for who knew how many years, gradually dissolved and broke apart in the boiling water, turning the pot into porridge.

The aged canned meat and the fresh roasted venison blended together, giving off an enticing aroma.

The dehydrated vegetables, which had nearly dried into powder, came back to life after soaking in hot water. They swelled and floated to the surface in a riot of colors, making the dish rather complete in color, aroma, and flavor.

Although the ingredients did not seem to have any problems from their smell, Shen Feng cooked them a while longer just to be safe.

Only when the food in the pot had turned into a thick porridge did Shen Feng take it off the fire and place it before the floor-to-ceiling window.

He then sat cross-legged on the floor, placed two guns beside him, took the ladle in hand, and faced the view outside as he scooped up a spoonful of meat porridge, blew on it twice, and began eating.

"Slurp..." Shen Feng took a mouthful of the meat porridge. It tasted all right, rich and fragrant, with a texture somewhat like preserved egg and lean pork congee.

It was not especially delicious, but it was warm, salty, and fragrant. In this environment, it was quite good.

Shen Feng sighed in satisfaction. The nerves that had been strained all this time finally relaxed completely.

It was already evening. The setting sun was blood-red, and golden-red clouds filled the sky. Seen through the floor-to-ceiling window, the entire urban jungle seemed coated in a dreamlike layer of gold and crimson.

The stone statues in the courtyards and streets seemed to have come alive at that moment, as though the entire dead city had come alive with them.

He still felt as though he were in a dream, unable to shake the sense that none of this was real.

At this time yesterday, he had just gotten out of class and was preparing to work at a barbecue stall. Yet today, he had somehow arrived in this post-apocalyptic world where Stone Statue Disease had erupted, sitting in a dilapidated building and eating porridge made from compressed biscuits and expired canned meat.

Thinking carefully, this world also used Chinese characters, and its level of social development was almost identical to Earth's. Even the newspapers referred to it as Earth.

Then this was not another world in the same universe, but Earth in a parallel universe—an Earth that had experienced an apocalypse!

Who had developed Real Doomsday Game?

Why had it chosen him as a player?

And what did these missions represent?

Most importantly, could he even return home?

Where exactly was he supposed to look for the mission targets?

Shen Feng's mind was shrouded in fog. According to the game's description of Stone Statue Disease, he should have been infected from the very first minute he entered this world.

And when he looked over the five missions the game had given him, nearly all of them were related to research on Stone Statue Disease.

That meant he should be heading to this world's core research institution for Stone Statue Disease.

His mission targets had to be there.

To find out where the core research institution was, he would need to look through all kinds of information and records from when the Stone Statue Disease apocalypse had arrived.

No...

A flash of inspiration struck Shen Feng. He suddenly remembered a headline from the newspaper he had seen at the newsstand earlier:

"...According to Professor Chen of the National Academy of Sciences, the latest vaccine is about to be completed..."

The National Academy of Sciences!

Should that be his destination?

Unfortunately, there was no electricity left in this world. Otherwise, he could have used surviving computers to look up information and learn more about Stone Statue Disease.

The sky darkened completely as night fell, and the entire urban jungle swiftly sank into darkness like a black domain of death.

Everything was silent, making every sound exceptionally clear.

Shen Feng added several sticks of firewood to the pile behind him, turned to look outside, and suddenly froze.

In the darkness far away, a light had appeared in a window near the top of a high-rise building!

Could there still be survivors!?

Had someone escaped Stone Statue Disease!?

Just then, a burst of footsteps came from the darkness outside. They were hurried and heavy, sounding deeply strange.

A black shadow darted in from beyond the courtyard and arrived beneath the building, seeming to look up at Shen Feng.

Shen Feng shot to his feet, grabbed a burning stick of firewood, and threw it down from the window.

The blazing firelight revealed a humanoid creature moving on all fours.

Red muscles and blood vessels were exposed in a chaotic tangle, like an anatomical diagram of human muscle tissue from biology class.

On its blood-red, skinless face, its exposed eyeballs stared fixedly at Shen Feng!

It seemed to be smiling!

Shen Feng raised the shotgun.