RR

Shushi, Jinjiang Riverside Villa Area.

"You're dropping out?!"

In the loft, the young woman's surprised voice instinctively rose sharply.

Ruan Qingzhu wore an astonished expression, her pair of almond-shaped eyes widened to the limit, looking at the youth opposite her in absolute disbelief.

"Not dropping out, taking a temporary leave of absence."

Wu Ming shook his head slightly, pointing out the error in the girl's words.

"What's the difference??" Ruan Qingzhu slapped the desk before her hard, causing the pens in the pen holder to scatter with a rattle.

A trace of unusual color flashed through Wu Ming's eyes. Having known her for over a decade, it was his first time seeing Ruan Qingzhu so excited.

Yet it was understandable, considering he had made his words "slightly" too radical today.

A moment later, Ruan Qingzhu calmed down slightly, yet still looked at Wu Ming huffily—which normal person would run over on the very last day of the holiday to tell her he was no longer going to school, and she shouldn't go either.

Yes, Wu Ming was not only preparing to take a leave of absence himself, he had also specifically run over to persuade her to do the same.

"Are you crazy, do you know what will happen once the school finds out about this?"

"We're already in our final year of senior high!"

Ruan Qingzhu said indignantly, "In another half a year is the college entrance examination, and at a time like this, the top two students in the whole school suddenly announce they're quitting school. What do you think the teachers will think, and what will the school leaders do?"

"Of course I know." Wu Ming's expression remained calm, offering no further explanation as he simply tapped his phone screen twice and handed it over.

"Take a look first."

"What?" Ruan Qingzhu started slightly, instinctively taking the phone, only to see a few lines of bold, black characters flashing across the screen—

[Shocking! America's epidemic outbreaks again, infected numbers exceed ten thousand, 1173 people already dead!]

[The most terrifying variant of the R virus! The Global Epidemic Prevention Department has named it—RR!]

[The RR virus strikes, where shall humanity go from here?]

Swiping the screen, there was also a repeatedly forwarded video below.

In the frames, the hallway of a hospital in New York was lined with stretchers covered in white cloths. The camera flashed past, yet the quantity was enough to make one's scalp tingle.

"The RR virus?!" Looking at the tragic scene in the video, Ruan Qingzhu's complexion turned slightly pale, "The mortality rate actually exceeds 10%!"

"I'm afraid it's more than that." Wu Ming gave a bitter chuckle, "You know the Americans' nature, they only expose things when they can no longer suppress the news, and data shrinking is also a common occurrence."

"You mean, this variant's lethality is even higher?" Ruan Qingzhu's voice was somewhat dry, this news recalling some unpleasant memories for her.

"I guess this data probably has to be doubled."

Wu Ming did not dare report too high, yet reality was often even more exaggerated.

Because this was the RR virus!

According to the original description, this virus caused the global population to plummet by two billion within three months, with a mortality rate as high as 30%!

Yet even the current conservative data frightened Ruan Qingzhu.

"Auntie works at the municipal Epidemic Prevention Division, right? What does she say over there?" The girl's expression was exceptionally solemn.

Wu Ming did not answer the question directly, instead saying, "Do you think I would run over to warn you without accurate news?"

"..." Ruan Qingzhu fell silent. She knew that facing such a serious event, her childhood sweetheart could not possibly make this kind of joke.

"Although the strain is currently still confined to America, there's no guarantee when it will cross the ocean. Think about what the epidemic was like the past couple of years."

Wu Ming sighed, "For the period ahead, the risks of attending school are too high. We must avoid going to any crowded places."

"Anyway, the senior high curriculum is nothing more than review and doing problems. Even if we do these at home, it's better to wait and observe the situation for now."

Ruan Qingzhu was somewhat moved, but still said, "I have to tell my dad and mom."

"That's only natural." Wu Ming nodded, "It's best to have Uncle Ruan, Aunt Miao, and the others take precautions too. Money lost can be earned back, but life only happens once."

"Think it over carefully, I'm heading back first."

"...Mn."

Leaving the scenic villa area, Wu Ming let out a soft sigh, muttering inwardly, How am I so unlucky to have transmigrated right into the RR virus era!

Today was January 3, 2015, the second day of the RR virus outbreak.

Heaven knew what his expression had been like when he just saw the news.

Wu Ming just wanted to curse loudly right now; transmigration couldn't even pick a better time.

The Grand Nirvana was one thing, but it had to be right before the virus outbreak, tricking him into always thinking he had merely transmigrated to Earth in a parallel universe!

That's right, Wu Ming was a transmigrator, or rather, he had reincarnated into this world, growing from infancy to the present.

At first, he thought he had simply transmigrated to a parallel world. After all, this place was also called Earth, and it also had the five major nations, the Huaxia civilization, and so on.

Even when the R virus broke out worldwide in 2013, because the mortality rate was not prominent, Wu Ming did not think much of it, assuming it was just an epidemic era similar to the 2020 of his past life.

It was only this morning, when he spotted the words "RR virus" in the news headlines, that he realized he had actually arrived in the world of Swallowed Star.

Then Wu Ming was dumbfounded.

A 30% mortality rate, what could possibly resist that?

Could he really bet his life that he would definitely not die?

Sigh, I just hope my golden finger can hold up. Wu Ming's thoughts shifted slightly, and an illusory screen that only he could see suddenly appeared.

Yes, he also possessed a golden finger, an equipment bar that had followed him in his transmigrations into this world.

As the name suggested, he could place items into the equipment bar to "equip" them just like a game character, and once equipped, they would not affect real-world items at all.

Unlike games, however, these pieces of equipment did not provide stats; instead, based on their nature, they granted him varying degrees of talents.

Take the equipment he had currently equipped, for example—

[Equipment Slot One: Steel Pen]
[Talent 1: Hidden Weapon Genius, throwing-type talent +110%]
[Talent 2: Study Hard, learning talent +50%]
[Talent 3: Strive Upward, memory improvement 50%]

These were all the attributes of this piece of equipment.

It was worth noting that this "steel pen" was not an ordinary pen; it was forged from solid pure steel and could not be used for writing.

This brought up the special requirement of the equipment bar: not just any item could be placed inside; it had to conform to the concept of "equipment."

If it was a weapon, it truly had to be capable of attacking, and its lethality had to be noticeably a cut above bare hands.

A snapped pencil wouldn't do, and a sharpened bamboo stick wouldn't do either; it had to be at least a metal product.

Armor was the same principle. Taking an ordinary person's physical fitness as an example, a two-centimeter-thick solid wooden board barely qualified, and any thinner than that would cause the equipment bar to reject it.

The above situations belonged to conventional equipment, but there was actually an unconventional kind, which was consumables.

This was something Wu Ming accidentally discovered using a bottle of vitamin C tablets. The characteristic was that the item would be "digested" by the equipment bar.

The specific manifestation was that when the digestion time finished, the corresponding item in reality would directly disappear, and then he would obtain some kind of talent improvement.

That bottle of vitamin C tablets back then had provided Wu Ming with a permanent bonus of "10% immunity," and later he tried a variety of nutritional supplements, comprehensively improving both his thinking and memory in a round.

Unfortunately, nutritional supplements of the same category shared a cap. Despite racking his brains, he only managed to push his learning talent from mediocre to above average.

As for that "steel pen" forged from pure steel, it was currently his proudest work—it was both a hidden weapon and brushed against the concept of "cultural study," forcibly adding 50% learning talent and memory enhancement to him, allowing him to leap to second place in the entire school.

As for first place, it was naturally his good childhood sweetheart, Ruan Qingzhu.

It's a pity that after researching for so many years, I've never found any other equipment with better effects than this steel pen, otherwise I should have had a chance to surpass her.

Wu Ming shook his head. He had also experimented for a long time before finally figuring out this weapon related to cultural studies.

That's right, although this steel pen brought him learning talent, in essence it still belonged to a weapon, and fell under the category of hidden weapons.

This could be seen from the numerical value of the first talent, which simply crushed the other two.

"My efforts over the years were practically panning for gold in the sand," he let out a long breath. "Turns out the direction was wrong the whole time, and I wasted so much time busy for nothing!"

This was also the reason why he held so much resentment; the times had changed!

Literary top students had dropped from T0-tier professions to T4, and next would be the world of martial artists.

It was equivalent to him working diligently for over a dozen years, finally about to level his character to completion, only to encounter a version update that rendered all his previous efforts completely useless.

Who wouldn't be angry?

"Fortunately, it's not too late yet. If I remember correctly, the RR virus went through about three months from start to finish."

"Of course, this doesn't mean I still have three months to prepare. According to this transmission speed, it will reach the country in a month at most."

"Time is tight."

Wu Ming let out a soft breath. Since he knew this world was Swallowed Star, he was bound to walk the path of cultivation, or else wouldn't he waste the opportunity of transmigrating?

Therefore, the most urgent matter right now was only one thing: with the help of his golden finger, find a way to survive this catastrophe.

Hiding was simply impossible; he was counting on the virus's mutation to make his body complete an evolution, so as to cross the threshold of cultivating Genetic Energy.

Otherwise, if his physical fitness wasn't up to standard, even if the cultivation method was placed right in front of him, he wouldn't be able to sense the slightest bit of energy.

Cultivation was not like visiting a vegetable market where there was room for bargaining.

Wu Ming pondered: The outbreak of the RR virus is both a disaster and an opportunity for me.

As long as I can survive this ghost gate, my physical fitness will experience a massive leap. Although it won't directly make me a quasi-martial artist, it will still be a solid step forward.

In the future... with the equipment bar bolstering my talents, my chances of rising to prominence will always be much greater than ordinary people's.

Of course, that was a matter for after surviving.

Right now, he had to concentrate all his mind on solving that most fundamental problem—how to survive under the erosion of the RR virus.

"The time should be about right."

As soon as the thought fell, the phone in his pocket rang.

Wu Ming glanced around. There was nobody else, so he secretly nodded, pulled out his phone, and without even looking at the caller ID on the screen, directly swiped to answer.

Sure enough, his mother Shen Xinglan's angry voice came through the earpiece.

"You little brat, you've got some nerve! How dare you use my name to scam people over such a big matter?"