"What can you bring to the company?"
The interviewer asked mercilessly.
"I can bring the company an employee."
The girl sitting opposite him answered instantly.
The interviewer choked on her reply and flipped idly through her résumé.
"Ye Buyu, eighteen, about to graduate from Zhaoyang No. 1 High School. Frankly, you don't meet our hiring standards.
No experience, insufficient qualifications, and you're a regular-class student, not an Awakened..."
His tone dripping with contempt, the interviewer tossed away the résumé in his hand.
"This is the annual push for the Gaokao. Every student in the awakening classes is improving their strength, striving to make the Genius Rankings and enter an Awakened university. Only kindling from the regular classes like you have already given up on the Gaokao."
"Tell me, what value do ordinary people have living in the Present World?"
The interviewer's expression was unreadable, his voice carrying a hint of danger, like a venomous snake poking its head out of a dark corner.
"The hot-blooded passion of saving the world has nothing to do with us. They lead spectacular lives, while we're merely kindling keeping the stage running?"
"Stop right there."
The girl rolled her eyes speechlessly. What's wrong with being in a regular class? Did we eat your meat or drink your soup? Ordinary people are the foundation of this world too, okay?
"Buddy, this interview has lasted an hour. I'm just looking for a part-time job. If I'm not suitable, could you let me leave, okay?
The doomsday countdown has been running for five hundred years, and you're still thinking about squeezing employees dry, making empty promises, and saying all this bizarre stuff. With a heart that black, watch out-your company might explode."
She wasn't spouting nonsense because she'd lost her mind. It really could explode.
536 years ago, the sun exploded, destroying the world. Every surviving creature instantly became cosmic foam, evaporating faster than the Little Mermaid.
Then, under an unknown power, time on Blue Star returned to before the explosion. A new sun was forged with technology beyond that era, beginning a doomsday countdown as the world clung to life.
The countdown had lasted 536 years, and the world stubbornly continued to exist.
A false sun, a sky so fragile it seemed a poke would burst it, and nights stripped of stars formed the beginning of the apocalypse.
After the new sun rose, people with special abilities appeared. The first generation of Awakened was called the Dawn of Hope.
Humanity began exploring the causes of the apocalypse. After more than five hundred years of struggle, the Awakened system had developed rapidly, and an Awakened Gaokao had been established.
People here had grown accustomed to coexisting with their broken-down world. Capable Awakened explored the causes of the apocalypse and prevented the world's destruction.
Ordinary people without much ability could also work in support and get on with their lives.
Anomalies appeared frequently across the world.
Some extremely dangerous ones were called Calamities, while some disasters originating from people were called Man-Made Calamities.
For instance... the Man-Made Calamity named [Streetlamp] would pick an auspicious day, sniff out companies that oppressed and exploited their employees, and blow them up, hanging the capitalists' souls from streetlamps to burn them to nothing.
The interviewer's face darkened. He slammed the desk and sprang to his feet. "Our company strictly follows the New Doomsday Law! We do not withhold wages or exploit employees!"
Ye Buyu leaned back to dodge his barrage of spit. "Calm down."
The interviewer softened his tone and sat down. "All right. Go get your employee badge from HR. You're hired."
Having finally heard those words, Ye Buyu gave a dry laugh. Finally my turn, huh? She abruptly stood and slapped a hand down on the desk.
"Sorry, your company doesn't meet my standards. I'd suggest some reforms. If you're so good at stripping people bare, why don't you go strip onions?! Goodbye, get lost, and see you never!"
Having finished her rant, Ye Buyu strode away, leaving the interview room feeling both cheerful and apprehensive.
After enduring an hour of torment, she'd finally mustered the courage to snap back. It really was refreshing.
But happiness was always short-lived. At the company reception, Ye Buyu brushed past a group of wildly excited people. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of the elaborate orange-shaped streetlamp they surrounded and stopped short.
"Huh, I feel like I've seen that thing somewhere."
"Hang them from the lamps, hang them from the lamps! Hang the wicked capitalists from the lamps!"
The rhythmic, frenzied chant reached Ye Buyu's ears, instantly making her scalp prickle.
She finally remembered where she'd seen that damned orange lamp.
The capitalists' [Streetlamp] recorded in her textbook!
Holy shit!
Ye Buyu's expression changed drastically, and she took off running.
Everyone in the Present World understood one truth: Calamities were called Calamities because they possessed no reason, followed no rules, and were bound by no morals, wantonly causing widespread disasters.
If she didn't run now, [Streetlamp]'s fanatics would definitely burn her to ashes.
But two legs were no match for a Calamity. Even running like mad, Ye Buyu couldn't escape her fate of getting caught in it.
Frenzied cheers erupted behind her, accompanied by a surge of scorching energy. A heat wave swept over her, engulfing Ye Buyu and blasting her into the sky.
Before dying, Ye Buyu glanced back. The company had exploded. Good. She had exploded too. Not good at all.
"Fuck you and your whole damn family!"
Sirens echoed over the ruins. In the city center, a gigantic screen stood like a tower, emblazoned with a conspicuous progress bar. It was a structure every city had.
The Doomsday Tower.
536 years ago, when the world reappeared, structures named Doomsday Towers appeared everywhere. Back then, the progress bars had read fifty percent.
Through the struggles of the surviving humans, the bars had been forced to advance at a snail's pace.
Now they stood at seventy-two percent and hadn't moved in three years.
Beneath the enormous Apocalypse Progress Bar overlooking all living beings, a line of text appeared. Strange fluctuations spread outward from the Doomsday Tower, and everyone looked up.
Man-Made Calamity [Streetlamp] has appeared. Seventy-four innocent fatalities. Urban Construction Bureau, please handle the scene. Social Security Bureau, proceed to the [River of Forgetfulness] to repatriate the souls.
Unsurprised, passersby continued with their lives, while members of the Social Security Bureau moved against the flow, preparing to retrieve people from the [River of Forgetfulness].
The [River of Forgetfulness] was where human souls resided after death, and also where energy was supplied to the [Sun]. It operated by generating energy through collisions of thought between souls, raising the [Sun].
This was the most fundamental basis, the underlying logic, of the existing world-the Present World.
Blasted into the [River of Forgetfulness], Ye Buyu hugged herself and shivered, sitting in the ferryman's boat and staring blankly at the scene before her.
Soft, flowing auroras floated in midair, forming a magnificent bridge that stretched toward an unknown place. Endless stagnant water filled the entire space. Everywhere she looked, there was quiet, deathly stillness.
"Is this the world after death?"
The ferryman, who had been rowing furiously, abruptly turned around. "Why are you awake?!"
"Yeah, is there a problem?" Ye Buyu's expression was stiff.
The ferryman let out a piercing shriek. "A huge problem! Have you ever seen a dead person who could still talk? You're not even an Awakened above the fifth tier!"
Ye Buyu faltered, then whispered, "It's my first time dying too. How would I know?"
The ferryman irritably began contacting the outside world. "Hello, hello? Social Security Bureau? The souls you wanted have arrived. One's still conscious. I don't know why she's awake. Look into it yourselves, and don't add to my workload!"
Ye Buyu was baffled. Was being awake so strange? As she pondered this, she looked down and saw dozens of sleeping soul orbs surrounding her. The sight frightened her into sucking in a cold breath.
Just as her eyes were about to roll back and she was about to pass out, the rocking ferry jolted her awake.
"Mr. Ferryman, keep it steady. It's a little shaky."
"Shaky? What's shaky? If the [River of Forgetfulness], where human souls gather, started shaking, wouldn't the whole world explode?"
"But... it really is shaking."
The ferryman: "..."
Before you continue