One month

The days passed, one after another...

Hearing on the radio that the whole world was in dire straits, struck not only by devastating earthquakes but also by supernatural phenomena, Zhang Ming felt something subtle and inexplicable.

He did not consider himself morally bankrupt, nor did he take any particular pleasure in others' suffering. So where had this strange feeling come from?

Zhang Ming had no idea. He could only chalk it up to "spectators never mind a bigger funeral or a higher blaze."

Of course, he also knew that this strange psychological phenomenon might be a kind of mental disturbance caused by a prolonged lack of social contact.

Once his life settled down, loneliness became the hardest thing to endure.

In the first week, he ate delicious crab, improved his overall stats, and filled his head with wild thoughts: pink apps, anime girls, real-life girls, anime, movies, novels, games. He even developed certain mysterious fantasies about high heels and women's clothing...

In the second week, he ate crab he was already getting tired of. He missed his family. He wondered how they were doing, how his younger sister had done on her final exams, and how all his aunts and uncles were getting along. Zhang Ming actually had little contact with those relatives, but for some reason, he missed those family ties terribly.

In the third week, he ate goddamn crab, reminisced about his childhood, and wondered whether that damned rescue team would ever come. Why hadn't there been any news at all?

"The expedition team doesn't even exist, does it?"

In the fourth week, he ate nauseating crab, cursed the elusive heavens, and began losing all desire to live. The concept of time became irrelevant, because every day left exactly the same memories. Yesterday and today were identical!

Zhang Ming lay on the beach and wrote a few lines:

"Crabs went chirp, chirp.

Turtles went ah-woo, ah-woo.

I went splish, splash as I peed.

Every one of us,

A literary great."

After finishing the poem, Zhang Ming gazed at the brilliant sun and offered profound praise for his own literary talent.

"When there's only one person left in the whole world, I'm a literary giant no matter how crap my writing is!"

Loneliness was a gradual process, one that squeezed out things that looked colorful and dazzling but were, in fact, inconsequential.

Questions like "Did RNG win the championship this year?" "Did that ultimate flop Yongheng's new book flop?" "Who's better, James or Jordan?" "How's C Ronaldo doing in Saudi Arabia?" "Is Messi transferring?" "Which will die first, League of Legends or Dota?" and "Has Pirate King ended?"... none of them mattered at all!

In the end, only the true core remained-those girls I loved most...

Aaah, no!

What was my life supposed to have been like?

He would have been a cog in society, diligently working into his thirties until he finally saved enough for a down payment and began life as a debt-laden homeowner.

At thirty-five, his company would have dumped him, adding him to the ranks of "talent available to society."

If he was lucky, he would find a wife and have children like a normal person. If not, he would spend his life alone. That, too, was a true portrait of the times.

But with the arrival of the supernatural age, everyone's fate had changed.

"I might have been killed by an earthquake or tsunami in the first wave of disasters."

"Even if I survived, I'd probably be unemployed. I don't have what it takes to make my mark, and I'm not someone who can ride the next big trend to success."

"Just another nobody among the masses."

"The kind nobody would even want for hauling bricks... I don't have the strength of those middle-aged guys."

Thinking of this made Zhang Ming feel a little better.

Here on this deserted island, he still had plenty of opportunities and challenges. He could keep growing stronger, gain more abilities, and even become a real superhuman!

This was the opportunity the age had given him!

He could not let it slip away!

But before he became a superhuman...

"I really want some of Mom's eight-treasure porridge!"

The thought of that sweet, delicious eight-treasure porridge brought tears streaming down Zhang Ming's face. All he could do was stay here and eat those damned crab legs.

Deep down, he set himself a small goal-to cross the Pacific Ocean alone.

"If you won't come get me, I'll swim back myself!"

"As long as I'm strong enough, I can do it!"

And so, a month of scraping by quietly slipped away.

He bent his arm slightly and clenched his fist. His biceps bulged in a powerful curve, and the strength coursing through him left Zhang Ming thoroughly satisfied.

"Strength Burst!"

With an explosive "Hah!", he easily lifted a coconut weighing three hundred jin and hurled it like a basketball.

A small upward leap took him straight up to a height of five meters.

These were the fruits of a month's training fueled by crab meat!

Yet the moment he smelled crab, he practically collapsed.

No matter how delicious a delicacy was, eating it as a staple three times a day would become sheer agony.

"I'd rather starve than eat any more crab meat." Zhang Ming viciously tore off a bite, feeling the mysterious warmth the crab meat brought him as he ground his teeth.

Of course, besides crab meat, he also had coconut flesh, coconut sugar, coconut milk, and all sorts of other coconut-based foods.

Once his physique exceeded 50, eating a little coconut flesh was no great problem.

It also produced a faint, mysterious warmth, but its effect was only one-fifth that of crab meat.

Of course, eating too much would still give him explosive diarrhea.

The formidable power of mutated coconuts was not to be underestimated. Unless he wanted his backside to suffer the torment of a thousand cuts, he should eat no more than fifty grams of coconut flesh a day.

He had also hollowed out the large tree behind him. Inside, he stored roughly a hundred jin of crab meat: air-dried, sun-dried, smoked, pickled-he had every kind!

As for dried coconut flesh, coconut oil, and coconut sugar, he had another hundred jin or so, filling several boxes.

Besides his plentiful food supplies, his living conditions had improved dramatically.

Over the course of the month, Zhang Ming had removed more metal sheets from the plane wreckage on the beach and built a sheet-metal shack that sheltered him from the wind and rain.

He had even installed a fence around the perimeter, made by setting the crab's pointed legs upright.

"Good evening, dear listeners. I'm your announcer, Li Xianfeng, bringing you the daily news."

"The International Geological Research Bureau has issued its latest announcement. This large-scale tectonic movement was caused by unknown interactions within Earth's core and will not subside anytime soon. We must adapt

to a life in which small- and medium-sized earthquakes may occur at any moment."

"After a month-long emergency mobilization, over sixty percent of the population in major cities has been evacuated to nearby rural areas."

"Reducing urban population density and meeting the public's daily needs are the government's current priorities."

"The locations for the Suiren Plan have just been announced. They are..."

The daily broadcast at 6:30 p.m. was Zhang Ming's only connection to humanity.

Amid the rising tide of Spirit, human civilization was changing on a scale beyond imagination.

(Thanks to the alliance leader "Just Waiting for Someone" for the donation! This book has its first alliance leader!)

(But this donkey has worked the mill until he can't take another step. He simply sticks out his tongue and flops blissfully onto the ground. The big spender can only shake their head helplessly, say the extra chapters can wait until the book goes premium, and stuff a carrot into this donkey's mouth.)

(So I'll owe you for now and add the extra chapters once the book goes premium!)