Chapter 1 Transcending the Apocalypse - 1 "I will come back to save you!"...

In September, the sky was dark and a torrential downpour was falling.

Tang Bufan was scrolling through Weibo with his phone in one hand and an umbrella in the other when he went downstairs. Then he looked up and saw a child standing in the spacious lobby of the teaching building.

Tang Bufan paused, recognizing the student as one of his own students.

The child's name is Chen Fei. His parents work away from home, and he lives with his grandmother. He is from a poor family, which is why Tang Bufan, as his homeroom teacher, often visits his home.

An hour had passed since school ended, and the other children had already been picked up by their families. Tang Bufan looked at the torrential rain outside and knew that his grandmother had not yet come to pick him up.

A draft was blowing through the room. The child was dressed in thin, old clothes, and looked small and thin. Tang Bufan felt a pang of heartache seeing this and immediately put away his phone and walked over quickly.

"Chen Fei, haven't you gone home yet?" Tang Bufan walked to the child's side and put his hand on his shoulder: "Teacher will take you home."

The child turned around, a hint of unease appearing on his slightly dark face.

"No need, teacher, I'll wait for my grandma..." The child was a little timid in front of his homeroom teacher.

"It's getting dark soon." As the homeroom teacher, Tang Bufan couldn't possibly let him wait here alone any longer. "My home is in the same direction as yours, so I can give you a ride on my way."

After Tang Bufan finished speaking, he took out his phone, found the child's grandmother's contact name, and pressed the call button: "I'll call your grandmother."

The child could only stand obediently beside him and wait. Seven or eight seconds later, the call was connected.

"Teacher Tang!"

"It's me, Grandma!" Tang Bufan spoke loudly. The old woman had poor hearing, so both of them shouted loudly over the phone.

"Chen Fei is with me, Grandma, where are you now?"

"I'm at the bus stop, but the rain is too heavy! I can't squeeze on!"

"Stop pushing! Go home! Chen Fei, I'll take you home!"

"That's so embarrassing, Teacher Tang!"

"On the way! On the way!"

The old man liked Tang Bufan, his homeroom teacher, and when he visited his hometown, he laughed heartily twice and loudly thanked Tang Bufan.

"Then I'll have to trouble you, Teacher Tang!"

"Okay, okay! You can go home now! We'll be home in twenty minutes!"

After hanging up the phone, Tang Bufan put away his phone, patted the child on the back, and said cheerfully, "Come on, teacher will take you home!"

The two men's loud voices had been heard by the child, who then obediently followed Tang Bufan out of the hall.

"I only have one raincoat. You can sit on the back of my electric scooter and hide inside it," Tang Bufan instructed the child while unfastening the buckle on his folding umbrella.

The child nodded, and the two walked outside the teaching building lobby. A gust of cold wind mixed with rain suddenly blew in their faces, and the strong wind made Tang Bufan, who had opened his umbrella, take two steps back.

"Is a typhoon coming?" Tang Bufan shivered, squeezed his arms together, pushed the folding umbrella upwards, and then hugged the child as they walked towards the carport in the pouring rain.

The bicycle shed was dozens of meters away from the teaching building lobby. The two people, one big and one small, huddled under a thin folding umbrella, walking with great difficulty in the pouring rain, and their path was occasionally swayed by the wind.

Tang Bufan gripped the umbrella handle tightly, holding the child close. He felt that the downpour was strange; through the thin umbrella fabric, the raindrops felt like bullets.

The sky suddenly brightened, and the world turned white. A few seconds later, a loud bang exploded, startling Tang Bufan and the child in his arms. The two hugged each other even tighter.

"Teacher..." The child was clearly scared, his thin hands gripping Tang Bufan's clothes tightly.

"The teacher is here," Tang Bufan reassured him, though he himself felt a little panicked. He had never encountered such a strange storm in his life.

With ten meters to go before the bike shed, Tang Bufan and the child's ankles were already wading into the puddle, and they both quickened their pace without prior arrangement.

"Almost there." Tang Bufan saw his electric scooter, a smile spreading across his face, then suddenly felt his feet sink into the ground...

The inexpensive plaid folding umbrella floated lightly to the ground.

Another clap of thunder sounded, and the school security guard on patrol in his raincoat turned around to see a folding umbrella lying on its side on the ground, its fabric partially covered by the thick, dark water.

There was no one in the direction of the carport.

***

"Waaah..."

"Waaaaah..."

"Waaah..."

Tang Bufan felt a lot of pain in his body and head. In his hazy state, he heard a child crying.

"teacher……"

Tang Bufan snapped awake, his eyes snapping open, only to be immediately stung by raindrops.

What is this? Tang Bufan gasped in pain, immediately rubbing his eyes as he struggled to sit up from the sticky, wet ground.

"Teacher... Waaaaah..."

Tang Bufan's heart tightened. He forced his eyes open a crack due to the pain caused by the child's cries, and then he vaguely saw Chen Fei with his back to him, huddled on the ground not far away, crying.

"Chen Fei... Chen Fei..." Tang Bufan was panting heavily, and he smelled a strong stench, like a ditch or a toilet. His mind was still blank, and he struggled to crawl over on the ground with his eyes half closed.

During this time, his hands and feet were painfully cut by the pebbles on the ground, but he was in a panic and confused and didn't pay attention.

"Chen Fei... Teacher's here..." Tang Bufan struggled to crawl to the child's side, raising his arm to shield his eyes from the strange rain, and then, in the dim light, he saw the child's face...

Her small face was covered in mud and blood, making it almost impossible to see her features.

Tang Bufan's already bewildered mind went completely blank for a moment, his body felt as if it had fallen into an ice cave, and then a thought popped into his head:

It's over.

Nothing is more terrifying for a teacher than an accident involving one of the children in their class. Tang Bufan stood there, his mind racing, trying to figure out how to explain this to the child's grandmother...

"Teacher... Waaaaah..."

The child's cry brought Tang Bufan back to his senses, and tears immediately streamed down his face.

"This is a dream, this is a dream..." Tang Bufan's hands trembled as he pulled his phone out of his pocket. He was soaked to the bone, and so was his phone, which made it impossible for him to unlock the screen. He wiped the black grime off the screen for a long time before finally dialing 120.

“Chen Fei…it’s okay…the teacher called, called, called…” Tang Bufan could not speak properly in extreme fear, his hands trembling as he hugged the child.

Perhaps it was the tears that worked, because Tang Bufan's eyes weren't hurting as much anymore. He was then able to see clearly that the place where the two of them were was a ruin. It was raining heavily and the whole world was almost entirely black and white. Around them, there were dilapidated high-rise buildings, like huge black stone tombstones.

Tang Bufan stared blankly at his phone, and after a long while, he looked down in a daze. His thumb slid away the mud on the screen again, and sure enough, there was no signal indicator at the top of the phone.

His hand holding the phone fell limply to his side. Tang Bufan sobbed and lowered his head to hug the child in his arms tightly. He could barely breathe, and his body was shivering from the cold.

This is a nightmare. Tang Bufan told himself, this must be a nightmare.

"boom!"

A beam of light suddenly pierced the darkness and struck straight down from the sky. Tang Bufan looked up in a daze and saw a completely transparent spherical flying object descending from the swirling black clouds.

Tang Bufan didn't understand what it was. If it weren't for the muddy rain hitting the transparent flying object, he wouldn't even be able to see its shape. When the hatch on one side of the "sphere" opened, its transparent shell suddenly turned metallic silver.

A young man in a white coat appeared beside the hatch. He gripped the handle and shouted loudly to the two people waiting below in the pouring rain:

"Come on up!"

The shout startled Tang Bufan awake. Although he was still confused and shocked, he didn't have time to think. He quickly picked up the child in his arms and struggled to stand up from the gravel.

"Save us...save us!" Tang Bufan cried, his voice trembling as he held Chen Fei high in his arms and cried out to the man above him, "I have a child here!"

The plane was descending. Tang Bufan thought it must be an airplane. His hands were trembling. An eight-year-old child is neither heavy nor light.

"Teacher! Teacher!" Chen Fei was suddenly lifted up and felt panicked. His cries became shrill, and blood mixed with mud kept flowing down his face.

"Chen, Chen Fei, don't be afraid... rescue, rescue is here!" Tang Bufan, head held high and choking back tears, ignored the rain and mud falling into his mouth and continued to shout at the man above him, "Save, save my student first!"

"I'm here!" the man in the white coat shouted to the two of them, grabbing the handle and trying to lean down.

Just as the plane was only two meters away from the two of them, a bright light suddenly pierced the darkness and shone from afar!

"Doctor! It's an orc armored vehicle!" the pilot shouted from inside the plane. "It's very close! This model... is an armored vehicle from the Northern Federation!"

Through his teary eyes, Tang Bufan looked over and, through the black rain, saw a huge car appear at the corner of the ruined street!

The car was square and rigid, and Tang Bufan could vaguely see a round black cannon on the roof, pointing directly at them.

He panicked, and his hands, which were supporting the student, began to tremble even more violently.

"Save my student first...save my student first!" Tang Bufan quickly lifted the child in his arms higher, his voice trembling as he cried, "Chen Fei, quick...quickly raise your hands!"

Just one more meter and their hands could touch!

"Lower it by one meter!" Tang Bufan heard the man in the white coat shout.

"It's too late! The system calculates we're already within the enemy's firing range... Z039! Restore cloaking! Take off!" the pilot shouted, then walked to the hatch and tugged at the man in the white coat: "It's too late, Doctor!"

"No!" the man in the white coat shouted in a trembling voice, still trying to lean down: "One more meter!"

"It's too late!" the pilot roared, and with a forceful tug, he finally forced the doctor to fall backward back into the plane.

"No, no, no..." Tang Bufan realized something even though he was still confused. He panicked and tried again to raise the child in his arms.

"Save us! Please...please!" Tang Bufan cried, nearly collapsing several times.

The two men were fighting inside the plane. The man in the white coat tried to return to the cabin door, but the pilot pulled him away. In the chaos, a transparent umbrella by the cabin door was kicked out.

The umbrella fell from the sky and landed next to Tang Bufan with a "thud".

"I...I'll come back to save you!" The young man in the white coat shouted hoarsely to Tang Bufan before the hatch closed, "I will definitely save you!"

The cabin door closed, and the spherical plane instantly changed from silver back to transparent. It quickly took off and disappeared into the dark clouds in the blink of an eye.

Watching the rescue plane leave, Tang Bufan suddenly lost all his strength and collapsed back into the ruins, clutching the child.

In the distance, the armored vehicle with its headlights on was getting closer and closer.

Tang Bufan held the child, his body ice-cold. He turned his head, soaked in mud and rain, the bright light almost blinding him. The armored vehicle with the cannon on top slowly came to a stop, and an enormous figure, backlit by the headlights, slowly walked towards them.

Tang Bufan's heart almost stopped beating. He looked up blankly, and after seeing the giant's twisted face that was neither human nor beast, he rolled his eyes and fainted.

A note from the author:

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