Chapter 1
There was a somewhat harsh sound, and a rolling shutter door was slowly lowered. Mu Nan watched the rolling shutter door fall to the ground in the rearview mirror of the pickup truck, then he stepped on the accelerator and drove the pickup truck with an empty cargo box away from the equally empty warehouse. The goods that were originally transported to the warehouse were all loaded into Mu Nan's small space under the cover of the truck.
Mu Nan has a secret, which he discovered when he was sixteen years old. He has a space, a world that suddenly appeared in him, like another world in his spiritual dimension. He still doesn't know how big the space is, but no matter how many things he puts in it, the space has never been full. However, except for this storage function, his space cannot hold any living things.
The sudden extra space made Mu Nan panic and excited for a while. For a young man who was building his worldview, this existence that went beyond scientific cognition was undoubtedly novel and full of mystery. It even made him feel that he was particularly different among the countless people in the world.
However, the desire to explore and excitement soon subsided, because Mu Nan found that owning such a seemingly mysterious space did not seem to change his life much, except that it was a little more convenient to store things when hiding from people. Apart from that, based on the premise of abiding by the law, he could not use this space to bring himself any financial benefits.
So slowly, Mu Nan let go of the matter of space, and occasionally secretly used the space to bring a little convenience in life. The rest of the time, he continued to live his life as usual.
Until the year Mu Nan graduated from university, his plans for his future life were completely disrupted by a series of natural disasters. However, this space, which seemed to be of little use on a daily basis, became his greatest chance of survival.
At the beginning, no one thought that a rainstorm and a smog would reshuffle the whole world. Everyone knows that the air quality has been getting worse and worse in recent years. Everyone is shouting slogans to protect the environment and protect the earth, but everyone is also wasting various resources.
The smog came suddenly, and apart from the fact that more and more people were wearing masks on the streets, people's lives were not greatly affected. Later, more and more people fell ill, with coughs and fevers, red and swollen skin, bloodshot eyes, and finally swollen lungs, difficulty breathing, and eventually death.
More and more people are dying of the same symptoms, not only in China, but in almost all countries that have started to have smog. Even though we know that the root cause of this epidemic is smog, there is almost nothing we can do except to save the lives that are being lost. The infection rate of pulmonary edema caused by smog is not high, but the mortality rate is extremely high. This is a huge death opening to the end of the world.
There were so many sick people that the entire medical system collapsed. Countries and cities had no support because they were all unable to take care of themselves. That chaos was the beginning of the end of the world.
At that time, Mu Nan never thought that the world would be in complete chaos one day. He believed in the power of the country and the cheers on TV and the Internet every day. The disaster will eventually pass. Most importantly, he was alone and did not deeply understand the pain of losing his relatives in this disaster. Even though these disasters were close to him, they were also far away from him.
Mu Nan is a full-time painter. Because he likes painting, he decided on his future life direction since high school. Mu Nan does have a good talent for painting. Before going to college, he had turned this hobby into a career that could support his livelihood. Before college, he even sold a character design drawing for 50,000 or 60,000 yuan, which is already a considerable income in their circle of painters.
It was because of his job that he stayed at home and was not affected much during the smog period. It was also because of this job that he had long been accustomed to storing some delicious food in his space so that he could take it out whenever he wanted to eat. His space was a constant existence. Whatever was put in, it would remain the same when it was taken out. After several years of accumulation, the amount of food in Mu Nan's space was quite considerable. Because he had never felt the food crisis at the beginning, this led to Mu Nan's death from the murderous intent brought by food.
After the haze gradually dissipated in the previous life, people's lives seemed to slowly return to normal. Many survivors regarded that depressing period of survival surrounded by death as a casual topic after dinner, but they did not expect that a more difficult future was approaching mankind.
Not long after the haze cleared, the weather became extremely hot. Even though the hottest place in China had never been higher than 50 degrees due to the terrain and environment, this summer, the temperature reached the highest in the world's history, even as high as 59 degrees. What does 59 degrees mean? The highest temperature in the African desert is only 55 degrees. And the highest temperature in places where humans live is no more than 45 degrees.
The four seasons in their country are quite distinct, but this year, the temperature remained high until December, and the number of people who died from heatstroke was even higher than the number of people who died from illness in the smog. People had realized that this time, perhaps, the end of the world had really come.
Later, the government of each region was directly controlled by the army, which counted the number of people and issued new identity cards. Even though the people followed the country's pace, they were still no match for the constant arrival of natural disasters, such as mountain torrents, tsunamis, droughts, earthquakes and insect plagues. The word "tomorrow" was no longer hope, but a deeper, unknown despair.
Mu Nan, who had a space, was much better off than many people. No matter what the situation was, he could at least have food to fill his stomach. Unfortunately, he survived natural disasters but failed to withstand man-made disasters. Just because he was soft-hearted, he gave a little tortilla to a skinny little girl, and he was killed. At that time, the country was leading the masses to rebuild their homes. Although it could not be said that everyone could eat enough, there was no famine to the point of killing people for a little food. Otherwise, no matter how naive Mu Nan was, he would not have been soft-hearted at that moment.
When Mu Nan recalled the feeling before death, he would feel a dull pain in the place where he was stabbed. He had space, but in the end he died so miserably.
When he opened his eyes again, Mu Nan was reborn and returned to three months before the end of the world.
After his rebirth, Mu Nan reflected on his short life, because he had a life-saving trump card that others did not have. Facing such an end of the world, even though he was cautious, he also had a trace of imperceptible contempt in his heart. Food was not difficult to obtain, so he could not feel the cruelty of the end of the world more intuitively and deeply like others.
Be it death or hunger, even though he was in the midst of them, he had never experienced it personally. There is an essential difference between struggling at the end of the world with confidence and struggling without confidence. Even though his parents died early, the environment he lived in had always been very simple. He faced the end of the world before he had time to struggle in society.
Thinking about his past life, Mu Nan didn't feel that there was anything to regret, but there were still some regrets.
After returning the truck, Mu Nan packed several servings of pork rib noodles on the way back. This is a decades-old shop that still retains the original taste. After the haze dissipated, the shop has never opened again, so Mu Nan would buy a lot every time he passed by. A lot has been stockpiled in the space, but this thing will be eaten less and less in the future.
Mu Nan now lives in an old house, which was one of the first batch of residential buildings with elevators built during the city planning. He lives on the 17th floor, which is the highest floor, the 23rd. It is not too high or too low, and the floor is pretty good. He has lived here since he was a child, but now he is the only one left in the family of three.
Looking at the dusty photo of his parents hanging on the wall, Mu Nan sometimes thought that his parents' early death might be a blessing, since at least they had not been tortured by the end of the world.
Putting down his backpack, Mu Nan took a set of clean clothes and took a shower, washing away the fatigue and dust from a day of running around outside. After wiping his hair until it was half dry, he sat down to eat refreshed. He cooked the rice himself, and the vegetables were bought outside before, which he secretly put into the space, and now they were still steaming.
Mu Nan can't cook. Before the apocalypse, he relied on takeout to survive. After the apocalypse, he didn't have the conditions to cook. But since his rebirth, his cooking skills have improved. Whenever he is at home, he will start cooking various dishes and put them in the space after they are cooked. There will probably be no conditions to cook for a long time in the future, so before that, Mu Nan has to store some more ready-made food.
Mu Nan had been reborn for three months. He had already stockpiled all the necessities for survival. For safety reasons, he even bought some lethal weapons at a high price. Of course, he couldn't even think about buying a pistol. He had the time and space to smuggle, but he didn't have the channels. Even if he went abroad, he couldn't just buy it whenever he wanted. For now, Mu Nan was already very content. At least this time, he wouldn't be blocked in the room and stabbed without any chance to fight back.
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