Chapter 1
"Chen Nan, what are you doing? You haven't been live for two days. If you keep this up, get out of this apartment I'm renting right now, and get out of my Starlight Entertainment."
While Chen Nan remained hidden in her tiny nine-square-meter cubicle, pretending to be dead and motionless, her bedroom door was violently kicked twice.
The person who came didn't use much force, so the wooden door bulged heavily for a moment, then slowly returned to its original shape without falling down dramatically.
"Okay, bro, I'll open it in a bit."
Knowing she couldn't avoid it, Chen Nan quickly agreed and called the other person "brother".
After receiving the comment, "You'd better know what's good for you and hurry up," the other person left. Chen Nan, who had been feeling down for two days, had no choice but to walk towards the only black desktop computer in the room.
A black desktop computer, a white computer desk, and cheap blue and white curtains with a bear pattern next to it. Against the wall behind, there is a neatly made 1.5-meter-long bed and a tall single wardrobe about 80 centimeters wide standing against the wall.
If you only look at this room, everyone would think it's an ordinary little square room.
But who could have imagined that this was a completely different world from Chen Nan's original world, or even a small room in a future alternate world?
In this place called Liguo, everything else was exactly the same as what Chen Nan knew and experienced.
But by 2012, the world had become completely different from what Chen Nan had experienced.
At 12:00 on December 12, 2012, countless terrifying creatures from another world suddenly attacked all the countries, large and small, in this world.
That day, countless terrifying creatures resembling cockroaches flew down from the sky. After landing, these creatures could grab humans with their bare hands and immediately tear their prey apart and stuff it into their mouths while still in mid-air.
That day is known as Good Friday, a day that countless people still dare not mention.
In that year, in just one day, in just one country, it is said that nearly a million people were captured by those cockroach monsters, lifted into the air, and devoured alive.
In the days that followed, the country lost millions more innocent lives. Most of them were soldiers who, at any time, instinctively rushed to the front lines.
When the entire sky was completely covered by countless cockroaches, the government began to rapidly relocate humans underground and also began to use biological weapons on a large scale.
It is said that it was the darkest moment for the entire human world.
At that time, every country in the world was more united than ever before.
At that time, regardless of whether you were a Chinese citizen or a foreigner, regardless of whether you had black, yellow, or white skin, as long as you were human, when disaster struck, everyone would instinctively help each other within their means.
Of course, there are also instances where people use every available means to drive these terrifying creatures, several times larger than humans, to other countries. There are also situations where, in the face of danger, people instinctively push their friends, family, or even strangers towards the cockroach monster.
It is said that during that great catastrophe, humanity lived underground for twenty years, like rats in the street, enduring a miserable existence.
Twenty years from now, around 2032.
When Tang Anbin, a special forces soldier fighting on the road, saw his wife being taken away, he suddenly roared and for the first time, two ten-meter-long flames suddenly appeared from his hands.
The flames transformed into fire snakes that instantly bound the cockroach monster that had captured his wife. In a flash, he burned the cockroach monster flying in the sky into a fireball and quickly rescued his wife.
That year marked the beginning of what is known as the New Era for humankind.
From that day on, people like Tang Anbin began to appear all over the world and in countless countries.
Initially, everyone was quite panicked.
But as more and more people around them became like this, and as they discovered that these humans, who could conjure fire, lightning, water, and plant vines with their bare hands, possessed unprecedented fighting power against the cockroach monsters outside, the humans trapped underground, suffocating like rats, quickly accepted it all.
From that time onward, with the emergence of those with spiritual power, the entire social system of humanity changed dramatically.
From that year onward, the most popular people in society were always those with various spiritual powers.
At that time, those who dared to risk their lives to reach the surface and engage in combat were all true mutants—psychic beings—capable of truly fighting the cockroach monsters outside. From that moment on, humanity was no longer simply relying on brute force and luck to fight back; they truly had the strength to confront the cockroach monsters outside.
It is now 2112. In a hundred years, humanity has long since returned to the road.
To date, nearly 90% of the military personnel, politicians, and national leaders outside the country are people with superpowers.
By now, humanity has learned that those so-called cockroach monsters were sent by the neighboring Sunflower Planet.
That peculiar asteroid that suddenly flew by and came very close to Earth seemed to be constantly surrounded by yellow sunflowers. Sixty percent of its surface was indeed covered with those small sunflowers that initially looked exceptionally beautiful and normal. When viewed by humans using high-tech methods, those sunflowers were indeed tiny, and their appearance was exactly the same as sunflowers in bloom on Earth.
But as the human cameras approached, and the little sunflower suddenly raised its head, its flower rapidly swelled to dozens of times its original size, bursting forth with countless terrifying black cockroaches that had caused so much suffering to humans. In that instant, everyone on Earth knew how those horrifying cockroaches that had caused so much suffering came to be.
For years, humanity has been at war with the Sunflower Planet.
During the war and negotiations, humanity gradually learned that there were actually normal life forms like humans on the entire planet Sunflower.
But that planet, they seem to be particularly aggressive; they want to conquer Earth, so they've been constantly harassing it. The vanguard they sent to invade Earth consisted of highly violent but intellectually challenged beings—or rather, cockroach monsters with little thought beyond their instincts to eat and reproduce.
In short, the attitude of the entire Sunflower Planet is extremely unfriendly.
They made humanity realize that they are also an intelligent planet, and that there are intelligent beings who look just like humans.
They even managed to get footage of their resident soldiers instantly growing larger and rapidly transforming into various animals when faced with unexpected situations.
But these things seem to be only for deterrence.
Anyway, even now, the world is still being subjected to continuous terrorist attacks from Sunflower Planet.
The reason why humans can now live and work normally on the ground is because a transparent safety shield has been installed thousands of meters in the air.
That safety shield is guarded and protected by many special forces soldiers and scientists from each country.
It is said that the protective shield is filled with the superpowers of many superhumans, and it is because of these superpowers that countless cockroach monsters outside dare not enter.
In today's society, the duty of countless soldiers is to protect that safety shield.
While protecting the safety shield, they are also fighting off the cockroach monsters outside. If any cockroach monsters suddenly rush into the safety shield, they are responsible for quickly tracking and killing them.
In other words, the police's biggest responsibility now is to kill the cockroach monster and track down the infected.
The fastest way for human civil servants or soldiers to get promoted is by hunting down cockroach monsters and infected individuals.
The cockroach monster is either a lone cockroach that accidentally entered the safety enclosure, or a group of several or a dozen large cockroaches with wingspans of three to five meters.
The infected person was accidentally bitten by the cockroach monster, but did not die or successfully transform. Ultimately, their body carried a mutated pathogen, causing them to suddenly transform into a one-meter-long cockroach larva within a month – the kind of unfortunate human you are.
Over the past century, humanity has actually been evolving. When humans evolved into beings with superpowers capable of fighting the cockroach monsters and possessing mental abilities, the cockroach monsters, which lacked much thought, were also evolving. It was from that time that people discovered unfortunate humans who were accidentally bitten or injured by the cockroach monsters would suddenly evolve or suddenly mutate. From that time on, everyone began to feel insecure, and the world seemed to have returned to normal, with people gradually returning to live on the surface.
But after witnessing countless instances of people around me suddenly being snatched up and eaten mid-air by a swooping cockroach, or of someone nearby suddenly twisting and swelling rapidly in a tram or train and transforming into a so-called cockroach larva, I've come to realize that...
Countless people have already begun to break down.
The rapid development of the internet and the swift spread of information have exacerbated this terror.
But most people cannot live in the world without working, without engaging in production and labor.
This has inadvertently exacerbated everyone's anxiety and narrowed their social circles.
Now, people generally don't take spontaneous trips anymore.
Even if people start dating online, they won't meet up or meet in person every day like they used to.
In this world, if people have known each other for a month, going out for a stroll and meeting up are the basic things they do.
People don't easily meet strangers; they mostly interact with acquaintances online. They only discuss future relationships after knowing at least one person and confirming you're not infected—this is basic procedure. Another method is for both of you to go to the hospital and obtain updated test reports, proving to the hospital and government that you are completely healthy. However, this costs money, and sometimes it's not even something you can get by paying money.
In reality, people are becoming more and more tense, while online they are becoming more and more casual.
Nowadays, the most common apps installed on people's phones and computers are various games or dating apps, and various live streaming services are also booming like never before.
The original owner of this body was a dance streamer in this world, the kind who would sway her hips and twist her waist in front of the camera every day, sometimes pushing the boundaries.
I've been doing this job for three years now, so I'm probably used to it by now.
But Chen Nan herself is the kind of person who, in her past life, only dared to post pictures of scenery and cats and dogs online, and didn't even dare to show a single photo of herself.
Under such circumstances, if she were to transmigrate and immediately perform a erotic dance in front of the camera, she naturally wouldn't be able to act on it immediately.
but--
However, the original owner's older brother was not actually her biological brother.
The original owner's mother was the other party's stepmother.
The original owner wasn't even the other party's father's child.
They belong to a completely blended family. The original owner was eighteen years old when her stepfather and biological mother died in an accidental car accident, and she ran away from the countryside to the city to find her brother.
Her brother, Chen Dong, wasn't doing particularly well in this city either; he was just barely making ends meet.
After his younger sister arrived, he had her join the entertainment company he was currently working for.
His company is one of those companies that does online live streaming.
Three years ago, Chen Dong was working with his younger sister at someone else's live-streaming company. Now, he has managed to open his own live-streaming company, employing eight girls who stream for him. He is responsible for renting apartments and providing food for them. One of these eight girls is the original owner of this body, Chen Nan.
As for why Chen Nan became the Chen Nan she is now, that story begins three days ago.
Three days ago, Chen Nan, who hadn't been out for a long time, decided to go to a large supermarket to buy herself some food and supplies as a treat for her long hours of working without leaving the house.
But who would have thought that on her first trip out in a month, she would happen to encounter someone who had mutated, and that mutated person would happen to be right next to her.
In this world, becoming a superhuman is called transformation and evolution.
The terms "mutation" and "abnormality" are mostly used to describe infected individuals. It refers to an infected person who, instead of evolving or transforming, suddenly mutates into another species, becoming a cockroach monster.
Anyway, when I saw the man next to me suddenly convulse and twist, and in a few seconds he transformed from a normal white-collar worker into a one-meter-long black man-eating cockroach.
The original owner of this body fainted on the spot when he witnessed this situation for the first time in this world.
Seeing that she had fainted, the superhuman police officer next to her immediately took her to the hospital.
Of course, at that time they may also have meant to have the doctor check her body for scratches or bites from infected individuals.
Anyway, the doctors didn't find any wounds or abnormalities on her body at the time. In fact, the Chen Nan who woke up in the hospital bed at that time was no longer the original Chen Nan. She was the Chen Nan who died suddenly from overwork in the 21st century.
Having suddenly arrived in this world and received all of the original owner's memories, Chen Nan's panic was understandable.
But after what happened to her, her adoptive brother in this world only let her rest for two days.
Two days later, he urged her to continue working. Just now, he even kicked the door from outside, saying that if she didn't work properly, she should get out of his rented house and his live-streaming company.
With a soft sigh, Chen Nan slowly and reluctantly turned on her computer.
When I turned on the computer, I looked at the thin dress on the bed behind me.
After hesitating for a few seconds, Chen Nan finally got up and threw the thin little dress into the small wardrobe next to her. She then found the only formal-looking blazer the original owner owned and was wearing inside.
Then she opened the live streaming app where the original owner had worked for three years and quickly entered the live stream. Chen Nan adjusted the camera and started to feel flustered, wondering what she should do next.
"What's wrong? Why isn't Nannan dancing today?"
"Nannan, why are you wearing a little suit today? Are you trying to create a uniform temptation?"
"Nannan, Nannan, I love you, will you marry me?"
"Hurry up and jump, streamer! I can't wait!"
Countless comments appeared on the big screen in front of her, and Chen Nan was initially hesitant and at a loss.
But considering the current state of the world, being a livestreamer is arguably the safest job for ordinary people. Considering this era, the original owner hadn't gone to university and didn't have any special skills. Considering the absurdly high cost of living in big cities, it was impossible to survive without a job. When things really got too tough, the only job she could do might be spending long periods exposed to the elements scavenging for garbage. And spending long periods exposed to the elements scavenging for garbage might lead to encounters with cockroach monsters and mutants.
After thinking for a moment, Chen Nan stood up wearing a suit jacket.
What about being introverted, socially anxious, or being overly concerned with privacy and saving face?
When faced with the real challenge of survival, everything else becomes irrelevant.
Thinking back to the original owner's memories, those places far from bustling metropolises were almost all filled with thick smoke and scenes of robbery and murder.
Chen Nan raised her hand and unbuttoned the first button on her suit jacket, then slowly swayed in the small space where the camera could capture her movements.
She possesses all of the original owner's memories and knows how to dance beautifully.
After unbuttoning the first button of her suit jacket, Chen Nan stopped unbuttoning the rest.
After gently twisting a few times, Chen Nan placed her hands on the headband in her hair.
"Who here is Chen Nan? I'm Tang Ke from the Institute of Supernatural Abilities. We've detected some anomalies in Ms. Chen Nan's biochip, could you please—"
Just as Chen Nan was listening to music and throwing a tantrum, wildly shaking her head, the small door behind her was quickly pushed open.
The next moment, Tang Ke, dressed in a smart superhuman police uniform, suddenly made eye contact with Chen Nan, who was bent over and shaking her head wildly inside.
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