On the thirty-seventh day of the apocalypse, zombies’ howls drowned out the city. Li Ming narrowly escaped death in the ruins of a subway station, at the cost of gaining the ability to “rewind”: every time he dies, he returns to three minutes earlier, but permanently loses one memory “of home.”
He thought this was a gift that would help him survive, until he discovered he was “Test Subject E-07” in an underground laboratory. His memories were being systematically devoured by the System, his body was gradually turning transparent into a “blue-liquid specimen,” and even his bonds with those around him had become “redundant data” marked for deletion.
When an evolved zombie horde smashed through the hub’s gates, and a metal tag displayed “Memory Recovery Progress: 37%,” Li Ming finally understood: rewinding wasn’t a ticket to escape. It was a battlefield where he had to fight the System for his very “self.”
He gripped his axe. Behind him were Weiwei’s dagger, Old Zhang’s shotgun, and Akai’s iron rod. This group of people abandoned by the world was going to do something insane:
Before their memories reached zero, they would smash the System’s “recycling bin” and recover the deleted “Li Ming,” as well as the meaning of their existence.
