Eclipse Haze

(This is not a wish-fulfillment novel. There is no female lead, and the protagonist is a lone wolf most of the time. Warning: Do not imitate any of the chemical knowledge in this novel in real life. Any consequences are your own responsibility. It’s all fictional, so don’t try it.)

Zhang Chen is a recent college graduate.

In an era when master’s graduates deliver takeout and bachelor’s graduates work on assembly lines, the only place he can find work is a factory on the outskirts of town.

Two hundred yuan a day and one meal provided. To people his age, that already counts as a “high salary.”

The working conditions are terrible. Oil and cutting-fluid fumes hang in the air all day, while supervisors watch everyone like they’re criminals.

But he has no choice.

His family is saddled with a mortgage, his father is facing layoffs with old injuries all over his body, and his mother works odd jobs to help make ends meet.

He has no thoughts of marriage or the future. He just wants to stay alive long enough to pay off the debt.

That morning, his phone alarm woke him, and he got ready to head to work as usual.

But outside the window, everything was dead silent, and the sky looked wrong. No water came from the tap, the lights wouldn’t turn on, and the signal bars on his phone had been replaced by a single hollow question mark.

At first, he thought it was just an ordinary power and water outage. It wasn’t until he went closer to the window that he saw the outside world had been swallowed by a thick, grayish-yellow fog.

He had no idea what had happened or what was going on.

Zhang Chen called the emergency numbers again and again, but even the police number wouldn’t go through.

Confusion and anxiety filled him, leaving him unsure what to do next.

And just then, a steady knock sounded from outside the door…