What If Tomorrow Is the Apocalypse?

One day, a tall, grim-looking man knocked on Shu Cheng's door.

He asked, “If tomorrow were the end of the world, what would you do?”

Shu Cheng thought: What kind of lunatic is this?

The man said, “Are you calling me a lunatic?”

Shu Cheng stared at him in disbelief. “Can you read minds?”

The man replied expressionlessly, “Yes. I can read minds.”

The mind-reading madman was named Zhao Xuan. He barged into Shu Cheng's apartment like he owned the place and efficiently packed supplies for escaping the apocalypse, moving with the familiarity of someone who lived there.

He told Shu Cheng that humanity's catastrophe would begin at midnight, and that if Shu Cheng wanted to survive the apocalypse, he had to do as Zhao Xuan said.

“You're the world's last chance.”

Shu Cheng = the future savior.

The perpetually disheveled academic Shu Cheng: ???

Wait, didn't he live in Lujing City, not Qidian City?

The apocalypse arrives. A mutated virus spreads rapidly, and the bloody war between the living and the living dead tears the world apart. The sweltering summer is ambushed by a bitter winter. Communications vanish, and the whole world goes on high alert.

The scene, which Shu Cheng had only ever seen in movies, terrifies him out of his wits. No one told him that the stench of blood would be so strong and nauseating, or that the loss of a living person could happen so quickly.

Zhao Xuan remains impassive. He has seen a hell far more terrifying than this: continents abandoned, cities turned to desolate wastelands, and civilization and law reduced to ashes.

The one who can save all of this in the future is Shu Cheng.

Shu Cheng screams like a madman when a zombie gets right in his face. Forget the future. He's the one who needs saving right now!

Luckily, he has Zhao Xuan to rely on.

But Zhao Xuan's mission isn't to save Shu Cheng.

He's here to kill him.

Besides the Shu Cheng from the beginning of the apocalypse, Zhao Xuan has also met another Shu Cheng. That man's name is etched into the history of human civilization in the new era. Since the dawn of the new world, he has been its greatest scientist and the father of the gifted.

Though he has the same young face, the scientist is nothing like the timid Shu Cheng. Smiling, he makes Zhao Xuan an audacious, almost unthinkable request:

“I want you to go back in time and kill me.”

Unhinged, max-strength, mind-reading esper seme x seemingly obedient, inwardly snarky researcher uke

Short story, fully drafted, main story complete with an open ending, happy ending in the bonus chapter

Theme: This is humanity's chance to flaunt its defiance before the gods.