The shou is Ling Chun, a sunny, shameless, adaptable smut writer with an overwhelming will to survive.
The gong is Gu Ku, a researcher with a brilliant mind, a disabled body, and a strange, aloof arrogance.
Humanity has made many predictions: one day, we may go extinct because of natural disasters or human conflict.
But no one expected humanity's first crisis to come from an insect plague. The insects multiplied endlessly and kept evolving, becoming humanity's natural enemy.
The only surviving human base was codenamed "Cultivate." Humans and insects had traded places: we were buried deep underground, while the insects roamed the surface. People always believed that we depended on the earth to survive, and that one day we would also rely on it to be reborn. Someday, we would see the sun again.
Life was hard, but civilization and culture would never die! Ling Chun's smut-writing career was thriving! He could even make money from it in this age of scarce resources.
And, on the side, keep a male model (struck out) Professor Gu Ku.
Gu Ku had been born a favored son of heaven, and even at the end of the world he was still one. He'd inherited his parents' intelligence to perfection and become a leading figure in the research department.
But because of his arrogance, he conducted an unsanctioned field experiment. It failed, and he was almost eaten alive by insects. Although someone rescued him, both his legs had become necrotic.
From then on, Professor Gu disappeared from the institute. In the slums, a paraplegic appeared, rummaging for bird eggs in filthy ditches and scavenging through trash heaps with Ling Chun.
Ling Chun: "Are your legs really paralyzed, or are you faking it? If you can't climb the wall, stay down here and keep watch for me."
Gu Ku: "..."
Ling Chun: "I'm stuck on my writing. Since you're just lying around with nothing to do, why don't..." He rubbed his hands together sheepishly. "Take off your pants and let me see some reference material?"
Gu Ku's forehead twitched with anger.
At first, Gu Ku had just discovered that he was paralyzed and had wound up in the slums. "Get lost! Don't touch me!" He was in a terrible mental state, bent on dying and even wishing he could kill himself on the spot.
Ling Chun: "I've realized you're really something. You're paralyzed and want to die, but that thing can still get up."
Gu Ku: "..." Mortified beyond words.
What do you do when two people are completely out of sync, and every angry outburst is like punching a pillow?
In the middle, Gu Ku found fault with everything Ling Chun did and deliberately picked on him. "Don't you think what you're doing is really shameless?"
Ling Chun grinned. "So what? You're the one getting it! You're the one getting it!"
Gu Ku: "..." So annoying. No matter how much he scolded him, he could never win.
Later, Gu Ku: "Ling Chun!" "Ling Chun!" "Ling Chun!" He called him eight hundred times whenever he couldn't see him.
Ling Chun: "Bro, can you wait ten minutes?"
Gu Ku glared at him, wondering what could possibly take so long.
Ling Chun: "...I have to take a shower!"
Gu Ku: "Fine. Together."
At first, Gu Ku thought that what would break him more than the end of the world was being paralyzed and stuck in the slums!
But later, when Ling Chun smiled at him, Gu Ku felt that being paralyzed wasn't such a big deal after all.
That way, every step he took depended on Ling Chun. He couldn't leave Ling Chun, and Ling Chun couldn't leave him.
The sun teeters on the brink, and the evil gods revel without restraint.
But love can clothe bare bones in flesh and make spring bloom in barren lands.
Theme: Exterminate the insects! Defend our home!
