Version Abandoned: Latent

At three o'clock in the afternoon the day before the disaster, Zheng Qian squatted in his backyard and weighed a whole box of ammunition that expired in 2003 one by one. He was twenty-six years old, had dropped out of school, was living alone, and had just been dumped by his blind date on the phone. The reason was, "Don't you feel embarrassed guarding a house full of scrap metal?" Ten hours later, a layer of blue appeared above the head of the world: **"Welcome to the Elemental Age. Countdown to 03:17:00."** The moment the countdown reached zero, the old 2003 bullet in his hand shook slightly - as if he had known him for a long time. Only then did he realize: what he inherited was not a scrap shop, but a scrap list of a universe that had been rolled back in the previous version. The "Military Defective Elements Tendencies Handbook" left behind by his father is a cross-version memory anchor. The neighbors on the whole street, Mr. Li who repairs watches, Aunt Li who stitches, and Uncle Zhao from the canteen are all people who stayed away from the previous version - but no one remembers this version. **"Expired scrap products can be enchanted because they remember what the last universe was like."**