Was Yu Zhizhi’s drawing some sort of strange prophecy?

But most of the time, this little girl just randomly filled colors into her sketchpad, with barely any discernable subject matter to speak of.

Lu Yan hadn’t dreamed in a very long time. Rare as it was, he had a nightmare that night. He couldn’t remember the exact details, only that he was continuously falling into the ocean. The space before his eyes grew darker and darker, and a strange praying sound echoed in his ears, sounding like schools of fish crying out in the deep sea. Behind him was a pitch-black abyss resembling ink, gaping like a mouth waiting for prey to throw itself into the trap.

Lu Yan woke up before he could fall completely into it. With a loud thud, his head collided with the headboard, making quite a noise.

In the very next second, Tang Xun’an appeared at the door. He twisted and broke the door handle, breaking into the room with sheer brute force.

Lu Yan hadn’t been frightened by the nightmare, but he was startled by Tang Xun’an’s reaction. He switched on the bedside lamp. Tang Xun’an’s eyes were still cloudy and grey, but within them, Lu Yan could read a sense of shock and uncertainty.

“…What’s wrong?” Lu Yan asked softly.

Tang Xun’an let out a few low, indistinct growls from his throat: “…There’s something.”

The “something” he was referring to was a pollutant. Logically speaking, this place should be extremely safe, but Tang Xun’an had sensed an exceptionally intense source of pollution in an instant. This made him appear anxious and uneasy. In the end, he simply squeezed onto the bed next to Lu Yan to sleep, refusing to be driven away no matter what.

His wings couldn’t be retracted yet, and his dragon tail was thick and long. This brought disaster upon the already cramped staff dorm room, ultimately collapsing the precarious bed. When the bedframe gave way, Lu Yan could only think that thankfully, there was no one else on this floor. Otherwise, by the next morning, rumors like “those two slept together and broke the bed” would spread, and even throwing himself into the Yellow River wouldn’t wash away his name.

Consequently, Lu Yan’s sleeping spot had to be moved to Tang Xun’an’s bedroom. The other man’s tail remained tightly wrapped around his waist, causing Lu Yan to have even more nightmares. His dreams mostly consisted of being suffocated to death in the middle of the night. Furthermore, Tang Xun’an’s scales were incredibly rigid—sharp enough to slice through skin. As a result, Lu Yan was forced to stimulate the growth of his own fish scales to protect his delicate body.

Every day upon waking up, as he felt a handful of dragon scales, Lu Yan would deeply ponder a question: Did he really need those four hours of sleep a day?

In the blink of an eye, three months passed in the underground laboratory.

Lu Yan had grown accustomed to the faceless people around him, as well as waking up early in the morning to see Tang Xun’an’s face pressed excessively close to his. Through three months of diligent study, Lu Yan felt he had mastered at least ten types of new surgical techniques for the transplantation and modification of different categories of pollutants.

The common specializations were divided into six categories: fish, birds, mammals, reptiles, insects, and mythological creatures. Without exception, all of them required specific items dropped from pollutants.

He had also gained a preliminary understanding of the research institute’s structure. A hundred years ago, there was only one such research institute in the entire world, and its primary focus was pollutant transplantation and modification. The participants in the experiments were mostly soldiers from the military who had signed non-disclosure agreements and informed consent forms. Tang Xun’an was likely the sole exception among them.

The day finally arrived for Tang Xun’an to undergo his eye transplantation. Lu Yan really wanted to perform the surgery himself, but the setting wouldn’t allow it.

Professor Wu looked completely baffled. “You studied psychology, why on earth would you perform surgery? I know your concern makes you anxious, but this really isn’t a matter of ‘I can do it if I try’.”

In this dream, his designated major turned out to be psychology.

Lu Yan waited outside the operating room, feeling quite dejected. Although he wasn’t an ophthalmologist, his surgical technique was technically a hundred years ahead of this era, not to mention he had studied for three months. How was he not qualified to perform Tang Xun’an’s surgery?

In the family waiting area, Yu Zhizhi walked over carrying her small sketchpad. She sat opposite Lu Yan, took out her colored markers, and began to draw, glancing toward the operating room from time to time.

Before the drawing was finished, Yu Zhizhi’s eyes went vacant, as if she were witnessing something terrifying. Her body became entirely drenched in cold sweat, and her hands shook with convulsive tremors. Her behavior looked so much like a child experiencing an epileptic seizure that Lu Yan couldn’t help but step forward to ask, “Zhizhi, are you feeling unwell somewhere?”

Yu Zhizhi shook her head frantically, finally finishing the very last stroke of her drawing. Letting out a long sigh of relief, she tore the page out and handed it to Lu Yan.

Black and red dominated the vast majority of this picture. An inverted pyramid-structured building sat in the pitch-black underground, with red monsters swarming in from all directions. Aside from that, at the very top, Yu Zhizhi had written down a time:

[August 24, 2039, 00:00]

And right now, it was August 23rd, 23:45.

Lu Yan’s expression shifted slightly. If Yu Zhizhi’s drawings were all precognitions of the future, then it was glaringly obvious that the inverted pyramid building was the institute, and those red things were pollutants.

The light outside the operating room was still glowing red. The highest authority of the institute, Qiao Yu, was still inside and hadn’t come out.

An abnormal flush rose on Yu Zhizhi’s face. Lu Yan tested her forehead with his hand; it was burning hot. The little girl was breathing heavily.

Lu Yan’s heart sank. Records showed that Yu Zhizhi was not an Awakened. Yet, on the eve of awakening, an Awakened would always display a series of symptoms, including physical discomfort. He recalled a possibility, or rather, a rumor he had heard a long time ago.

Experimental Subject No. 0 of the First Research Institute was a rare healing-type Awakened, whose awakened talent was the number-one ranked “Apocalypse”. On the day Subject No. 0 awakened, countless pollutants surrounded the research institute. Because the commotion was too massive back then, combined with it being the early stages of the pollution disease outbreak, and given that the First Research Institute sat right beneath the Headquarters, the incident was not hidden. There were even discussion threads about it on the Apocalypse Forum.

The lights overhead flickered twice and suddenly burst. The King Fish inside Lu Yan’s body sent out an uneasy, warning alert.

A passing nurse let out an astonished exclamation, “Wasn’t maintenance just done today? Why did it blow out?”

Lu Yan checked the time: 23:47.

The time left for them was running out. He picked up Yu Zhizhi and kicked open the doors to the operating room.

Although the time difference spanned nearly a century, the layout of the operating room hadn’t changed much. Lu Yan quickly reached the surgical zone. Upon seeing him, surprise written all over the faces of everyone present.

The surgery had been underway for three hours, but Tang Xun’an had only fused one eyeball so far. Inside his eye socket, the other necrotic eyeball had just been removed, leaving nothing but a bloody cavity on his face. Qiao Yu was still holding an eyeball in his hand; its golden pupil darted erratically in all directions, looking toward the newcomers as if it possessed a consciousness of its own.

Following the movements of his fingertips, the red polyps attached to the eyeball continuously proliferated.

[Talent 13 - Genetic Recombination]

Although the word “genetic” was in its name, this talent actually had little to do with genetic technology. The talent holder could blend different living organisms together in an utterly unscientific manner.

“What’s going on?” Qiao Yu asked.

Lu Yan took a deep breath and answered succinctly, “Yu Zhizhi seems about to awaken. She drew a picture outside the operating room just now, and it shows that the institute has been surrounded by pollutants.”

Almost the instant he finished speaking, Qiao Yu’s expression changed drastically, revealing profound shock.

Professor Wu asked in confusion, “What drawing? Zhizhi awakening is a good thing.”

Here, probably only Qiao Yu and Lu Yan could realize the severity of the situation. To avoid unnecessary complications, Qiao Yu had never spoken to anyone else about the final prophecy made by Yu Hanxi before his death.

According to his deductions, the talent Yu Zhizhi would awaken was “Apocalypse”.

[Talent 1 - Apocalypse]

Healing type. Talent effect: Permanent eradication of pollution.

The talent would cause light to emanate from her body, expanding outward with Yu Zhizhi as the center. Wherever the radiance touched, the pollution would recede. As long as her spiritual power threshold reached a certain standard, the light would spread to every corner of the Earth, even if it went unnoticed due to being too thin. On that day, the Earth could permanently return to its pre-cataclysm state. The world would be free of pollution diseases, people wouldn’t have to worry about those man-eating monsters, and they wouldn’t have to fear when they might start distorting.

The future Yu Hanxi had seen was very distant, and Qiao Yu originally thought he still had plenty of time to prepare. But this day had truly come far too early.

It was now 23:51.

Disregarding the rise in his own distortion rate, Qiao Yu accelerated the catalyzed formation of the eyeball and then fitted the eyeball into Tang Xun’an’s socket. The red polyps squirmed, quickly growing and bonding with the original nerves.

The prolonged darkness left Tang Xun’an temporarily unaccustomed to the light. He sat up from the operating table, his expression slightly blank, but his golden eyes quickly locked their focus. He saw Lu Yan holding Yu Zhizhi, and a smile broke across his face.

Outside, chaos reigned. A special assistant pushed a life-support capsule forward, rushing over in a hurry.

Qiao Yu took Yu Zhizhi, gently touching her burning forehead with a twinge of heartache, and whispered, “Zhizhi, don’t be afraid.” He placed Yu Zhizhi into the life capsule, his gaze profound and sorrowful, before personally sealing the capsule door.

On the Apocalypse Forum, skepticism had always surrounded whether Experimental Subject No. 0 actually existed. Because aside from the day the institute was besieged by pollutants, there seemed to be no evidence to prove that No. 0 had ever been there. Even researchers who had worked inside the First Research Institute for many years had never seen her.

Now, Lu Yan felt that he might finally know the answer to this question.

Qiao Yu lifted the half-human-tall life capsule and handed it to Tang Xun’an.

“The talent you master is Time, and right now, what we lack most is time.” Qiao Yu looked into Tang Xun’an’s eyes and said solemnly, “Go and hide her in the future. I’m counting on you.”