Chapter 1

Chapter 1 — The Apocalypse

"Xiaoxiao, slow down."

Su Wen felt like he was having a very long dream. In the dream, he had returned to the time before the apocalypse, and the apocalypse had never come. He was sitting in an office, with the computer he had once been sick of in front of him and the annoying laughter and chatter of his coworkers ringing in his ears.

He sat there quietly for half an hour. A coworker strangely patted him on the shoulder. He turned his head, but the coworker was gone. There was only a mirror.

His reflection was in the mirror.

It was the version of himself who had never experienced the baptism of the apocalypse. He was smiling broadly, young and full of vitality. Although he carried the fatigue shared by all young people struggling to make a living in the city, there was still a light of hope for the future in his eyes.

Then the scene gradually changed. That clean, youthful version of him slowly grew old. The sharp edges of his face were completely worn away. The eyes that had always contained a smile gradually filled with the cloudiness and numbness of someone who had endured years of hardship. Then the mirror began to shatter and weather.

With a "bang," the mirror shattered, and he was blown to pieces.

He woke up in fright.

Woke up?

Su Wen slowly opened his eyes. Strange. Shouldn't he have been dead?

"I told you, didn't I? Slow down. Look what happened—you fell."

The male voice gradually grew louder. The crying that had sounded like music in Su Wen's ears abruptly stopped and became faint sobbing.

At a time like this, what did it matter if she fell? It was still better than running too slowly and getting eaten by zombies.

"Meow!"

Su Wen was a little confused. Was that his voice? Had he been so frightened that he had actually meowed?

When he opened his eyes, he saw a huge, enlarged human face right in front of him. It was a little girl's face. In any other situation, it would probably have been quite a cute little face.

But to Su Wen at that moment, that size and that angle were simply far too terrifying.

"Get up. Why are you lying on the ground?"

Wen Changjie was somewhat helpless and reached out to pull his daughter up.

"Kitty!"

Wen Xiaoxiao suddenly shouted loudly.

Su Wen shrank back. His ears trembled several times, and he was almost deafened.

"What kitty?"

Wen Changjie was completely confused. His youngest daughter stubbornly remained crouched on the ground, refusing to get up, pointing at a pile of withered yellow leaves in front of her and shouting about a kitty.

"It must be a little cat, right?"

In the end, it was still her mother, Yang Tao, who was more attentive. She bent down and pushed aside the fallen leaves, revealing a palm-sized orange-yellow kitten underneath.

Su Wen shivered. He was a little cold.

"A kitten?"

Wen Changjie leaned over and looked at it twice. He was not very interested. This time, he did not try to pull his daughter up and instead reached out to pick her up.

"I want to keep it!"

As Wen Xiaoxiao spoke, she had already reached out and scooped the completely bewildered Su Wen into her arms.

"Meow..."

Su Wen called out weakly.

"Be careful. Don't suffocate the kitten."

Yang Tao hurried over and rescued Su Wen, who had just been reborn and was already about to go see the King of Hell again. Su Wen quickly took several deep breaths.

"It's so dirty, and it's covered in bacteria. Dad will go buy you one from the pet shop."

Wen Changjie looked at the kitten, his eyes full of disgust.

"I want this one!"

Wen Xiaoxiao sniffled, puffed out her cheeks, and hugged Su Wen tighter.

...

"It's all because of you."

Wen Changjie glared at Yang Tao as he watched his daughter happily announce that she was going to give the kitten a bath.

Originally, he had firmly refused, and his daughter should have given up. But his wife, Yang Tao, had insisted on getting involved and agreed to keep the cat.

"What did I do?"

Yang Tao ignored him and went inside.

"Anyway, I'm not raising it. You two deal with it."

Wen Changjie thought about it. He already had so much work during the day, and after finally getting to rest at night, he would still have to take care of a cat. That would really be the death of him.

"I'll raise it, then. You aren't allowed to touch the cat. If the cat dies or goes missing, don't give me any other excuses. I'll assume you did it."

Yang Tao completely shut down any argument, lifted her chin, and followed her daughter inside.

"Mommy, I'll give the kitten a bath."

Wen Xiaoxiao pointed proudly at the basin beneath her feet.

"The kitten can't take a bath yet. It will get sick if you wash it."

Su Wen kicked his legs, desperately trying not to fall out of the little girl's arms. After being utterly bewildered for five minutes, he finally began to understand.

Had he been reborn?

And not just an ordinary rebirth.

He had been reborn as a cat.

Good grief. Was there some advantage to entering the apocalypse as a cat instead of as a human?

"Mommy, is the kitten going to die? Why does it feel so weak?"

"Could it be dying?"

Yang Tao crouched down worriedly and poked Su Wen, who was still just a tiny little bundle.

Su Wen shuddered.

Mommy, isn't the kitten hungry?

Wen Xiaoxiao desperately tried to remember what had caused her to feel this way when she had been this small. Wasn't it because she had been hungry?

When Su Wen drank the goat's milk, the apocalypse and the zombies were all thrown to the back of his mind.

Even if he was going to die, he might as well be a well-fed ghost.

"Huff, huff~"

"Gulp, gulp~"

"Wow, the kitten eats so much."

Wen Xiaoxiao crouched on the ground, her mouth hanging open. She cautiously reached out and touched Su Wen's ear.

The kitten's purring as it ate made her a little scared.

"She really was hungry."

Yang Tao also came over to watch the kitten eat, while Wen Changjie nearby rolled his eyes.

"Didn't you say you two were going to raise it? I was the one who went out to buy the goat's milk."

Wen Changjie complained.

"I said I would go buy it, but you wouldn't let me, would you?"

Yang Tao smiled sweetly and poked her husband.

"At this hour of the night, you, a woman, going outside..."

Wen Changjie became irritated as soon as he got to this point.

Su Wen contentedly licked up the last drop of milk and yawned. This kitten's body really was too prone to sleepiness. Once his tightly wound nerves relaxed, drowsiness immediately surged over him.

He did not know what material the floor in this house was made from, but it was not cold. He walked to a corner of the wall and prepared to simply curl up and sleep.

"Daddy, Mommy, the kitten is going to sleep."

Wen Xiaoxiao noticed the kitten's condition and interrupted the two people who seemed to be arguing but were actually flirting.

"I remember you have an old sweater with a hole in it. Give it to the kitten as a temporary bed."

As Yang Tao spoke, she walked back and went to look for Wen Changjie's torn old sweater.

Wen Changjie walked over to Su Wen. Su Wen narrowed his eyes and looked at him once before immediately closing them again.

"Silly cat. You don't even know who your benefactor is."

Wen Changjie muttered under his breath, but ultimately did not do anything to Su Wen.

By the time Yang Tao came back, she was already holding an old sweater in her hands. She placed the sweater in the corner and put the nearly sleeping Su Wen onto it.

"All right."

Yang Tao clapped her hands.

"What if the cat pees?"

The more Wen Changjie thought about it, the more of a headache he got.

"Don't you have another old sweater?"

Yang Tao said it as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"I still wear that one!"

Wen Changjie protested. Ever since this cat had arrived, his position in the household had practically plummeted.

"Mommy, it's okay! I still have old clothes!"

Wen Xiaoxiao raised her hand to volunteer.

Su Wen fell asleep as soon as he heard this. His chest felt sour, bitter, swollen, and warm all at once.

It seemed like he had not seen a scene like this in a very long time after the apocalypse.

Even just listening to their voices made him feel much more at ease. At the same time, he could not help feeling sad, because only he knew that before long, the apocalypse would destroy all of this.

"Shh—"

Wen Xiaoxiao raised her index finger and placed it against her lips.

"The kitty is asleep."

She spoke very softly.

"Then go take a bath and go to sleep too."

Yang Tao had finally started feeling tired after all the fuss. They quietly left this corner and returned to their peaceful lives.

Su Wen woke in the middle of the night because he needed to pee. He struggled to stand up. Although Yang Tao had said it would be fine if he peed on the sweater, the dignity he had once possessed as a human still prevented him from doing such a thing.

However, there wasn't even a litter box here, and the bathroom was too far away, so he ran to the kitchen and made do there.

Although his dignity as a human was still quite strong, after experiencing the filthy and chaotic apocalypse and then becoming a cat, his standards had already fallen far below those of an ordinary person.

Su Wen yawned repeatedly as he prepared to go back to sleep for a while. Suddenly, he noticed a calendar beside the television.

Being a cat wasn't entirely a bad thing. At least he could see clearly at night. Back during the apocalypse, this was a privilege reserved for advanced humans with supernatural abilities.

As an ordinary person like him, his body had been no different from before the apocalypse, yet he had faced a five-star level of difficulty. Perhaps this time, after becoming a cat, he might even become a cat with supernatural abilities.

He had no idea when the apocalypse would arrive.

He stood in front of the calendar, wanting to see how many more days of carefree living he had left.

Su Wen's eyes gradually widened. His overly small and weak body did not yet allow him to climb up and down nimbly, so he could not get completely close to the calendar to look at it.

But even from there, he could clearly see what was written on it.

2019 Year of the Pig Calendar.

But he clearly remembered that when the apocalypse arrived, it was August 8, 2018.

He could not possibly have remembered it wrong.

In fact, no one who had experienced the apocalypse could ever forget that date.

"Bang."

"Bang."

"Bang."

He could hear his own heart pounding desperately, the force of it making his ears ache faintly.

The apocalypse would not come again.