Chapter1

"Sizzle—"

The dull pain of my carotid artery being brutally torn apart by rough fangs felt like a high-voltage electric current coursing through my entire body. Hot blood gushed out like a fountain, flowing back into my trachea and bringing a desperate feeling of suffocation.

I suddenly opened my eyes, panting heavily on the large leather sofa like someone being pulled from the water after drowning. My hands were tightly pressed against my neck, but there was no warm blood between my fingers, nor the nauseating stench of rotting flesh typical of high-level mutants.

Only the cool breeze from the constant temperature air conditioning in the luxury apartment.

I was drenched in cold sweat. I stiffly raised my head and stared at the ticking digital clock on the wall: October 15th, 2020. 8 PM.

Seven days before the full-scale outbreak of the apocalypse.

I leaned back on the sofa, feeling a wave of intense dizziness wash over me. It took me a full five minutes to finally accept an undeniable fact—I had been reborn.

In my past life, as one of Wall Street's top actuaries, I was accustomed to stripping away all emotions, focusing solely on profit and probability. It was precisely this extreme cold-bloodedness and cunning that allowed me to survive three hellish years amidst the collapse of order and the cannibalistic wasteland. It wasn't until the final horde siege that I was cornered in a dead end by several high-level mutants and torn to pieces.

The intense pain of having muscles torn apart piece by piece and bones chewed up bit by bit is still etched on my nerve endings, burning like a raging fire.

But I felt no fear; instead, an uncontrollable surge of ecstasy welled up within me. Now that fate has given me a second chance, in this life, I will not only live, but I will become the one who sets the rules, standing atop the heads of all living beings!

"Buzz buzz buzz—"

The sudden vibration of my phone on the table was like a sharp knife cutting through my thoughts.

The screen flashed two words: stepmother.

My eyes suddenly turned cold, and I pressed the answer button. A nauseatingly fake voice immediately came from the other end of the line.

"Oh, Vincent , you must be very busy working on Wall Street lately, right? Even if you're busy, you must take care of yourself. I'm worried about you every day."

This insincere small talk lasted less than half a minute before she couldn't wait to reveal her true intentions: "Well, your younger brother is all grown up now and will soon be getting married. I've got my eye on a detached mansion on Long Island, surrounded by water on three sides, with excellent feng shui, but we're short three million US dollars. Isn't the trust fund your biological mother left you about to mature?"

She paused, then her tone became matter-of-fact: "Anyway, we're family. You can take out the money and give it to your brother for emergency use. We're family, so there's no need for formalities. He can pay you back slowly later."

Using the life-saving money left by my deceased mother to fill the bottomless pit of this mother and child?

In my past life, I firmly refused this unreasonable request. The result was their vicious slander and curses within our family circle. Even worse, on the third day of the apocalypse, in order to seize the last half-box of cookies I had, they not only ran me over with their car, breaking my leg, but also left me like a dead dog on a riotous street to die. If I hadn't been incredibly lucky, I wouldn't have survived even a month in my past life!

When I didn't speak, the person on the other end of the phone immediately switched to another person. My biological father's extremely stern, commanding voice slammed into my ears:

"What kind of attitude is it to remain silent about such a small matter? You're a Wall Street actuary, don't you get enough commissions every day? That's your own brother! The trust fund is to be transferred out of the bank first thing tomorrow morning. There's no room for discussion, it's settled!"

Hearing this utterly absurd coercion, if it were in my past life, I would definitely have angrily fought back and argued loudly.

But at that moment, I just found it utterly ridiculous. What was there to argue about when faced with three dead people about to enter the gates of hell?

“Okay.” I said, my voice perfectly calm. “The three million will be transferred to your account tomorrow morning.”

A deathly silence fell on the other end of the phone. They clearly hadn't expected me to agree so readily. The father's prepared tirade of venomous words was choked back by that single "okay." After a long pause, he finally managed to stammer, "At least you have some sense," before abruptly hanging up.

I threw my phone away, a cruel smile curving my lips.

Buy a luxury mansion on Long Island? Don't worry, I'll personally deliver a supreme suite that leads to the deepest hell.

Without wasting a second, I turned around and went into the study, turning on the six top-of-the-line computing machines on the workbench.

The moment my hands touched the mechanical keyboard, my fingertips blurred into a blur. In these final seven days before the network security was completely paralyzed, relying on my actuary's terrifying control over data and the hacking skills I honed for survival in my previous life, I silently infiltrated the federal underlying database through the dark web's onion nodes in just twelve minutes.

My biological father, stepmother, and my giant baby brother whose mind is filled with nothing but muscles and appetite.

I thoroughly investigated and extracted all the highest-level information about a family of three, including their social security numbers, credit records, asset statements, and identification codes.

Immediately afterwards, I skillfully typed out a few lines of hidden code and logged into an underground lending platform known only to a very small number of core thugs in the global black and gray market.

Funder: The Russian mafia "Tomahawk" family.

These are a group of true devils, whose lending terms are extremely bloodthirsty—10% daily interest with no grace period whatsoever. If you are late, even if you are short by a single cent, they will cut off your limbs, stuff them into oil drums, fill them with cement, and sink them into the Atlantic Ocean.

I sneered and, without changing my expression, uploaded a flawlessly forged Wall Street asset betting agreement using the joint identity information of my parents and younger brother as the core guarantors, and immediately filled the loan section with the maximum amount.

Five million US dollars!

On the screen, the actuary's professional instincts enabled my brain to generate a perfect death formula in a fraction of a second:

The principal is five million, with a daily interest rate of ten percent. Seven days later, on the day the apocalypse arrives, due to the irreversible compounding, the principal and interest of this usurious loan will balloon to a staggering figure—a full ten million US dollars!

I don't need to dirty my hands at all. Seven days later, when the ten million dollar death warrant is posted on the door of the Long Island mansion, that good-for-nothing brother who only knows how to eat, drink, and have fun every day, and those biased parents who only know how to leech off others, will be skinned alive by the enraged Russian mafia.

"Confirm application." I pressed the Enter key heavily.

The page was spinning wildly, and the progress bar instantly filled up.

"Beep—Identity verification passed."

"Dark web funds are being laundered... and have been successfully transferred to a designated overseas anonymous account."

My phone screen lit up suddenly, and a top-level encrypted text message from an overseas bank popped up: Five million US dollars, not a penny less, was in my account balance.

Looking at this seed money, thick with the stench of blood, I felt not a trace of guilt, but rather a morbid, chilling satisfaction. Using my villainous social identity to recklessly borrow money, pushing these vampires into an abyss of debt, would all provide me with ample ammunition to build my post-apocalyptic fortress—this calculation was absolutely brilliant!

I picked up the now-cold black coffee on the table and drank it all in one gulp.

Just then, the giant LCD TV on the wall suddenly emitted a piercing electrical sound, and the screen was forcibly switched to an emergency news broadcast.

The camera shakes violently, with Times Square in the heart of New York City in the background. A homeless man, covered in blood and with shrunken white eyes, tackles a burly police officer to the ground, his mouth, torn to the roots of his ears, frantically biting at the officer's neck. Blood sprays onto the camera lens like mist, a horrifying sight.

The female host's panicked and desperate voice came through intermittently: "A case of unknown rabies has been reported in New York City... The infected person is extremely aggressive... Please, citizens, immediately return indoors, lock your doors and windows, and do not approach any..."

The news broadcast hadn't finished when I looked out the window.

Under the bustling yet deathly silent Manhattan night sky, the piercing wailing of police sirens suddenly tore through the air, like the howl of hellhounds. This was followed by the deafening roar of car explosions from a chain collision, and then by the blood-curdling screams of the crowd in the streets.

I walked to the bulletproof glass window, hands in my pockets, looking down at the steel jungle below that was gradually spiraling out of control and into madness. The long-lost, exciting, pungent smell of blood seemed to have already filled the air.