1

Before the apocalypse in my previous life, my adopted sister blindly believed an online post claiming an extreme global freeze was coming. She forced me to spend everything on raw meat and heavy winter gear. When the "Extreme Heat" apocalypse actually arrived, all her supplies rotted into putrid waste. To vent her frustration, she locked me in a cage and left me to be baked alive in the scorching heat.

Reborn, I smiled and helped her hoard ten tons of raw meat and heavy leather jackets, watching as she dreamed of becoming the Queen of the Wasteland...

1

Bang!

With a teeth-setting crash, the sturdy oak door of my bedroom was kicked open.

"Victor! Are you still sleeping like a pig? Get your ass up! The ATM needs to get to work!"

A shrill, incredibly impatient female voice pierced my eardrums like an awl. I snapped my eyes open, instinctively reaching for the tactical knife usually at my waist, but the sight before me made me freeze.

Was I reborn?

Gone was the melting asphalt. Gone was the massive, blood-red sun in the sky that seemed hell-bent on roasting the Earth alive. Gone was the nauseating stench of burning tar mixed with the smell of roasting human fat.

Instead, I was in my bedroom in a farmhouse in suburban Ohio. Standing by my bed, wearing tight yoga pants, heavy makeup, and looking down at me with immense arrogance, was my adopted sister.

Chloe.

In my previous life, I escorted her all the way to a survivor base, only for her to immediately hook up with the base leader, Dexter (who also happened to be her current gangster boyfriend). She then accused me of failing to stop her from hoarding the wrong supplies and taking poor care of her on the road. Her punishment? Locking me in an iron cage to be roasted into a mummy by the blistering sun.

I quickly glanced at the date on my phone screen: July 1, 202X.

Exactly half a month before the unprecedented "Super Extreme Heat" apocalypse that would destroy the global power grid and boil away surface water.

"What are you spacing out for? Open your eyes and look at @SurvivalKingX’s tweet from last night!"

Seeing my silence, Chloe impatiently tapped her phone screen. "This is a survival guru with three million followers! He got top-secret intel from the dark web. In half a month, an asteroid fragment carrying an ancient virus will trigger global volcanic eruptions! It will block out the sun! A freezing nuclear winter and hordes of zombies are coming!"

She took a deep breath, acting as if she were already the savior of the world, and barked her orders. "So get up, hand over your military severance pay and all your credit cards. I am going on a massive shopping spree!"

Looking at the "Twitter Guru" wearing a skull mask in front of a pile of cheap survival knives, and then at my vain, foolish sister whose brain was entirely consumed by social media, I leaned back against the headboard and let out a low chuckle.

In my last life, not only did this stupid woman believe in this ridiculous "nuclear winter" theory, but absurdly enough, just a week before the apocalypse, she actually lucked out and awakened an extremely rare "Space Ability."

Her so-called "Space" was about the size of a standard football field. Once she awakened it, her ego inflated to cosmic proportions. Crowning herself the "Queen of the Wasteland," she used my money to hoard madly. Ultimately, the supplies that could only survive in extreme cold turned into literal garbage when the extreme heat hit. Out of respect for our late adoptive parents’ dying wishes, I gave everything to protect and guide her. Instead, she bore a grudge against me and tortured me to death with her gangster boyfriend.

Living this life again, looking at Chloe—who was currently just an ordinary person already going crazy—I didn't even have the desire to argue.

Her so-called "Giant Space" was nothing but a massive, sealed iron box with zero preservation rules. Whatever the temperature was outside, it was the exact same inside. In the impending 140°F (60°C) hellscape arriving in two weeks, her space would become a perfect "high-pressure scorcher pot."

What made me feel even more at peace was the crystal-clear presence of a tiny, floating cube deep within my mind. It was about two meters on each side, with a total volume of just 10 cubic meters.

This was my ability, a "Micro-Tactical Black Box" that had carried over with my rebirth.

It was pitifully small—couldn't even fit a car—but it possessed the two most overpowered, absolute baseline rules of the apocalypse: Absolute Time Stasis and Absolute Temperature Preservation.

If I put a block of ice in there, it wouldn't melt a single drop even after ten thousand years.

In the extreme heat hell where solar storms paralyzed global power grids, fried all cooling systems, and dried up water resources, this tiny 10-cubic-meter space in my head was Earth's only true Noah's Ark.

"Did you hear me, Victor?!" Seeing my eerie smile, Chloe violently grabbed my bedsheets and yelled venomously, "Bring out your cards! If you delay my supply hoarding and ruin my chance to be the Queen of the Wasteland, I won't give you a single slice of raw meat when the apocalypse hits. I'll let you freeze in the snow and feed the zombies!"

"Oh? What exactly are you planning to hoard?" I dropped my smile, suppressing the urge to grin from ear to ear, and put on the confused, passive look of someone who had just woken up.

Hearing my tone soften, Chloe lifted her chin high like a bragging hen, pulled a densely written list from her yoga pants, and slapped it hard against my chest.

"Do you even understand what a nuclear winter is? Everything outside will freeze! Canned food will turn into solid rocks. Even in the apocalypse, a Queen like me will never mistreat her stomach!"

She pointed at the list, her eyes fanatic. "Look closely: Top-grade A5 Miyazaki Wagyu, original cuts, 1,000 pounds! Live Boston lobsters, Alaskan King Crab meat, 500 pounds each! And those zero-sugar sparkling drinks that influencers love—I want 10 pallets of them in lightweight plastic bottles!"

I looked down at the insane list, my eyes filled with hidden contempt.

Fresh meat would rot. Carbonated drinks would explode. And the heavy-duty, fleece-lined motorcycle leather jackets and polar snow boots at the bottom of the list would be unwearable death traps in the heat.

It was a pile of garbage!

I was about to argue, but then I remembered the sinister smile she wore when she killed me in my past life.

In that instant, I killed my "big brother" instinct to educate her.

Fuck correcting her. Fuck saving her.

She wanted to be the Queen of the Wasteland?

Fine. I’ll just build her a grave, and she can be Queen of the Underground.

"Okay," I took a deep breath, raised my head, and flawlessly feigned the pained, helpless look of a simple man surrendering to reality. "If this Twitter guru is that authoritative, we really should prepare early. But the farmhouse can't hold all this. We'll need to rent a large cold storage facility first."

I put on a highly distressed expression. "Chloe, your plan is perfect, but there's a fatal problem. My severance pay and credit cards were frozen the day before yesterday due to an overseas account audit. They won't be unlocked until next week at the earliest."

"What?!" Chloe shrieked, her face turning ugly. "You useless trash! What about my Wagyu? What about my lobsters? If we wait until next week, the broke losers on Twitter will have cleared out the supermarkets!"

"Don't panic, Your Majesty," I lowered my voice, using an incredibly seductive tone to guide her. "Did you forget? When Mom and Dad passed away, they left the farmhouse deed and the $100,000 insurance payout in your name. Plus the money you saved from being an influencer... Since the apocalypse is coming in half a month, money will soon be just paper. Why don't you turn it into the capital for your apocalyptic empire right now?"

Chloe froze, her eyes flickering.

I added more fuel to the fire. "I know some dark-market suppliers who cater to high-end restaurants. If you transfer the money to me, I can instantly secure that 1,000 pounds of A5 Wagyu, the King Crabs, and those riot-proof leather jackets at wholesale prices."

"I can even use your name to apply for a bunch of maxed-out payday loans online. When the apocalypse hits, who’s going to collect debt?"

"You're right..." Chloe's eyes suddenly lit up. Vanity and blind greed entirely consumed what little intellect she had.

She slapped her thigh in excitement. "Paper money will be too hard to even wipe my ass with in a nuclear winter! Why shouldn't I use the bank's money to build my wasteland empire?!"

Without hesitation, she grabbed her phone, tapping frantically on the screen.

Less than two minutes later, my phone vibrated repeatedly.

"The insurance money, my savings... a total of $120,000, all transferred to that military channel account of yours!" Chloe looked down on me as if bestowing charity upon a beggar. "Use my info to mortgage the house and take out the online loans, milk them for every penny! Victor, you are now the Queen's Chief Procurement Officer. If the Wagyu you buy isn't top-tier, I’ll hold you accountable!"

"As you wish," I lowered my head, perfectly concealing the icy mockery in my eyes.