Chapter1

Push him out!

I was struck hard in the back. The heavy, airtight door of the air-raid shelter slammed against me with a dull metallic clang.

Inside the door were my girlfriend Chloe, whom I've been dating for three years, and my childhood best friend Luke.

Outside the door, a deadly blizzard of minus sixty degrees Celsius raged, and in the darkness, a dozen pairs of eyes, green with hunger, peered out.

The thug's crowbar shattered my knee. Ice shards mixed with blood froze into icy spikes the moment they left my body. My body temperature was dropping at an alarming rate, and every breath felt like swallowing shards of glass.

The dirty snow boots stepped on my face. In the last second before my consciousness faded, I only heard Luke's relieved breath from inside the door: "Thanks to Ian for drawing the people away, we're safe..."

"call--"

The last bit of air in my lungs was suddenly expelled, and I sprang to my feet as if electrocuted, greedily inhaling the air into my body. There was no biting ice and snow, no iron bars from thugs.

The air conditioner was blowing a gentle breeze of 26 degrees Celsius, and the summer sun shone through the blinds, casting dappled patterns of light on the floor of the Boston apartment.

The digital calendar on the bedside table was ticking: August 15th. A full fifteen days until the unprecedented cold wave that would turn the world into an ice hell.

I gripped my wrist tightly until my fingernails left red marks, and the pain was clearly transmitted to my brain through the nerve endings.

This isn't a revolving lantern. I've crawled back from that hell.

An unusual high-frequency vibration came from my palm. I looked down; my phone screen was lit.

A gray-green icon appeared on my desktop at some point – “Doomsday Farm”.

The moment the fingertip touched the edge of the screen, the interface instantly unfolded. There were no complicated technical diagrams or fancy magic skill descriptions; the screen displayed only two extremely simple functional modules: [Rapid Growth] and [Constant Temperature Warehouse].

I tried long-pressing to delete, but the icon didn't move at all.

A newbie gift pack icon was floating in the center of the screen. I clicked on it.

"extract."

A barely perceptible ripple appeared in the air. The next second, my palm suddenly felt heavy.

A tomato, about the size of a fist and with a bright red skin, appeared out of nowhere. At the base of the tomato, there was even a clump of warm, damp soil clinging to its stem.

I held this tomato as if it were a beating heart. Taking a bite, the sweet and sour juice exploded in my mouth, and the moment I swallowed it, it also dispelled the deathly chill of the minus sixty degree Celsius.

This is a truly tactile experience. The system provides space that allows everything to remain in its original, pristine condition.

"Ding-dong—"

The crisp sound of the doorbell suddenly pierced my ears along the corridor.

The sound was like a fuse, instantly igniting gunpowder deep within my memory. On this day in my past life, at this very time, the same doorbell rang.

I quickly swallowed the rest of the tomato, hastily wiped my mouth, and tiptoed to the entrance. Through the peephole, I saw two people standing in the hallway outside.

Chloe was wearing a floral sundress and carrying two huge suitcases. Luke stood behind her, idly kicking the wall with the tip of his shoe.

“Ian, open the door quickly. We know you’re feeling down after Grandpa George’s funeral, so we moved in to stay with you for a few days.” Chloe’s voice came through the security door, filled with sweet concern.

In my previous life, I was moved by the word "companionship" and welcomed them into the house without any precautions.

And what happened? Over the next ten days or so, they subtly and persistently pleaded and eventually took away the property certificate for the abandoned suburban underground botanical research institute that my grandfather had left me.

What was originally my bargaining chip for surviving the apocalypse became their pledge of allegiance to gain the trust of the thugs.

I took a deep breath and pulled the doorknob.

The door was only half open, and my tall frame completely blocked the entrance.

"Why isn't the air conditioning on full blast? I'm sweating from the heat," Chloe complained, instinctively squeezing further inside.

My shoulders were like an iron wall, completely unmoved. She bumped into my arm and looked up in surprise.

"Your luggage must be quite heavy, right?" I lowered my eyes and glanced at the suitcase in Luke's hand, which was ostensibly filled with clothes but was actually stuffed with valuable appliances from their rented room.

"It's alright. How could we not help when our brother is in trouble?" Luke forced a smile and reached out to put his arm around my shoulder.

I turned slightly to the side, avoiding his touch.

“No need.” I stared into Luke’s eyes, my voice flat. “I’ve already listed this apartment, and the agent will bring people to see it this afternoon. It’s not convenient to have guests here these days.”

"Listing for sale? You want to sell your house?" Chloe's voice suddenly rose, and even her pitiful pretense cracked.

“Yes, sell it all together, including that underground research institute on the outskirts of the city.” I dropped this bombshell and quietly observed their reaction.

Luke's eye twitched visibly, a flicker of barely concealed anxiety crossing his face. What they were after was about to slip away.

"No... why would you sell such a large research institute? The market is bad right now, you won't get a good price!" Luke took a step forward urgently, his tone full of obstruction.

"I need cash. I need to exchange it for cash." I used my wrist to pull the door panel back.

"Are you crazy?!" Chloe reached out to grab the door frame.

"Bang!"

The security door slammed shut without hesitation, the gust of wind whipping her hair around her ears. The lock clicked shut with a crisp sound, completely shutting out those two hypocritical faces from my world.

As the arguing outside faded into the distance, my gaze swept over the walls covered with limited-edition sneakers and expensive leather sofas. These junk items, which wouldn't even buy a bowl of hot soup in the apocalypse, were now proving useful.

I swiped my phone screen and dialed the number of real estate agent Smith.

"Two apartments in the city center, and an SUV. All cash, cash only."

"Yes, it's 30% below market price, but the condition is that the money must be in your account before sunset."

After hanging up the phone, I grabbed a few clothes and important documents from my backpack, then pushed open the door and went out.

The roar of the engine shattered the tranquility of the suburbs as the SUV came to a steady stop in front of the abandoned underground botanical research institute.

Overgrown with weeds and with a dilapidated iron gate, this building, half-buried in the mountainside, is, in my eyes, an excellent survival base in the face of an impending disaster.

Fifteen days. Three hundred and sixty hours.

I will use the huge sum of money from selling the house to coat every inch of the walls here with heat-insulating armor and weld every door seam shut. I will grow an inexhaustible supply of food and stockpile an endless amount of resources here.