Chapter 2
In the tense atmosphere of the law firm, I neither agreed directly nor exposed them on the spot.
I tried my best to suppress the mockery in my eyes, and simply said, "Let the child stay with me for now, and sign the papers after you've thought it through ," before pulling the trembling Sarah out of the meeting room.
I held all the cards in this divorce negotiation from the very beginning.
Anna's infidelity is undeniable; she has no chance of getting a share of the fully paid downtown apartment. Because she has no hope of acquiring this core asset, she 's going to great lengths to gain custody of Sarah. As long as she holds this "daughter" I've cherished for sixteen years in her hands, the three of them can exploit my fatherly love to continuously bleed me dry.
But Sarah's sudden defection has ruined the script, leaving Anna helpless and with no choice but to slam the door and leave.
That evening, Sarah moved back into my apartment.
She barely ate a few bites of dinner before making an excuse of exhaustion and going back to her room. I stayed in the living room until 11 p.m., when I heard her breathing evenly coming from her room. Then I quietly sneaked into her bedroom, unlocked her phone , and found that all her passwords were her birthdays, which were very easy to remember .
The pale blue light from the screen pierced the darkness, and on the hidden messaging app that was still running in the background , I saw their chat history.
Anna: What's wrong with you during the day?
[Sarah]: Mom, what can that little bit of pocket money do? You have no idea what terrible things are going to happen next! In a few months, extreme heat will completely destroy world order, and all money will be worthless. In my past life, we robbed the convenience store of supplies, but we ate them all in less than a month. Do you know what it felt like to be roasted alive by the heat in my past life?!
I stood by the bed, my knuckles white from gripping my phone too tightly . I quickly skipped over the horrifying descriptions and read on.
[Sarah]: The law is on his side, we can't take the property. Tomorrow I 'll tell him about the doomsday prophecy . As long as I cry enough, he'll definitely build a safe house. Then I'll pick you up, we'll take his safe house, and then kick him out.
I laughed in my anger. I thought that knowing I had raised a thankless wretch for sixteen years before I died in my previous life was the worst kind of malice in the world. But I never expected that in this life, she would still dare to step on my corpse and make me pay for her Doomsday Fortress.
I suppressed the urge to strangle her. Fine, since she wants a refuge, I'll go with the flow and let her reap what she sows .
The next morning, as the aroma of bacon wafted from the kitchen, the grand spectacle began.
Sarah deliberately rubbed her eyes until they were red and swollen. As soon as she saw me, she burst into tears and threw herself into my arms, peddling her carefully altered "past life memories".
In her script, Anna and David brutally murder me for supplies during the apocalypse, while she transforms into a dutiful daughter who fights to the death to protect her father .
I took a deep breath, forced my eyes to redden, and perfectly portrayed a father blinded by family affection.
"Don't be afraid, baby. Daddy believes in you. Even if it means going bankrupt, Daddy will build you an absolutely safe fortress."
After that, I strode out into the scorching June sun, sold my two fully paid-off apartments in the city center to raise cash, and maxed out all my credit cards.
I know very well that these debts will all be nullified when the end of the world comes.
I bought an abandoned steel mill in a remote, sparsely populated suburb, paying in full for a space that included a 10-meter-deep underground air-raid shelter.
This place is a hundred times safer than a convenience store . In my past life, although I had a lot of supplies, I was still robbed several times and only managed to save some of my food by fighting desperately .
I hired an overseas security team to handle the site, covered the roof of the bungalow with military-grade solar panels, inserted giant industrial batteries deep underground, and equipped two 100-meter-deep wells with the highest-level German water filtration system ...
Soon, the fortress began to take shape. The outermost layer was a three-meter-high explosion-proof electric fence. Inside the fence was a large open space. In the center of the open space was an abandoned steel plant used for camouflage. The real fortress was located underground in the steel plant. The gate connecting the inside and outside was an explosion-proof iron gate.
When the outermost three-meter-high riot control electric fence was completed, Sarah couldn't wait to pester me to ask about the operating logic of the control panel.
I knew she wanted to find an opportunity to cut off the power and release the person, so I patiently taught her a completely opposite approach .
Sarah, believing she had the fortress's Achilles' heel, completely let her guard down and secretly went to David's apartment frequently to report on the situation . That family of three was extremely arrogant, thinking they could take over my safe house, and hadn't even stocked up on a single bottle of water.
This is exactly what I want.
The gears of time keep turning relentlessly.
In mid-June, the temperature unexpectedly soared to 43 degrees Celsius.
On the seventh day before the deadline, at 45 degrees Celsius, air conditioners across the city were overloaded, causing transformers in some communities to explode .
On the fifth day before the water pressure reached 48 degrees Celsius, the water pressure plummeted until the water supply stopped.
On the third-to-last day, the temperature reached 51 degrees Celsius. Car tires on the road frequently burst and spontaneously combusted, and medical and social order was like a candle flickering in the wind amidst this terrifying heatwave.
Sarah moved into my fortress without hesitation, anxiously waiting to receive her biological parents outside. I didn't stop her. I wanted those two scoundrels to suffer the consequences of their actions, and to let this ingrate know what it means to have great hopes, only to be disappointed.
On the last day at noon, the outdoor ground temperature alarmingly broke through the 60-degree mark.
As the distant municipal power grid erupted in a burst of flames with a muffled thud, the apocalypse officially began.
Inside the underground fortress, a dozen thick steel locking posts, each as thick as a hand, locked the several-ton blast-proof iron door shut with the click of springs. The temperature control system operated silently, maintaining the interior at a comfortable 22 degrees Celsius, like early spring.
The stage is set up comfortably, now, all that's left is for that pair of scoundrels who're practically roasted to come knocking on the door.
