Pain—pure, searing pain—shredded through him.
Zhang Yi felt it to his bones. This wasn't a memory or a nightmare. It was happening. Brutal and immediate.
He was being trampled—by the friends and neighbors he'd once trusted. Fists, boots, even clubs rained down on him without mercy. When food and heat ran out, people turned on each other like animals. All the favors he'd done meant nothing in their hunger and fear.
As consciousness slipped, he saw her—Fang Yuqing—standing at the back of the crowd. She put on a pitiful face and cried out, "He opened the door for me—you owe me an extra share!"
She'd tricked him into letting her in. She'd led them to him.
Hatred and regret burned behind his eyes. He'd been too naive, too kind—a stepping stone for others in a world gone mad. If only he could start over.
Darkness took him.
Then, as if a switch had flipped, he snapped awake and shot upright on the sofa.
The nightmare stuck to him like a film. He sucked air into his lungs; sweat drenched his clothes. "What the—weren't those neighbors supposed to have killed me?" he muttered.
The room was his. The apartment smelled like home. The temperature felt oddly comfortable.
His phone read: November 12. One month exactly.
So it wasn't a dream. He'd been reborn.
Relief hit him like a wave—and with it, something colder: a stark, ruthless clarity. He remembered every face that had hurt him. This time he would not be soft. He would protect himself first, and then he would make them pay.
Practical problems waited. Thirty days wasn't long. How do you survive an apocalypse that was about to freeze the planet?
By ordinary standards Zhang Yi was fine. His parents had died years ago; he'd inherited a 120-square-meter apartment in Tianhai City and had over ¥2 million in savings. Comfortable—until everything changed. Money only went so far when supplies vanished. To survive alone he needed stockpiles: food, fuel, tools, weapons, and something to keep his sanity.
Then a sliver of white light flashed before his eyes.
He rubbed his right eye, thinking it a trick. Instead, a strange thought slipped into him—the light felt like part of his mind. Information filled his head. With a single thought his consciousness slid into the brightness.
He stood in a vast, boundless white space—empty except for a sense of size so big it had no edges. It felt like a storage room the size of a world.
A pocket dimension.
His heart jumped. Radiation? Mutation? Whatever had happened, it had changed him. The cause didn't matter as much as the result: this space might hold things.
Back in his apartment he tested it. A teacup vanished with a thought. A washbasin followed. Encouraged, he shoved in bigger stuff—the TV, the fridge, the washing machine, the computer, the air conditioner, the vacuum. The space swallowed them all.
And with another thought he could pull any of them back.
Not everything obeyed. Objects bound to the ground or under heavy external forces didn't budge. When he tried to pry up a floorboard, nothing happened. The pocket dimension had rules. Rules could be learned.
"This changes everything," he thought. "But I'll learn the rules."
A plan formed.
Zhang Yi worked as a warehouse supervisor at Walmart's South China hub. As one of the biggest retail giants, Walmart stored nearly everything. In China the chain ran three massive distribution centers—Central, North, and South. The South warehouse was legendary: built in 2040, it stretched 1,500 meters long and 720 meters wide, covering well over a million square meters. Its reserves could feed several cities for a week.
If he could empty just one warehouse and move the supplies into his pocket dimension, he wouldn't simply survive—he'd never worry again. Ten lifetimes' worth of food, tools, and gear, if not more. And Walmart's stock wasn't junk: name brands, reliable products, stringent quality control. He'd be living in comfort while the world froze.
He knew the place inside out—aisles, shelves, cameras, staff schedules. Emptying a warehouse wouldn't be simple, but for him it wasn't impossible.
With a plan settling into place, a weight lifted from him. He felt lighter, sharper.
His stomach growled.
He glanced at the container of braised chicken rice on the table and hesitated. Then he laughed, shook his head, and ordered himself to enjoy it.
"In a month it's the end of the world. Might as well eat what I can now," he told himself. He'd spent a month starving in the cold before. A hot meal wasn't indulgence—it felt like salvation. Money would be worthless after the collapse. Better to spend it than watch it turn to meaningless paper.
He rose, ready to treat himself. Maybe a restaurant he'd never dared enter. Then he'd test the pocket dimension further, then move on to bigger plans.
Outside, a distant cosmic event had already set the planet on a path to catastrophe. In December 2050, a massive cosmic incident triggered a chain reaction that plunged the Earth into a sudden, global freeze. Temperatures crashed—Tianhai City fell into the −60 to −70°C range, and in the far north it got worse, the land buried under endless ice. Extinctions followed. Over 95% of humanity perished.
Thirty days. Not much time. But he had a pocket dimension and the keys to a warehouse.
He licked his lips, eyes bright. The game had begun.