The cold was biting. It wasn't just a temperature; it was a physical entity that gnawed at the bones, drilling into the marrow like a rusty, frozen needle.
Lin Fan lay curled up in the corner of his living room. The once-expensive Italian leather sofa had long been chopped up and burned for warmth, leaving only the wooden frame and springs exposed.
The room was dark. The windows were sealed with layers of duct tape and old blankets, but the chill still seeped through, carrying the terrifying temperature of minus sixty degrees Celsius (-76°F).
"Hungry..."
Lin Fan's lips were cracked and purple. His stomach had stopped growling two days ago; now, it just felt like a hollow pit of acid, digesting itself.
He looked at the heavy security door. Outside, in the corridor, he could hear footsteps. Heavy, chaotic footsteps.
"Lin Fan! Open the door! We know you still have food!"
The voice was shrill and desperate. It belonged to Sarah, the woman Lin Fan had loved for three years. The "Goddess" of the neighborhood.
In the early days of the Global Freeze, when the snow first buried the city, Lin Fan had been naive. He had been kind. Because he was a warehouse manager before the apocalypse, he had some stockpiles of instant noodles and water.
When Sarah cried and begged, he gave her half of his supplies. When the neighbors pleaded for help, he let them into his hallway to warm up.
He thought that in the face of a global catastrophe, humanity would unite. He thought his kindness would be exchanged for gratitude.
He was wrong. So terribly, fatally wrong.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The heavy door shook violently. They weren't knocking anymore; they were smashing it with a fire axe.
"Stop wasting time talking to him!" a rough male voice roared. It was David, the rich second-generation heir who lived in the penthouse. "Just break it down! This selfish prick has been hiding food while we starve. He deserves to die!"
"Lin Fan, please..." Sarah's voice turned into a sob, but the malice beneath it was palpable. "Just open the door. David says if you hand over the food, we won't hurt you. We just want to live."
Lin Fan let out a dry, wheezing laugh. He clutched the empty instant noodle wrapper in his hand—his last meal from yesterday.
He had nothing left. The food he gave them only fed their strength, allowing them to come back and hunt him down.
CRACK!
The lock gave way. The door was kicked open, letting in a blast of freezing air that instantly formed frost on Lin Fan's eyelashes.
Shadows rushed in. David, Sarah, and three other neighbors. Their eyes were glowing green with hunger, like wolves looking at a wounded sheep.
"I told you he was useless," David spat, kicking Lin Fan in the ribs.
Pain exploded in Lin Fan's chest, but he was too weak to scream. He looked up at Sarah. She was wearing the down jacket he had given her. She didn't look at his eyes; she was frantically searching the room.
"Where is the food? Where is it?!" she screamed, tearing through the empty boxes.
"There's nothing left..." Lin Fan whispered, his voice like sandpaper. "I gave it all... to you."
Sarah froze. She turned to look at him, her face twisting into a mask of pure hatred. "You're lying! You must be hiding it! If you don't have food... then you're useless!"
David walked over, holding a butcher's knife that was stained with dark, frozen blood. He looked at Lin Fan not as a human, but as a piece of meat.
"No food?" David grinned, revealing yellow teeth. "Well, meat is meat. In this weather, nothing goes to waste."
Lin Fan's eyes widened in horror. He realized what they were going to do. They hadn't just come to rob him. They had come to eat.
"Sarah..." Lin Fan looked at her, pleading for a shred of humanity.
Sarah looked away, clutching her stomach. "I'm sorry, Lin Fan. I'm just... so hungry."
The knife descended.
The pain was sharp and blinding, followed by an endless, consuming darkness.
In his final moment, Lin Fan's heart was filled with boundless regret and monstrous rage.
If I could do it all again... I would never give a single grain of rice to anyone.I would build a fortress.I would watch you all freeze and starve while I lived like a king.
...
"HUH!"
Lin Fan sat up violently, his lungs gasping for air like a drowning man breaking the surface.
"No! Get away!"
He flailed his arms, knocking over a glass of water on the nightstand.
Crash.
The sound of shattering glass was crisp and clear.
Lin Fan froze. He was panting heavily, his body drenched in cold sweat. But... it wasn't cold.
In fact, it was hot.
The air conditioning was humming softly, blowing cool air, but the ambient temperature of the room was warm. Sunlight—bright, blinding, golden sunlight—was streaming through the sheer curtains, illuminating the dust motes dancing in the air.
Lin Fan looked at his hands. They were pale and trembling, but they were whole. No frostbite. No blood. No knife wounds.
He touched his chest. His heart was pounding like a war drum against his ribs. Thump. Thump. Thump.
"I'm... alive?"
He looked around. This was his apartment. Not the ice cave stripped bare by scavengers, but his comfortable, messy apartment. The TV was on standby. His gaming PC was humming in the corner. The smell of the neighbor's cooking—spicy fried chicken—wafted through the window.
The smell of food.
Lin Fan's stomach growled ferociously. It wasn't the agonizing emptiness of starvation, but the healthy hunger of a young man.
He scrambled for his smartphone on the bed. His fingers shook so hard he dropped it twice before managing to unlock the screen.
[Tuesday, June 14, 2025][2:30 PM]
Lin Fan stared at the date, his eyes widening until they felt like they would split.
"June 14th..." he muttered, his voice trembling. "The Global Freeze... it happened on July 14th."
One month.
He had been reborn. He was back exactly one month before the solar flare anomaly would disrupt the earth's atmosphere, plunging the world into an eternal ice age.
Tears streamed down his face. He laughed. It started as a low chuckle and erupted into a maniacal, hysterical laughter.
"I'm back. I'm actually back!"
He remembered the pain of the knife. He remembered Sarah's cold betrayal. He remembered David's teeth.
"Sarah. David. My dear neighbors..." Lin Fan's laughter died down, replaced by a look of ice-cold brutality that didn't belong on the face of a twenty-four-year-old office worker. "This time, I won't be the food. I will be the God who watches you crawl."
Ding!
A mechanical, genderless voice suddenly echoed inside his brain.
[Detected intense emotional fluctuation from the host.][Soul frequency match confirmed.][The Doomsday Shelter System is initializing...]
Lin Fan froze. He was an avid reader of webnovels before the apocalypse. He knew exactly what this was.
"System?" he whispered tentatively.
[Loading complete.][Host: Lin Fan][Current Shelter Level: 0 (None)][Attribute: Dimensional Storage Space (Level 1)]
A semi-transparent blue panel appeared in front of his retina. It hovered in the air, unaffected by him turning his head.
"Dimensional Storage Space?"
Lin Fan's heart skipped a beat. In the apocalypse, what was the most important thing? Supplies. Food. Weapons. Medicine. But in his past life, the biggest problem wasn't just finding supplies, it was keeping them. You couldn't carry a warehouse on your back. If you had too much, people would rob you. If you hid it, the rats or the cold would destroy it.
[Dimensional Storage Space: An independent sub-space. Time is stopped within the space. Items placed inside will maintain their state indefinitely. Hot food stays hot; fresh meat stays fresh. Current size: 10,000 Cubic Meters.]
"Ten thousand cubic meters..." Lin Fan gasped.
That was massive. That was roughly the size of a standard football field stacked two meters high with boxes. It was enough to store supplies for a small army, let alone one person.
And the most important part: Time Stop.
This meant he could hoard millions of piping hot meals, and they would never rot.
Lin Fan jumped out of bed. He needed to test it.
He grabbed the apple on his desk. With a mere thought—Store—the apple vanished from his hand.
He focused his mind. He could "see" the apple floating in a vast, grey void. With another thought—Retrieve—the apple reappeared in his palm instantly.
"It's real," Lin Fan clenched his fist, crushing the apple. Juice ran down his fingers, sticky and sweet. "With this, I am invincible."
But then, reality set in.
He had the space. He had the knowledge of the future. But he had a problem.
He was broke.
Lin Fan was a typical corporate slave. He worked a 9-to-5 job, rented this apartment, and had about $5,000 in savings.
$5,000 might buy enough rice to last a few years, but he didn't just want to survive. He wanted to live. He wanted to eat steak while others ate tree bark. He wanted to drink vintage wine while others drank melted snow.
He also needed to reinforce this apartment. This place was his sanctuary, but in his past life, David broke the door down in ten minutes.
He needed a fortress. Alloy walls. Bulletproof glass. Ventilation systems with poison gas filtration. Independent power generators.
That required money. Millions of dollars.
Lin Fan looked at the calendar again. 30 Days.
"In thirty days, money will become waste paper. Bank accounts will be zeroed out. Stocks will vanish. Gold will be traded for a piece of moldy bread."
A crazy, reckless grin spread across his face.
If money was going to be worthless in a month, why should he care about debt? Why should he care about credit scores?
He needed to spend. He needed to spend every single cent he could get his hands on.
He sat down at his computer and opened an Excel spreadsheet. His fingers flew across the keyboard, typing out a plan that would make any financial advisor have a heart attack.
Plan A: Liquidate Assets. He didn't own the house, but he had a car. A decent sedan. Sell it immediately. Cash in hand. He had some crypto investments. Sell it all. Now.
Plan B: The Banks. Apply for every credit card available. Visa, Mastercard, Amex. Max out the cash advance limits immediately. Apply for personal consumption loans. The approval systems were automated; he could get the money in 24 hours.
Plan C: The Sharks. This was the big one. There were many online lending platforms and "micro-loan" apps that charged predatory interest rates. In a civilized society, touching these was suicide. But for Lin Fan? He loved them. "50% interest rate?" Lin Fan chuckled. "Sure. Come collect it next month. If you haven't frozen to death by then."
Just as he was about to start filling out a loan application, his phone rang.
The screen lit up with a photo. It was a selfie of a beautiful girl with big, innocent doe eyes. Caller ID: Sarah ❤️
Seeing that face, the phantom pain in Lin Fan's chest flared up again. The memory of her eating the food he saved for her, then watching him die.
He picked up the phone.
"Hello, Lin Fan?" Sarah's voice was sweet and sugary, the voice that used to make his heart melt. "Are you busy? I'm at the mall, and I saw this bag... it's a bit expensive, but it's my birthday next week. Could you transfer me 500 dollars? I promise I'll make it up to you."
In the past, Lin Fan would have hesitated, checked his balance, and then transferred the money to make her happy. She was a "friend," but he was trying to court her. She kept him in the friend zone, milking him for gifts.
"Sarah," Lin Fan said. His voice was calm. Terrifyingly calm.
"Yes?"
"Go f*ck yourself."
"Excuse me? What did you—"
Beep.
Lin Fan hung up. He didn't just hang up; he blocked her number, blocked her on WhatsApp, and blocked her on all social media.
He tossed the phone onto the bed and took a deep breath.
"That felt good."
But he had no time to waste on revenge. Not yet. Revenge was a dish best served cold—literally. He would wait for the snow to fall. He would wait until she was starving and freezing outside his door. Then, he would enjoy the show.
Right now, he had work to do.
He walked to the window and looked out at the bustling city. Cars were honking, people were walking in shorts and skirts, complaining about the heat. They had no idea that the end was near.
Lin Fan put on his jacket and grabbed his keys.
First stop: The bank. Second stop: The largest wholesale warehouse in the city.
"Walmart, Costco, local butchers..." Lin Fan listed them off. "I'm going to empty you all."
He opened the door and walked out. The weak, kind-hearted Lin Fan died in the snow yesterday. The man who walked out of the apartment today was a demon who would do anything to survive.
(Author's Note: Welcome to the apocalypse! If you like ruthless MCs, hoarding supplies, and face-slapping, please add this book to your Library and drop a Power Stone! The real hoarding madness begins in the next chapter!)