Rise of Apocalyptic Talent

Chapter – 1 The Bloody Rain of Disaster

As the crisp ‘click’ resounded in the corridor, the voice-activated lights were automatically turned on. While the person walking in tried his best to avoid making loud sounds, the unpleasant ‘squeak’ sound of the old security gate still made his teeth itch in annoyance.

“Seems the time for oiling of the gate has come…” he complained in a low voice, and gently locked the door, trying to be as quiet as possible.

His name is An Sheng, a 28 years old ‘young man’, single… divorced to be more exact. There was a time when An Sheng was also a rich guy and his family had a lot of wealth, but it seems that fate didn’t like what An Sheng had, and soon enough his family’s business went bankrupt due to the financial crisis. His father couldn’t bear the pressure and jumped off a high building and committed suicide, the death of his father left a deep shock on his mother, she couldn’t bear the death of her husband, as a result, she got sick, and not long after that, she too passed away.

And that wasn’t the end of it all, his wife also chose to divorce him at that time… Honestly speaking, An Sheng was shaken to the core, but he didn’t blame her, as the old saying goes, ‘Husbands and wives are birds of the same forest when disaster strikes, they fly separately!’ There was no need for his ex-wife to live a miserable life with a bankrupt and useless guy like him, so she left, and he couldn’t complain.

After that, An Sheng dealt with the funeral services at home, then left his hometown alone and came to this strange city.

Coming to an all-new city with no background meant that An Sheng had to become independent and that was the issue… Because of being born in a rich family, An Sheng was a pampered child, he had no real survival skills, but he didn’t want to die either so he had to do something to continue to live.

In order to survive, An Sheng rented a taxi.

He had driven a lot of luxury cars and sports cars before going bankrupt, so his driving skills can be said to be quite good, thus he became a taxi driver during the day and worked as a chauffeur at night.

Although doing two jobs one after another left him tired, he was finally able to take root in the city, so he didn’t complain.

And this is An Sheng’s home, a 38 square yards flat with one bedroom, one living room, one kitchen, and a bathroom. The flat is part of a very old-fashioned building in the western suburbs, the building has six floors with twenty-two flats on each floor… Although the building is a bit outdated, since, it has been managed in an orderly manner, hence the first impression it gives to any visitor is that ‘the owner of this building is a person who knows how to manage houses’, regardless, the only reason he chose this flat is that the rent is cheap and affordable for him.

An Sheng is very satisfied with his current life. He can earn more than 10,000 Yuan every month through his two jobs, which is enough for him to live. After taking into account the rent, as well as, water and electricity bills, cost of food, and other beverages, he has been able to save about 1,000 Yuan every month.

His regular savings has allowed him to gather some funds, and An Sheng believes that soon he will be able to own a car of his own.

Of course, his purpose in buying a car is not to improve his quality of living, but to increase his earnings. Recently a new platform called ‘DiDi’ has been launched by the ‘DiDi Chuxing Technology Co.’, the platform allows people to register as a special car driver, and the benefits are very good. Many people have already registered and are earning quite well, and An Sheng has the same intentions.

After all, the monthly rent of a taxi that he rents is 4,000 Yuan. If he can save this rent money, then his expenditure will decrease, thus he will be able to make more money every month, and save more money every month.

Well, that’s all about An Sheng’s life… now coming back to his house.

After a simple wash, An Sheng dragged his exhausted body to his bedroom, lay on the bed, plugged his mobile phone for charging, and was ready to drift into a deep sleep, but it seems fate didn’t like that either.

Suddenly, a gust of wind blew into the bedroom, followed by a bolt of lightning splitting the dark night sky, which was soon followed by a dull loud noise. It seemed that tonight was going to rain, and from the heavy and dark clouds covering the sky, it can be assumed that rain is going to be quite heavy.

An Sheng sighed and got up from the bed with a helpless expression. His clothes were still hanging on the hangers outside the window, if he didn’t bring them in, they will be soaking wet by the morning.

Opening the window, An Sheng quickly picked up his clothes. The strong wind mixed with the rain had begun to beat on his body. Fortunately, his reaction was fast enough, and he managed to save himself and his clothes by taking advantage of the gaps before the rainstorm.

By the time he came back, although he and his clothes were drenched by the rain, they were not completely soaked, which is a blessing in disguise.

He carried the still-dry clothes into the bathroom, but when An Sheng saw himself in the bathroom vanity mirror, he was stunned. On his white short-sleeved shirt, there are several blood-colored spots!

“What is this? Could it be the rain that fell on me just now?”

In order to verify his guess, An Sheng took off his short-sleeved shirt, opened the window, and stretched out his clothes. After a while, he looked at it only to find that the white shirt has turned into a bloody shirt!

And a strange scent also began to permeate the room, which was obviously the smell of rain, because the source of the scent was the blood-colored shirt in his hands.

An Sheng was not sure whether the strange rain was poisonous, but to be on the safe side, he hurriedly threw the strangely scented shirt out of the window, then rushed into the bathroom and quickly took a shower.

After that, he was too tired to do anything and without caring about the bloody rain outside, he went back to his bed and drifted to sleep.

It didn’t take for An Sheng to realize that his suspicions were indeed correct, the bloody rain outside was indeed not safe, and instead of being poisonous, it carried an unknown virus.

After just about half an hour he had drifted to sleep, his body began to show symptoms. First, his body began to shiver in cold, and soon his limbs became weak, as a result, he didn’t even have the strength to get up and go to the cupboard to get the medicine. However, the uncomfortable feeling did not torment An Sheng for too long, because he passed out after a while.

In the Marginally Unconscious State, An Sheng seemed to feel that something had penetrated into his body. These unknown existences, like tiny worms, began to erode his skin and muscles as they went deeper and deeper into the body, they entered his internal organs along the blood vessels, and finally reached his brain.

That night he had a strange dream. In the dream, he was floating in a blood-colored world. There was no sky or land, and he could only see blood-colored illusory places. An Sheng, who was floating in it felt like he was floating in outer space with zero gravity, but this world was different from outer space, here, An Sheng couldn’t take support of anything, and despite all the struggle he tried to put, he couldn’t even move his pinky finger.

Just when he was starting to feel despair, a black creature flashed in front of him at an extremely fast speed, and before An Sheng could react or do anything, it penetrated into An Sheng’s body, and then…

“Didi, Didi…” The sound alarm on his mobile phone reached An Sheng’s ears, and he got up suddenly drenched in a cold sweat.

Realizing that it was just a nightmare, An Sheng breathed a sigh of relief, he lay back down again and tried to think of last night. He vaguely remembered that he seemed to have a fever, but it should be all right now because he seemed to be normal except for the weakness and light fever he is feeling.

After taking some deep breaths, he checked the time… it was already 7:15 in the morning. The morning shift time of An Sheng’s taxi is 9:15 AM.

An Sheng always gets up at 7:15 AM and makes himself breakfast. This routine was developed only after he came to this city.

For An Sheng, breakfast is the most fulfilling meal of the day, lunch and dinner is done in a hurry because he doesn’t get much free time while doing his two back to back jobs, so An Sheng has to sacrifice some of his sleep time to make sure that his body gets proper nutrition.

Just when An Sheng walked into the bathroom to wash up, a dull and violent explosion shook the whole building, and the glass in the living room was shattered by the shocking sound waves, followed by several consecutive explosions.
An Sheng, who had been spoiled since childhood has never experienced such a thing before, thinking that an earthquake was coming, he was so scared that he hurriedly got into the bathroom.

An Shang remembered from the textbooks, ‘If an earthquake strikes and there is no time to evacuate to an open area, it is necessary to find a small and sturdy place as an emergency shelter, doing so can increase the chances of survival.’

And that’s what An Shang did.

But soon he realized that something was wrong!

The explosion, shaking, and shattering of glass pannels just now gave him a shock and he didn’t have much time to think. But now that he had taken shelter and had some time to think about it, An Sheng realized that it was not an earthquake, rather an explosion somewhere nearby!

Judging from the fact that all the glass in his house was also shattered, the location of the explosion should not be far from his house.

Most humans are curious creatures by nature, and An Sheng is naturally one of them. So he dared to walk out of the bathroom, carefully walked to the living room window, and looked out, just one glance outside, and he was completely baffled by the scene he saw before his eyes!