ISWTDB Ch151 [Arc 12]

Chapter 151: The End of the World (1,2)

Upon waking again, Ying Zhao stretched lazily, feeling too fatigued to open his eyes.

It seemed that this weariness stemmed from what the original host had been doing before.

After several recent traversals, Ying Zhao had completely lost the discomfort associated with jumping into small worlds.

However, before he could fully open his eyes, the pungent smell of chemical reagents filled his nostrils, causing him to sneeze uncontrollably.

Furrowing his brows, he opened his eyes to see a massive desk in front of him cluttered with bottles and jars.

Looking down at his white lab coat, he thought that if it weren’t for the sharp smell of the reagents, he might have suspected that he had once again assumed the role of a doctor in some previous world.

In reality, he was indeed somewhat of a doctor in this small world, but without the memories of the original host, he was unaware.

Waving his hand dismissively, Ying Zhao disliked these odors.

Especially with his acute senses, these smells made him feel even more uncomfortable.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Ying Zhao stood up, intending to observe his surroundings properly.

However, when he glanced at the mirror across from him, he saw a cold and indifferent face, radiating the aura of a mad scientist.

Pulling at his slightly yellowed collar, he wondered why he had such heavy dark circles under his eyes and disheveled hair.

But the original host was good-looking; a casual tug at the corner of his mouth still managed to make him appear charmingly wicked.

However, his complexion was excessively pale, looking nothing like a normal human.

The redness under his eyes also indicated that he had likely pulled an all-nighter.

Casually scanning the environment, Ying Zhao realized that the original host seemed deeply obsessed with his research, even treating the laboratory as his home.

The signs of living were quite apparent; not far away was a small bed for resting and some haphazardly piled everyday items.

In the corner of the room, there was a larger hospital bed, though it was surrounded by a curtain, preventing him from seeing what was inside.

However, Ying Zhao could tell that there was indeed a person lying on that bed.

He walked over, curious, and lifted the curtain.

But upon seeing the person on the hospital bed, Ying Zhao’s eyes widened in shock.

Then, he clenched his fists, gritting his teeth as his expression instantly turned fierce. He even caused his gums to bleed from the force of his clenching.

For lying on the bed was none other than his beloved. The familiar aura of his soul confirmed that the person before him was indeed his lover.

At this moment, the man’s face was pale, and his lips were purple, indicating that he had clearly fallen into a coma.

More importantly, both of his arms were empty.

The left arm seemed to be an old injury from years past, as it was unbandaged, revealing only the empty sleeve.

As for the right arm, it looked like it had just been severed; it was roughly bandaged, but blood had already soaked through the gauze.

The man on the bed, even in a coma, was drenched in sweat, clearly enduring the torment of pain.

Ying Zhao felt a storm of emotions surging within him. He never expected to encounter such a grim situation upon arriving.

His beloved was once again subjected to such suffering, filling him with fury.

Who was it? Who had harmed his man?

Ying Zhao felt he was about to go mad and spoke coldly to Xiao Bai, “Xiao Bai, what on earth is going on?”

Having briefly checked the plot in the sea of consciousness, Xiao Bai stammered in response, “M-Master, you should first look at the plot yourself. While the target is unconscious, it’s best if you quickly receive the original host’s memories!”

Feeling Xiao Bai’s attitude was different from before, Ying Zhao’s heart sank.

He wondered if his lover’s injuries had something to do with the original host.

Even so, he didn’t immediately receive the plot. He first searched the surroundings and managed to find some hemostatic agents.

After carefully rebandaging his lover’s wounds, Ying Zhao finally began to check the plot in his sea of consciousness.

After swiftly browsing through it, he learned that the world they were in was an apocalyptic one.

It had been over two years since the apocalypse began.

Unlike the sci-fi novels and films that featured maniacal experiments leading to the outbreak of viruses, this crisis wasn’t caused by any human error.

This apocalypse resembled more of a natural disaster or divine selection.

One day, the sun hung high in the sky, and the surrounding temperature grew increasingly scorching.

The dazzling golden sun gradually turned red, like bleeding, announcing that a catastrophe was imminent.

This bizarrely prolonged daytime lasted a whole week, with the intense heat nearly melting the earth.

Many people collapsed under such extreme weather, succumbing to sudden illnesses.

Humanity began to fall into mass comas, many of whom never regained consciousness.

No one could explain the cause of this mysterious phenomenon.

However, after seven days had passed, although the celestial phenomenon had returned to normal, those who had lost their lives once again opened their eyes.

The dead who returned to life had turned into mindless beings, only knowing how to seek food, beginning to attack and plunder everywhere.

The rapid spread of infection caused those who had not yet died to sacrifice over half of their number to these zombies.

Another portion of the people slowly began to undergo changes in their bodies, developing supernatural powers.

They continuously learned from their confrontations with the zombies.

In this apocalypse, humans banded together for survival, struggling to establish their own bases.

In this life, the identity of Ying Zhao’s beloved was the renowned leader of the northern base—Situ Ran.

Situ Ran was the adopted son of the Situ family. After the cataclysm began, he was among the first to develop supernatural powers.

Moreover, he possessed both fire and water abilities.

Although water and fire are incompatible, he mysteriously had both powers.

In battles, he mostly used his fire abilities to kill enemies.

His water abilities, on the other hand, were primarily used to provide some water sources for those around him in the resource-scarce apocalypse.

Even though he was born without one arm, he still relied on his remarkable talent to become a special forces soldier.

After the disaster struck, he protected the entire Situ family with his small team and helped many others.

Along the way, their team encountered many others as they headed toward the resource-rich northern city of H.

On their journey, many noticed that even if Situ Ran’s team was bitten by zombies, they rarely became infected.

At first, everyone thought it was simply their luck.

However, as time passed, some began to suspect that perhaps they had some antidote to the zombie virus.

Yet, those with ulterior motives were quickly dealt with by Situ Ran.

In reality, the reason why those he protected rarely got infected was that they had been drinking the water provided by Situ Ran.

His water abilities were not merely supernatural powers; the liquid that emerged from his palms was actually a spiritual spring.

The spiritual spring had certain resistance and detoxifying effects against the zombie virus.

Situ Ran discovered this long ago and only told his closest family.

After all, this spiritual spring was not an inexhaustible resource.

The amount of spiritual spring he could produce each day was limited, so he couldn’t use it as a cure for everyone.

He could only find ways to distribute it to a few people, mixing it with regular water for everyone to drink.

He hoped to use this method to help more people develop immunity to the zombie virus.

Over time, Situ Ran’s team grew stronger and larger.

Especially with his unique talent for cultivating his abilities, he became the first person in the apocalypse to reach the ninth level of supernatural powers.

Once everyone arrived at the northern city of H, they chose to settle there and established the largest northern base.

Naturally, Situ Ran became the leader of the base without question.

Because of Situ Ran’s influence, all members of the Situ family were treated as honored guests.

As the leader of the northern base, Situ Ran gradually expanded it with his determination and leadership skills.

Eventually, he turned the northern base into an oasis in the apocalypse.

Shortly thereafter, researchers managed to create an antidote for the virus by studying the spiritual spring he secretly provided, saving the world.

Of course, this was just the original storyline.

Looking at his beloved lying tragically on the hospital bed, Ying Zhao knew that he absolutely did not have the good fortune described in the original plot.

The key figure who changed Situ Ran’s entire fate was his sister, the biological daughter of the Situ family—Situ Shuyao.

Situ Shuyao was the true heroine of this small world. The reason why she harmed Situ Ran was that she had been reborn.

In the world before Situ Shuyao’s rebirth, due to Situ Ran’s existence, the entire Situ family rose alongside him.

Initially, Situ Yuan adopted Situ Ran, the disabled son of his deceased cousin, because he coveted the inheritance left behind by his cousin.

He never expected that this child would bring him such great surprises.

However, despite this, because of Situ Ran’s fairness, very few people in the Situ family actually held management positions.

After all, most of the people in the Situ family were just good-for-nothings.

Situ Yuan was extremely dissatisfied with this. He believed that Situ Ran’s reluctance to utilize the Situ family members was because he was merely their adopted son.

Thus, he set his sights on his daughter Situ Shuyao, hoping she would be with Situ Ran.

This way, they could firmly grasp Situ Ran in their hands.

At first, Situ Shuyao was unaware of these schemes. In her eyes, because of Situ Ran’s presence, everyone in the northern base treated her like a young lady.

Too many people wanted to curry favor with her. The heroine was vain, thoroughly enjoying the feeling of being adored.

She even thought of herself as irresistibly charming, mingling among numerous men and indulging in pleasure.

However, her father’s words still worried her. After all, her current good life was all thanks to Situ Ran.

Situ Shuyao had previously looked down on Situ Ran’s missing arm, but now, recalling his handsome appearance, she found herself somewhat intrigued.

The smooth sailing she experienced after the apocalypse made Situ Shuyao overly confident in her allure.

She believed that as long as she waved her hand, Situ Ran would fall at her feet.

However, the outcome was naturally beyond her expectations. Even when she tried her best, Situ Ran remained indifferent to her.

Unwilling to face rejection from Situ Ran, Situ Shuyao foolishly decided to seduce him, only to be thrown out of the room.

This public humiliation severely impacted the heroine’s self-esteem. Although Situ Shuyao did not continue to pester Situ Ran afterward, she began to harbor resentment against him.

Not long after, a delegation from the southern base arrived to negotiate with the northern base, and Situ Shuyao met the leader of the southern base, Deng Wendong.

Deng Wendong was a seventh-level ice-type supernatural being with considerable strength.

Although the southern base was not as powerful as the northern base, he was still a formidable force.

After meeting Situ Shuyao, Deng Wendong began to pursue her.

This made Situ Shuyao, who had been rejected by Situ Ran, feel pleased, believing that Deng Wendong’s reaction was the norm.

Deng Wendong was a cunning individual and did not take long to win the heroine’s favor.

However, he did not truly love Situ Shuyao. He only wanted to use her to uncover the secrets behind the northern base’s strength.

Yet, after actually being with this woman, he realized that Situ Shuyao was nothing more than a vain and spoiled person.

Every day, she only knew how to indulge in food, drink, and entertainment, completely unaware of the information he sought.

As the northern base continued to expand, Deng Wendong increasingly felt uneasy.

He feared losing power, and in a fit of madness, he chose to collaborate with the Zombie King, secretly attacking the northern base.

However, he was thwarted each time by the powerful Situ Ran.

Knowing Situ Ran’s strength, he took advantage of his dates with Situ Shuyao to capture her, intending to use her as leverage against Situ Ran.

After all, the heroine had always enjoyed bragging, so Deng Wendong believed Situ Ran liked Situ Shuyao.

Yet, his threats ultimately had no real effect.

Situ Ran had already discovered Deng Wendong’s collusion with the Zombie King. Even if he was reluctant to see the Situ family harmed, he could not risk the entire northern base’s safety.

Thus, Situ Ran did not agree to Deng Wendong’s demands and sought other means to rescue Situ Shuyao.

Unfortunately, during the rescue attempt, the heroine was killed by a furious Deng Wendong.

After her death, Situ Shuyao was reborn back to the time when the apocalypse had just begun.

Living once again, Situ Shuyao’s heart was filled with resentment. She hated Deng Wendong for deceiving her feelings and for killing her.

At the same time, she also despised Situ Ran for failing to rescue her.

She believed that Situ Ran had intentionally ignored her well-being, feeling that he bore some responsibility for her death.

Thus, the already darkened Situ Shuyao decided to take revenge.

She knew that if she wanted to establish a foothold in the apocalypse, the Situ family had to accept Situ Ran’s protection.

So, at first, she obediently stayed by Situ Ran’s side.

She didn’t foolishly try to seduce him again; instead, she worked hard to please him and gain his trust.

Furthermore, in this life, Situ Shuyao was no longer as lazy as she had been in her previous life.

Though her innate talent was limited, she diligently practiced her supernatural abilities.

In fact, she managed to elevate her healing abilities to the fifth level, which was quite impressive.

While observing how Situ Ran was expanding the northern base, she also encouraged the Situ family to cultivate their own influence.

Relying on her memories from her past life, she catered to those high-level supernatural beings.

She navigated among them, understanding when to step back.

She learned the importance of reputation and worked hard to cultivate an image of gentleness and selflessness, becoming a goddess in everyone’s eyes.

Moreover, because she gained Situ Ran’s trust, she entered the core management team.

As the influence cultivated by the Situ family secretly grew, the heroine saw her opportunity and slipped poison into Situ Ran’s food.

Situ Ran, always trusting his sister, never suspected that she would harm him.

After eating the tainted food, Situ Ran became disoriented. While on a mission outside the city, the heroine pushed him into a horde of zombies.

Yet, even so, due to his possession of the spiritual spring, his body was unlike an ordinary person’s, making it impossible for him to become infected with the zombie virus.

Faced with zombies coming from all directions, Situ Ran fought to stay conscious.

Although he miraculously survived and killed the surrounding zombies, he also exhausted his supernatural powers and fainted.

Seeing her plan fail, Situ Shuyao madly sent Situ Ran to the laboratory.

She falsely claimed that he had been gravely injured and was now a vegetable.

She spread the word that Situ Ran had been bitten multiple times in the horde but had not been infected, suggesting he might possess antibodies capable of resisting the virus.

As a result, many in the northern base who initially opposed sending Situ Ran to the laboratory switched sides.

Especially since the heroine had already cultivated a substantial faction supporting her, they naturally praised her decision without reservation.

With her brother sacrificing so much for the base, she, as his sister, was pushed into the position of leader of the northern base.

Meanwhile, those who remained steadfastly loyal to Situ Ran quickly found themselves suppressed by the heroine.

Situ Shuyao completely forgot how Situ Ran had protected their family throughout the apocalypse.

Without Situ Ran, relying solely on the meager healing abilities of Situ Shuyao would have been utterly insufficient to survive the apocalypse.

Everything she enjoyed had been entirely obtained through Situ Ran’s efforts.

Ultimately, she even became a shining light in the apocalypse, hailed as a savior, thanks to the antidotes researched by the laboratory using her brother’s findings.

Ying Zhao found this deeply ironic.

In this small world, Ying Zhao was known as Ying Heng, a PhD in pharmacology.

After the apocalypse, he arrived at the northern base and became the chief researcher there.

The original character, Ying Heng, was almost a negligible figure in the storyline before the heroine’s rebirth.

In the original storyline, it was actually Ying Heng who developed the antidote using Situ Ran’s spiritual spring.

However, the effectiveness of this antidote was not as strong as that of Situ Ran’s spiritual spring, but Situ Shuyao was aware of Ying Heng’s existence.

Moreover, Ying Heng’s greatest ability was not in creating antidotes.

After the apocalypse, he invented many potions that could rapidly enhance supernatural abilities.

Thus, after the heroine’s rebirth, she sought various ways to entice Ying Heng, hoping that the original character would fall for her.

The heroine herself had the fortune of a small world, making everyone see her through a filter of admiration.

Naturally, Ying Heng could not escape this effect and quickly developed feelings for her.

This was also why someone with mediocre qualifications like the heroine was able to elevate her healing abilities to the fifth level; Ying Heng played a significant role in this.

Although in her previous life, Situ Ran would periodically provide Ying Heng with some spiritual spring water for research, the original character was unaware of the source of this water.

This secret was only shared with Situ Ran’s adoptive parents and his so-called sister, Situ Shuyao; no one else was informed.

Through her interactions in this life, Situ Shuyao learned that Ying Heng was a person deeply engrossed in research.

For him, it seemed that besides staying in the laboratory, nothing else piqued his interest.

In others’ eyes, Ying Heng was an outright madman.

He could spend day and night in the research lab, neglecting his appearance, and would stop at nothing to achieve his desired results.

Thus, Situ Shuyao deliberately sent Situ Ran into Ying Heng’s laboratory, revealing to him the original character’s greatest secret.

With this information, Ying Heng would naturally go to great lengths to study Situ Ran, ensuring his own comfort.

At the same time, the heroine took advantage of Ying Heng’s personality.

She knew that Ying Heng was solely interested in research and experiments, completely disinterested in reputation and external affairs.

Therefore, she took the preliminary potions that Ying Heng had just developed and claimed them as her own, stating that she was the one who had researched them.

Although the effects were not very remarkable, they did have a certain restraining effect, giving people a glimmer of hope.

Ying Heng, who had already developed feelings for Situ Shuyao, did not mind this.

Thus, the heroine gained the title of the “Light of the Apocalypse,” and everyone was filled with expectations for her.

However, as time passed, the heroine’s fame grew, and she became increasingly restless.

She worried that Ying Heng might reveal to everyone that he was the one who developed these potions, which would cause her to lose all the admiration she had gained.

The heroine, who increasingly valued power and reputation, became very anxious.

So, when the final results of the antidote were completed, and after obtaining all of Ying Heng’s research materials, she devised a plan that would serve two purposes.

Situ Shuyao knew that Situ Ran was not dead and understood how powerful he was.

All along, Situ Ran was someone with a deep sense of responsibility; he always wanted to save the world.

Even though the heroine had harmed Situ Ran, she had skillfully manipulated others, so the original character still believed her sister was a good person.

Taking advantage of Ying Heng’s busyness, Situ Shuyao secretly contacted Situ Ran.

She told Situ Ran that it was because Ying Heng was enamored with her and could not have her that he had set a trap for him.

He had been captured and brought to the laboratory to threaten her.

She also claimed that she had made progress on the antidote for the apocalypse, but Ying Heng refused to let her continue her research.

She suggested that he seemed to have secret ties with the Zombie King and did not wish to save humanity.

By this time, Situ Ran had already endured much torment; he had lost his only remaining arm.

Ying Heng was conducting various experiments on him, and the inhumane torture nearly drove him to madness.

Thus, under Situ Shuyao’s lies, Situ Ran finally made up his mind.

When Ying Heng approached him again to conduct research, Situ Ran chose to self-destruct, taking Ying Heng down with him.