Chapter 2: Truly Reborn

After breakfast, Zhou Yang put the dishes into the dishwasher, then took the grave-sweeping supplies he had prepared in advance and headed out.

Although it was not yet 7:00 AM, there were already many vehicles on the road, most of them heading toward the cemetery.

This year's Qingming Festival was gloomy again, as if shrouded by a thick gray curtain, making one feel oppressed and dull. Fortunately, it wasn't raining.

Zhou Yang drove, following the flow of traffic.

It wasn't very congested, but it still took over 30 minutes to reach the suburban cemetery.

The cemetery was built on an entire small hill. Those visiting the graves could only walk up the mountain, so all cars were parked in the lot at the foot of the entrance.

After parking the car, Zhou Yang carried several bags and followed the crowd up the mountain.

The grounds were vast, but they couldn't withstand the large number of visitors. The air was already thick with the scent of incense and quite murky, but no one complained. Every face bore a solemn expression, and even the children were not crying or making a fuss.

Zhou Yang followed the route in his memory to the gravestone where his parents were buried together.

A black-and-white photo was embedded in the cold stone tablet. Due to long-term exposure to sun and rain, the photo had long since lost its former luster and appeared dim.

Despite this, one could still vaguely distinguish the appearance of the couple in the photo. The man was handsome, cheerful, and loved to smile; the woman was graceful, quiet, and gentle. Their faces were frozen on this stone tablet, forever staying in that most beautiful moment.

“Dad, Mom, I've come to see you again.”

He first took out a pot of small chrysanthemums and a pot of Baby's Breath from his bag and placed them before the tablet. Baby's Breath was his mother's favorite flower.

“The chrysanthemums are for Dad. Anyway, Dad, you were never picky, so it shouldn't matter, right? The Baby's Breath is for Mom; it's your favorite.”

After speaking, he pulled out a rag and carefully wiped the gravestone. Then, he cleared away the scattered branches around the base and the few weeds growing in the crevices.

Having finished this, Zhou Yang returned to the front of the grave and laid out several of his parents' favorite foods one by one.

“Mom, your favorite red bean sticky rice cakes! And peanuts and beer to satisfy Dad's cravings.”

“Mom, Dad, Yang Yang misses you very much.”

Zhou Yang's eyes suddenly felt a bit stinging.

“I seemed to have a dream last night, but it didn't quite feel like a dream. Several hours have passed since I woke up, and I can still remember it clearly. Tell me... was it really a dream?”

“The Apocalypse... it's just too ridiculous... it's not like we're filming a movie...”

“Right? It really is too ridiculous...”

Zhou Yang whispered his complaints to his parents' gravestone while placing the prepared Paper Ingots and Spirit Money into the nearby incinerator bin to burn. These were specially provided by the cemetery for visitors.

He continued to chatter with his parents for a long time until his legs went numb from squatting. Only then did he realize he had unknowingly spent over an hour at the cemetery.

“Mom, Dad, it's about time. I'll head back now. I'll come see you again during the next long holiday.”

Zhou Yang rubbed his legs and stood up unsteadily.

After tidying up the trash, he took one last look at his parents' portraits on the gravestone before turning to leave.

Back in the car, while waiting for the engine to warm up, Zhou Yang opened his phone to check the news online. The homepages of major websites were still filled with Qingming greetings. The occasional news items were just trivial matters; there were no major events.

He checked the time again; it wasn't even 8:00 AM yet.

Putting down his phone, Zhou Yang drove home.

The road was smooth at first, but as he neared the city center on his way back, he hit a traffic jam.

Never mind the scooters nearby; even bicycles were moving faster than they were.

Seeing that he wouldn't even make it through the next two red lights, Zhou Yang boredly opened his phone to scroll through the news. After just a few swipes, a headline popped up—'Elderly Woman Living Alone Commits Self-Immolation at the Entrance of a Luxury Mansion in S City, Dies on the Spot!'

Exposed along with the self-immolation incident was the dispute over a car accident between the elderly woman and the owner of the mansion, exactly the same as in his dream memories.

Looking at the news, Zhou Yang's hand holding the phone couldn't help but tremble.

He really... had been reborn!

The dream... no, that wasn't a dream; it was his personal experience from his previous life!

“Beep!—”

Suddenly, a piercing horn from behind snapped him out of it.

Zhou Yang forced himself to calm down, steadied his mind, and then set his phone aside for the moment to focus on driving.

He needed to get home first.

After another ten minutes of traffic, Zhou Yang finally returned home safely.

As soon as he arrived, Zhou Yang opened his computer and re-organized the contents of the document he had recorded. Then, he added quite a bit of content that he hadn't written down yet.

By the time he put down his laptop, two hours had passed.

Zhou Yang's heart felt a bit heavy.

The Apocalypse might have had traces to follow long ago.

Unprecedented record-breaking sustained high temperatures, a sudden 9.5 magnitude earthquake in a region clearly not on a fault line, mass migrations of birds and beasts in many places, and a super typhoon that devastated almost all coastal cities from south to north... it's just that no one took these things to heart, not even the government or the state.

By the time that apocalyptic fog arrived, it was too late... without anyone being prepared, the Apocalypse virus broke out.

At first, the government tried to control the spread of the virus and maintain order, but in just half a month, almost all cities fell, and the state machinery was paralyzed.

Zombies roamed every street and alley, and the blood of the living soaked every inch of the city's soil.

The survivors were forced away from the cities, leaving their homes to establish new survival bases and band together for survival.

And more terrifying than natural disasters and Zombies were the man-made calamities.

Thinking of the various incidents of burning, killing, and looting during the Apocalypse, as well as the cause of his own death, Zhou Yang couldn't help but grit his teeth.

Now that he was reborn, he naturally had to make plans early this time. However, he was just an ordinary person who had just graduated and hadn't even finished his internship; he could only look out for himself first.

As for others, or even the state, he would likely be treated as a lunatic if he spoke out. When the time was right, he would post some Apocalypse-related threads online in advance to warn everyone. As for whether they believed it or not, he would leave that to fate.

Zhou Yang began writing a schedule for himself on the computer, making a detailed list of the remaining time, things that must be done, and necessary supplies.

First, he needed to get as much money as possible.

He had used the savings his parents left behind for school, so basically nothing remained. As for other stocks and funds, because he didn't know how to manage them and had no time to follow them, he had withdrawn them directly back then—about 500,000 or so—and deposited them in the bank along with the 3 million plus from the insurance company payout. There was also this three-bedroom apartment he lived in, which his parents had also left him; it was even in a good school district. At current housing prices, it could probably sell for about 5 million. Later, he could get some online loans or something, which could bring in another 1 million or so. Funding shouldn't be a problem.

His home was in a coastal area, which suffered miserably during the early natural disasters and would face threats from the ocean after the Apocalypse began. He needed to go to the inland safety base from his previous life to rent a suitable house and renovate it. The existing decorations could survive the early disasters but wouldn't necessarily withstand the Ability Users and Mutated Beasts of the Apocalypse; it wasn't safe enough.

Finally, and most importantly, supplies.

From water and food to medicine and gasoline, then to outdoor survival gear, Zhou Yang carefully listed several pages of tables.

But even if he had ample funds and could buy everything, such a massive amount of supplies wouldn't fit in even the largest house. He had to find a safe place... but in the Apocalypse, where was there any safe place?

He worried privately, his hand unconsciously fumbling with the Jade Pendant around his neck.

Without paying attention, he felt a sharp pain in his thumb.

Looking down, he saw his thumb had been cut by the metal clasp of the Jade Pendant. Blood immediately seeped out from the cut and even stained the Jade Pendant.

Just as Zhou Yang was about to wipe it with a tissue, he discovered the bloodstain on the Jade Pendant had disappeared, and it was faintly emitting a trace of radiance.

“This...”

Looking at the Jade Pendant in his hand, Zhou Yang couldn't help but be speechless. Before he could figure it out, the Jade Pendant suddenly erupted with brilliant light. He felt a wave of dizziness, and then he vanished from the spot.

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