Chapter 39: Ashes After the Catastrophe (Seeking Recommendations, Seeking Collection)

Words : 1195 Updated : Sep 10th, 2025

Chapter 39: Chapter 39: Ashes After the Catastrophe (Seeking Recommendations, Seeking Collection)Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation For safety reasons, Chen Xin should have turned on the car lights to illuminate the path ahead, but considering that turning on the lights would also expose his presence, to avoid some unnecessary trouble, Chen Xin decided to drive in the dark without turning on the lights. Fortunately, although it was very dark, there was still a sliver of twilight, allowing Chen Xin to see the road ahead clearly. The place where Chen Xin lived was in the suburbs, called urban-rural areas in places like the Imperial Capital and Magic City, but the city where Chen Xin was located was just a small southern town, not as prosperous as the Imperial or Magic Cities. He lived in an area of desolate mountains and barren wilderness, with few human traces, only a few farm households living there, considered a small village. Chen Xin also moved here from the city for the tranquility, to facilitate his writing. Even though the place was remote, in recent years, due to the infrastructure boom in the Flame Country, a high-speed rail station was built nearby, and the roads in this area were well maintained. So Chen Xin did not worry about encountering obstacles on the road when driving towards the city. The road to the city was wide open, not like those scenes in western post-apocalyptic movies with abandoned cars blocking the streets. In fact, this was how the apocalypse should look because humans had known about the impending meteor impact three months in advance, and the government had evacuated over 80% of the population into shelters. In such circumstances, where would the abandoned cars that block the roads come from? If there were indeed abandoned cars blocking the way, it could only mean someone had set up a barricade or a road trap. The road to the city was indeed unobstructed. Before the disaster, every household had already stopped going out, so naturally, there were no vehicles on the road, only a layer of greyish-white ashes. The car wheels rolled over, leaving two tracks. Looking at the greyish-white covering everything, Chen Xin couldn’t help but feel incredibly heavy-hearted. Because these were the ashes left behind after a great fire. The road leading to the city originally had to cross a river. Although the surroundings couldn’t be described as picturesque, there was a certain charm with green hills and clear waters. After all, the city’s environmental protection and greening had always been done well, and it was once awarded as a green city. But now, all this no longer exists. The hills on either side of the road, once lush green, had now turned into a pitch-black expanse, covered in greyish-white ashes, looking like snow on a pile of black coal. Some remains of plants that weren’t completely burnt resembled twisted, bizarre ghostly shadows, not only ugly but also fear-inducing. The river that used to separate the city from the suburb had now dried up into a huge gully. Perhaps due to its past watery nature, the riverbed displayed an unsightly black-yellow hue, reminiscent of the famous Scourge of Death in the world of Warcraft. Chen Xin had deep memories of this river because his family used to live near it. On summer nights, he would come here to cool off and had once invited girls to take walks along its banks. But now, the river, once developed into a riverine park by the city government, showed no trace of its past. The wooden walkways, built at great expense by the city government, had burned away, leaving only a few cement piles. Faced with such a scene, Chen Xin couldn’t help but slow down, somberly looking at everything before him. The water in the river had evaporated entirely, so how much could be left of the riverside scenery? Although Chen Xin didn’t get out of the car, he could guess that under such a great fire, even those remaining cement piles and stones piled up along the riverbank were likely burnt beyond recognition. Fortunately, the bridge was still sturdy and hadn’t been affected by the fire; otherwise, he really wouldn’t dare enter the city via this road. Upon entering the city, the scenery wasn’t much better than the outskirts. The once thick green belts along the roadsides now were reduced to cement flower beds and tree stumps that hadn’t completely burned clean, while the buildings beside the roads, though not greatly damaged, had their colourful signs entirely incinerated, leaving not even the iron frames. The stores Chen Xin frequently visited before had even their rolling shutters melted into charred puddles. Seeing all this, Chen Xin truly felt the arrival of the apocalypse, giving him a surreal sense of estrangement as if he was in a different world. Once bustling streets, lively squares, towering buildings, and colorful neon lights—these familiar and once everyday scenes were so fragile in the face of a disaster. Just like a fine porcelain piece, beautifully crafted, but once pushed to the ground, it shatters into pieces. In the past, Chen Xin had looked through many photos and documentaries of war-torn areas for novel material. He had no real sense of how those once prosperous places had turned into ruins until now. He truly felt the invaluable nature of those everyday surroundings he once took for granted. Yet everything is already gone. For humanity to rebuild the once-prosperous streets, revive the lively squares, use colorful neon lights to embellish cities, and restore everything destroyed by the disaster, it would take at least a generation of effort. Only then might it be possible to rebuild our homes on this post-apocalyptic wasteland. And that’s only if the apocalyptic conditions don’t change. But unfortunately, in the coming years, temperatures will only get colder. Until the haze and darkness in the sky clear, the entire world will be a vast ice cellar, sealing everything in severe cold. For humanity, rebuilding their homes is an exceptionally arduous task. Sёarᴄh the novёlF~ire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality. Cement might freeze into lumps before being mixed, the ground frozen harder than iron, impossible to dig through, and all surface water sources frozen solid... Until the thick layer of haze shrouding the sky and blocking sunlight dissipates, Earth is essentially a giant freezer, and whether human civilization can survive this catastrophe remains uncertain. Rebuilding homes... may truly become something unseen in one’s lifetime. However, this doesn’t really concern Chen Xin right now. Although the disaster has struck, the true apocalypse hasn’t fully arrived. It’s currently the last bit of warmth before the cold night. For the survivors, what’s crucial now is to expedite the gathering of resources, and while the weather hasn’t turned completely cold, reinforce shelters to maximize their chances of survival against the impending extreme cold. Of course, for Chen Xin, who already has a safe and stable shelter, and has also secured a Survival System, surviving isn’t his primary concern anymore. How to live longer and better is what Chen Xin now needs to consider.

Chapter 39: Ashes After the Catastrophe (Seeking Recommendations, Seeking Collection)

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