A World of Ten Thousand People
One day, God declared, “I will randomly select ten thousand people to remain on Earth to play a ten-year hunting game…” Ten years later, the apocalypse arrived just as foretold. Li Gang was fortunate
The universe is boundless and infinite.
No one knows how vast the nebulae are, how deep the seas of stars, or the true measure of the galaxies. Somewhere within this expanse lies a beautiful spiral galaxy. If one could observe from the distant void, one would witness this galaxy radiating an intoxicating charm, breathtaking in its splendor.
Within the galaxy are hundreds of billions of stars, and in one unremarkable corner, there exists an ordinary star system. This system holds eight planets, all tracing their regular orbits around the central star. Among them is a magnificent, blue planet, third in distance from its sun. The only advanced intelligent life to dwell upon this world, humanity, has named it Earth.
Earth.
One day.
In a certain city.
Inside a particular high-rise.
Li Gang’s face was twisted with rage and pain, yet above all was a fury without end. The friends he had made after the apocalypse, brothers who had faced life and death with him, had been gunned down just meters from his side—a single shot to the head. Thick, red and white fluid spattered across the floor and onto his face in a grisly splatter. Li Gang knew well that this was his brother’s brains mingled with blood.
The liquid on his cheeks, streaked with crimson, reeked of an unbearable stench, tinged with gunsmoke. He was certain it was the worst thing he had ever smelled—far worse than the latrines in his mountain hometown, hundreds of times more foul. This was a scent he would never forget.
“Damn this game of life and death! Damn the gods!”