As the years passed, with the fading of human presence and the rampant mutation of flora and fauna, the city once built of concrete and steel had been utterly transformed. The roots, stems, and leaves of countless mutated plants tore through the concrete, completely burying the crumbling ruins beneath a surging sea of greenery. In a corner, a pair of abnormally grotesque white bones lay exposed, their corpses baking in the blazing sun, silently bearing witness to the brutal violence that had taken place.

The sound of hurried footsteps suddenly echoed through the architectural ruins, where sunlight could not penetrate, accompanied by the eerie rustling of branches and leaves scraping against the ground. A figure frantically dashes onto the second-floor balcony, driven by an invisible threat behind him. He leaps downward, but while his body is still mid-air, a ghostly vine wraps around his ankle, yanking him back violently and slamming him against the cold wall.

Jiang Le’s chest shook violently, and blood spurted uncontrollably from the corner of his mouth. Gritting his teeth against the excruciating pain, he drew the dagger he carried and severed the vine, rolling to the ground. But before his feet could find their footing, another vine shot through the air like a poisoned spear, piercing him right through the chest. The immense force sent him flying, crashing heavily to the ground.

It was a cat-and-mouse game of unequal strength; even the strongest will to survive was powerless to alter the outcome.

The world spun, and his consciousness began to fade. The vine that had burrowed into his body moved like a living creature, splitting into countless tiny tendrils that greedily pierced every blood vessel in Jiang Le’s body. The searing pain tore through his flesh inch by inch, stripping him of his last shred of resistance. Only the involuntary twitching of his body served as proof that life had not yet completely left him.

Several sets of footsteps converged and stopped beside him.

A foot kicked him brutally: “Why run? Just hand over your powers, and you’ll save your own skin.”

Someone reached out and poked at Jiang Le’s bloodied, mangled body, their voice tinged with surprise: “Hey, Brother Xiang, this guy… looks like he really is just an ordinary person?”

“Bullshit! I clearly sensed energy fluctuations from the same source as the meteorite on him!”

The man called Brother Xiang was impatiently retracting his vines. Upon hearing this, he cast a casual glance at the blood-soaked, utterly helpless, and utterly ordinary body on the ground, then spat out, “Bullshit about the same origin. My vines didn’t detect a single trace of energy. What a waste of my time.” He raised his foot and casually stepped on Jiang Le’s still-warm skull, ignoring the faint breath, and pressed down with all his might.

Splatter.

The head beneath his foot instantly turned into a pool of blood-red sludge.

━━ 🐈‍⬛ ━━

Jiang Le jolted upright in bed. The excruciating pain before death, the horrifying sensation of his skull shattering, and the despair that seeped into his very bones still lingered with crystal clarity in his mind, as if they had never faded. Cold sweat soaked through his clothes, and the phantom pain of being pierced by vines seemed to linger in his veins, causing him to tremble uncontrollably.

It was only after a long while, when his racing heartbeat had finally slowed, that he realized something was amiss with his surroundings.

The dim glow of streetlights seeped in through the window, outlining the room’s contours—this was unmistakably the small room he had rented while working in Hai City before the apocalypse.

How could this be?

Jiang Le’s heart began to race. He fumbled to turn on the bedside lamp and rushed barefoot to the window.

It was the early hours of the morning, and the occasional car passed by downstairs. The late-night food stall on the next street hadn’t closed yet; the faint sounds of diners chatting and the scent of spices from charcoal-grilled meat drifted over. Turning back, the muffled hum of the old air conditioner filled his ears. The ceiling fan, long unused, hung crookedly, covered in dust. The wardrobe, bookshelf, and recliner each occupied their place in this modest space…Every detail matched perfectly with the little nest deep in his memory—the place that had held three years of peaceful days and which he had longed for countless times during the apocalypse.

Everything felt as ordinary as any typical weekday when Jiang Le would fall asleep scrolling through his phone. Yet the apocalypse had undeniably come and gone.

The apocalypse began with a meteorite shower that swept across the globe. At first, people’s curiosity far outweighed their fear, until they discovered that, centered around the meteorites, all manner of life—including humans—had begun to mutate rapidly and irreversibly. Only then did panic spread like a plague. Yet by the time the mutations became visible to the naked eye and had already spread like wildfire, it was too late for any attempt at salvation; a chain reaction of collapse crushed all order.

Humankind was no longer the favored child of the Creator; overnight, they fell into the dust, utterly lost.

Affected by the meteorite, most humans degenerated into zombie-like creatures; a tiny handful of lucky ones awoke as superpower users possessing bizarre and extraordinary abilities; the rest—those who neither fell nor awakened—became the lowest-ranking ordinary people in the apocalypse. In the eyes of both types of mutated humans, they were like lambs led to the slaughter, forced to cling to the bases established by superpower users and struggle to survive in the cracks of society.

In his previous life, Jiang Le was one of these ordinary people. The only twist was that, a year into the apocalypse, he accidentally obtained a “farm system” from a zombie. Relying on the meager supplies produced by the system, he managed to survive longer than most ordinary people. Unfortunately, even this slight advantage ultimately failed to alter his fate of being crushed.

And now…

Jiang Le grabbed the phone on the table. The screen lit up, and the date stared back at him—three months remained until the meteorite shower that changed everything, and six months until the apocalypse truly raised its bloody curtain.

Jiang Le felt momentarily dazed, unable to tell whether the nightmare of being brutally slaughtered years into the apocalypse was real or if the tranquility of this moment was merely an illusion. But the searing hunger, fear, despair, and pain of the apocalypse—those feelings that had seeped deep into his bones—he would never forget for the rest of his life.

An unbelievable yet crystal-clear thought exploded in his mind: Had he… been reborn after death, returning to the six months before the apocalypse struck?

Clang.

Suddenly, a heavy thud came from upstairs, followed by the sound of a chair being dragged across the floor, punctuated by the occasional curse from someone playing a video game.

The young tenant upstairs—a professional streamer—was at it again. Yet this late-night noise, which had once driven Jiang Le to the brink of frustration, now felt like abruptly snatching his drifting consciousness back to earth and plunging him into this painfully real past.

But to confirm beyond a doubt that this wasn’t a dying hallucination, Jiang Le didn’t hesitate to grab the paper cutter from his desk and slash forcefully across the back of his wrist.

A sharp pain shot through him as his skin split open, and bright red droplets of blood slowly seeped out.

This real sensation of pain, however, brought a smile to Jiang Le’s face—his first since his rebirth.

The droplets of blood slid down the back of his wrist and rolled to the inside. Jiang Le reached out to wipe them away, but unexpectedly felt a small bump there.

A thought flashed through his mind. He quickly turned his wrist and raised it to eye level. Under the warm glow of the lamp, Jiang Le’s gaze suddenly froze on his left wrist—there, a mark that shouldn’t have been there at this moment was clearly imprinted on his skin: a faint, slightly raised scar shaped like a young sprout.

The farm system’s emblem!

In disbelief, Jiang Le extended his right hand; his fingertips trembling slightly, he gently tapped the bud-like scar twice.

Whoosh.

His figure vanished instantly from the small rented room. A fleeting shift of light flashed before his eyes; in the blink of an eye, Jiang Le found himself in the all-too-familiar starting area of the farm system.

A modest patch of black soil lay quietly before him, with a simple tool shed beside it. Next to the tool shed stood a compost bin. Behind the shed stood a warehouse about the size of a newsstand. Behind the warehouse door, a fence divided the area into two sections: one was a poultry area with feeding troughs and resting areas; the other was a small pond, roughly four square meters in size, used for fish farming.

Jiang Le walked around the entire area, confirming that every corner was empty and appeared untouched by outside forces.

Only then did Jiang Le fully realize that not only had he been reborn six months before the apocalypse struck, but the farm system—once his sole source of support—had returned with him as well, having even bound itself to him ahead of schedule.

With a flicker of his consciousness, Jiang Le reappeared in his rented room. His gaze fixed intently on the sprout emblem on his wrist, and a flame of hope unlike any he had ever known ignited with a roar deep within his chest.

If this had been merely a rebirth with everything else remaining unchanged, all Jiang Le could have done was find a secluded spot to hoard enough supplies and do whatever it took to survive a few extra days in the apocalypse. But in the apocalypse, simply having supplies is never a winning hand; without the ability to defend oneself, the darkness closing in from all sides would devour a person in an instant.

But now that he had acquired the farm system ahead of time, everything was completely different.

The farm system operates across multiple dimensions, from cultivation to animal husbandry. Every living creature in nature is classified by the system into different tiers based on various metrics, such as defense and attack power.

The system owner can gain rewards and accumulate experience by cultivating plants and raising animals of a lower tier than their own, thereby leveling up both themselves and the system.

Leveling up the farm system expands the farm’s scale and capabilities, while leveling up the owner enhances their physical and mental attributes. Therefore, even without awakened superpowers, proper management can provide a broader path to growth than that of a superpower user.

Unfortunately, in his previous life, Jiang Le obtained the farm system too late. A year into the apocalypse, as an ordinary person, he was still classified as Level 1 by the system, while the mutated flora and fauna outside were at least Level 3. He had nowhere to find suitable plants and animals that met the farm’s initial requirements.

The only silver lining was that the farm system’s built-in warehouse could be treated as a personal pocket dimension. Although it couldn’t hold living creatures, any item stored within would permanently remain in the exact state it was in when placed there. This allowed Jiang Le to secretly stockpile some supplies, ensuring he wouldn’t perish from starvation when hunger became unbearable.

Now that he had returned to a time before any of this had happened, Jiang Le possessed an invaluable window of opportunity. He could gather enough survival supplies and had a better chance of unlocking the farm system’s full potential to turn his fate around.

Standing before the bathroom mirror, Jiang Le reflected on everything from his previous life. As he watched the faintly flickering Level 1 emblem on his forehead—a mark that had never changed in his past life—he slowly clenched his fists.