Chapter 1 Nightmare

Through the small window set in the iron door, Chu Nan stared out into the corridor, his gaze vacant. Deep down in his heart burned seething rage, tangled with fear of the unknown.

This was Jiangtian City No.1 Detention Center. Chu Nan had been locked up here for two weeks.

Crack!

A heavy slap landed hard on the back of his head without warning. Caught off guard, Chu Nan’s skull slammed against the iron door.

“What are you spacing out for? Get the floor mopped right now, and wash the clothes for the rest of us.” A hoarse, vicious snarl came from behind him.

Chu Nan hung his head. The back of his scalp throbbed with a burning pain. He swallowed his fury, careful not to let it show on his face, and turned to mop the floor and do the laundry.

This was Cell Seven of the male ward. It held eighteen men on a single wide bunk bed, and Chu Nan was one of them.

Beside the bunk sat a squat toilet, crudely partitioned off to serve as the cell’s washroom.

As the newest arrival among the eighteen inmates, Chu Nan’s spot on the bunk was right next to the toilet. All the dirty, grueling work—mopping, scrubbing the toilet, washing dishes and laundry—fell to him.

His cellmates were a motley crew: drug traffickers, thieves, brawlers, loan sharks, and every kind of criminal in between.

Status was decided by seniority and the severity of their crimes. The boss of Cell Seven was a middle-aged drug trafficker named Tang Sanli, around forty years old. Word had it he had already spent more than a year locked in this detention center. Everyone else in the cell addressed him respectfully as Brother Tang.

The man who had just slapped Chu Nan and ordered him to wash clothes was a burly man in his thirties, shaved bald. A knife scar sliced straight down the center of his forehead, making him look as though he bore a third eye; his appearance was menacing.

He had been locked up for grievous bodily harm after a brutal fight. His real name was Chen Qianbing, and his nickname was Three-Eye, a reference to that vertical scar between his brows.

Three-Eye was close with Tang Sanli and tyrannized Cell Seven, making him the second-most powerful man in the room.

The other sixteen inmates had to ask Three-Eye for permission even just to drink a sip of water or use the toilet. Tang Sanli was the cell boss, yet he rarely bothered with trivial daily matters.

These days, surveillance cameras were installed in every cell of the detention center. It was not as lawless as it once had been, but new inmates still got bullied constantly.

As Chu Nan scrubbed the clothes Tang Sanli and Three-Eye had discarded, his mind kept drifting to the face of a slender, delicate, beautiful woman.

Her name was Li Feng, his girlfriend. She worked at a bank, while Chu Nan was a veterinarian. They had dated for more than a year, deeply in love, and were preparing to get married.

Half a month earlier, when Chu Nan arrived at the rental apartment where Li Feng lived, he found the floor soaked in blood, with a man crumpled in the pool of it.

Li Feng stood clutching a fruit knife, her clothes torn, her whole body shaking.

Chu Nan recognized the fallen man. His name was Lin Tianyang, Li Feng’s superior at the bank. Young, promising, and from a well-connected family, his father served as the deputy district chief of Baiyun District, Jiangtian City.

When she saw Chu Nan, Li Feng threw herself at him, her face twisted with terror, sobbing wildly. “Chu Nan… I… I didn’t mean to kill him… He… he tried to assault me… I… I lost control… I don’t know what happened…”

A deafening hum rang inside Chu Nan’s head. He could piece together what had happened.

Lin Tianyang had long had designs on Li Feng. He had come to her apartment that day, clearly intending to force himself on her, only for Li Feng to kill him by accident while resisting.

Terrified out of their wits, the two made the worst possible choice. Chu Nan helped Li Feng clean up the scene, then fled with her.

They were caught three days later, hiding in a small motel.

After they were brought back to Jiangtian City, Chu Nan gave a full, truthful statement at the criminal investigation unit—only to be stunned by what he was told next.

Li Feng claimed that Lin Tianyang had tried to rape her. She had fought desperately, and that was when Chu Nan burst in. Overcome with rage, he had grabbed the fruit knife and stabbed Lin Tianyang to death.

According to her account, Chu Nan was the killer. She was merely a victim, and had run away with him only because she loved him.

Their statements contradicted each other completely. Unable to confirm who the real murderer was, the police listed both Chu Nan and Li Feng as suspects and sent them to the detention center.

All detainees underwent a full medical check before admission. During the exam, Li Feng was found to be nearly one month pregnant. Under relevant laws, she could not be held in custody. The police arranged residential surveillance for her; she was allowed to return home, under constant supervision.

Chu Nan, meanwhile, was locked away.

The deputy district chief’s only son had been murdered. The case caused a huge stir.

Even after half a month, Chu Nan’s thoughts remained in chaos. He had loved Li Feng so deeply. Even when he saw that she had killed someone, he had risked being charged with harboring a criminal to run away with her. He had never imagined that after her arrest, she would shift all blame onto him.

Lead weight pressed down on his heart, an indescribable agony and dread. When the detective handling the case told him Li Feng’s confession, his mind turned to mush.

“Confess honestly. You know who the victim was. This case is high-profile. Neither of you can get away. Come clean sooner, and you’ll save yourself a beating.”

The detective spoke coldly, slapping Chu Nan hard again and again.

Chu Nan would never forget that moment.

Looking back on the past two weeks, it was all like a nightmare.

Suddenly, a vicious kick landed square in his back, jolting Chu Nan out of his memories.

Three-Eye’s snarl cut through the air behind him. “Damn you! I told you to wash clothes, and you’re daydreaming? Are you looking to die? Want another beating?”

Smack. Another blow cracked across Chu Nan’s cheek.

Blinded by fury, Chu Nan lifted his head and met Three-Eye’s ferocious face. The scar between his brows looked especially savage.

“What? You wanna hit back? You stupid bastard, grown some balls have you?” Seeing Chu Nan’s expression, Three-Eye grabbed him by the collar and raised his other hand to strike again.

The rest of the cell simply watched. A few other frequent victims of bullying looked at Chu Nan with shared misery, yet dared not utter a word. The rest wore gleeful, spectator grins.

Seething as he was, Chu Nan clenched his fists tight, but he did not dare fight back. He knew the moment he struck back, the whole group would swarm him and beat him far worse.

A few days before, another inmate had fought back under similar circumstances. Three-Eye and several others had nearly beaten him to death. In the end, that victim was transferred to another cell, while Three-Eye and the rest only got a verbal reprimand.

Three-Eye’s hand was about to connect with Chu Nan’s face when the entire cell shook violently.

Everyone froze. Three-Eye forgot his blow and looked up in shock. Then a shrill scream of terror tore from his throat.

“AH——!”

Nearly all of them cried out instinctively. Many were hardened criminals, yet what they saw was too horrifying, too nightmarish. No one could keep their fear in check.

Chu Nan’s boiling rage instantly dissolved into despair and terror.

The ground shuddered. The walls and ceiling of the cell swayed, cracking, crumbling, collapsing all around them.

“Earthquake! It’s an earthquake!” The cell boss Tang Sanli shrieked in panic, scrambling wildly to get off the bunk. Then came a thunderous crash, followed by a chorus of screams.

It happened far too fast. In just three or four seconds, the cell caved in, swallowing every person and every sound.

The second Chu Nan realized it was a massive earthquake, his first instinct was to throw himself sideways, rolling into the corner beside the wide bunk.

He knew a little about earthquakes. That corner beside the bunk formed the nearest survival triangle. His odds of living were only roughly thirty percent, yet it was safer than anywhere else in the cell.

The instant Chu Nan curled up there, the whole world shook. Deafening roars echoed, dust billowed and choked him, chunks of concrete and ceiling rained down.

Some inmates were crushed. Bodies bent grotesquely, bones and internal organs bursting out, blood spraying high into the air.

It was a sight he would never forget.

After barely a second or two, Chu Nan, head tucked between his arms, felt something smash into his skull. His mind exploded, darkness rushed over his eyes, and he knew no more.

It was a catastrophic super-earthquake.

As he slipped into unconsciousness, Chu Nan dreamed a long, strange dream. Murmurs and swirling white light filled his vision. Gradually, the voices sharpened, echoing clearly inside his mind.

“…A new world… Adam… Eve…”

“…Eliminate all… old humans… select… the strongest… men shall be Adams… women… Eves… they will build… a new race… a new world…”

“…All others… eliminated… wiped out…”

“Only… Adams and Eves… may live. All losers… must die…”

“The new world… has no need… for these… old… humans…”

“…New… genes…”

“…Power…”

“Awaken…”

Abruptly, the clouds of white light burst apart then snapped back into a single point. Chu Nan’s brain jolted, and he woke from that bizarre, drawn-out dream.

“Adam… Eve?”

Chu Nan’s eyes flew open. He tried to focus on what lay before him, but a searing stab of pain shot through his head, and he blacked out once more.

He did not know how much time passed before consciousness slowly returned.

Every inch of his body burned with pain, his head splitting. With great difficulty, Chu Nan pried his eyes open.

He was buried amid the rubble left by the earthquake. A broken concrete slab lay suspended directly above him.

Through narrow gaps, faint, dim light filtered down from outside.