Doomsday Cognition Guide

"I thought I was crazy, but it turns out I wasn't, but the world was wrong..."

A cool autumn breeze rustled a few withered yellow leaves as they fell. In the setting sun, the shadow of the sycamore tree was cast before the window like an eerie limb.

"May 0527th, someone came to visit you."

Li Xuan, dragging his shackles, was led through a long corridor by a prison guard. The corridor was filled with a damp, musty smell, mixed with disinfectant and sweat, and was bleached white by the fluorescent lights. The shackles dragged across the terrazzo floor, making a dull, rhythmic clattering sound as they bounced back and forth in the narrow passageway.

As he entered the visiting room, he saw his fourth uncle through a thick glass partition. His fourth uncle sat opposite him, a cigarette between his fingers, the ash piled up quite long, which he didn't flick off.

He picked up the microphone and called out, "Fourth Uncle."

Fourth Uncle flicked his cigarette ash, grunted, looked him up and down, and asked, "How have you been behaving inside lately?"

"Fortunately, his sentence was reduced again. He should be able to get out next year."

Fourth Uncle nodded, paused for a moment, and said, "Mid-Autumn Festival is coming soon. Your mother asked me to bring you some warm clothes and mooncakes."

Fourth Uncle remembered what Old Zhang had told him before he came in: Li Xuan might have some psychological problems. So he said, "Take it easy, there's no hurdle you can't overcome." After saying that, he didn't think about it anymore. From his observation, Li Xuan should be fine. He himself had been a soldier, and he believed that this little thing couldn't break a veteran.

Li Xuan nodded without saying a word. His gaze fell on the girl next to his fourth uncle. She was eighteen or nineteen years old, with her hair tied in a high ponytail, and was looking down at her phone.

His fourth uncle followed his gaze and explained, "Your cousin is on holiday from school. I just picked her up from the station and came along to see you."

My cousin.

Li Xuan's gaze fell on the girl, and he felt a sense of unfamiliarity. Yes, unfamiliarity. Because his memory was distorted; his fourth uncle's child should be a boy of only fifteen or sixteen, who had grown up following him around since childhood, rebellious, playful, and sent back to his hometown by his fourth uncle to quit gaming during holidays. Not this eighteen or nineteen-year-old girl looking down at her phone.

When he first met his cousin, he knew it wasn't a journey back to the past, but a parallel universe. This outcome terrified him, because it proved his world had been destroyed—a world he had destroyed with his own hands, with no chance of a second chance.

Everyone else died, only he "lived." But what did it mean? Nothing could be changed; he didn't even have the right to be blamed or judged. He was like a gravedigger, or rather, a living tombstone.

Li Xuan turned his gaze away from his cousin. Suddenly, it occurred to him that the memory itself might have malfunctioned during the soul resonance transmission. Perhaps those memories were even from when he went mad because he couldn't face reality after committing murder!

Whether his memory was wrong or he went mad, it was still more acceptable to him than a parallel world.

Her cousin looked up at Li Xuan. Girls have a keen intuition, and ever since her cousin was released from prison, he had been looking at her strangely.

They hadn't seen each other much in the past few years, and she didn't know what to say. She just called out "Brother" into the microphone, fiddling with her phone case with her other hand, and then fell silent.

Seeing this, Fourth Uncle took the microphone again: "You said last time that you wanted to build a brewery in that cave in our hometown, preparing to inherit the family business after you come out?"

Li Xuan gave a wry smile: "Fourth Uncle, look at my criminal record now, can I find any other job? So I think I should just keep brewing wine in my hometown, so that this craft won't be lost."

"Alright. Our family has been brewing wine for three generations, and you really need a successor," Uncle Si said. "For your sake, your parents sold their house in the city and are still living in their old house in our hometown. I spent some money to build a house next to the cave for them to live in, and I'll also renovate your cave at the same time. Consider this money a loan to you."

Li Xuan nodded, offering no pleasantries—he didn't need to—and simply asked subtly, "How are the preparations going?"

"The materials and equipment have all been transported. Transportation to that location is inconvenient; it has to go through the underpass of that highway, so large trucks can't be used at all. We can only transport it little by little by small cars, which took some time. Now we're just waiting to gather the workers after the Mid-Autumn Festival to prepare for construction."

Li Xuan breathed a sigh of relief after hearing this. He wasn't sure if the future would unfold as he remembered it. But in any case, he had already subtly gotten his parents and fourth uncle to start preparing—his parents had stockpiled some grain for brewing based on his story about wanting to make wine.

Visiting time had arrived. Fourth Uncle stubbed out his cigarette, stood up, and glanced at him through the glass. There were no extra words in his eyes, only the unspoken understanding between two veterans.

Li Xuan dragged his shackles back to the prison block. Although he was in shackles, the people in the block were quite afraid of him. Here, murderers were usually the "bosses" of the prison. In addition, he usually obeyed the rules and did not cause trouble. On the contrary, he often helped suppress the troublemakers in the prison, so the police officers had a good relationship with him—otherwise, he would not have been able to get sentence reductions one after another.

That evening, the prison ward organized a news viewing session. On the television, a sweet-looking girl was smiling as she reported the weather forecast. Li Xuan leaned against the wall, watching listlessly.

Then he heard a sentence.

"According to experts, a solar storm is expected to hit Earth soon, potentially causing disruptions to communication and power systems. The Observatory has also issued a warning that during the total lunar eclipse tomorrow night, the moon will appear a rare dark red due to the enhanced atmospheric scattering effect of the solar storm..."

His heart sank; it had come after all. He slowly closed his eyes, his last hope shattered. When he opened them again, a fleeting indifference crossed his gaze.

He leaned against the wall, shifting his gaze from the television screen to the fluorescent light tubes on the ceiling. Tomorrow. He needed to prepare for tomorrow.

The following afternoon, the prison ward organized a group study session. Li Xuan found an excuse and beat up the rapist again. He didn't hit him too hard, but it was enough to make him suffer for several days. When the police arrived and pulled him away from the inmate, he did not resist.

Because of this incident, he was placed in solitary confinement for 24 hours.

This was exactly the result he wanted. The solitary confinement cell was right next to the police duty room. He didn't know if anyone would mutate tomorrow, or who would mutate. But being alone was safer than being in a cell with dozens of other people.

The iron door slammed shut. The solitary confinement cell was small, containing nothing but a welded iron bed and a squat toilet. The walls were cold, hard concrete, and the fluorescent light tubes on the ceiling, covered by iron mesh, emitted a buzzing electrical sound. Li Xuan sat down against the wall, closing his eyes to rest.

It was past 10 PM, and Li Xuan was still training his physical fitness instead of resting—a habit he always maintained, as physical fitness was the foundation of everything. Footsteps echoed in the corridor, very light, unlike the usual regular ward rounds. Two voices could be heard talking in the corridor. One said, "The moon is really strange tonight; half the sky outside is dyed red. Will something bad happen?" The other replied, "Didn't you hear the experts say it's a solar storm causing the moon's spectrum to redshift?" The first person immediately retorted, "You believe what the experts say?" "It's better than you being superstitious."

Hearing their conversation, Li Xuan breathed a sigh of relief. The worst-case scenario was that the world was wrong, but the memory was right. Looking out the corridor window at the slightly reddish sky, he realized this was probably the first time in human history that dark energy had been observed with the naked eye. No one knew about it, and no one cared.

The two men stopped at the door of the solitary confinement cell. A small window in the iron door was pulled open from the outside, and the aroma of cumin and barbecue wafted in. A police officer on duty handed in half a box of barbecue through the window; the lamb skewers were still steaming, and the grease sizzled on the tin foil.

"Li Xuan, would you like something to eat?"

Li Xuan sat up and took the lunchbox. Inside were lamb skewers, grilled chicken wings, several skewers of chives, and a baked bun. He took a skewer of lamb and took a bite.

"Thank you, Uncle Zhang, but I won't stand on ceremony with you," he said.

The policeman outside the door said irritably, "Fine, if you really want to thank me, don't cause me any more trouble."

Li Xuan said, "It won't happen again next time." He then continued eating his meat skewers, thinking to himself, "Even if the end of the world really comes, there won't be a next time."

He handed the empty lunchbox back, and their eyes met through the tiny window in the iron gate. Uncle Zhang said again, "Can't you behave yourself? Not only is your sentence reduction for this month gone, but if something goes wrong, do you even want to get out? Don't forget how you got in here. If you cause another death, do you want to be shot, or do you want to stay here for the rest of your life?"

Li Xuan simply buried his head and accepted the scolding. Looking at his own hands, he knew that even if he accidentally threw a punch, he wouldn't kill anyone now, since the power boost from the soul resonance had dissipated once the resonance ended. He remembered that day when he had drunk some alcohol, his head was spinning, and he punched the thug who had provoked him, killing him instantly. Although the other party had provoked him first and had a dagger, the judge still believed that he was capable of subduing the other party and that it constituted excessive self-defense, sentencing him to five years in prison.

After Uncle Zhang finished scolding him, he looked up at the other man. He had originally wanted to say to be careful tonight, but the words that came out were, "Uncle Zhang, it's the Mid-Autumn Festival today, go home early after get off work."

Uncle Zhang took the lunchbox and smiled, "I also wanted to go home early, and it just so happens to be my turn to be on duty."

Watching Uncle Zhang's departing figure, Li Xuan thought that staying here to take his shift was a good idea. If they could survive the first wave of the virus, this place would be a good base for survival.

Uncle Zhang was Fourth Uncle's old comrade-in-arms, the kind of person who hadn't seen each other much for over ten years. But because of Li Xuan's matter, Fourth Uncle came to him, and without saying a word, he did his best to help within the rules.

Li Xuan stopped training, lay back on his bed, and stared blankly at the iron mesh ceiling. This was because in the quiet of the night, memories that weren't his own became exceptionally clear.

When he left the restaurant that day, his head was spinning, and it felt like a rushing river had been poured into his mind, with countless images and sounds crashing around him. It took him three whole days to recover.

Having absorbed all the memories, the final moments still lingered in his mind. The prophet had shielded him from the white light of the Earth's core will exploding, activating her supernatural soul resonance to its fullest extent. Before her figure vanished in the light, she murmured, "I don't know if it will succeed, but at least a sliver of hope remains..."

Over the course of that year, those chaotic memories slowly settled down during his long prison sentence. He began to distinguish which were his own memories and which were information from another time and space brought over from that soul resonance. Because of his cousin's misplaced presence, he wasn't sure which were useful, or even whether the end of the world would come.

He had his fourth uncle prepare at the cave in their old home, saying he wanted to brew wine and inherit the family business, but in reality, it was all about stockpiling supplies for the apocalypse. But he couldn't say it directly. He could only use the excuse of "inheriting the family business" to get his family to move the supplies to that easily defensible location in advance.

Everything prepared has an apparent purpose. If the apocalypse doesn't come, this food will be used to brew alcohol, and the building materials will be used to build a house for my parents. If the apocalypse does come, these will be essential supplies for my family to survive.

Today is the Mid-Autumn Festival, and the solar storm mentioned in the news is about to hit Earth. The final moment is approaching, and he hopes he's gone mad, or that the world's mistakes are simply irreversible, with no apocalyptic catastrophe and no subsequent alien invasion. That way, he can peacefully await his release from prison and live out the rest of his life in peace.

Outside the window, the last sycamore leaf was blown down by the wind and drifted silently into the darkness.