Apocalypse: The Primordial Pearl Recognizes Its Master, Starting with Infinite Space

Guangzhou, a city of mountains and rivers, a garden city.

Lin Chen stood on the outer city wall, holding the reports he had just received from various sources in his hand.

Yuanzai dozed off at his feet, while the tamed Black Hawk squatted on the edge of the stack, occasionally glancing at him.

Hu Shanshan stood beside him, scrolling through the messages one by one, getting angrier and angrier, her face turning red.

"Brother Lin, look at this... In Shanwei, some people are selling survivors like commodities. And in northern Guangdong, those people are actually using living people to feed zombies! And in western Guangdong, the village that Sister Qin Yi and the others encountered..."

She became more and more excited as she spoke, her voice rising an octave:

"It's such a mess outside! If it weren't for our people intervening, who knows how many more people would have died in vain!"

Lin Chen listened calmly.

He didn't reply, but simply turned to the next page of the stack of reports in his hand and continued reading.

His past life experience told him that this was just the beginning.

It's been almost two months since the apocalypse, and many people are starting to run out of food.

The battle for resources will be even more intense in the future.

When people are starving, they'll do anything.

Looting for food, goods, and people... In the struggle to survive, more and more people will resort to any means necessary.

Ordinary people will be the first to fall, treated as bargaining chips, as goods, or even... food.

Survival of the fittest.

All of this was within his expectations.

Beneath the city wall, the crowd waiting in line to enter the space was still moving slowly.

They have food to eat, a place to live, and hope to survive.

Outside the city, many more people struggled in the snow, tormented by hunger, and barely surviving in the darkest corners of humanity.

He can only save a portion of them.

Hu Shanshan flipped through the report in her hand, growing angrier with each reading, and couldn't help but complain, "Men are all the same, all they think about is bullying women..."

Lin Chen's face darkened upon hearing this, and he turned to glare at her.

Hu Shanshan was halfway through her sentence when she suddenly noticed something strange about the gaze beside her. She turned her head and saw Lin Chen staring at her. His gaze wasn't exactly fierce, but it certainly wasn't friendly either.

Her face stiffened as she realized that she had made a sweeping generalization and had inadvertently offended the person directly responsible.

"I...I wasn't talking about you..." she quickly tried to cover up, her voice stammering, "The man I was talking about didn't include you..."

Lin Chen's face darkened even more.

Am I not a man?

Hu Shanshan realized that her words were making things worse, her face flushed red, and she frantically waved her hands, saying, "What I meant was, Brother Lin, you're different from other men, you're a good person!"

Okay, I've been given the "friend zone" card again.

Lin Chen stared at her expressionlessly, making her sweat profusely. He then waved his hand, interrupting her.

"Stop talking." His tone was calm, without any anger. "These evildoers are indeed men. But that has nothing to do with gender; it's just that in this chaotic world, men are more likely to seize power."

He paused, his gaze falling on the slowly moving crowd below the city.

"According to Xiaoya's report, didn't many men also save a lot of people? How much effort did the military put in this time? Aren't they men?"

He turned his gaze away and looked at Hu Shanshan.

Whether one does good or evil depends on the individual, and has nothing to do with gender.

Hu Shanshan was speechless after hearing him. She lowered her head and said in a voice barely audible, "Um... I know I was wrong. I was too hasty..."

Lin Chen didn't press the matter further, his tone returning to normal: "Any other news?"

Hu Shanshan secretly breathed a sigh of relief, quickly opened the notebook in her hand, and spoke a few steps faster than before: "We received a message from Hong Kong saying that we are short-handed and need some assistants."

Lin Chen nodded: "Have Zhou Tiannian send some people over to provide support."

"Okay." Hu Shanshan made a note in her notebook.

"After you're done," Lin Chen turned to look at her, "you ride Little Black to find Xiao Ya. Some people in the mountains there need to be transferred, and your teleportation portal will come in handy."

Hu Shanshan was taken aback and looked up at the black eagle crouching on the edge of the stack.

The creature was tilting its head to listen to them talk. Noticing her gaze, it flapped its wings and let out a sharp cry, as if protesting—I am a battle eagle, not a mount.

Lin Chen glanced at it.

His gaze was indifferent, but Black Hawk shrank back and immediately fell silent.

Hu Shanshan suppressed a laugh and nodded.

"Okay, I'll go right now." She closed her notebook, glanced again at the black eagle with its aggrieved expression, and smiled slightly. "But Brother Lin, what if it doesn't obey?"

Lin Chen smiled, a rare occurrence for him.

"It wouldn't dare." He glanced at Black Hawk. "If it dares to disobey you, I'll roast it and eat it."

Black Hawk shuddered, hunched his neck, and paced back and forth on the battlements, making a pitiful gurgling sound.

Hu Shanshan first went to Zhou Tiannian and explained Lin Chen's instructions.

After hearing this, Zhou Tiannian immediately selected 500 people and rushed to the port city.

Watching his hurried departure, Hu Shanshan felt something was off. This man, whose concubine was supposedly pregnant, rarely went on missions personally anymore.

But she didn't think much of it; she still had a mission to complete.

She mounted Little Black, carrying a portable shortwave device, and flew north.

Lin Chen continued to oversee operations in Guangzhou, coordinating efforts from the center.

The military's messages came back one by one—personnel in one location had been gathered, supplies in another location had been packed, and survivors in yet another location had been centrally resettled.

He set off with Yuanzai, gathered people and supplies, and returned before dark. He did this repeatedly, like a tireless machine.

When Zhou Tiannian arrived in Hong Kong with his men, he did not rush to assign tasks.

He stood on the street in Tsim Sha Tsui for a long time.

Those once bustling streets that were dazzling to behold are now just desolate ruins.

The neon sign was broken in half, swaying back and forth in the wind, making a creaking sound.

The shop's windows were shattered, and it was pitch black inside; you couldn't see anything.

Zhou Tiannian stood there, motionless.

The blond-haired guy behind him, who had been waiting for a while, finally couldn't help but come up to him, scratching his head and asking, "Boss Zhou, what's wrong? Why are you so sad?"

He paused, then guessed with his own cleverness, "Didn't your concubine just announce that she's pregnant? You should be happy."

Zhou Tiannian turned around and glared at him, his eyes looking like he wanted to devour him.

"You know nothing."

He turned back, his gaze falling on the ruins again, and his voice suddenly lowered, as if he were talking to himself.

"Do you understand what this port city represents for us born in the 1980s?"

The blond-haired boy opened his mouth, but didn't dare to say anything.

He genuinely didn't understand. He was born in the late 2000s, and for him, Hong Kong was just a place name in a textbook, something he occasionally heard about in the news. Nothing more.

But Zhou Tiannian was different.

He grew up watching Hong Kong movies.

The dim lights in those video arcades, the old television set, the countless copied videotapes with blurry picture quality...

His youth was filled with these things.

He took a deep breath, and his tone suddenly became serious.

"You better remember this time," he stared at the blond-haired boy, enunciating each word clearly, "take some men and help me find Master Zhou."

The blond-haired guy was taken aback: "Master Zhou? Which Master Zhou?"

"It's that King of Comedy." Zhou Tiannian lowered his voice, as if afraid of disturbing something. "As long as he's alive, protect him. I'll reward you handsomely."