Chapter 77: The New Apocalypse, Can Modern People Live Without the Internet and Electricity?

Chapter 77 The New Apocalypse: Can Modern Folks Survive Without the Internet or Power?

"With such a large-scale network outage, it should be restored soon."

"Communication workers are usually quite efficient in handling these matters."

Thinking this, Sheng Qingquan slumped back onto the couch. Then, he saw a new book materialize right in front of him.

"I *freaking* knew it!!!"

Sheng Qingquan sat up angrily.

"Is this outage somehow tied to the apocalypse?"

His first thought was that some crazy powerful being might have landed and accidentally destroyed the local cell tower.

Until he opened the book.

"Did they just not get to it yet? It doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the internet?"

"Maybe I’m just seeing ghosts where there aren’t any."

Sheng Qingquan couldn’t help but doubt himself and continued reading calmly.

"This time, the protagonist is Pi Xinzheng."

Pi’s a pretty rare last name, but as far as Sheng Qingquan knew, there were already two households with the last name Pi in their building alone.

Technically, though, they were one family.

Because they were siblings.

It was said that the Pi parents had bought the units next to each other so that their children could take care of each other even after starting their own families.

"Pi Xinzheng is the older brother living upstairs."

Pi Xinrong was currently having dinner at her brother’s place when she heard this. Her hand trembled, and the last freaking piece of braised pork rib she had fought hard for tumbled off and hit the floor.

The dark brown sauce immediately stained those pricey cozy house slippers, but she had no time to care. "Dude!"

Pi Xinrong called out anxiously, and Pi Xinzheng’s face went pale.

It was as if what had fallen wasn’t a piece of pork rib but himself, crashing heavily to the ground.

"This shouldn’t be happening!" Pi Xinzheng muttered to himself. "I’ve clearly learned from others’ mistakes."

"No touching weird stuff, no fishing trips, no teasing pets, no dumb risks."

"I grind at work like a good drone and keep my head down. I’ve even avoided taking freebie swag from the roadside. How could I still get screwed over?"

Being the main character’s a raw deal.

Even if one could survive the ordeal, there was always the fear of the unexpected. Especially since, even if nothing happened in reality, how often folks end up in therapy showed that becoming the main character in some doomsday prophecy was no blessing.

Thus, Pi Xinzheng had always been cautious, trying to avoid it. Pi Xinrong knew this too, which was why she couldn’t help but worry upon hearing her brother had become the protagonist.

"Can’t dodge what’s coming." Pi Xinzheng had genuinely tried to evade the plot before. But now, he rolled with the punches and began facing it calmly.

Hell, what’s the alternative?

"Thankfully, I’m single and childless. My will was just revised at the beginning of this month. Everything’s yours. If something actually happens to me, Mom and Dad are in your care..." Pi Xinzheng went on.

"Brother, it hasn’t come to that yet," Pi Xinrong said, feeling both heartbroken and a little exasperated.

"Poor guy—didn’t do a thing wrong, went on a business trip, and almost lost his life."

Pi Xinrong’s comforting words caught in her throat.

Not there yet? Pi Xinzheng forced a bitter smile at his sister.

He had no idea if the apocalypse would come on time, but if luck was against him, he might not make it.

"Maybe while you were away, thinking it was a rare chance to travel, you casually bought some souvenirs and ended up with something you shouldn’t have?" Pi Xinrong couldn’t help asking.

"Nah, you’d have been careful about that. Besides necessities, I haven’t seen you buy anything recently, let alone souvenirs," she added. Her brother had taken to just sending money to express his affection.

Pi Xinrong thought of another possibility.

"Business trips are budgeted, so expenses are tight. Not everyone gets their own room. And to make discussions easier, they usually stick close."

"Brother, were you sharing a room with a colleague? Maybe they bought a lot of stuff and left it in the room, and you just got unlucky and got hit by it?"

"Wait—could the hotel decorations themselves be the problem?" That was also highly possible. Who knows where that stuff even came from?

"If it comes to it, just quit and come home," Pi Xinrong said, growing more convinced of the dangers outside. "Worst case, resign and come back. You can freeload off Mom, Dad, and me for a while. Let’s get through this period first."

The two were close, and no job was more important than her brother’s life. In these extraordinary times, Pi Xinrong didn’t mind playing the overprotective sister.

But Pi Xinzheng didn’t think hiding would work. He was beginning to see he needed to pinpoint the real cause and avoid it specifically.

Otherwise, given the current situation, even if he dodged trouble on a business trip, he could still get screwed any second.

He could quit his job—he had some savings to last a while. But even if he didn’t work, could he stop eating or drinking?

What if one day he ordered takeout and the restaurant kindly included a freebie that turned out to be the problem? Even grocery shopping for home cooking was risky.

Even if he delegated all that to others and stayed home doing nothing, Pi Xinzheng couldn’t guarantee that things he’d bought before were safe.

What if he tossed everything out and slept on the floor? The money lost wouldn’t matter, but could he really go without furniture or clothes? Especially since he was severely nearsighted—could he go without glasses?

So hiding blindly wouldn’t cut it.

"First, let’s hear what triggered the apocalypse this time."

"Pi Xinzheng was staying at a hotel during his business trip. In the middle of the night, something appeared out of thin air above his bed and landed squarely on his head."

"Being away from home, Pi Xinzheng already had trouble sleeping. Well, that hit sure put him to ‘sleep’—for good."

"How the hell do you avoid that?!" Pi Xinzheng had always assumed he’d done something unintentionally—picked up the wrong item, bought the wrong thing—so he’d been extra cautious.

But this...

"This is just plain bad luck!"

He’d done nothing, yet still got unlucky. Even if the story had mentioned him glancing at a pretty bird perched on a tree branch, and that bird turned out to be no ordinary bird but one that got angry at being stared at—

At least it’d make sense. At least he’d have done something.

Not like this, where it’s just senseless.

It’s hard to tell whether this thing just happened randomly, appearing in the hotel and hitting him by chance,

or if it was specifically targeting him, hounding him like a shadow no matter where he went.

If it was the former, he could avoid business trips and hotels, but if it was the latter...

Even staying home doing nothing wouldn’t help—something might fall on him at any moment.

The more Pi Xinzheng dwelled on it, the more miserable he felt, and Pi Xinrong was dumbstruck. She looked at her older brother with nothing but sympathy in her eyes.

"You’re no protagonist—you’re straight-up cannon fodder." That’s the kind of crap fate only reserves for side characters.

"At least the plot only says your business trip nearly cost you your life. 'Nearly' means it hasn’t happened yet—there’s still hope!" Pi Xinrong rallied her spirits, trying to comfort her brother.

"When Pi Xinzheng's colleague woke up the next morning, they saw him lying on the adjacent bed, covered in blood. The colleague was terrified, thinking it was a home invasion—someone had smashed his head in with a hammer."

"Fortunately, they worked up the nerve to check and found Pi Xinzheng still breathing, then immediately called an ambulance. That’s what saved him."

He survived!

Thank God!

Pi Xinrong sighed in relief. "No clue who this colleague is, but we really owe them our gratitude."

At least he was alive. The injuries and blood loss? Think of it as jumpstarting his blood cells.

"Wait—after barely scraping by, within two days, complications arose, and he was rushed back into surgery. Midway through the operation, the AI-assisted operating room malfunctioned."

"All the equipment failed, rendering them unusable. Even the overhead surgical lights went out, pitching the room into total darkness. The docs were flying blind—they couldn’t even stop the surgery and close his opened skull."

"To top it off, the lights died at the worst damn time, causing the surgeon’s scalpel to slip."

"Pi Xinzheng flatlined right then, never making it off the operating table."

"The one damn time he scraped by, he only lasted two extra days before he was a goner again."

"Dude was cursed."

Sheng Qingquan sighed. Brutal. Just brutal.

But was this operating room malfunction related to the earlier internet outage?

Something told him they were linked.

"I remember that many major hospitals now have AI-assisted operating rooms, with computers aiding doctors during operations. A lot of the equipment is networked—could this be part of it?"

Sheng Qingquan read further and quickly confirmed it was indeed the same issue.

It wasn’t just him being overly paranoid from encountering too many crises—the earlier internet outage really wasn’t just a simple glitch.

"First, the signal went out."

"The hell’s happening? Why’s the power out now? The internet’s down, fine, but why cut the electricity too? Blackouts are the *worst*."

"My phone’s on 1%—I was *this close* to plugging it in. Why now?"

"Are you kidding me? I was halfway through cooking, and the induction stove stopped working. The one damn time I cook, and now I have to order takeout?"

"Zero heads-up—just *bam*, power’s gone. Anyone got an ETA on this? I just did a big grocery run—if the fridge dies, everything’s gonna rot."

"Holy shit, when the power went out just now, there were still people stuck in the elevator. The elevator in Building 9 is trapped inside!"

Suddenly, there was a commotion outside.

"Then came the power outage."

Sheng Qingquan rushed to the balcony to look and saw that people were already on their way to rescue those trapped, so he didn’t act rashly.

Luckily, some professionals were nearby.

Only after the trapped individuals were freed did Sheng Qingquan go back to his novel.

"After the signal and power failed, other technological products started acting up too."

"Household appliances conked out. TVs, air conditioners, rice cookers—everything stopped working."

"Phones wouldn’t turn on, becoming useless bricks. Computers and tablets completely bricked, their screens wouldn't even light up."

"Then came the more sophisticated equipment..."

"Finally, modern technology completely failed, even the satellites in orbit came crashing down."

"So the network outage earlier wasn’t just a local cell tower issue—it’s likely the entire planet Tianlan’s network is down?" Pi Xinrong gasped.

The staff were even more shocked and heartbroken.

"Regressed to ancient times overnight?"

Even if Sheng Qingquan hadn’t learned much inside info over the past two years, any ordinary person could see how bad this is by now.

"Tianlan had always followed a path of technological development. It took immense effort and resources to progress step by step to this point. Just as we were finally getting somewhere, everything was suddenly set back."

"Were the last few centuries of hard work all for nothing?"

"Especially in recent years, Tianlan made the best of bad situations, gaining many valuable assets. Technology improved every day. Now, all that progress has been wiped clean."

"How are we supposed to deal with this?"

It was simply unacceptable.

"Can modern people survive without electricity or the internet?"

And beyond that, Sheng Qingquan thought of the spaceship the authorities had seized not long ago.

"Just when we finally had the chance to figure out how the ship worked, analyze its technology, and apply it to our own advancements."

"And now, not only is there no hope for our own new spacecraft, but even the captured ship is useless?"

Then there were the mechas, healing tech, medical pods...

Sheng Qingquan looked at the miniature mecha and spaceship beside him, realizing they might soon become nothing more than lifeless models—no longer capable of carrying him through space.

He nearly hyperventilated. He almost blacked out from the pain.