Chapter 8 The Apocalypse Survival Game is Live

Chapter 8: The Doomsday Survival Game Is Now Online

The two of them exchanged silent glances as they stuffed their mouths with food.

However, despite their ambitions to be big eaters, their stomachs simply couldn’t keep up. In the end, they still left over half the food uneaten.

Hua Diao slumped back in her chair, tipping her head back to keep the food that had already reached her throat from coming back up. She turned to Xie Tingsheng and urged, "Want some more? It’d be a shame to let all this go to waste. It won’t taste as good tomorrow."

Xie Tingsheng’s right arm, with its sleeves rolled up, revealed taut veins as he propped himself up from the table with a lean but powerful forearm. His other hand subtly massaged his stomach.

At her words, his Phoenix Eyes flickered with a complicated expression before he twitched his lips and uttered a single word: "No."

Ever since those dog-like days of his childhood, he had always adhered to eating only until he was eighty percent full. Stuffing himself like this was unprecedented.

Yet, watching the way his wife across from him puffed her cheeks and ate with such relish, he couldn’t help but get carried away and take a few extra bites—so much so that he could barely stand up now.

Was this woman here to tempt him into indulgence?

"Oh." Hua Diao pouted.

Seeing that she still wanted to say more, Xie Tingsheng narrowed his eyes and deftly changed the subject. "I bought a lot of the rice and grains you asked for. The fridge downstairs couldn’t hold everything, so I installed three more freezers upstairs. Want to go take a look?"

Hua Diao’s eyes immediately lit up, and she pushed herself up from the table. "Yes, yes! Let’s go check right now. We can see what else we need and stock up tomorrow while there’s still time."

With that, she grabbed the staircase railing and charged upstairs ahead of him.

The second floor had three rooms: a storage room, a pantry, and Xie Tingsheng’s bedroom—all of them spacious.

The storage room was now jammed full with sacks of rice, flour, noodles, cooking oil, and crates of bottled water, so much so that even the windows were blocked. Eyeballing it, the supplies could last the two of them for at least a year or two.

Next door in the pantry, three large freezers stood lined up against the left wall. The innermost one was stacked with frozen dumplings, buns, shaomai, rice cakes, and hand-pulled pancakes—each type numbering at least fifty packs.

The middle freezer was filled with various frozen meats—chicken, duck, lamb, the works.

The outermost freezer had two layers: one for fruits and the other for vegetables.

On the right side of the room, two large metal shelves stood against the wall, neatly arranged with seasonings like oil, salt, soy sauce, and vinegar, as well as preserved meats, sausages, instant noodles, chocolates, and other assorted snacks.

Every inch was packed, with even the gaps in the walkway stuffed with bags of compressed biscuits and small bottles of water.

Clearly, these preparations were made with the post-apocalyptic food and water shortages in mind.

It was everything Hua Diao could have hoped for.

She hadn’t expected Xie Tingsheng to take her casual remarks so seriously and stock up so thoroughly. Truly the loyal, devoted follower of Hua Diao—his follow-through was perfect!

Hua Diao’s eyes darted about before she turned back to Xie Tingsheng with a bright smile. "The study downstairs is still empty. Why don’t we buy some insecticide or something to fill it up? On my way back this afternoon, I noticed tons more bugs flying around the lawn than usual—like, several times more than past summers. I’m terrified of bug bites. Even though we’re on the eighteenth floor and most bugs can’t fly that high, it’s better to be safe than sorry, right?"

Xie Tingsheng’s lips curled slightly as he nodded in agreement. "Sure, whatever you say. I’ll buy some tomorrow."

Perfect—he’d been thinking the same thing!

Pleased, Hua Diao didn’t bother asking if Xie Tingsheng had spent all the ten million yet. Grinning, she transferred him another ten mil for spending money.

Both of them were quite satisfied with this arrangement.

Then, they returned downstairs to clean up the dishes, stored the leftovers in the fridge, and retreated to their respective rooms to rest.

The next morning, both of them woke up unusually early. After hastily wolfing down some pastries Hua Diao had brought back the day before, they headed out.

Hua Diao spent the day in a large shopping mall, buying cosmetics, face masks, and other women's products. After each purchase, she’d find a camera blind spot to tuck the items in her island space before continuing her shopping run.

By dusk, she finally settled the full payments for all the purchases according to the bills sent by her manager. Only then did she begin her real work.

With her island space as her secret weapon, she carefully avoided surveillance cameras and slipped into the large warehouses storing the goods, quietly emptying them one by one.

Xie Tingsheng, however, had a more complicated task. Since his armory could only store weapons and ammunition, he had to personally transport all the other supplies to the warehouses. He even replaced all the warehouse passcode locks as an extra precaution.

Racing against time, the two of them worked tirelessly, dog-tired. It wasn’t until after 11 p.m., when they had spent every last cent, that they finally returned home, each carrying insecticide and other supplies.

Too drained for conversation, they silently reheated last night’s leftovers for dinner before retreating to their rooms to await the launch of the doomsday game.

The early signs of the apocalyptic insect plague were already emerging—the oversized, swarming bugs they’d encountered downstairs were proof.

And according to the timeline, the doomsday game would go live at 1 a.m. the next morning, while the world slept.

After a quick shower, Hua Diao lay in bed, hugging a pillow between her knees. Her heart was a mix of jittery dread for the coming apocalypse and excited curiosity for the unknown. She wracked her brain, trying to recall the novel’s details.

"I wonder what the monsters will be like. According to the novel, the earlier you kill them and draw the loot they drop to power-up, the better. That’s the only way to increase your survival odds later when the game bleeds into reality and the monsters grow stronger..."

Muttering to herself, she eventually succumbed to sleep’s call and nodded off.

In the pitch-black night, thick clouds of insects swarmed under the lights, growing ever larger and more numerous.

The crescent moon, hidden behind the clouds, slowly emerged—but its usual silver glow had turned a blood-red, casting everything in a bloody glow.

"Whoa—it’s a blood moon!"

Astronomy enthusiasts and night crawlers who spotted the phenomenon had no idea of its dire implications. Amazed, they whipped out their phones to snap pictures like groupies.

"Holy shit, hurry up! This is a once-in-a-century celestial event! Quick, take a pic of me with the blood moon—I’ll flex hardcore on those losers who went home to their wives!"

"Stop sleeping, dumbass! Get up and party!"

"How’s this for a Dark Lord vibe? Don’t even need CGI!"

"Huh? Why’s there no signal? How am I supposed to show off if I can’t post this?"

"Does the blood moon mess with signals? You're kidding..."

As the night crawlers buzzed with excitement and astronomy bureau staff scrambled out of bed to work overtime, a mechanical voice abruptly rang through everyone's heads.

[Game Early Access Version "Last Stand" Loaded Successfully.]

"Ding!—The Doomsday Survival Game is now online! The game system is fully operational. Welcome, Aqua Blue Star residents, to the game. The apocalypse has begun. Disasters spread, monsters from other worlds descend, and Aqua Blue Star has become their hunting ground. Survival is everything~~"