Apocalyptic Charity Plan [Quick Transmigration] - Chapter 8

The refugees looked like a formidable crowd, but they were all bluster and no substance. Jiang Fanxing dodged their pickaxes and shovels with agility, and with nothing but his stun baton, he knocked them all to the ground.

Watching the group twitching and unconscious on the floor, Jiang Fanxing felt only disgust. He even felt that the 224 exchange coins he had earned from giving them water were tainted. Seeing the dirt pit that was less than two meters deep, his eyes darkened in frustration.

A moment later, he stowed his weapon and walked away, leaving them behind. Their crimes did not warrant death, and he had no intention of truly harming them; leaving them to pass out there was enough.

After this, Jiang Fanxing returned to the mountain cellar to wake the sleeping Li Zhenyang. He told the boy they would be relocating shortly and instructed him to get ready. Afterward, he strolled over to an empty farmhouse and waited quietly for the refugees to recover.

Half an hour later, most of the refugees had returned. Those who lacked the strength to move remained abandoned at the riverbed. Once the others had returned to their homes and the streets were empty, Jiang Fanxing crept into their shelters and silently stunned them again. This was not out of spite, but rather a precaution; he needed to move the child and the food without being discovered. Having dealt with the villagers, he returned to the riverbed to stun the remaining refugees one last time, then headed back to the cellar in a much better mood.

“Kid, let’s go.”

Before long, he was carrying a cloth bag of food and following Li Zhenyang quietly to his family’s cowshed. The floor was covered in dry cow dung, making the place look filthy, yet no one would have suspected that there was a secret entrance in the corner. After a month of scorching heat, the dung had lost all its moisture and odor, leaving only dry, brittle fragments.

Seeing the floor covered in it, Jiang Fanxing felt nauseous and could not bring himself to step inside. However, he had to move the food, and the thought of stepping into that mess was suffocating. Li Zhenyang, who had noticed Jiang Fanxing’s cleanliness over the past two days, said nothing and used his small body to drag a broom, clearing a path that was relatively clean.

Jiang Fanxing raised an eyebrow and thanked the boy. While the cowshed was still dirty, it was much better than before. Comforting himself internally, he followed Li Zhenyang to the corner.

Li Zhenyang, unbothered by the filth, carefully pried up a stone. After pressing something, a loud click echoed, and a dark hole appeared beneath the rock. Jiang Fanxing leaned in and shone his flashlight inside. He saw only a narrow, empty passage; beyond that, nothing was visible. He knew there was a secret room inside and felt curious, but he could not bring himself to jump in. He only had this one set of clean clothes, and he was terrified of getting them covered in cow dung.

“Kid, you go in. Take this bag of food with you. I will move the rest of the supplies, and you can wait for me inside.”

Li Zhenyang nodded obediently. “I understand, brother.”

Jiang Fanxing handed the only flashlight to Li Zhenyang and made his way to the villa under the moonlight. If not for the fear of leaving obvious tracks, he would have driven a vehicle to haul the food from the basement. Previously, he had complained about the lack of supplies, but after making five or six trips and feeling his legs tremble with exhaustion, he decided there was far too much food.

These supplies would sustain the child in the secret room for months. As for what would happen after that, Jiang Fanxing did not think too deeply. He had done everything within his power; he could do no more.

By the time he finished moving the last few cases of bottled water, it was three in the morning. Utterly exhausted, Jiang Fanxing said goodbye to the boy, sealed the entrance to the secret passage, and held his breath as he swept the cow dung back over the spot before returning to the mountain cellar. Before falling asleep, he made a mental note to leave this wretched place as soon as the sun rose.

The next morning, after a quick wash, Jiang Fanxing stepped out of the cellar and immediately went to check the riverbed. Last night, six people had been lying there, but now only two remained. Jiang Fanxing thought about walking away but decided to check on them after a moment’s hesitation. The two were still breathing, though shallowly. Without help, they would likely not make it. With a complex look in his eyes, he left a pot of water between them. They should be grateful that the kid had left the kettle behind.

He left soon after, walking along the main road of the village. He never imagined that those two individuals would eventually fight over the pot of water, spilling it all onto the ground and ultimately losing their lives.

Jiang Fanxing walked for a long time, passing many small villages. Every one of them was littered with corpses; there was not a single survivor. The reality of this world was far more cruel than he had imagined.

By midday, the sun became blindingly intense, and he had to find shelter. Fortunately, the countryside was full of trees. He stopped in a small grove and found a large, fallen tree as thick as a bucket. Using his military knife, he cut some wrist-thick branches and propped them against the trunk to construct a crude shelter. It was only sixty or seventy centimeters high, making it impossible to stand, but he laid out his sleeping bag, crawled inside, and had a wonderful afternoon nap.

When he woke again, the sun was sinking, and the sunset glow replaced the harsh glare of the day. The temperature had dropped significantly. He crawled out of the shelter and stretched, feeling refreshed.

“A nap really is essential.”

After packing his belongings, he continued his journey.

He did not know if it was his imagination, but the further south he went, the lower the temperature seemed to become. Jiang Fanxing looked up at the sun hanging in the sky, assuming the drop was simply because the sun was setting. However, after walking a few more kilometers, his entire body froze at the sight of an icy world in the distance.

He blinked, rubbed his eyes, and finally confirmed that he was not seeing things. A thousand meters ahead, it was snowing! Yet, under his own feet, the ground was still scorched earth.

Curiosity and doubt drove him to walk toward the frozen world. Based on his senses, even when he was only a meter or two away from the edge of the ice, the temperature where he stood was still as high as 50 degrees Celsius.

When he tentatively stepped into the icy world, he was instantly struck by a bone-chilling cold. Frost formed on his eyelashes, and the air he exhaled instantly condensed into tiny ice particles. His body even began to stiffen. He spent only ten seconds there and was nearly frozen to death.

He anxiously fought to control his rigid limbs and leaped back into the world of sweltering heat. In that instant, the frost on his body melted, and was immediately evaporated into water vapor by the heat.

“This is terrifying.”

Jiang Fanxing’s eyes were filled with horror. He let out a long breath, still shaken.

If he were still a normal human, he might have been able to endure the cold for a little longer. But he had the chloroplasts of a cactus inside him. Although they granted him the cactus’s ability to withstand high temperatures and drought, his body now functioned similarly to such a plant, leaving him poorly equipped for freezing cold.

Regret filled his heart. If he had known this would happen, he would have chosen his chloroplasts more carefully. If he had picked the chloroplasts of a plant that could withstand both cold and heat, he would not be in danger of freezing to death today.

After a while, he finally recovered from the shock. He stared intently at the seemingly peaceful and tranquil snowy world, his brow furrowed with deep anxiety. How could two complete extremes—heat and cold—exist simultaneously on the same patch of land? It was miraculous, but behind that wonder lay a chilling reality.

Logically, a world like this—a parallel Earth—should be divided by the equator, with temperatures decreasing as one moved north or south. It should be impossible for two extremes to exist within just a few kilometers. He had initially assumed the world was desolate due to a great drought, but it was clearly far more complicated than that. With both extreme cold and extreme heat present, what had happened to this planet? Could humanity truly survive in such an environment?

“110, do you know what is happening to this world?”

110, which had been silent for a long time, finally spoke: “Host, everything in the Rift World is unknown. 110 does not know either.”

Hearing this, Jiang Fanxing felt a wave of despair. If he had to save humanity to complete his mission, could he really do it? Would he ever be able to leave this hellish place?

He regretted his choices deeply. If he had known that pursuing the thrill of cosplaying would land him in such a dilemma, he would have given up cosplay entirely and waited obediently for the arrangements of his country in the real world. There was a saying: if you do not court death, you will not die.

But no matter how much he regretted it, he had to give it his all to save the humans of this world if he wanted to escape. Yet, thinking he could save humanity on his own was a fantasy.

“If only there were an official organization,” he muttered.

If he could find an official rescue organization and blend in, perhaps his mission would not be impossible. But in such a vast world, where was he supposed to find them?

Two days prior, Xie Yunqing and the others had been fortunate enough to encounter a survivor rescue team and follow them into a survivor base. They had initially wanted to hide their origins, but the base leader saw through them, forcing them to admit they were outsiders.

They had expected a fierce confrontation, but to their surprise, the leader invited them to join the rescue team to help save others.

The leader spoke with a heavy tone: “The crisis came too suddenly. Human casualties are massive, and less than one in ten thousand survived. Humanity is the seed of civilization; every survivor is a precious sprout. We must save them to continue our civilization.”

“The world is too big, and we are short-handed. You are so capable, so I beg you to help us. We are willing to provide our most precious technology in return.”

At first, Xie Yunqing and his group were hesitant. Before entering the rift, none of them could guarantee the outcome, nor could they have predicted that the other side would be a world in the throes of an apocalypse. Their only goal was to find a way to close the rift. To solve the problem, one had to find the root cause; to find a way, they had to understand what had happened to this world.

Upon learning from the leader that this world only had one country, Xie Yunqing fell into deep thought. Having only one country meant all the most advanced resources were concentrated in one place. There were only two causes for a global apocalypse: a natural disaster or human folly. As the only survivor base in the world, this was likely the place closest to the answer.

The answer became clear, and Xie Yunqing replied, “We agree.”

Zhou Peng and the others had no objections, as they followed Xie Yunqing’s orders regardless of whether they had fully processed the situation. After resting at the base for one night, they set out early the next morning with a rescue team to save survivors.

Coincidentally, their convoy was slowly approaching the boundary between ice and fire, not far from where Jiang Fanxing was located.