Don't doubt it — those reincarnated warlords, after their wives returned, blew up the conference ship of the Red Star.
To my foreign friends, I can only say: Chinese online novels have turned into a cesspool. All the same. Even serious works can hardly see the light of day.
You have to understand: everything we write has power.
In a society where drugs are illegal, the corrosive effect of our works on the mind is even worse than drugs.
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Refuge 193 – Local Draft
Chapter 1: The Night Before the Nuclear Explosion
Unknown rifts appeared on Blue Star. These rifts kept sucking in unknown blue gas. After long observation, it was found that people living nearby could strengthen their bodies, prolong their lives, and had a "high probability" of awakening strange abilities after inhaling the gas.
The news spread from somewhere unknown, triggering a craze across every region. Countless people sought out the gas, just to step onto the path of "cultivating immortality" or "meeting God". But the news spread too fast — as if someone was secretly pushing it.
The Global National Alliance also noticed the benefits of the gas, but it also affected social stability. Countless criminals used their abilities to evade law enforcement. Capturing ability users required huge manpower. Due to incomplete understanding of abilities, ability-related crimes rose globally. For the sake of stability, the Global National Alliance sealed off the source of the leaks. These rifts were called "Stellar Energy Rifts", also known as "spiritual energy".
The Alliance sent guards to block off the surrounding areas, making it harder for ordinary people to obtain stellar energy, while also reducing the emergence of ability-using criminals. Certain sinister forces stirred public resentment against the Global National Government. They sold bottled stellar energy on online trading platforms at sky-high prices, and also recycled all stellar energy related items. They spread "rumors" that stellar energy was not allowed to be given to the common people — only for special groups. They claimed the Alliance had betrayed its original oath, called for joining them to reform all injustice, to take up arms against all unfairness…
Inside a laboratory, a researcher in class‑A protective suit shook a transparent glass bottle.
Inside the bottle was a faint blue glow. As he shook it, it flickered in the darkness like the light from a planetary rift…
That constantly shaking glow in the bottle was the hope for ordinary people to "upgrade" their class, and also a way to madly extend their "lifespan". Its price was high — it was often called "gas gold".
Early loopholes allowed the successful sale of stellar energy. Demand exceeded supply. Criminals made a fortune.
They used the money to expand their power, develop special weapons, conduct biochemical research, research stellar energy devices, bribe protectors, kill or frame political opponents.
Back then, tip‑offs would be intercepted by protectors. The informants themselves were eliminated at the source. Various departments colluded and accepted "gifts" — that was normal among protectors. They made sure people could see, hear, but not speak out. If you couldn't solve the problem, you solved the person who raised it. People at the time called the underground forces the Alliance's "black gloves".
The black gloves ran wild for a while, then hit a "hard wall". Their actions were like an invisible spider web… But somehow, evidence ended up on certain people's desks. In a rage, the Great Purge began. Protectors were torn apart. The flames burned the black gloves. On the surface, it was bloody cleansing — but in reality, only a few scapegoats were taken. The other half were regularized, their asses wiped clean, transformed into things like "Stellar Energy Technology Co., Ltd."
"Stellar energy" drove people mad. To search for rifts, they crossed mountains and turned the earth upside down…
To increase the purity of stellar energy, the (Global National Alliance Stellar Energy Research Institute) developed stellar energy purifiers and extractors. Drilling, extraction, crushing, filtering, pressurizing. Finally, they used transparent stones drained of stellar energy — called star stones — ground and recast into bottles to store the energy and prevent it from leaking. Currently, half of the supply goes to newly built ability universities, and the rest is distributed to local garrison forces.
The admission requirements for ability universities were extremely strict. Only those who met certain thresholds ("conditions") could enroll — descendants of martyrs with talent, three generations without criminal record? Only "heaven" knows…
Stellar energy researchers developed various usage methods. For example, when stellar energy concentration is high, it forms ore. Adding that ore to minerals to remake alloy armor improves defense. Star stones cannot be used directly on the human body — current experimental data shows that the human body cannot absorb the high concentration in a short time…
Long‑term human experiments gave the Global National Alliance Stellar Energy Research Institute rich experience. Massive funds poured into the institute, attracting huge numbers of top biological talent. Old men worried about their lifespans — ask yourself: when you're at the end of your life, if a bottle of life‑extending medicine appeared, would you take it?
Under continuous research, a mistake occurred…
Those who could not absorb spiritual energy were pushed to the margins of society. Ability users were far more efficient than ordinary people.
And the ordinary people? Facing super zombies that could use simple abilities — x‑ray vision? super smell? iron bones? For those who had not awakened, this was the true apocalypse…
The shelter had no backup plan. They activated the final plan: distribute all remaining supplies to all residents, prepare to open the gates and fight for a slim chance.
Underground shelter broadcast:
"Good morning, everyone in the shelter. Today, all remaining stockpiles have been distributed to all survivors. Those still alive are all 'tough old foxes'.
Due to attacks and sieges by unknown creatures and zombies, all exits are sealed. Water supplies will last 24 hours. Replenish your status within that time. The gates will be unsealed in approximately 72 hours. Weapons will be distributed half an hour before opening. Adjust your condition, prepare for the final fight…"
The light in people's eyes was gone.
The days of not worrying about food and clothing were over. Snow and wind raged. People struggled in the cold. Whether from the cold or from fear, on the escape route, their hands seemed frozen to their triggers.
But in the endless winter, there was no hope. Corpses littered the road. Families were forced apart.
Maybe their loved ones, friends and family were waiting ahead — no one shattered that illusion. At least it gave them a reason to keep living.
Shelter broadcast: "A reminder to all survivors: save two bullets for the end. Don't miss. Two bullets, make sure you hit the right spot. If not done, finish quickly."
"My child might have just hidden somewhere. Kids are clever…"
"My parents are still waiting for me to eat together…"
"I've kept all my food. My younger siblings haven't eaten it yet…"
But dreams always end.
Broken walls, collapsed buildings, exposed bent rebar, blood handprints dragged down the walls, scattered limbs on the ground, broken fingers, bone fragments everywhere, countless bloodstains with drag marks, torn bloodied clothes, incomplete corpses…
The air was thick with the smell of death — the stench of excrement, rotting internal organs, all mixed together.
It scraped at people's minds like a dull knife, telling them: danger here, your own kind died here. No one taught what that smell meant, but instinct kept screaming: stay away.
Whose family, lover, child was left here forever? The surviving wretches began to fear — it was instinct. Fear to the extreme turned into extreme rage. People had no hope of living. They couldn't eat enough, couldn't sleep, couldn't live in peace.
No one was Superman. In this desperate situation, their spirits broke. Some ended their own pain on the spot, blood spilling everywhere. The rest had no way out, and decided to fight the monsters to the death…
And then? Nothing. Just a replay of the horror from the surface shelters back then.
Like a dream…
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Chapter 2: The Train
Those who don’t want to return to reality, enter the endless illusion. (Place your mind to rest.)
Illusion: Dream Bubbles ——————————————————
Newly installed rails gradually deformed and rusted over time. The once steel beast was slowly converted into a high‑speed train.
The beast decayed and corroded with time. Time was running out, one pillar couldn’t hold… The final accelerating crash accompanied by the fallen beast's wail.
The "new" train didn’t fit the tracks — they tried to replace the rails. The old shadows no longer existed. The trains charged side by side toward the rising sun. The old corroded shell collapsed at the first touch and was tossed lightly off the tracks.
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The old train couldn’t tell where it was. Pasted on the broken windshield ahead were past glories and the last words of comrades.
In the distance, "charging side by side" new trains waited for the "new sun" to rise. No matter where they were, under the sunlight they blocked each other, chased each other, intercepted each other?
The old train’s road was nearing its end. The body aged and cracked with snow, wind, and gravel. Stones flew. The windshield didn’t make it to that day — it was plastered over by flying mud.
The train cars, having lost their locomotive, blocked the road like obstacles. The cars couldn’t move forward, couldn’t fight the trains for the tracks. The old locomotive’s front had smashed into a car, becoming unrecognizable.
The road ahead was no longer clear. Suddenly, the old anomalies reappeared in the world. The once‑new whistle was already damaged and silent. The long‑rusted lamp kept flashing light. No, no, can’t stop. Finally, a piercing shriek — it couldn’t hold on any longer.
The railway ahead was blurry. The shells of the same batch of old trains were overgrown with weeds. With a hiss of escaping air, the train slowly stopped on the road. Nothing around. Was it an illusion?
It had survived snow, mud, rain, and hardship. It had endured all that. The train had gone from last to first. But… still… it couldn’t finish. Ah... ha... ugh... cough... thud... clatter... Everything was buried in the old days. —————————————————
It doesn’t exist anymore. Don’t interfere with the new hope. This is (their) era. Their era too. No place to stay. Time to go…
A requiem for the old days, frozen forever in this moment.
A new era begins… does it?
The sun set too fast, leaving only the afterglow of hope. Monsters roam at night. Fluorescent tubes replace the sun. When will hope rise?
Disturb thoughts, corrode the spirit, torture the flesh, bind the soul, dissolve reason. Blood darkens with time. Long spears out of reach, short cannons untouchable. Orders fail, all force is stripped away. Words become drifting duckweed. Sunset afterglow, trapped by rules — still, the monsters appear.
Background story: Prequel to Refuge 193
(Spiritual Energy Apocalypse? Cockroach Survival.)
Part of the background story uses the opening of the prequel, optimized. Because it was too real (limbs, eyeballs, heads without jaws, black‑and‑white gloves, grey zones, human bombs) — descriptions and metaphorical satire — so it can only remain forever in my own hands.
I admit it’s not perfect, but at least it’s the most realistic part that I can let people see.
This is the beginning of a story, and also a work destined to be incomplete. The real apocalypse isn’t mowing down grass — is it the real apocalypse?
It seems all authors have forgotten what “apocalypse” really means.
My earlier story scenes will appear in this story in the form of files, updated irregularly.
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This is a work published in China. I still have to add that “game shell” and other crap just to get it published.
All platforms require you to sign similar modern‑day slave contracts (which are illegal by law) — like giving away your content for free, the platform keeping the copyright for 20 years after your death, and you having to tolerate whatever the platform does to your content.
200 people each earned 2 yuan RMB, and still had to pay taxes. And the channel relies purely on love to generate power.
If you have no connections, no one will promote your content. Do you know the pain of watching with your own eyes an AI‑generated post on the homepage get 90 million views?
The last story is talking about us
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