Apocalyptic Forecast - Chapter 45

Chapter 45: Call of Duty?

For the first time in a while, Huai Shi dreamt while sleeping.

In his dream, his lifelong dream had been achieved as he walked into the majestic Golden Hall in Vienna. He was greeted by the enthusiastic applause of the audience.

The host trembled in excitement as he spoke, almost tearing up even. Everyone in the audience was staring at him in awe, he was the greatest musician of the century.

Huai Shi who was standing onstage looked back at them proudly. Then, with a slight nod, he raised his palm, signaling the crowd to be quiet.

Within seconds, the hall fell silent.

Everyone held their breaths as they fought back their tears. The girls in the audience all stared at him in anticipation and with a hint of passion. It was as if they were yearning for him to be the father of their children.

Huai Shi cast a cool look over the audience as he flashed them a mischievous smirk. He then pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his hands before discarding it aside. Finally, he picked up his cello. After a deep breath…

He began to play ‘The Little Widow Visiting The Grave’, a melody that was as sorrowful as a weeping voice.

Right before the enraged audience could get their hands on him, he woke up from his dream in shock.

Laying in bed, Huai Shi was panting heavily. He had mixed feelings, and he was unsure if the dream he had was a complete nightmare or if it was actually a good dream.

Thus, Huai Shi began running through his dream once again to analyze it.

Why did he play such a shabby piece when he was at the Golden Hall?

Moreover, what was with that smirk?

He continued laying in bed and did not stop staring blankly at the ceiling for a long time. By the time he finally rolled out of bed, he looked outside his window and saw that the sun was shining brightly. He drank his usual tube of medicine and then headed to the garden to loiter around.

After a while, he realized that staying in such a dazed state was not a good idea. Thinking that he should take advantage of his free time since he was on holiday, he got changed and brought out a bucket, a mop, and a rag. It was time for a spring cleaning.

Of course, although he called it spring cleaning, it was nothing other than him carrying out his usual chores.

The Chalcedony Museum was extremely huge. Aside from the two wings that had not been occupied for a long time, the four floors of the main building themselves would take him a whole month to clean.

All he did was clean the gate, the courtyard, the hall, a few rooms he often used, and weeded the garden. Lastly, as the finishing touch, he brought out a bucket of water to the front of the gate and wiped the dusty Chalcedony Museum sign. He also polished it until it shone brightly.

Around noon, tables, chairs, and a few glass products arrived.

However, the delivery man was unwilling to send the items in no matter what. After hastily dropping everything in front of the gate, Huai Shi ran even faster than a stray dog. Nevertheless, he was so agitated that he left several angry comments on the online shop’s page. To his surprise, the furniture shop refunded him the three hundred Yuan shipping fee without another word.

He could only conclude that people would do anything just to be lazy.

After Huai Shi had put away everything and replaced the broken window glass, the building seemed slightly livelier.

At the very least, it did not look like a legendary haunted house anymore.

Huai Shi gladly took a short break to catch his breath before he continued with his chores; he heaved a broom and mopped his way to the fourth floor. Then, he set off to clean the master bedroom. He swept the room, made sure he got rid of all the dust, opened the windows to ventilate the room, and then aired the clean bedsheets out to dry them.

“The room on the fourth floor isn’t too bad, the bed isn’t too small either.”

Crow who was watching him from afar joined him in the room. She landed on the cupboard and looked around the room which had a sort of refined elegance and warmth to it. “Why are you always on the third floor? In case you haven’t noticed, this bed is almost falling apart.”

“…”

After a moment of silence, Huai Shi replied softly, “This used to be my parent’s bedroom.”

“…” Crow was unsure of how to respond to him. “Do you think they’ll ever come back?”

“I don’t know, maybe not. They’re probably somewhere abroad. Who knows? They might even have new kids now.”

Huai Shi sat down and scratched the back of his head. After a long pause, he sighed helplessly. “But what if? What if they come back one day and they don’t even have a place to stay?”

“Huai Shi, have you ever thought of the possibility?”

Crow looked at him with pity. “Perhaps your parents have already…”

“Huh?”

Huai Shi stared at Crow, confused.

“No, nothing.”

Crow gave him an exasperated glare for a while. Then, without saying any more, she flapped her wings and flew away.

Huai Shi simply shrugged and continued cleaning the room. When he had finally finished packing up, he closed the door and headed back downstairs.

He returned to the living room and plopped down on the sofa with his phone. He stayed there throughout the entire afternoon playing mobile games, watching short videos, and chatting with other online netizens. However, when he finally lowered his head… He felt that his jaw seemed chubbier than usual.

“Oh my.”

Huai Shi jumped up from the sofa in fright as he checked out his body. Certain body parts of his indeed felt chubbier to him. Was it possible that he had grown fatter?

“The medicine itself is a high-calorie compound. Its purpose is to allow whoever consumes it to easily absorb more calories. In other words… Grow fatter.”

Crow remained calm as she continued explaining, “You’re always lying around all day, so shouldn’t it be normal that you’ve gotten fatter? Listen to me, you need to go out for a walk.”

“What if I get beaten up by someone?”

Huai Shi’s eyes widened as he added on quickly, “I received a bomb in my school! What if a car full of RPGs is waiting for me on the streets?”

“Seems like you’re being targeted.” Crow chuckled. “What are you going to do? Are you going to run away? There’s bound to be a way to transfer schools, right?”

“Why on earth would I do that?”

Huai Shi rolled his eyes furiously at her. “It’s my school we’re talking about, so why should I be the one who leaves?”

“Alright then, do you have a plan?”

She tilted her head and looked at Huai Shi’s face curiously. “Have you suddenly realized something and have come to some sort of resolution? Why not we get a sniper rifle ready and when nighttime comes, we can set off to higher ground so we’ll be ready to shoot?”

“Can we do that?” Huai Shi’s eyes widened at her suggestion.

“Of course,” Crow said with a nod, “But it doesn’t seem like you had a mysterious uncle who left you with such an order before he died.”

“Stop reading Qidian web novels! They’re all fake!”

Huai Shi rolled his eyes at her, finally understanding what she meant. “The author doesn’t want to write any longer either. He even had the nerve to say that it’s going to end in different ways, hehe. The author blatantly lives off Weibo, and the things he writes are very pretentious! He’s obviously not a decent guy!”

After ranting about the author, Huai Shi propped himself up and took a deep breath. Finally regaining his spirit, he decided to cooperate with Crow’s daily physical examination.

“It looks like the border substances are certainly stimulating your growth rate.”

Crow nodded in satisfaction. “If this continues as planned, it is possible that your puberty will be shorted by at least half its duration. Most of all, if we can adjust your physical attributes from now on even slightly, your pairing rate with your stigma will be a lot faster when the time comes.

Also, in order to avoid any accidents, I have to ask you this question once again —— Does your family have any history of genetic diseases?”

“No,” Huai Shi replied as he shook his head, “Why do you ask?”

“Very good, an Ascender’s puberty is always subconsciously adjusted according to the ‘original prototype’ of the White Silver Sea. Therefore, if the Ascender himself has any latent disease or genetic disease, it’ll end up being quite hard to deal with in the future.

From today onward, I will only read your medicine. Bear in mind that it may cause your body to experience certain effects. If you encounter any signs like high fever, dizziness, or anxiousness, you must let me know as soon as possible.”

Crow explained casually before passing him a test tube filled with medicine. The medicine seemed more saturated than usual. Usually, it was what seemed to be a shade of light green. However, this time, it was a shade darker than usual and it was as if it was being covered by a shadow.

After a moment of hesitation, Huai Shi drank the medicine.

He had hopped on the ship far too long ago, it was too late for him to turn back.

“Alright, Huai Shi, very good. You’ll have a bright future… I think.”

Crow nodded in satisfaction and happily pulled out the Book of Destiny. “Next, do you want to carry out an exciting after-meal activity?”

Huai Shi cast her an annoyed look and sighed. He slumped back down into his seat and closed his eyes. “Come on! Don’t go soft on me just because I’m a delicate flower…”

“Hehe.”

A mysterious smile broke across Crow’s face. “I love bold ones like you. Taking into account that you behaved well today, let me satisfy your appetite now.”

With that, she imposed the Deceptive Split.

Huai Shi’s vision turned black instantly.

“Kill all of them and make sure none of them are left.”

Right off the bat, Huai Shi heard the instructor’s voice from the headset, and he could feel the heavy weapon in his hands. He could vaguely feel yellow sand along with wind being blown into his face as well.

Outside the open car window was an endless scene of dry land. On the other hand, the car radio was playing a song while dust from the air was being constantly blown into the vehicle.

It was almost suffocating.

However, nobody was coughing in the car and it was as silent as a cemetery.

Huai Shi felt as if he was playing a VR game similar to the ones live streamers often played. Evidently, there were not games anyone could simply afford.

It was a fragment of Red Glove’s memory, a part that had been specifically selected from the broken records. It was nothing more than a memory of his past, and Huai Shi was just a bystander that had been placed in the protagonist’s shoes. It was just like an RPG game.

He noticed more than a dozen people wearing unmarked uniforms, the same one he had on. The people were sitting on both sides of the compartment, and each of them was staring into space in a robotic manner. Their faces remained expressionless even though the wind was blowing against them.

Nevertheless, Huai Shi could still hear the instructor’s commands through his headset.

“We’ll begin the operation in 10 minutes. Both team A and team B will close in simultaneously from both sides so we won’t end up missing any of our targets. Am I clear?”

Shortly after, the soldiers in the car responded to the command.

The car stopped at the end of the road and a village could be made out in the distance.

After having gone through a lot of simulation training, Huai Shi was able to keep up with their pace and distinguish hand signals and commands his comrades exchanged with each other.

The group of guys evaluated things too harshly. If they found out how poor his grades were, even if he passed the exam, they would still deem him unqualified and discard him.

Huai Shi wondered where on earth did Red Glove enlist in the army…

Looking at his surroundings, they seemed to be on high ground and in an empty area. Judging by the vague outlines of the buildings, Huai Shi was able to distinguish the customs of the desert country. In addition to the remains of an oil well that had been left on the road, Huai Shi figured that they were in a Southeastern region or perhaps in Southwest Asia. They were probably in a small desert area somewhere between Rome and the Russian Federation.

Due to the region’s excessive oil resources, a war had broken out. Due to the face that there were over ten big and small kingdoms constantly at war with each other. Not to mention, they were under each other’s perpetual interference, there was no sign that the war would stop until that very day.

The mission’s target had to be the Russian Federation’s stronghold, right?

Rome and the Russian Federation had seen eye to eye for more than a year or two by that time. It was an exaggeration to say that both nations were absolutely irreconcilable and that they were tangled in a blood feud. However, if given the chance to cause damage to the other side, neither side would go soft on the other.

It seemed like the task would be similar to that of a shooting game like Call of Duty.

He had already cleared that game many times, so what was there for him to be afraid of!

Huai Shi loosened up slightly as he continued following the large troop of soldiers. They ended up laying down in a well-camoflagued place as they awaited further orders.

Soon, gunshots were heard from the village not too far away —— team A had already begun exchanging fire with the enemy. It did not take long for the instructor to give them a command, “Team B, attack.”

Without having the need to shout out any commands, the soldiers who had been hiding in wait for so long crawled forward in groups of threes and twos. Each of them then made their way toward the village.

Mixed among the others, Huai Shi deliberately lagged behind. He had intended for his comrades to block any bullets aimed at him. However, the expected rain of bullets never came. Even the sound of occasional counter gunshots was rare.

They seemed to be ones with the winning hand.

He relaxed right away.

He only followed tightly behind the team and simply shot one or two gunshots occasionally. Just like that, he managed to get into the village with the others. Then, under an order, he kicked down the broken door of a yard and aimed his gun.

He froze in place after doing so.

Where was the enemy?