In the vast myriad of worlds, Yu Zhou was an utterly unremarkable plane administrator.
There were as many planes in the myriad worlds as leaves on a great tree, so plane administrators were too numerous to count.
The primary duty of plane administrators like Yu Zhou was to oversee the operation of their assigned planes and promptly report any faulty ones to the divine envoys above them.
The divine envoys, in turn, were responsible for fixing bugs in the planes, maintaining their normal operation, and preserving harmony and stability throughout the myriad worlds.
His days passed in a steady, predictable routine. He watched the chosen ones in the various planes stir up one mess after another, treating it all like an ongoing television drama. All in all, life was fairly interesting.
During a break from work, Yu Zhou watered the succulent on his desk. After putting the watering can away, he sat down at his desk and stared blankly into space.
Just then, a plane administrator carrying a thick stack of observation reports came over. He had two enormous dark circles under his eyes, and as he reached Yu Zhou’s side, he suddenly staggered.
Fortunately, Yu Zhou was quick to react and immediately caught him.
“Meng Fu, you don’t look well. Sit down and rest for a while.”
Meng Fu swayed as he struggled to stand straight. In a breathless voice, he said, “I can’t. These are urgent documents. They have to be delivered to the Plane Management Bureau right away.”
“You’re staggering just walking. I’ll deliver them for you.”
Yu Zhou was well known for being calm and reliable. Meng Fu thought it over, then grasped Yu Zhou’s hand and said weakly, “Then I’ll have to trouble you. The bureau is waiting for them. I’ll treat you to a meal when you get back.”
Yu Zhou let out a laugh and patted Meng Fu on the shoulder. He gathered up the thick stack of plane observation reports from the desk, checked to make sure nothing was missing, and then walked out of the observation room with the reports in his arms.
The place where the reports had to be delivered was the Plane World Security Administration, commonly known as the Plane Management Bureau.
The Plane Management Bureau in the myriad worlds looked like a grand and luxurious temple. Symmetry was clearly of the utmost importance there—even the number of red carp in its two ornamental ponds was exactly the same.
There were twenty-four gods in the myriad worlds, supporting it like pillars of heaven. They were therefore also known as the Twenty-Four Pillar Gods.
The department Yu Zhou belonged to was under the First Pillar God, the God of Order and Justice, who stood at the head of the Twenty-Four Pillar Gods.
The atmosphere in the Plane Management Bureau was heavy. Two divine envoys stood beside one of the ornamental ponds, gazing at the koi in silence and sighing.
Yu Zhou approached with the stack of documents in his arms. Seeing that both of them looked as though someone had died, he couldn’t help asking, “Has something gone wrong with another plane?”
One of the divine envoys let out a deep sigh and closed his eyes. “More than one.”
The other divine envoy, his face ashen, raised the thick stack of reports in his hand. “These are all planes where something has gone wrong. Multiple neighboring planes have begun collapsing one after another, and they’re all core planes. You know how serious that is.”
Multiple neighboring planes collapsing in succession!
Yu Zhou’s expression turned solemn as well.
The myriad worlds were like a gigantic bridge built from countless blocks. It looked solid enough, but if several blocks were pulled from its core, the entire bridge would be left on the verge of collapse.
Before Yu Zhou could ask anything else, the divine envoy continued, “The matter has already alarmed the Principal Gods, but even they have no solution.”
“The laws and order of a plane aren’t easily shaken,” Yu Zhou said. “With the God of Order and Justice absent, it’s only natural that the gods are at a loss.”
“That may be true, but everyone still has to do something. Several Principal Gods have already entered those planes.”
Yu Zhou froze for a moment and murmured, “Looks like the situation is even worse than I thought.”
A trace of melancholy appeared in the other divine envoy’s eyes. “If only the God of Order and Justice were still here. After all, he was the most powerful of the Twenty-Four Pillar Gods.”
Seeing the divine envoy’s deeply furrowed brow, Yu Zhou could only sigh helplessly.
What could a lowly plane administrator like him possibly do?
Besides, when the sky fell, someone taller would hold it up.
After exchanging a few pleasantries with the two divine envoys, Yu Zhou entered the main hall of the Plane Management Bureau. People streamed back and forth, and Yu Zhou greeted several familiar plane administrators one by one.
He crossed two corridors. As he walked, something suddenly caught his foot.
Looking down, he discovered that one of his shoelaces had come undone.
Yu Zhou had no choice but to set the thick stack of observation reports aside and bend down to tie his shoe.
He had just made the first knot when the floor suddenly began to shake violently.
A massive crack split open in the white marble beneath his feet. Before Yu Zhou could avoid it, he plunged straight down.
The sensation of falling made his scalp prickle with terror. The thick stack of plane observation reports was scattered by the raging wind, fluttering through the air like snowflakes as they fell with Yu Zhou.
……
……
“Something’s wrong! The Pillar of Heaven was unstable just now, and a crack was torn open in the barriers of those planes that were about to collapse. A plane administrator fell through!”
A divine envoy shouted, his face pale.
“Oh my god!”
“That plane administrator is probably doomed!”
The ground had already sealed itself shut, and no one knew which plane the unfortunate administrator had fallen into.
As everyone anxiously tried to figure out what to do, a plane administrator suddenly rushed into the hall and shouted, “Order and time have been reset! The First Pillar God’s laws have taken effect!”
The noisy hall fell instantly silent.
The laws of the God of Order and Justice had actually taken effect at this critical moment!
The gears of order began to turn.
The shattered order started to rebuild itself.
Several divine envoys exchanged looks.
After a long silence, the divine envoy who had been acquainted with Yu Zhou said, “Now that time has been reset, we must stop the plane’s chosen one from turning evil. Otherwise, everything will be in vain. The power of the laws will diminish!”
The other divine envoy said, “We can only do what we can and leave the rest to fate. If the sky falls, there are still Principal Gods to hold it up.”
The chaos in the myriad worlds temporarily subsided.
*
8097 was an apocalyptic plane. The plane’s chosen one, Xu Tan, should originally have followed the path of “strengthening the nation through science and technology.” However, he had somehow put his skill points into the wrong places and developed the ruan-th108 virus.
Commonly known as the zombie virus, it was highly contagious, spread through the air, and could penetrate three layers of protective clothing.
When two gods descended into this plane, what they saw was a gray world in ruins.
They walked through the gray clouds, gazing at the distant gray tower that rose straight into the heavens.
That was Xu Tan’s kingdom.
The chosen one who had destroyed an entire plane through his own efforts was standing at the very top of the gray tower, watching the clouds.
The gods looked down at him from above. He wore a white shirt and silver-rimmed glasses. His long, narrow eyes were fixed on the clouds, while his pale lips curved slightly upward in an elusive, unpredictable smile.
Countless zombies wandered beneath the tower. Researchers in white lab coats hurried through the corridors inside. The people of this world revered him, feared him, and hated him. The entire world revolved around him, yet he stood alone at its highest point, watching the clouds.
What was he thinking?
No one knew.
Footsteps sounded behind him.
Someone emerged from the shadows and walked all the way to Xu Tan’s side.
He was a human infected by the virus—tall and strikingly handsome, with slightly raised blue-purple veins spreading across his skin and crimson eyes.
A zombie’s life lasted only ten years, and this day was the final day of his tenth year.
His expression was calm and indifferent. He showed none of the sorrow of a person on the verge of death. Like Xu Tan, he tilted his head back and gazed at the leaden clouds overhead.
“It’s overcast today,” he said.
This human, who was about to become a zombie, possessed an extremely hoarse yet beautiful voice. It was like some understated but magnificent instrument, producing a deep, resonant melody that stirred the heart.
Xu Tan turned to look at him and said with a smile, “You’re here?”
At last, his long, narrow eyes focused, settling on the man’s face. Those slender eyes greedily drank in the zombie’s godlike features. Xu Tan could no longer restrain himself. He stepped forward, rose onto his toes, and gently kissed the zombie’s cold lips.
In the tenth year of the apocalypse, Xu Tan fell in love with a zombie.
He fell in love with a zombie who had retained human emotions and thoughts even after being infected by the virus.
His name was Yu Zhou.
Yu Zhou held him in his arms as they kissed one another recklessly beneath the gray clouds, indulging in the last moments of their lives.
The god of love and desire parted the heavy clouds, opening a narrow gap. Golden sunlight spilled through like grains of gold, falling perfectly upon the lovers locked in each other’s arms.
Xu Tan’s slender, pale hand caressed the man’s powerful arm, his fingertips slowly tracing the raised blue-purple veins.
His hair was damp with sweat, his lashes wet, and his honey-colored eyes misty. Gazing at the sky, he said joyfully, “Look—the light has come.”
Yu Zhou held him and stroked his lashes, damp with sweat and tears.
The golden beam enveloped them. Yu Zhou remained calm as he said, “Xu Tan, I can see it.”
Xu Tan smiled. Nestled in Yu Zhou’s arms, he took Yu Zhou’s hand. He was just about to kiss the back of that hand and the veins upon it when the hand suddenly slipped from his grasp and fell limp.
Separation always came so abruptly, just as their meeting had.
Xu Tan was silent for a moment. He straightened his disheveled clothes, then leaned against the zombie who had already died.
A sudden, terrible pain seized his heart, as though it had split in two.
He kissed Yu Zhou’s brow and said with a smile, “Then take me with you. Take me away with you.”
“This life of mine, so full of sin, has come to an end as well.”
Standing above the clouds, the two gods watched in silence as the Child of the Plane held his dead lover and leaped from the gray tower. Their bodies pierced through the clouds and finally crashed to the ground.
The God of Love and Desire said, “Did you hear that?”
The God of Strength and Power replied, “I did. It’s the sound of the gears of order beginning to turn.”
The gears of order began to turn.
Time reset. The devastated city returned to its former prosperity. People once again filled the streets, while green trees and blooming flowers lined the roads.
The zombie named Yu Zhou had become a tiny baby boy. Wrapped in a white quilt, he had been left beside a red trash can.
It was already night. A thick stack of plane observation reports glowed with a pure white light in the darkness, lying quietly beside the baby.
Heavy snow began to fall from the sky. A sanitation worker in a fluorescent yellow uniform walked past the trash can with a broom in hand. Suddenly, the baby wrapped in the quilt let out a faint cry.
The sanitation worker discovered the tiny infant. He had no wife or children, and after a brief moment of shock, he immediately bent down and picked up the baby.
The stack of glowing plane observation reports floated into the air and followed the infant.
Sixteen years later, on the day an important turning point was about to arrive, the two gods descended upon this plane once more.
The God of Love and Desire asked, “What happened to the administrator who fell into the plane world?”
“He was reincarnated. He is now a sixteen-year-old boy and transferred to Qingpu Noble High School just yesterday. He’s a freshman.”
The God of Strength and Power answered him.
“The same noble school attended by the Child of the Plane?”
“Yes.”
The God of Love and Desire frowned. “According to the administrator, the Children of Destiny in those planes are extremely frightening. They have completely antisocial personalities and are twisted and perverse to an extreme degree. Even the well-traveled plane administrators find them deeply unsettling.”
“By the way, what about the observation reports from those corrupted planes?”
The God of Strength and Power looked somewhat pained. “They all fell down with that unlucky plane administrator.”
He continued, “We can only have the administrators submit another copy and hope they haven’t left out too many details. Then we can prescribe the right treatment and think of a solution.”
The two chief gods arrived at Qingpu High School. A boy wearing light-blue jeans and a white shirt walked past them, carrying a black schoolbag and holding a thick green vocabulary book with an odd cartoon-cat design.
The boy was exceptionally tall, with sharp, deep-set features and an extremely indifferent expression.
His eyelids were lowered slightly, and lashes as dark as crow feathers concealed half of his tea-colored eyes. No one could make out the emotions hidden within them.
People streamed in and out before the gates of Qingpu. The tall, slender boy had already attracted many astonished gazes. The God of Love and Desire noticed that the hand hanging at his side was slowly tightening, the raised knuckles turning faintly white.
His heart was not as cold and detached as his appearance suggested. He had merely put on the mask of indifference to conceal the unease and fear in his heart.
The God of Strength and Power frowned as he studied the boy’s face.
For some reason, he felt that the boy’s features looked vaguely familiar.
Standing before Qingpu’s gates, Yu Zhou adjusted the strap of his schoolbag. After taking a deep breath, he stepped into the prestigious Qingpu Noble High School without revealing any of his thoughts.
Unfortunately, he was not a noble. He was merely a student from an impoverished family whose tuition and other expenses had been fully waived by Qingpu because of his outstanding grades.
Of course, that was not the reason Yu Zhou had come to Qingpu. What had truly convinced him was the annual subsidy of fifty thousand yuan. To someone from an impoverished family, the temptation of that much money was impossible to ignore—enough to make him resolve to take the risk.
It was called a risk because Qingpu was an extremely unfriendly place for students from poor families.
At a school like Qingpu, students from impoverished backgrounds faced all kinds of invisible exclusion and might even be bullied.
Qingpu never disclosed the names of students receiving financial aid. It also placed great importance on protecting the personal information of its students, so most students from poor families kept their identities hidden in silence, unwilling to let their classmates discover the truth.
At that age, students were often extraordinarily sensitive. Even a sympathetic or pitying glance could break their hearts.
Like the other students receiving financial aid, Yu Zhou did everything he could to conceal his identity. Besides being good at studying, he was also skilled at playing video games. Sometimes, he earned money by helping others level up, then went to the wholesale market to buy high-quality knockoff clothing.
He had never actually wanted to pretend to be rich. He only hoped that at Qingpu, a school for the wealthy, he wouldn’t stand out as poor and could blend in perfectly with everyone else.
But just yesterday, Yu Zhou’s identity as a student from an extremely poor family had been exposed.
Rumors could be terrifying. As any bit of gossip spread, it was always embellished by one person after another.
And so, in the span of just one day, Yu Zhou had become a vain pauper who wore cheap knockoffs every day while pretending to be rich.
His “glorious deeds” were everywhere—in the class group chat and the school forums. Even the counterfeit clothes he usually wore had been dug up and exposed.
Who even took those pictures? They must have been incredibly bored.
When Yu Zhou walked into the classroom, the laughter and conversation abruptly stopped. After a brief silence, the students resumed chatting among themselves, but Yu Zhou could sense their surreptitious glances.
Ignoring them, Yu Zhou went straight to his seat.
Because he was tall, his desk was in the last row, beside the window.
After putting down his schoolbag, Yu Zhou discovered a dead rat inside his desk.
It had been skinned, leaving its body bloody and raw.
