I Don't Want To Be Reborn

It was the early morning. The sunlight outside the window shone down on the soft bed in the middle of the bedroom through the loose curtains. Ye Xuan on the bed rubbed his eyes that were being stabbed by the light, and after fumbling for a long time on the pillow, he found his mobile phone and turned on the screen to take a look. — August 22, 2020.

Ye Xuan squinted and looked at the numbers on his phone for a long time. He found out that no matter how he looked at the date, it didn’t change. He threw the phone aside in annoyance.

He looked at the white ceiling and thought: When would this nightmare of going back to the past end?

Three days ago, Ye Xuan was eating a hot pot made of mutant beef for his birthday in the core area of ​​the B city base. He was thinking about spawning some fruit as an after-meal snack when a big whirlpool suddenly appeared in the room.  Before he could defend himself, his whole body was directly swallowed by the whirlpool, and when he opened his eyes again, he had returned to ten years ago, that is, a month before the world ended.

According to what Ye Xuan knew, the apocalypse came because of a virus from outer space that human beings had never seen before. Humans gave it a code name called A virus. The A virus quietly arrived on the earth on the day of the vernal equinox five months ago, and it only took a few seconds to infect all the creatures on the earth, including humans, animals, and plants.

After a six-month latent period, the A virus broke out completely on September 23, which was the day of the autumnal equinox. At the same time, life forms all over the world entered a seven-day dormancy state. Doomsday had begun.

The environment of the earth became extreme. The weather during half of the year was a hot summer and the other half of the time was a cold winter. Spring and autumn were almost reduced to only a few days in the year.

As far as biology was concerned, human beings were the first to be affected by the A virus, and about three-quarters of the human beings did not survive. They were transformed by the virus into zombies with no intelligence, no consciousness and only a crazy pursuit of raw meat. About one percent of the lower one-quarter of the human race became psychic. Speed, strength, space, spirit, gold, wood, water, fire, earth, wind, thunder, and many other strange abilities also appeared one after another.

A few months later, animals began to mutate similar to humans. They were divided into ordinary animals that did not change, mutant beasts with a little intelligence (To Ye Xuan, the most important thing was to be edible), and disgusting zombie animals.  After a period of time, the same changes occurred in plants. After undergoing mutations and zombification, originally harmless plants completely became killers hidden in the dark.

With the occurrence of these changes, human beings on earth had officially begun a long journey of survival in the apocalypse.

Ye Xuan was among the luckiest group of people. Not only did he not become a zombie, but he even became an ability user.

The group of ability users who awakened in the beginning of the apocalypse were much stronger than the ability users who awakened later, and Ye Xuan, as one of the rare element ability users, was even more lucky. Before he was forced to be reborn, his life was already quite comfortable compared to other ability users. Apart from being forced to go out to do quests every few months, he only needed to spawn a batch of vegetables or purify a batch of crystal cores every morning to get a lot of contribution points. He spent his days as a totally happy salted fish either laying at home and playing games, or walking around the base.

—

But now it was meaningless to talk about how comfortable his life would be ten years later. He was reborn, and he was reborn to ten years ago before the end of the world came. Talking about how good his future was would have no effect except to stress his heart.

After returning to the time before the apocalypse, other people would probably think about telling everyone the news of the apocalypse and prepare a lot of materials. They might also organize forces to resist the zombies and get rid of those who betrayed them in the apocalypse in advance. All in all, going back before the end of the world was a great opportunity for many people to live a good life, to be king and to reach the pinnacle of life.

But Ye Xuan just wanted to return quickly. Whoever wanted this opportunity could come for it.

Ending the apocalypse early? The A virus that led to the end of the world had long been quietly rooted in the bodies of earth creatures, and no hospital or research department had discovered this for five months. According to the post-apocalyptic news, those scientists hadn’t noticed it at all before the end of the world, and even the infection time of the A virus was only discovered a few years later. As for solving the A virus, that was a matter of no consequence at all.  Letting Ye Xuan, a pure layman, do this kind of thing to save mankind was impossible, so it was better to forget it.

Giving an early warning? Although the main cause of the apocalypse was the virus, natural disasters had occurred in many places around the world in the half month or so before the end of the world. Many people had said on the Internet that the end of the world was coming, and even convinced many people to save food and water at home. All Ye Xuan could do was to talk a little more about the situation of the apocalypse without implicating himself. As to whether anyone believed it, it was entirely up to them.

Saving his family and friends? Ye Xuan’s parents both died in an accident two years ago. After that, he didn’t interact much with people. He only traded stocks at home every day and lived on the inheritance of his parents. He really had nothing to risk.

Collecting supplies to dominate? Ye Xuan, who had previously been involved in base affairs and found out within two days that he was really not suited for it, crossed out this option as soon as it came up. Not to mention that, no matter how many times he could be reborn, he would not be able to become a hegemon.

Ye Xuan got a little annoyed. He had survived the early apocalyptic period when natural disasters were occurring, his abilities were weak, and the social order was chaotic. He passed through the mid-apocalyptic period when there were various forces fighting amongst themselves and zombies besieging the city outside. Now that society was stable in the post-apocalyptic period, and life was good, he was reborn? Did God force him to suffer again because of how unpleasant he was?

But the matter of rebirth was not based on Ye Xuan’s will. He couldn’t change the fact that the whirlpool had dragged him in and sent him to the time before end of the world, and he couldn’t change the fact that it was ten years in the past.

So Ye Xuan laid on the bed for ten minutes, and after realizing the cruel fact that it was still before the apocalypse today, he resigned himself to getting up and started the countdown to the end of the new day.

As he heated the food he had ordered yesterday in the microwave, he thought since the matter of rebirth couldn’t be changed, he would consider it a blessing of an additional ten years of life. He couldn’t just die just because he didn’t want to accept the reality, right?

After eating a simple breakfast, Ye Xuan took out a piece of raw meat from the refrigerator, and released a green vine with a faint smell of blood from the red mark on the palm of his left hand.

The rootless vines were floating in the air strangely but it made people think that it should be like this.

The vines, which had not been out for a long time, rubbed against Ye Xuan intimately, and then wrapped around the piece of raw meat on the plate. A faint red light flashed, and when the vines were released again, the plate was empty, not even a little blood was left. It was as if the piece of meat never existed.

This was Ye Xuan’s biggest reliance.

—

Around the fifth year after the end of the world, Ye Xuan accidentally entered an abandoned village when he was out looking for resources.

In the beginning, Ye Xuan didn’t care about the tranquility of the village. There were many empty villages in the apocalypse. Some people had died when the zombies broke out, and the survivors had moved their families to the base. Protected by high walls, it was normal for people to leave wherever zombies had invaded. As for zombies, after they had lost the traces of their prey, they would basically never appear again.

But when he found a room that he could barely live in, and he spawned mutant plants to set up a defensive circle, a change suddenly occurred. The mutant plants that he had refined many times and were under his complete control suddenly died. When he tried to hasten the growth of some seeds, all the injected powers flowed to the large vines that suddenly appeared in the courtyard, and even the powers in his body began to flow to the vines uncontrollably.

This was the passive start of the process of recognizing a master. Ye Xuan was very clear that he could either cut off the connection between himself and the vine at the cost of greatly reducing his strength, and then be swallowed by it; or take a gamble to conquer it. The worst outcome was to be controlled by it, and in turn becomes its servant. .

The pros and cons of the two paths were clearly laid out in front of Ye Xuan. Based on his experience in recovering mutated plants many times, he continued to input his powers while making a big cut in his left hand as he walked towards the place that was dark. He wanted to establish a connection with the vines using his blood.

The vine came into contact with its favorite wood-type ability and the blood of the ability user excitedly. One of the vines in the middle slowly touched his palm, and began the ceremony of recognizing a master.

After an unknown amount of time, as Ye Xuan began to lose consciousness and felt that his abilities and blood were about to be sucked dry by the vines, it finally acknowledged Ye Xuan.

Large tracts of vines wrapped around Ye Xuan, and the green vines transmitted energy to him the moment they touched him. They then withered and fell to the ground. Finally, the strongest vine in the middle also wrapped around Ye Xuan’s body and after a flash of light, it disappeared. When Ye Xuan regained consciousness, there was a leaf mark on the palm of his hand. This was what the vine had left him.

It took Ye Xuan a long time to figure out the characteristics of the vine after which he regarded it as his biggest trump card.

First of all, it had a complete symbiotic relationship with Ye Xuan. If Ye Xuan died, it would also die, and it could not be controlled by other wood-type abilities. It could be said to be Ye Xuan’s most loyal partner in the extremely chaotic environment of the last days.

Secondly, it was very easy to maintain. It did not need to consume crystal cores at all to advance to a new level. Ye Xuan also felt that after having this vine, his advancement speed was much faster. He guessed that either part of the energy it absorbed was passed on to him, or it accelerated his energy absorption.

Last but not least, this vine gave him an ability—the space ability.

There were some space power users in the last days, but only few were strong. This was because the space ability was really a bit useless.

Space ability users needed to reach a very high level to have the ability to fight. In the initial stage, they were completely an item storage box. When they encountered ordinary zombies, they used weapons to fight. When they encountered powerful zombies, they could only run away. Also, no one else could see what a space ability user had stored. In this apocalyptic world where resources were scarce and a pound of rice could cause a fight, a space ability user was simply the one with the lowest trust in every team.

However when a group of people went out of the base to do tasks, the team had to also bring a space ability user, otherwise it would be inconvenient if there was no place to store materials in the car.

Therefore, after the space ability users had passed the period where everyone thought that having a space ability was a good thing, this ability that had no combat ability and ended up making everyone suspicious was no longer popular. Basically, it was enough for each team to have a space ability user who could meet the basic storage requirements of the team. After the storage capacity was reached, the team would not give them too many crystal cores to improve their combat capabilities. As not many people trusted them, their status could be said to be quite embarrassing.

In Ye Xuan’s memory, it seemed that only the “large mobile warehouses” of the military had a relatively high level of space ability users.

Ye Xuan had never exposed the fact that he had the space ability before. He was a person who worked with the officials of the base. Usually, he either spawned vegetables and fruits in the base as logistics, or he went on missions with the officials.

This space that could be expanded as long as the vines ate raw meat was just a portable safe for storing crystal cores. Although the area was far larger than that of ordinary space power users, it was basically not a big deal. It had been used several times, and had shrunk greatly during the rebirth process. As a result, it destroyed a large number of crystal nuclei in Ye Xuan’s possession, making Ye Xuan feel like dying.

Ye Xuan thought about it for a while, took out a piece of meat and handed it to the vine. The vine ignored the piece of meat for a long time, and Ye Xuan somehow saw the word disgust from it. He said bitterly: “Right now there are no mutant beasts for you to eat and I can only give you the meat of ordinary animals.  You work hard first, and I’ll give you all the meat you want in a few months, okay?”

His ability level was now zero, and apart from being able to release vines, he couldn’t even make seeds germinate. If he didn’t hold the thighs of the vines well, he really wasn’t sure that he could survive the most dangerous time. Not to mention, how much he could store before the world ended really depended on this little ancestor.

The vines swayed for a long time, perhaps realizing that the host was a little “poor” now and could not provide himself with delicious food. After struggling for a long time, he still ate that piece of meat. After rubbing against Ye Xuan, he went back to absorb the energy.

Ye Xuan waited until the vines finished eating and went to rest before starting to clean up the kitchen.

While cleaning, he couldn’t help but think about how the quantity other people’s animals and plants ate in a meal was calculated according to the number of energy the food contained. The flesh of a palm-sized high-level mutant beast was enough for them to digest for a long time. However with his little ancestor, regardless of the volume or energy content, it took the same time to digest. In the past, he had a lot of resources and it was no problem to raise it. Now it was really difficult to provide suitable food for it.

Ye Xuan made a rough calculation in his heart. At this rate, when the apocalypse came, the materials that could be stored in the space would be enough for him to eat for a few years. But he couldn’t rely on only this to survive. His abilities were too weak in the early days of the apocalypse. He had to prepare more to protect himself.

As for life ten years from now?

Hehe, he could only dream on.

※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※

Vine: It is really hopeless that the host can only provide food with large volume and low energy.

Ye Xuan: Shut up!