Chapter 1: The Beginning
March 23, 2020, Qinghai, City Z
A young man dressed in a suit was walking home with a mask around his mouth and nose. In his face, you could see both tiredness and a youthful vigor. His appearance was above average: not handsome, but somewhat pleasing to the eye. What was extraordinary about him was his eyes.
His eyes were black just like everyone in the Republic, but if you stare at them, you would notice a strong and determined will; a will full with the drive to move forward. His name was Wang Wei.
Wang Wei walked to his three bedroom apartment and put his mask properly on a hanger by the door. Just by entering the room, you could see that this was a somewhat luxurious apartment. This young man had achieved some success in his career at such a young age.
Afterward, he took off his clothes, put on his slippers and got into the shower to wash off the tiredness of the day.
"What a tired week," he proclaimed. " The director was driving us crazy."
After a long shower, he began to prepare his diner for the day. Today’s menu involved miso soup with a couple of side dishes. Afterward, he turned on both the TV and his laptop. Just by looking at the first page of his screen, you could see that Wang Wei was an avid fan of online novels.
On the TV, you could hear a beautiful reporter dressed in a standard woman suit talking with great exclamation, thus creating a sense of drama and tension to the audience.
" Hello, everyone, I’m reporter Chen Hua, bringing you international news. International Space Agencies across the world have discovered a cosmic phenomena that is spreading across multiple galaxies. As you can see in the sky behind me, there you can see something that resembles space cracks. We have invited Academician Chen from the Chinese Academic Institute of Science and Technology to make a statement."
Afterward, an old man with white hair and beard appeared. Just by looking at him, you could notice a scholarly temperament about him. Wang Wei--who was cooking--stopped and looked at the TV. The first thing he noticed was the slight resemblance between Academician Chen and the reporter. Well, given the fact that they have the same surname, it would not be too far fetched if they were family.
Academician Chen took a mike and responded: " After analyzing the data, we theorized that an enormous amount of energy waves was making its way throughout the universe, thus affecting the gravity field of each galaxy to the point that the fabric of space itself was shaking."
The academician went on to explain a bunch of scientific theory to back up his theory. You could see at a glimpse that he was very excited; his body exuded a vigor that was far beyond an old man in his 70’s.
Wang Wei watched the program with full concentration. He did not know why, but he had a hunch that something bad was going to happen. Do not think that this is just his feeling. Ever since he was young, he always had an extraordinary intuition. That intuition had saved his life many times and even greatly helped him in his career.
Wang Wei was an orphan whose parents abandoned him since he was born. As such, he always lived in an orphanage ever since he could remember. Growing up without parents, he was forced to grow up early and matured way before his peers. At the orphanage, he became what you called a study tyrant and had the best grades of all the kids.
The first time his intuition manifested was when he was 8 years old and being adopted. The director of the orphanage brought a couple dressed in a bunch of luxurious and high brand clothes. They drove a car worth at least two million yuan. All the children were lined up one by one, dressed in the best outfit and tried to look as cute as possible. The couple checked each of them in order to pick the best. Finally, they chose Wang Wei--as expected since he was the best among those children.
However, the moment he was chosen, Wang Wei felt a terrible dread overflowing in his mind. The only thing in his mind at that moment was that if he went with that couple, his life would be more miserable than a street dog. He did not know how and why this feeling came, but he believed in it anyway. This was the first time that Wang Wei disobeyed the order of the director. Anyway, he refused to be adopted by the couple. In the end, two other boys and a girl were taken away by them.
In fact, Wang Wei ’s intuition turned out to be right. In less than a month, a storm swept the national news that involving kidnapping children and selling them as sex slave. While watching the news, Wang Wei recognized the couples that wanted to adopt him as one of the main suspects of this massive operation.
Unfortunately, the director of the orphanage was fired after the incident. However, Wang Wei became aware of his intuition and relied on it. Two years later, Wang Wei used his intuition to choose a new adopted parents. This couple were not well off like the previous one, but had the financial capability to raise a child. It turns out that Wang Wei’s intuition was right off the bat again.
In less than five years, his adopted father’s company rose like a comet with assets worth billions of yuan. Sadly though, with his parents giving birth to a biological son and the increase of fortune of the family, many problems were intensified. However, this is not an influential part of this story--at least not yet.
Another instance in which Wang Wei’s intuition saved his life was when he was in high school. As one top study tyrant of his school--and one with a prominent background-- Wang Wei had attracted the eye of one his school goddess. After she confessed her feelings and he accepted, one of her suitors could not accept his goddess being defiled by a nerd. So he decided to take matters into his own hand. He hired a bunch of thugs to beat Wang Wei when he was on his way to cram school.
After school that day, Wang Wei was headed to cram school when a dreaded feeling overwhelmed his mind again. This was the same way he felt the day of his first adoption. Without hesitation, he called a taxi home. Upon arriving, he told his mother that he was not feeling well, so he skipped cram school that day.
The second day after the incident, he learned at school that some poor student was beaten by gangsters. It so happened that said student went to the same cram school as Wang Wei. Coincidence? I think not.
Afterward, Wang Wei used his intuition on many major decision of his life: what school to go to, what professor to get along with, which co-worker to get along with, which friend is truly trustworthy, which project at work that had potential and which look good on the surface, but were prone to problems.
These decisions made him--who was in just his late twenties--heading into a promotion for deputy manager at a Fortune 500 Company.
Now back to the present.
Wang Wei was watching the news with worry on his face. He pondered what action to take. At the same time, many places in the world were in chaos. The cracks in space that were small and visible in only some places began to expand exponentially. They look exactly like when the character White Beard from the anime One piece used his devil fruit ability.
As the cracks became more visible in the sky, panic and chaos spread across the globe. People began to wonder:
"Is this the end of the world?"