A Guide to Humanity’s Extinction

[Ke Mingqing: What's with the mystery, Sis? You couldn't just tell me on WeChat? You really had to drag Big Brother home just to catch me?]

[Xia Lingxue: Yes.]

[Ke Mingqing: Oh. Guess I'll wash my neck and wait for you, then.]

September 8th fell on a Saturday. The weather was clear and cloudless, the sky a faint blue like seawater washing over a sandy beach.

Not having class on Saturdays was one of the few real perks of being a student. Some corporate drones barely got a few days off all year, left to burn out and eventually rot away in their offices.

At the moment, Ke Mingqing lay alone on the bamboo mat in his bedroom, quietly reading a novel titled "Three Days of Happiness."

A summer breeze blew in, carrying the chirping of cicadas and reminding him that this would be another idle, lazy morning.

Unfortunately, the Extinction countdown panel above his head was still ticking away, acting as an endless source of mental pollution. The sound was fainter than a ticking clock, but louder than a pin drop.

Perhaps taking the players' sleep quality and personal safety into account, the system automatically muted the countdown panel in the dead of night, or during critical, life-threatening situations.

Just like now.

When he had first started hearing that noise two months ago, Ke Mingqing used to feel anxious, even developing phantom tinnitus from it. He had once prayed that he was just stuck in a dream so he could finally find some peace.

Now, after his baptism by Death Crow, Clock Maker, and his own family of freaks, he had completely embraced a "dead pig doesn't fear boiling water" attitude. He just threw his hands up and went about his business.

A proper adult needed to learn how to find joy in a crumbling life. Although Ke Mingqing wasn't an adult yet, he figured his memories from two lifetimes added up to enough to make him a Buddha.

He had even considered just living out his remaining three months in this leisurely way. Then, when the dozens of players still left on the surface finished biding their time and started slaughtering everyone across the globe, he would find a safe house where no one could track him down. He would soak in a bath, drink an ice-cold cola, and quietly wait for the final countdown on his life to end.

That way, no matter who lived or died in the process, it would have nothing to do with him. There was no need to stress over it so much; a life without burdens was a light one.

People were born into the world alone anyway, so it was only natural to die alone.

Ke Mingqing lay under the blowing electric fan, engrossed in his novel. A short while later, a sudden clamor of shouting echoed from the living room downstairs, muffled by his wooden door.

This was immediately followed by a clattering rush of footsteps.

He rolled over on the bamboo mat. He didn't even need to guess to know that Xia Lingxue was definitely back, and that the dramatic commotion came from the only person in the house whose personality wasn't completely repressed—someone who could frankly be called a little demon.

The living room floor was still creaking, showing just how miserably it was being trampled by Xia Ningzhi's feet. He could already picture his third sister leaping over to wrap their second sister in a tight hug.

Ke Mingqing let out a long breath.

Honestly, no one else returning home gave him a stronger sense of intimidation than his second sister. Even Xia Zili's witch personality had already been completely tamed by him.

‘I'll just take it one step at a time,’ he thought. ‘I wonder if those two will confess their identities to me today. But what kind of street trash is Owl Judge? An assassin like that doesn't even have any reputation.’

Ke Mingqing scratched his chin and nodded. "Yeah, if Big Brother really lays his cards on the table, I'll just pretend I have no idea who that is."

...

...

Downstairs, the old building's living room was filled with noisy chatter. Warm sunlight spilled through the blinds to blanket the potted plants and the sofa.

Xia Wenna had just given the house a thorough cleaning the day before.

The living room was spotless. The leather upholstery on the sofa looked as if it had been completely refurbished, with every tear and scuff gone. Even the books on the shelves were completely free of dust, to say nothing of the floors and windows.

Every time Ke Mingqing looked at the results of his mother's deep cleaning, he couldn't help but marvel inwardly. Was this the power of alien technology?

It was a good thing their old man and second sister were rarely home, his eldest brother had a bad memory, and his third sister was simple-minded. Otherwise, anyone would have noticed the sheer weirdness of Xia Wenna's cleaning methods.

Right now, Xia Lingxue was standing at the entrance of the living room, toying with her phone. She was dressed in her usual dark trench coat paired with slightly baggy trousers, though the color of her earrings had changed from blue to green.

Her outfit was mostly the same. The only slight difference in her appearance was that she had gotten an androgynous Japanese-style wolf cut at her university, with slightly choppy hair resting on her shoulders.

Suddenly, Xia Lingxue looked up from her phone, her icy, clear eyes sweeping across every corner of the living room.

"Where's A'Qing?" she asked softly. "Didn't I tell him not to go out and to wait for me at home?"

"A'Qing is upstairs," Xia Ningzhi said, bouncing out of the bathroom with poorly applied fake eyelashes. "Do you need me to call him down?"

At that moment, Ke Mingqing walked down the stairs, speaking in a lazy drawl. "No need to call, Sis, I'm right here. It's not like I'm deaf."

Xia Lingxue crossed her arms and stared expressionlessly at Ke Mingqing for a while. After a long moment, she suddenly asked in a robotic, emotionless tone, "Did you miss me?"

"Come on, it's really creepy when you say that with a straight face," Ke Mingqing sighed. "It would make more sense coming from that repressed weirdo Big Brother of ours."

"Who are you calling a repressed weirdo?"

Ke Linye walked out of the kitchen with two cups of coffee in his hands. Whenever he was home, his greatest joy, aside from reading, was tinkering with the kitchen's coffee machine.

He handed one cup to Xia Lingxue and kept the other for himself, looking at Ke Mingqing with a smile. "I'll pretend I didn't hear that. Our A'Qing's ass really has been itching for a beating lately."

Ke Mingqing looked at him helplessly.

Ke Linye's qualifications were simply too outstanding. Whether it was his aura, looks, height, educational background, or ability to improvise, he was absolutely top-tier. Even just having him shoot a promotional video online to drive traffic for a company would be a fantastic choice. As a result, it had only taken him a few days to find a respectable internship in Leijing with a fairly high salary.

Normally, his eldest brother shouldn't have been home right now, but he had taken the morning off from his company today. Ke Mingqing knew exactly why these two were bearing down on him so aggressively:

—A "meeting."

And figuring out how to survive every single family meeting was an inevitable rite of passage in this family of freaks.

"A'Qing, you brat, Sis just got home and you're already picking on her?" Xia Ningzhi put her hands on her hips and gave a fake scolding shout, before her lips curled into a grin. She walked over to Xia Lingxue, draped an arm around her shoulder, and acted coyly:

"I missed you to death, dear Sister! With you gone, A'Qing has been treating this house like his own kingdom. He even had a female high school classmate stay over the past few days. He's absolutely out of control!"

Ke Mingqing rolled his eyes at her. "Sis hasn't even been gone for ten days. Is all that drama really necessary?"

"Blehh, what's wrong with missing my sister? Does not relying on her anymore mean I've grown up?" Xia Ningzhi leaned on Xia Lingxue's shoulder and pulled down her eyelid to make a face at Ke Mingqing.

"Female classmate?" Xia Lingxue asked probingly, issuing her first warning.

"The one who came over is Xiao Li's classmate. You've met her before, Sis. It's not like she hasn't stayed here before," Ke Mingqing explained calmly.

"Which one?"

"The one who eats garbage, the one from the countryside, the one who grew up with garbage in her mouth," Ke Mingqing said concisely, summing up An Youlu's defining traits with the simplest of terms.

"Oh." Xia Lingxue suddenly remembered and looked up. "An Youlu?"

Ke Mingqing nodded, thinking to himself that it seemed the garbage-eating little girl was already famous far and wide.

"A'Qing, how can you talk about Xiao Lu like that? Xiao Lu is so cute."

Xia Ningzhi said crossly as she let go of Xia Lingxue, running over to the full-length mirror in the living room to adjust her collar.

"Little Red Riding Hood says that about herself, so why can't I?" Ke Mingqing shrugged.

Ke Linye raised an eyebrow. "Little Red Riding Hood?"

Ke Mingqing froze. The living room was instantly enveloped in silence, and his two sisters instinctively cast their gazes over as well.

After a long moment, he scratched his cheek and tried to cover his slip-up. "Her WeChat name is 'The Little Match-Selling Red Riding Hood.' We chat on WeChat a lot, so I usually just call her Little Red Riding Hood."

Xia Lingxue frowned.

Xia Ningzhi silently sweat-dropped for him. Rolling her eyes in thought, she grinned and covered for him. "Maybe she's just a fan of the magical girl Little Red Riding Hood?"

"Probably."

Ke Mingqing said as he opened the refrigerator. The blast of cold air that blew in his face cooled his brain down.

Ke Linye asked curiously, "Even a magical girl who looks that poor and destitute has fans? I thought high schoolers only liked the sparkly ones."

"Well said, Big Brother. It's a shame I wasn't recording, otherwise I would definitely play that for her." Ke Mingqing took out a Sprite, unscrewed the cap, and took a sip, freeing his other hand to give him a thumbs up.

"So, where are the two of them? I don't see them around," Xia Lingxue asked after taking a deep breath.

Ke Mingqing sat down on the sofa, turned on the TV with the remote, and switched to the children's channel. Watching The Great Adventures of Magical Girl Tongtongzi playing on the screen, he said, "Little Red Riding Hood and our little sister went to the aquarium together. They should be on the bus right now."

"Wrong, they're still waiting for me at the station. I told them to take the next bus," Xia Ningzhi hummed. "Bye-bye, handsome Sister, see you tonight. Your new hairstyle looks so good! When we go shopping later, I bet tons of little girls will secretly try to add you on WeChat. It's gonna be so satisfying when I pretend to be your girlfriend and turn them down."

With that, she hurried toward the entryway. Just as she rounded the corner, she suddenly grabbed the wall, slammed on the brakes, and popped her head back around to blow a flying kiss at Xia Lingxue.

"Love you, Sis!"

Her voice fading, Xia Ningzhi didn't linger any longer. She rushed to the door, bent down to change into her sandals, slammed the door shut, and left.

Minus the loudest person in the house, the entire living room quieted down, leaving only Ke Mingqing, Xia Lingxue, and Ke Linye.

Ke Linye and Xia Lingxue took sips of their coffee and exchanged a silent glance, a trace of hesitation in both their eyes.

"Alright, I'll go first."

After a long moment, Ke Linye sighed. Taking the initiative, he walked forward toward the sofa and spoke to Ke Mingqing's back. "A'Qing, we have something to talk to you about."

"Alright, alright. Seeing as how you guys have been brewing this for so long, whatever you want to say, just say it," Ke Mingqing said.

Ke Linye and Xia Lingxue both sat down on the sofa. The former let out a yawn, covering his mouth as he spoke. "A'Qing, Mom told us earlier that she found a design blueprint for a superhero combat suit in your room."

Ke Mingqing clicked his tongue and said softly, "Can you guys please stop publicly executing me? To keep bringing up something so embarrassing and beating a dead horse like this... as expected, letting Mom know about one thing is basically the same as letting the whole family know."

"You really have no plans to become a superhero?"

"No. There's nothing wrong with a high schooler liking to fantasize, right?"

"Right. Then I'd like to ask—you should know about a guy called Blue Pigeon, right? Being a superhero is very dangerous. He might get dissected by a supervillain and sliced into Japanese-style pigeon sashimi. It might even be broadcast live. If that happened, his family would be very heartbroken to see it."

At this point, Ke Linye sighed, clutching his chest and shaking his head. "If I saw my own little brother go through something like that, I wouldn't be able to eat for ten days and ten nights."

Ke Mingqing forcibly suppressed the disdain in his heart, thinking to himself, ‘Big Brother, do you really not know how terrible your acting is? You're still trying to show off your parlor tricks in front of me.’

Xia Lingxue tilted her head. She thought to herself, ‘It wouldn't just be that. You psycho, even if you had to slaughter your way through every villain in Leijing, you'd definitely hunt that person down, chop them to pieces, and feed them to the pigs.’

"Why aren't you saying anything, A'Qing?" Ke Linye pressed.

"Yeah, yeah, I value my life very much," Ke Mingqing said softly. "After seeing what happened to Blue Pigeon, I realized that being a superhero is truly a short-lived profession. Only a fucking idiot would do it."

Ke Linye fell silent.

Chatting up to this point, he realized there was absolutely no way to push the topic any further.

They had originally wanted to try using a more subtle method to convince Ke Mingqing not to keep being a superhero. They hadn't expected Ke Mingqing to completely deny it, his skin as thick as a city wall.

And so, in the next second, Ke Linye picked up his phone and sent a WeChat message to his sister sitting right beside him.

[Ke Linye: What do you say? Should we blow our cover to A'Qing?]

[Xia Lingxue: 1]

"Right, A'Qing, there's one more thing I need to tell you," Ke Linye suddenly said after looking at the WeChat message and staying silent for a moment.

"Say it, say it, let it all out at once."

Ke Linye shrugged and threw an arm around Ke Mingqing's shoulder. In an incredibly flat tone, he stated, "Your brother is Owl Judge, and your sister is Agent Zero."

Silence.

The living room was shrouded in a deathly silence.

Ke Mingqing stared dumbly at the TV screen, completely paralyzed. His brain had crashed.

He thought to himself, ‘Big Brother, shouldn't you guys build up the atmosphere a little? Just look at how the terrifying Crow Man did it when he revealed his identity to me—he turned the whole trip into a horror movie set, cranking the suspense to the max. Is this the ideological generation gap between us?’

"What's Owl Judge?" Ke Mingqing feigned calmness. "And what the hell is Agent Zero? Wait, I think I heard Clock Maker mention that? What nonsense are you spouting? Did someone slip drugs into your coffee?"

Ke Linye placed his coffee cup on the table. The corners of his lips curling up slightly, he said at a leisurely pace, "Oh, it's normal that you can't remember right away. Your second sister is that weird auntie in the black bodysuit you always see hanging around the entrance of Hero Company. You must have seen her before when someone in your team died. At the time, she was assigned the mission to investigate the deaths of the Team Blue Pigeon members."

Xia Lingxue's face turned cold, and she shoved her elbow into his waist. Ke Linye caught her elbow with his right hand, giving a nonchalant smirk.

As if nothing had happened between them, the two siblings lifted their cups with their free hands and took sips of their coffee.

Ke Mingqing froze for a long time before slowly raising his head. In a hoarse voice, he asked, "Are you guys joking?"

"No, nobody here is joking... drop the act, Blue Pigeon boy."

Suddenly, Ke Linye raised a finger. A beam of pitch-black moonlight shot out from his fingertip, condensing into a dim sphere that illuminated his deep, profound eyes.

Immediately following that, a layer of black moonlight coated the living room windows, completely blocking out the sunlight pouring in from outside and dimming the entire world.

Xia Lingxue remained expressionless. Sitting on the sofa, Ke Mingqing gulped.

"Should I call you A'Qing, or should I call you Blue Pigeon?" Saying this, Ke Linye revealed a smile in the darkness. "Anyway, can we all put our cards on the table from now on?"

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