A Guide to Humanity’s Extinction

July 11, 4:40 PM, downtown Leijing.

It was nearing dusk, and the Super Hero Company employees had already gone through a shift change.

The setting sun glowed a fiery red. Its dying light pierced through rows of electronic billboards on the horizon, catching the glass curtain walls and making them sparkle. Two groups of people stood in the spectator stands on the 30th floor of the Hero Company.

On one side were Blue Pigeon and Top Hero, who had just stepped out of the arena after finishing an exhibition match.

On the other side were their fellow rising star heroes: Diamond Man, Swamp Woman, and the Vending Machine Specialist.

The five of them watched the arena, where only the Invisible Giant boy and Shadow Woman stood on the empty field.

It was clearly time for the second exhibition match to begin, but for some reason, their opponent, the magical girl Little Red Riding Hood, had yet to show up. The live stream chat was going crazy.

The Invisible Giant boy was clearly getting impatient. He crossed his arms, tapping his fingers hard against his bicep. Shadow Woman, however, had no reaction; she quietly ate a bag of chocolate candies.

"Where's that Little Red Riding Hood? Our guys are waiting for her," Top Hero said. He rested his hands on the spectator railing, leaning forward slightly to look at Blue Pigeon beside him.

"Bro, are you talking about that magical girl Ember?" Top Hero muttered. "I didn't know she was so strict with her own people."

"Who knows..." Blue Pigeon shook his head. "Girls' dorms are scary enough, let alone a magical girl squad."

Top Hero rested his chin on his hand and shook his head with a sigh. "Whatever happened to magical girls spreading love and hope? This isn't what the textbooks said, Bro."

Three minutes ago, in the prep room connected to the arena on the 30th floor of the Super Hero Company.

A blonde, blue-eyed girl in a Christmas dress sat on the sofa, looking up at the live broadcast on the TV.

She blinked, staring blankly at the screen.

Ember held an umbrella in one hand and wrapped the other around Blue Pigeon, her eyes lowered as she quietly gazed into his.

The two were clearly fighting an exhibition match, but it looked like they were dancing a tango. This girl in the gothic dress, who usually treated everyone with disdain, seemed like a completely different person now. Under the spotlights, she unscrupulously teased the fledgling rookie hero.

Watching this scene, Little Red Riding Hood pinched her chin, her mind racing.

'Is Senior doing this just to piss me off? No... with Senior's personality, even if she wanted to piss me off, she wouldn't go this far... Then why would she belittle Blue Pigeon in front of me, only to do something like this in front of a live audience?

'Is she trying to monopolize him? What exactly is their relationship?'

Just as Little Red Riding Hood was deep in thought, footsteps echoed down the silver metal corridor.

She glanced over and saw a girl in a gothic dress slowly walk into the prep room.

Ember sat down on the sofa, her skirt spreading out like a black flower. She picked up a plastic cup, poured herself some water, and cast a sideways glance at Little Red Riding Hood.

"It's your turn," Ember said.

Little Red Riding Hood watched her quietly, not blinking.

"You're really mean, Senior. You knew he was your fan, so you did that just to piss me off, didn't you?" she asked softly after a while. "What are you talking about?" Ember frowned.

After a long moment, Little Red Riding Hood looked away.

She lowered her eyes to the hem of her Christmas dress and said expressionlessly, "I guess little girls like us who were born with garbage in our mouths are just inferior when it comes to chasing stars. Just sitting in front of the TV, I could feel your deep malice, Senior."

The girl in the gothic dress ignored her. She quietly finished her water and set the cup on the table.

"Do you want to know who he is?" Ember suddenly asked after a moment of thought.

Little Red Riding Hood froze.

She looked up from under her bangs, staring at Ember. "You know who Blue Pigeon is?"

Ember nodded silently.

Beneath her blonde hair, Little Red Riding Hood's eyelids fluttered.

She asked, "Has your relationship really progressed that far?"

Ember thought to herself, 'Impressive, right? The day before yesterday, Blue Pigeon and I were strangers, and now we're brother and sister.'

She considered it for a moment. "Finish this match, and I'll tell you who he is... I'm mostly just afraid that once you know, you'll be so shocked you'll question your whole life, and you won't be able to focus on the fight."

Little Red Riding Hood stayed silent for a moment before nodding slowly. She got up from her chair and walked into the silver metal corridor.

A moment later, as the girl in the Christmas dress entered the arena, the second exhibition match officially began.

The match ended incredibly fast—taking less than ten seconds from start to finish.

Up in the spectator stands, Blue Pigeon put down his phone and looked down at the silver metal arena.

The Invisible Giant boy had unleashed his power, summoning an unseen colossus. The air pressure in the arena seemed to instantly grow heavy, as if an invisible wall towered beside the boy. A low roar echoed faintly through the air.

Soon, the invisible giant charged toward Little Red Riding Hood, making the entire arena rumble.

At the same time, Shadow Woman stayed put, but her reflection on the silver floor suddenly moved, silently slithering forward like a black snake.

Little Red Riding Hood looked straight ahead. With a clear, ringing cry, two reindeer galloped over, pulling a sleigh. The skirt of the girl's Christmas dress whipped fiercely in the wind.

She leaped into the sleigh, dodging the shadow snake that had darted out to grab her.

The two reindeer trotted in place, the bells around their necks jingling. Snow and wind gathered beneath their hooves, growing denser until they transformed into a raging blizzard that swept forward, slamming head-on into the invisible giant and sending it flying.

The giant was invisible, but the impact on the arena was clear as day. A deep trench was gouged into the floor right before everyone's eyes, accompanied by a deafening roar.

Then, Little Red Riding Hood suddenly pulled a Magic Card from her sleeve. She used the card to conjure volley after volley of fireballs. A rain of fire whistled down, burning all the shadow soldiers created by Shadow Woman to ash.

The two sides reached a brief stalemate before the match suddenly ended—with Little Red Riding Hood raising her hand to surrender.

She looked entirely distracted when speaking to the referee, her face expressionless.

Before he could even announce the result of the match, Little Red Riding Hood dropped down from her sleigh and headed back into the corridor, her head bowed.

"What happened?" Top Hero stared in disbelief. "They barely even started fighting."

Blue Pigeon blanched. "Oh no... The internet isn't going to start spreading rumors that poor, innocent Little Red Riding Hood is being bullied at work by Ember, are they?"

"Do you have to be such a conspiracy theorist? Bro, maybe she just thinks it's an exhibition match and there's no need to take it so seriously." Top Hero nudged Blue Pigeon's chest with his elbow.

Blue Pigeon sighed. "I'm not being a conspiracy theorist. I just hope public opinion online doesn't spiral into something completely ridiculous."

Down in the arena, the Invisible Giant boy and Shadow Woman were also stunned. They quietly watched Little Red Riding Hood turn and walk into the corridor, then glanced at each other. "Boring. That magical girl Little Red Riding Hood didn't even try," the Invisible Giant muttered, crossing his arms behind his head and curling his lip.

"It's a friendly match. Friendship is what matters, not the process," Shadow Woman typed rapidly on her phone, turning the screen to face the Invisible Giant. Up in the stands, Top Hero patted Blue Pigeon's shoulder. "Let's go, Bro. The match is over. Time to head back to the commander." Blue Pigeon nodded, turning and following Top Hero out of the prep room.

Three minutes later, in the commander's office on the 15th floor of the Hero Company.

Lin Yin spun his chair around, turning his back to the sun setting on the horizon to look at the four members of Team Blue Pigeon.

"Good job out there," Lin Yin smiled faintly. "Care to guess how many concurrent viewers we had in today's live stream?"

"How many? Ten million?" Top Hero took two steps forward, resting one hand on his hip and the other on the desk as he looked at him curiously.

"Fifty million?" Blue Pigeon guessed.

Lin Yin shook his head, his eyes smiling, and held up his phone screen.

The four of them looked up at the same time. The peak concurrent viewer count displayed on the screen shattered their expectations.

"Two hundred million?" Top Hero's eyes widened, and he shouted, "Holy shit, Bro! We're famous! I've never had this many people watching me in my whole life! Wait... Damn it, I sucked out there just now!"

Lin Yin pushed up his glasses. "The magical girl Ember and Blue Pigeon—as expected of our two biggest trending figures right now, the attention they bring is—" "What's the use of all that traffic?" the Invisible Giant scoffed dismissively.

Shadow Woman typed, "It lets more people know who we are so we can get more ads, which means our salaries go up."

Just then, Blue Pigeon caught sight of a girl in a gothic dress holding a black umbrella outside the window. She was weaving between the skyscrapers, darting past power lines and electronic billboards, until she became a black dot dropping into a less crowded street block.

He spoke up, "If there's nothing else, I'm going to head back first. Someone is waiting for me."

The other four in the office turned their heads at the same time, looking at him suspiciously.

"The magical girl Ember?" Shadow Woman typed. It seemed a woman's intuition was the sharpest, after all.

"Jesus Christ, you're not even sparing minors?" the Invisible Giant narrowed his eyes.

"Says who?" Top Hero covered for his good bro. "She might be a magical grandma who just looks young when she transforms. Plus, our little blue bird here might be a minor too. None of you have seen what he looks like under that mask."

Lin Yin looked at Blue Pigeon, hesitating. "Actually, I could tell from the arena just now that your relationship is unusual, so what exactly are you two..." "Well..." Blue Pigeon shrugged. "Sorry, it's hard for me to explain exactly what our relationship is."

With that, he turned around and walked into the glass elevator, leaving the others hooting behind him.

Blue Pigeon took the elevator back to the first floor, clocked out with the staff, and walked out of the Super Hero Company. He leaned forward slightly, transforming into a bolt of lightning that tore through the bustling crowds and brightly lit streets.

He then came to a stop in the same alley he had arrived in earlier today, faint arcs of electricity still crackling in the air around him.

In the empty alleyway, the girl in the gothic dress was leaning against the wall with her arms crossed. She looked down at her phone, quietly waiting for him.

"Aren't you going back with Little Red Riding Hood?" Blue Pigeon tilted his head, looking at her in confusion.

"We had a falling out," Ember said without looking up. "I was supposed to meet her after the match, but she just flew off."

She was telling the truth. She had originally intended to tell Little Red Riding Hood that Blue Pigeon was her brother so she would drop her unrealistic idol filter. But Little Red Riding Hood had just left after the exhibition match, not giving her a chance to explain at all.

"I get it, I get it... The whole girls' dorm dynamic," Blue Pigeon nodded, speaking meaningfully.

The magical girl Ember slipped her phone into her dress pocket and reached out to him with her head tilted.

Blue Pigeon took her hand. She popped her umbrella open and carried him up into the sky, vanishing into the dusk together.

The two of them admired the twilight-shrouded city from above the clouds for a while. The setting sun was close at hand, bathing both the boy's and girl's cheeks in a faint, soft halo.

It wasn't long before they arrived inside the deserted, abandoned train station in the Old Jingmai District.

Xia Zili leaned against a pillar, waiting for Ke Mingqing to change back into his regular clothes. She sneaked a few sideways glances at him from time to time. Afterward, they walked out of the train station together.

The siblings didn't speak much on the way back. Clearly, Ke Mingqing was still harboring a grudge over how she had teased him in public.

When they got home, it was just in time for dinner.

The door was open. The last light of the sunset spilled into the entryway, stretching Ke Mingqing and Xia Zili's shadows. The two leaned against the shoe cabinet to take off their shoes before heading straight for the dining table.

In a rare occurrence, no one was missing from the dinner table today; the whole family was neatly gathered together.

Xia Lingxue and Ke Linye were both back from going out, and they seemed to be in good spirits. Ke Mingwei had also gotten off work early. He hung his police jacket on the wall and walked into the kitchen with a cigarette dangling from his lips. Grabbing a bowl and chopsticks, he pulled up a chair and sat down at the table.

Ke Mingqing looked around and asked casually, "Where's Third Sister?"

"She said she was tired and is still resting upstairs," Ke Linye smiled. "I'll go wake her up in a bit."

"She just finished the college entrance exams not long ago. She must be exhausted these past few days. Can we not disturb her rest?" Xia Zili asked.

"Skipping dinner will only make her more tired," Xia Lingxue said flatly.

"Your Second Sister is the sensible one. Someone go call your Third Sister down to eat." Ke Mingwei turned his head, gazing at the maple tree outside the window. "No rush, though. Let's wait until all the food is served."

Xia Wenna took off her apron and spoke up leisurely, "By the way, since almost everyone is here... Honey, I actually have something I need to ask your opinion on."

"What is it?" Ke Mingwei didn't look back. He just lowered his head and took a drag from his cigarette.

Xia Wenna said, "Ah Zhi just told me that... our Lingxue and Ah Qing have been secretly dating."

The kitchen fell dead silent. It seemed like no one had fully processed what was just said.

Outside the window, the maple tree rustled loudly in the evening breeze.

Xia Wenna happily continued bringing dishes to the table, chatting away to herself, "They're part of the family anyway, so I think we should just downplay the whole thing and keep it simple... When do you think would be a good time for them to have their wedding? If you ask me, why don't we just finalize it after Ah Qing finishes college?"

Ke Mingqing sat stunned for a moment, his chopsticks held loosely in his mouth, before slowly looking up. Ke Linye raised his eyebrows. With a sharp crack, Xia Lingxue bit through the Alpenliebe lollipop in her mouth. Xia Zili stared blankly downward, her eyes slowly widening. Ke Mingwei looked as if he had been struck by lightning, the cigarette dangling from his lips nearly dropping to the floor.

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