A Guide to Humanity’s Extinction

July 12, 5:30 PM. It was the peak of Leijing’s rush hour. Crowds bustled along the long avenue, and the traffic lights shifted colors beneath the setting sun. At a downtown bus stop, Kuroki Hitomi sat on a public bench while Ke Mingqing leaned against the station’s notice board. A final ray of light fell from the blood-red sky, bathing the young man and woman’s faces in a faint halo as vehicles roared past.

After a moment, Kuroki Hitomi looked up from her phone and spoke.

”Are you coming over to my house for dinner tonight?” she asked. ”Besides the chef, it’ll just be the two of us. Little Red Riding Hood is going out.”

Ke Mingqing shook his head. ”I’ll pass. I’m afraid my sister would kill me.”

”Aren’t you officially my boyfriend?” Kuroki Hitomi asked.

”She knows you’re a player, so she doesn’t want me spending too much time with you,” Ke Mingqing said, toying with his phone. ”I don’t want to provoke her.”

”Do you have a little-sister complex?”

”Don’t dodge the issue.” Ke Mingqing shrugged. ”But if I had to say, I think it’s the other way around.”

”You have an older-sister complex?”

”I mean...””Your little sister has an older-sister complex?”

”Forget it. I just can’t communicate with Japanese people.” Ke Mingqing let out a listless yawn.

The sun sank slowly toward the horizon, taking with it the afterglow that washed over the city. The bus stop gradually darkened, and the surrounding neon signs flickered to life in the twilight.

It wasn’t long before the bus arrived. Kuroki Hitomi rose from the wooden bench, and Ke Mingqing followed her aboard.

With a beep, the two scanned their phones to pay the fare and took seats in the very back row.

Normally, Kuroki Hitomi didn’t take buses or taxis. A single phone call was all it took for her driver to pick her up. Today, however, she stayed with Ke Mingqing to keep him company on the bus.

Listening to music as the bus bumped along, she handed him one of her earbuds.

Ke Mingqing took it. Resting his chin on his hand, he leaned his head against the window glass.

The last ray of sunset struck his pale face. A faint vibration traveled through the glass as the sky outside faded to black.

A sudden weight settled on his shoulder. He turned his head to find Kuroki Hitomi drifting off to sleep against him. The bus was completely silent, the night draping over the girl’s face like a curtain. Half of her face was pressed into his shoulder, revealing only the teardrop mole at the corner of her eye. Her faint breath brushed against his neck.

Ke Mingqing thought about waking her but decided against it. Soon, drowsiness enveloped him as well. He closed his eyes and took a short nap. He didn’t know how much time had passed before a sudden vibration in the dark startled him awake.

He opened his eyes and looked around. The girl with the teardrop mole was no longer on the bus, and they had already arrived at the Old Jingmai District station. Looking down, Ke Mingqing saw a WeChat message from Kuroki Hitomi lighting up his screen.

[Kuroki Hitomi: We’re at the station. Wake up.]

Ke Mingqing pocketed his phone and got off the bus.

He walked alone through the night as groups of laughing children ran past.

It wasn’t long before he arrived home. He unlocked the front door, kicked off his sneakers, and padded barefoot down the hall. Slumping onto the sofa, he opened the Skill Shop. The descriptions for today’s five skills popped up.

[Skill 1: Balloon Man (E Rank Skill) (1,000 superhuman coins) (Allows you to inhale and inflate your body for a short duration, floating into the sky like a balloon or bouncing back enemy attacks.)]

[Note: Duration depends on your ’Strength’ attribute.]

[Skill 2: Popeye (D Rank Skill) (3,000 superhuman coins) (Passive Skill: When on the ocean, your physical attributes are comprehensively enhanced, and your water resistance is drastically increased.)]

[Skill 3: Index Finger Pistol (D Rank Skill) (3,000 superhuman coins) (Transforms your right index finger into a gun barrel. Snapping your fingers fires an air bullet.)]

[Note: The bullet’s power depends on your ’Strength’ attribute.]

[Skill 4: Turning Feces into Gold (E Rank Skill) (1,000 superhuman coins) (Passive: Every time you use the toilet, there is a chance to produce superhuman coins from your feces.)]

Ke Mingqing’s eye twitched. He continued reading down the list.

[Skill 5: Rainbow Bubbles (D Rank Skill) (3,000 superhuman coins) — Blows out rainbow bubbles. Anyone who touches the bubbles will temporarily lose gravity; you can also encase yourself in a bubble to float into the sky.]

”I don’t have any flying skills right now. This one can be used on enemies and on myself. Not bad.”

With that in mind, Ke Mingqing pressed the ’Confirm Purchase’ button.

[Prompt: 3,000 superhuman coins spent. Successfully purchased D Rank Skill — ’Rainbow Bubbles’.]

[Skill automatically equipped to slot six in your Skill Bar.]

[Current superhuman coin balance: 4,500 coins.]

”Once I roll some higher-level skills later, I’ll swap out the ones I have now...”

With nothing else to do, Ke Mingqing spaced out for a bit, listening to a dog bark outside the old apartment building. The twilight draped over the brick walls, spilling through the window to wash over his face.

He rubbed his chin and opened WeChat.

The Xia-Ke household had two group chats in total: one with their parents, and one without.

Ke Mingqing opened the first group chat to take a look.

The sisters, Xia Ningzhi and Xia Lingxue, were accompanying their mother on a grocery run to the supermarket. They said they were making a massive feast tonight.

Meanwhile, Ke Linye was still at the cafe. He posted a photo in the chat—a customer pushing open the wooden door against the sunset, the wind chimes swaying, the mahogany chairs dyed in a layer of golden light.

No one replied to his message. Only Xia Ningzhi reacted with a surprised Minion sticker, its head tilted and its mouth wide open.

As usual, Ke Mingwei was nowhere to be seen. He never posted in the chat anyway.

The living room was completely empty. In the darkness, the glow of the phone screen illuminated the young man’s face.

He opened a private chat with Xia Zili and sent a message.

[Ke Mingqing: Where are you? Not home yet?]

After a while, seeing no reply from Xia Zili, Ke Mingqing simply shrugged and put his phone back in his pocket.

Leaning back against the sofa, he closed his eyes and synchronized his consciousness with his number one Theater Puppet, ’Giovanni’.

Inside a hotel room on the second floor of an abandoned building.

Giovanni lay on the bed, taking an afternoon nap. Bai Ziling had turned on a desk lamp and was lying on her stomach, reading a book of fables while her pale lower legs swung up and down behind her.

”Open the door, little pigs, or the big bad wolf will blow your house down,” a woman’s voice called out from the hallway. Giovanni knew she was making a Three Little Pigs reference, so he shot back, ”You should let the Wolf Butler say that line. It would fit the context much better.”

Bai Ziling shut her fable book, got out of bed with Giovanni, and followed him to the door.

Giovanni opened it. Before them stood a woman in a white dress, wearing a veil over her face. At the corners of her eyes and mouth were stitched seams, just like a puppet.

Giovanni was silent for a moment. ”Who are you?”

”Forgotten me already?” The woman in the white dress tilted her head, sounding slightly displeased. ”I’m Bai. Remember it.”

Giovanni looked at her face. Bai, the puppeteer, he thought to himself. A+ Rank combat strength.

”What do you want?” he asked.

”My, don’t be so cold, all right? I just wanted to grab dinner with you and that little vampire brat,” Bai said. ”Here, I already brought the food.”

She hefted the bags in her hands. Inside were several takeout boxes of Japanese food. The mains looked to be fatty beef and salmon, along with two boxes of white rice.

Giovanni stared at the food and swallowed hard.

The Theater Puppet couldn’t feel hunger, but Ke Mingqing’s actual body was starving.

Since he was still waiting for Xia Wenna to come home and cook, he was stuck watching his puppet avatar eat before he did.

”Fine, I appreciate the thought.” Giovanni turned to look at Bai Ziling. ”Can you eat regular rice?” The white-haired girl tugged at his sleeve and silently nodded.

”Really?” Giovanni pressed. ”Don’t throw it all up the second you finish.”

Bai explained, ”Vampires just don’t taste anything when they eat normal food, and they require human blood to maintain their vital signs.” She paused. ”It’s not like the movies where they violently throw up if they eat human food.” ”Got it,” Giovanni said. ”You sure know a lot about this.”

”How could I not?” Bai met his gaze.

And so, Giovanni led Bai Ziling downstairs. The three of them found a stone slab on the abandoned floor, sat down, and popped the lids off the takeout boxes. Even though Giovanni enjoyed the meal immensely, a puppet was just a puppet. It didn’t satiate Ke Mingqing’s actual appetite; in fact, the more his avatar ate, the hungrier he felt. ”By the way, I’ve been meaning to ask... have we met before?” Giovanni said. ”I get the feeling you’ve been targeting me.”

Bai fell silent for a moment. She met his eyes through her veil, the corners of her mouth curling up slightly.

”Who knows?” she said. ”Maybe we actually have.”

Who are you trying to fool? I just created this puppet. You might’ve met someone else, but there’s no way you’ve met him, Ke Mingqing rolled his eyes internally. ”That certainly fits my impression of a puppeteer,” Giovanni scoffed. ”Cryptic and full of mystery.”

He picked up a slice of fatty beef with his chopsticks and shoved it into his mouth along with some rice. It felt a lot like watching a food vlog while starving.

At that moment, Bai Ziling noticed a grain of rice stuck to Giovanni’s face. She suddenly leaned in, pressing her lips to his cheek as she ate the grain of rice right off his skin.

Giovanni felt a slight chill on his cheek. He turned his head, meeting the girl’s red eyes.

”Don’t you have your own food?”

Bai Ziling pulled back and tilted her head, her snow-white hair swaying gently.

”My, what a dream scene for a lolicon.” Bai cupped her cheek with one hand, flashing a wide grin that stretched the cracked, stitched corners of her mouth.

Jiang Qingzi walked over. ”Who’s a lolicon?”

”And here comes the guilty party, turning himself in,” Bai teased.

Staring at Jiang Qingzi, Bai Ziling blurted out, ”Pedophile.”

”Giovanni, can you tell her to stop calling me that?” Jiang Qingzi asked expressionlessly, patting the floor before sitting down.

”Sure, I’ll teach her some manners when I have time,” Giovanni brushed him off, continuing to eat.

Jiang Qingzi sighed. ”There’s something I need to tell you two.”

Bai looked at him curiously.

”What is it?” Giovanni put down his chopsticks. ”Do you have to say it while we’re eating?”

”According to the intel Heimeng just dug up, the Clock Maker has very likely arrived in Leijing. The boss wants you all to be careful,” Jiang Qingzi said.