A Guide to Humanity’s Extinction

At two o’clock in the afternoon on August 5, inside Ke Mingqing’s bedroom.

A few figures sat on the wooden floor. Ke Mingqing was playing Fight the Landlord with Xia Zili and An Youlu.

Playing cards lay in messy piles across the blanket. The upright fan rotated sluggishly, blowing a cool breeze that fluttered the cards on the floor, lifting them like paper butterflies before letting them drift back down.

An Youlu had worn a red tracksuit over today. Its red hood was pulled up, pressing down her hair and framing her small, delicate face—making her a true Little Red Riding Hood.

Meanwhile, Kuroki Hitomi sat alone on the bed.

While the others played, the girl with the teardrop mole acted like she was invisible. She didn’t say a word the entire time, her presence practically nonexistent.

She simply propped her hands on the mattress and quietly looked around the room. She would glance up at the doodles on the wall, then turn to inspect the books on the shelf, hiding a sense of novelty in her eyes.

She was clearly a sheltered young lady, yet her eyes held the curiosity of a country child marveling at the towering buildings of a city.

The breeze stirred the curtains, allowing the afternoon sunlight to stream through the French windows and cast a glow over the girl’s pale cheeks.

”Bomb.”As Xia Zili spoke, she threw down four fours to form a bomb, then glanced at the Ace of Hearts left in her hand.

An Youlu checked her cards and shook her head. ”Pass.”

Then, she turned to Ke Mingqing and said deadpan, ”It’s your turn to play, Brother.”

The room suddenly fell silent. Ke Mingqing clearly wasn’t used to Little Red Riding Hood calling him that, and he visibly froze.

Xia Zili opened her mouth but couldn’t find the words. She was practically breaking out in goosebumps.

Hearing her usually cold, sharp-tongued junior suddenly say ”Brother” in such a sickly-sweet tone felt no different than being bitten by a venomous snake.

She narrowed her eyes and asked, ”Why are you calling him Brother?”

”Isn’t Senior’s brother also my brother?” An Youlu replied dismissively.

Xia Zili fell silent. She gripped her final card tightly and said in a cold voice,

”Of course not.”

An Youlu thought for a moment. ”Oh, well, I can’t exactly call him Mr. Blue Pigeon here, can I? I only made up a random title to keep the secret. Please don’t snap at me, Senior.”

As she spoke, she glanced at Kuroki Hitomi on the bed, deliberately lowering her voice so she wouldn’t be overheard.

Xia Zili felt that An Youlu was truly an idiot. Kuroki Hitomi was clearly a player; she could easily see through their identities at a glance, yet An Youlu was still trying to hide things.

She sighed. ”He’s my brother, not yours.”

”I understand now. So that’s why.” Realization dawned on An Youlu. ”Indeed, it’s normal for Senior to be possessive. After all, only Senior gets to call Mr. Blue Pigeon ’Brother.’”

Xia Zili froze, and her small face darkened. ”Possessive? I’d like nothing more than to kick this guy into outer space.”

”The feeling is mutual. I’d love to kick this sister into the Milky Way,”

Ke Mingqing said casually. He figured that if she really got kicked into outer space, she wouldn’t be counted on the system’s extermination list, so he wouldn’t mind giving her a kick.

”So, what should I call him from now on?” An Youlu pointed at him. ”Using his full name feels weird since he’s older than me. Don’t you agree, Senior?”

”Just call him Upperclassman.”

Xia Zili shot her an annoyed glare, issuing the command.

”Oh, okay. Then whenever there are people around, I’ll call him Upperclassman.” An Youlu shrugged. ”Well then, Upperclassman, play your cards.”

”Joker bomb, straight.”

Ke Mingqing checked his hand. He tossed down a pair of jokers, then slapped down his remaining eight cards in a straight from three to ten, emptying his hands in an instant.

Xia Zili stared in disbelief.

”Mhm. As expected, the poor yet resilient peasant class prevails. Justice always wins.” An Youlu parted her lips slightly, applauding with a deadpan expression. It seemed she really immersed herself in Fight the Landlord, seeing as she only ever played on the peasants’ side.

”Down with the evils of capitalism,” Ke Mingqing chimed in.

Xia Zili took a deep breath and hung her head.

”I won. Send the ten yuan over WeChat. You aren’t going to back out of the bet, are you, Sis?”

Ke Mingqing yawned, speaking lazily as he used his phone to send a grinning yellow emoji to the WeChat user Chali Jiushi.

Xia Zili frowned and said, ”She distracted me halfway through. Let’s go again. That round didn’t count.”

Despite her words, she lowered her eyes, opened WeChat, and transferred five hundred yuan to Ke Mingqing—far exceeding their agreed-upon stakes.

An Youlu clearly hadn’t noticed this exchange. She covered her mouth and said with a tone of pity, ”Senior, if it’s really that bad, you can report us for illegal gambling. That way your loss won’t count.”

Xia Zili looked up from her phone, fuming. She seriously suspected Little Red Riding Hood had accompanied the Japanese young lady on this visit purely to piss her off.

Meanwhile, Ke Mingqing glanced at the transfer he’d received, not feeling the least bit surprised.

Given what he knew about magical girls, his sister was a secret millionaire.

Over the past two years, the money Xia Zili had earned from the Magical Girl Company was likely enough to last her a lifetime.

However, since she was underage and couldn’t easily let their parents know, all her savings were held by her mentor, the magical girl Xi Ziyue. Whenever she needed cash, she simply sent a WeChat message to ask for it.

Xia Zili’s salary was so high partly because she was a top-tier celebrity. In this era, online traffic was money; by generating profits for the company, she naturally earned her cut.

The other reason was that being a magical girl was literally a ”youth profession.” The compensation had to be generous, otherwise it would draw intense public backlash.

Not only did magical girls face an incredibly high mortality rate, they couldn’t just coast from their youth into old age like superheroes, relying on seniority to rest on their laurels for a lifetime.

After all, the Tiamat Comet returned to Earth every ten years.

It would sweep away the Comet Fragments within the magical girls’ bodies, plummeting them back to mortality overnight. Stripped of their omnipotent magic, they would once again return to the lives of ordinary people.

Not every magical girl was as fortunate as Ember. By the time they retired, the vast majority hadn’t earned nearly enough money to live extravagantly for the rest of their days.

Furthermore, in cruel practical terms, magical girls had to maintain public order while balancing their studies. With their focus so divided, it was difficult to earn decent grades, making it hard to find a satisfying job after graduation.

Although the state accounted for this by providing a fixed monthly subsidy to guarantee their basic living standards, many magical girls still felt dissatisfied with their circumstances after returning to an ordinary life. Some even developed psychological issues that required regular treatment from official institutions.

Not everyone could handle such a drastic disparity.

One day, you were an omnipotent teenage idol flying across the sky. The next, you were a below-average student completely ignored by your classmates. Stripped of the hormonal regulation that magic provided, you might even break out in acne, letting appearance anxiety and academic stress consume your thoughts.

An ordeal like that was enough to ruin the majority of young girls who were still maturing.

For them, stepping onto the spotlight-filled stage sometimes only required a stroke of luck. But stepping down to accept their own mediocrity and face a dull, uninspired life required true courage.

However, to the capitalist backers of the Magical Girl Company, where these mortals ended up afterward was completely irrelevant.

They only cared about active-duty magical girls, and their only metric for success was simple: ’Not becoming a witch is a win.’

[Ke Mingqing: Why did you send me so much money? Planning to support me now?]

Xia Zili didn’t reply. She simply gathered the cards on the floor, ready to rally and fight another round. She couldn’t stand seeing Little Red Riding Hood act so smug; she had to win one back.

Just then, Ke Mingqing looked up at the girl with the teardrop mole on the bed. ”Are you not playing?”

Kuroki Hitomi turned to him and gently shook her head. ”No... I don’t know how to play.”

”I can teach you.”

”You guys go ahead. I’ll just watch.” Kuroki Hitomi shook her head again.

”Alright, never mind then.”

After organizing the cards, Xia Zili seemed to remember something. She looked up at An Youlu. ”Let’s go outside and chat in private.”

An Youlu had been about to make a teasing remark, but upon seeing Xia Zili’s unexpectedly serious expression, she gave a dazed nod and followed her out of the room.

”Don’t bully her.”

Ke Mingqing scratched his head, leaning back and propping himself up on his hands.

”Thank you for your concern, Brother,” An Youlu spoke up first. ”But Senior is a person with principles. She probably wouldn’t subject a little country girl like me, who grew up eating garbage, to workplace bullying.”

She paused. ”Probably?”

”You’re still calling him Brother.” Xia Zili’s tone turned icy.

An Youlu’s expression darkened. ”I’m being bullied.” With that, she slouched her shoulders and slinked dejectedly out of the bedroom.

Ke Mingqing watched the two goofballs in silence, thinking to himself that having so much energy was truly a blessing. Long live youth.

With the two of them gone, only he and Kuroki Hitomi remained in the bedroom.

One sat cross-legged on the floor playing on his phone, while the other quietly observed the bookshelf, running her fingers over the yellowing books.

The afternoon wind stirred the pale curtains, quietly brushing against their cheeks as cicadas chirped outside. Ever since he had transmigrated to this world, Ke Mingqing’s heart had rarely felt so at peace.

”I want to go check out the rooftop. Is that okay?” Kuroki Hitomi asked suddenly after a moment of silence, placing a book back on the shelf.

”What’s there to see on the rooftop?” Ke Mingqing turned to her. ”From your roof, you can see the ocean. Here, you won’t see anything but rundown houses and unfinished buildings.”

Kuroki Hitomi thought about it. ”I just want to see the environment you normally live in.”

”Oh. Suit yourself, then.”

”Mhm.”

With that, Kuroki Hitomi rose from the bed and walked out of the room alone, making her way to the stairwell and heading up to the third floor.

Upon reaching the third floor, she held the handrail and turned her head to gaze down the long hallway. The only thing in sight was a master bedroom.

That was where Xia Wenna and Ke Mingwei usually slept. Right now, neither of them was home. Ke Mingwei was working at the police station, while Xia Wenna had dragged Xia Ningzhi and Xia Lingxue to the supermarket to buy groceries so she could prepare a lavish dinner for everyone.

The hallway was completely silent. Kuroki Hitomi walked slowly forward and pushed open the rooftop door, greeted by a rush of bright sunlight.

...

...

Meanwhile, Xia Zili and An Youlu stepped onto the second-floor balcony. They shut the door and stood leaning against either side of the iron frame.

”I’ve been meaning to ask you. What exactly happened after that?” Xia Zili asked. ”You hid something from Master and the others, didn’t you? You didn’t write down everything you saw in the report... Right?”

An Youlu fell silent.

Xia Zili hesitated, suddenly lowering her eyes. ”Back then... Did I turn into a witch?”

An Youlu stayed quiet for a moment. ”Do you want to hear the truth?”

”Yes.”

”The only truth I can give you is this: no matter what you turned into, you’re still just my senior. The reason I hid it from Teacher Xi Ziyue and the others is simply because, from the bottom of my heart, I considered the matter irrelevant and entirely unworth mentioning.”

Xia Zili kept her head bowed, staring blankly for a second as her eyes turned slightly red.

She paused. ”But if there’s ever a day when I truly lose control, I want you to personally...” She trailed off.

”Me...?” An Youlu was taken aback, pointing a finger at herself.

Xia Zili nodded.

An Youlu thought back to what had happened at the port that day. An image flashed through her mind: a girl in a blue-and-black dress wielding apocalyptic power, single-handedly chasing down the entire Death Crow roster.

She drew a sharp breath. ”...Senior, I absolutely have to decline.”

Xia Zili fell silent for a long moment, then looked at her with red-rimmed eyes. ”You couldn’t bear to kill me?”

”No, I mean... If there’s ever a day when you turn into a witch, the first thing I’ll do is take a rocket ship straight to The Moon.”

An Youlu stated solemnly.

...

...

Meanwhile, down on the ignored first floor of the house, Ke Linye sat on the couch reading a book. He had no choice; his younger siblings had cast him aside, refusing to let him join their games.

After a while, Ke Linye suddenly lowered his head and sent a message to Xia Lingxue on his phone.

[Ke Linye: Ah Qing’s girlfriend seems to have gone up to the rooftop.]

He flipped a page, and the other party quickly replied.

[Xia Lingxue: Alone?]

[Ke Linye: Yeah, from the footsteps, she’s alone. Am I supposed to be the bad guy here?]

[Xia Lingxue: Make it quick and just get it over with. Then we won’t have to worry about this anymore.]

[Ke Linye: Okay.]

After sending the message, Ke Linye set his book down on the table, slung the brown backpack from the couch over his shoulder, and strolled leisurely toward the stairwell.

He took his time going upstairs. Upon reaching the second floor, he stopped in the hallway and cast a glance toward the bedroom.

Xia Zili, Ke Mingqing, and An Youlu were all still in the room and hadn’t noticed him. Ke Linye withdrew his gaze, muffled his footsteps, and slowly ascended to the third floor.

The moment he stepped into the dim hallway, the young man lifted his clear eyes toward the ajar iron door of the rooftop, where a sliver of light spilled in.

Ke Linye shrugged. As he crept silently toward the roof, he unzipped his backpack and pulled out a high-tech-looking, pitch-black helmet, cradling it in his arms.

It was none other than the Brain Imaging Helmet. Earlier, at the Wanxiang City Cinema, he and Xia Lingxue had used this helmet to test Ke Mingqing. The results back then showed that Ke Mingqing was not a player.

But Kuroki Hitomi was different. As the person closest to Ke Mingqing, Xia Lingxue firmly believed they needed to investigate her details thoroughly.

Ke Linye stared down at the helmet, his thoughts wandering. His lips twitched in resignation. ”My sister really is something else. How come I’m the one who always has to be the bad guy?”

With that thought, he lifted his bright eyes and quietly watched the rooftop.

It was very quiet out there; Kuroki Hitomi hadn’t made a sound. Through the gap in the iron door, he could see her back. The girl with the teardrop mole was gazing off into the distance.

All he had to do was push open this iron door and slap the Brain Imaging Helmet on her head, Ke Linye thought.

However, perhaps because he’d gotten momentarily distracted, it wasn’t until right then that Ke Linye heard footsteps coming from behind him.

Ke Linye froze slightly and turned around in the hallway.

He saw a young man in a T-shirt and shorts coming up the stairs, turning his head to stare right at him.

In the silence, their eyes met.

After a long moment, Ke Mingqing shifted his gaze away from his brother’s face. He broke the heavy silence with a deeply strange tone:

”Bro... what the hell are you holding?”