A Guide to Humanity’s Extinction

It was late at night on August 22, 2026. Ke Mingwei lay in a bathtub filled with hot water, his body almost entirely submerged. Only his head and shoulders remained above the surface, the back of his head resting against the edge of the tub.

He tilted his head back, staring absently at the bathroom ceiling. Only after a long moment did he lower his gaze.

He picked up the phone resting beside the bathtub and glanced at the screen.

[Lin Yin: I was careless. I meant to tell you the moment I found out the kid was a mole.]

[White Jack: Stop being so stubborn. Lin Yin is the mole. He’s been brainwashed by Clock Maker. If you want to save him, you have to lock him up and keep him immobilized until Clock Maker is dead.]

Ke Mingwei frowned. He closed his eyes, and the scene he had witnessed half an hour earlier flashed through his mind.

It was a dimly lit hospital room, heavily guarded on all sides. The hallway outside was packed with heavily armed soldiers dressed in black.

Lin Yin lay on the hospital bed, recovering from his injuries.

After a moment, he sat up and leaned back against the headboard. Turning his head, he squinted out at the brightly lit city with a smile. Just then, the lightbulb abruptly went dark, and a commanding silhouette resembling an upright crow stepped forward from the shadows, one pace at a time.

Hearing the footsteps, Lin Yin slowly turned his head back. Unable to make out the figure with his narrowed eyes, he picked up the rimless glasses from beside his pillow and slipped them onto the bridge of his nose.”Why are you here?”

Lin Yin arched an eyebrow, shooting a surprised look at Rain Crow.

Rain Crow stopped. He slowly raised his head and stared deeply at him.

”My old friend... you need to get some sleep.”

”Are you doubting me?” Lin Yin froze for a second, then suddenly laughed.

He sighed. ”I thought you were the one person in this world who would never suspect me.” He lowered his head, letting out a heavy breath. ”Clock Maker killed my child. How could I possibly be the mole?”

Rain Crow bowed his head, standing silently in place like a statue.

After a long while, he finally spoke.

”It’ll be over soon... This sleep might be a little long, but I’ll tell you what happened when you wake up.”

He paused.

”Forgive me. This is the second time I’ve wronged you.”

As his hoarse voice faded, Rain Crow lifted his head. A flock of crows surged from behind his pitch-black cape, engulfing Lin Yin’s body. The two of them vanished from the hospital room instantly.

Soon after, the guards rushed into the room. They looked around in bewilderment, finding only an empty hospital bed and a spotless floor without a single crow feather left behind.

However, a pair of broken glasses remained by the bed, the lenses shattered into a spiderweb pattern.

Back in the present, Ke Mingwei frowned and opened his eyes.

He picked up his phone, pulling up surveillance footage from an underground clinic. Lin Yin was heavily sedated and tightly bound in a straitjacket normally used to restrain manic psychiatric patients, lying silently on a hospital bed.

Ke Mingwei took a deep drag from his cigarette, smoke curling around his fingertips.

A moment later, he exhaled a plume of blue smoke and set the phone back down.

By now, the water in the bathtub had cooled considerably. Condensation crawled up the distant mirror like snow-white geckos, blurring Ke Mingwei’s reflection.

He kept his head lowered, remaining silent for a long time.

When he looked up again, he saw crows scattered throughout the bathroom. Some had formed a choir, while others used their wings to hold and play flutes. Some played violins, and others performed orchestral pieces. The crow right in the middle kept its wings tucked tight, raising its head high and proudly puffing out its chest.

With its pitch-black beak pointed at the ceiling, its caws were hoarse yet soaring.

Ke Mingwei understood what it was singing:

That man is coming again...

He is going to eat his own child...

He will suck our blood and chew our flesh...

We are food...

Papa, are we food?

Papa, will we be eaten?

Ke Mingwei fell silent.

He stopped looking at the crow choir and turned to the windowsill. A crow had tied a rope around itself and leaped from the high ledge.

It was bungee jumping.

Suddenly, the rope snapped. With a wet smack, the crow crashed onto the floor, turning into a mangled lump of flesh dotted with a few scattered, bloodstained feathers.

Just then, the choir’s singing abruptly grew frantic and deafening. Ke Mingwei tore his gaze away from the dead crow and looked back toward the singers.

A pitch-black, hunchbacked, shriveled figure had appeared behind the choir.

It was completely naked, its entire body covered in crow feathers. It looked as vicious as a wild beast, baring bloodstained teeth, yet the look in its eyes was incredibly apathetic.

Every crow was gripped by terror. They trembled, every single feather quivering, their crimson pupils narrowed to vertical slits as they stared at the inactive Ke Mingwei.

Still, they didn’t stop playing the instruments in their grip. The once-harmonious melody dissolved into chaotic noise.

The figure crouched on the floor like a savage, snatching up the fluttering crows and ruthlessly shoving them into its mouth.

Soon, as it swallowed the final crow, the singing vanished. The only sound left in the bathroom was the chewing of flesh and bone.

Ke Mingwei took a drag from his cigarette, quietly watching the scene play out. He suddenly thought of an oil painting called Saturn Devouring His Son. It was a piece depicting a specific tale from Roman mythology.

To prevent the prophecy that declared ”you will be killed by your own child,” Saturnus swallowed his offspring one after another.

The agricultural god in the painting gripped his son’s headless corpse, tearing into it with twisted limbs and an expression of pure madness.

Ever since Ke Mingwei first laid eyes on that painting, this hunchbacked figure before him had been born.

As such, he named it ”Saturnus.”

For a very long time now, Ke Mingwei had been seeing this crow-eating figure. He didn’t know who it was, but he saw his own reflection in it.

He seriously suspected that one day, he might go just as mad and devour his own son.

Ke Mingwei inhaled deeply from his cigarette and tilted his head back, staring blankly at the ceiling.

Just then, a hoarse human voice drifted from the shadows. Startled, he turned his head and saw Saturnus mumbling while gnawing on the crows’ bones:

”I will never regret it.”

”I will never regret it...”

”I will never regret it...”

A moment later, Saturnus vanished, leaving behind only scattered crow feathers amidst a pool of blood and bones.

In the silence, its words still echoed powerfully in Ke Mingwei’s ears.

Ke Mingwei took the cigarette from his mouth, snuffed it out, and tossed it onto the floor beside the tub.

He picked up the crow that had bungee-jumped to its death, narrowing his eyes slightly as he inspected it closely.

Before long, a waterfall of crimson suddenly poured from the crow’s shriveled corpse.

The endless flow of red enveloped the hot water in the tub and spilled over the edges. Ke Mingwei lowered his eyes, watching as the blood engulfed his body like a massive river.

He closed his eyes as a sense of suffocation washed over him.

He swam through the river of blood, constantly floating upward. When he finally opened his eyes, he saw a pitch-black figure on the churning surface of the water.

Saturnus was crouching on the shore, baring his bloodstained teeth as he waited for him. Alongside him, two lines of bloody text were reflected on the water’s surface:

—You betrayed your closest friend, and next, you will be killed by your own child.

—Or perhaps, you will kill your own child with your bare hands.

Precognition.

This was a truth Ke Mingwei had gradually come to realize ever since Saturnus first appeared: his superhuman ability was undergoing an unknown mutation, something that hadn’t happened in over twenty years.

The change specifically manifested as ”danger precognition”—Saturnus had already warned him once before, telling him he would betray his best friend.

But Ke Mingwei hadn’t taken it seriously at the time, which had led to Lin Yin being brainwashed by Clock Maker.

”I will... kill my own child with my bare hands?” Ke Mingwei froze slightly, his brow furrowing.

Suddenly, a black tide of crows surged up from the seabed. Like a school of dark fish or a sweeping black storm, they swallowed him whole.

He opened his eyes in the bathroom once again. Everything was calm and normal, as if nothing had ever happened.

The water in the bathtub was completely cold, and the condensation fogging the mirror had quietly faded away.

Ke Mingwei knitted his brows. This was the second time Saturnus had given him a prophecy.

But was it right this time? Could it all just be a delusion? He thought back to the prophecy from Roman mythology, recalling the reason Saturnus had devoured his own offspring.

After a while, Ke Mingwei slowly climbed out of the tub. He dried himself off with a towel, changed into a loose set of pajamas, and walked out of the en-suite bathroom.

The night was tranquil. Xia Wenna was still awake; with the bedside lamp turned on, she sat on the bed, quietly flipping through the latest issue of Animal World.

Ke Mingwei sat on the edge of the bed and gently stroked Xia Wenna’s back. Lowering his eyes, he said softly, ”Help me keep an eye on the kids. I have some business to take care of over the next few days.”

”Darling,” Xia Wenna drawled, ”haven’t I always been watching them for you?”

She closed the copy of Animal World, a faint smirk touching the corners of her lips. A hint of amusement flickered in her mist-clouded eyes.

”I trust you completely.” Ke Mingwei nodded.

”Get some sleep. You’ve been looking far too exhausted lately. Are things that tricky down at the police station?”

”I’m already considering retirement,” Ke Mingwei said. ”I’ll retire right after I finish this.” He paused and then shook his head. ”No, there’s still something left undone.”

”Why did you change your mind again?”

A blue silhouette flashed through Ke Mingwei’s mind, and he suddenly let out a raspy chuckle.

”Never mind,” he said. ”I’ll wait until that young man grows enough to take the reins before I think about retiring.”

”Hmm... Hubby, aren’t you being a bit too optimistic? Will we really live to see that day?”

Xia Wenna murmured silently, tilting her head and resting a finger against her chin.

...

...

Meanwhile, inside a bedroom downstairs.

The night was already late. Outside the floor-to-ceiling window, a billboard emitted red and blue lights, faintly illuminating the tiles on the windowsill.

Ke Mingqing switched off the bedside lamp. Sitting on his bed, he sipped from a bottle of Wahaha milk while browsing the news on his phone.

[Shadow Girl: I’m at the Hero Company. Commander Lin Yin was just kidnapped.]

[Shadow Girl: Did Clock Maker do this?]

[Shadow Girl: Top Hero, Dark Crocodile, Invisible Giant... Now even Commander Lin Yin... What is going to happen to us? I’m sorry, I don’t mean to dump all my grievances onto you. I’m just so lost.]

In the darkness, the teenager’s eyes gleamed brightly.

He reached out and typed on the screen, replying to the message.

[Blue Pigeon: Get some rest early. Don’t overthink things.]

After sending the message, Ke Mingqing pulled a police badge from his pajama pocket and held it up above his head.

He looked up, quietly studying the badge as he thought, ’Hmm, Commander Lin Yin has already been locked up by my old man... Death Crow’s people have returned to Leijing as well. It’s just about time to start my plan.’

Three days later, Ke Mingwei took off his jacket. He had barely taken a seat in his police station office when he received a bulletin.

Blue Pigeon had been kidnapped.

But the person who abducted Blue Pigeon wasn’t Clock Maker. It was a name he never could have expected:

—White Jack.