Forty-nine rules of the end times

Chapter 61 Situation and Shadow Armor

"One, two, three, go!"

At the entrance of the Limei Hotel, people wearing light clothing and masks carried a body that had been moved from a hotel room onto a vehicle.

The vehicles were official hearses specifically assigned to collect corpses. On the first day after the rules ended, a large number of hearses shuttled along the city's main roads, taking away the bodies from various gathering points.

At the end of the rule's effective period, with temperatures dropping to tens of degrees below zero, temporarily storing the corpses indoors was not a problem. However, now with the sun blazing and temperatures rising, failing to remove these corpses quickly could lead to an outbreak of disease.

"One, two, three, go!"

Several people then lifted another body onto the vehicle, during which a pair of glasses fell out of the bag containing the body.

Xu Xiaotian bent down to pick it up; he remembered it was Teacher Feng's glasses. The latter hadn't survived a high fever and had died in this game of rules.

After all the bodies were loaded onto the two vehicles, everyone watched as the hearses drove away, their expressions somewhat blank.

The rules may be over, but the psychological trauma they left on people will not.

To avoid thinking about these things, many people, without waiting for official calls, picked up tools and spontaneously went out to clear snow and destroy ice walls.

Some people packed their belongings immediately, preparing to leave as soon as the snow melted, far away from this place that left them with psychological trauma.

Only the original residents of the Limei Hotel have no intention of leaving.

Even though the hotel is now completely different from what it used to be—with collapsed signs and gates, a swimming pool piled with plastic bags filled with urine and feces, and many rooms reeking of corpses—they still decided to stay.

Because this hotel had become like their home, and the people who held daily support and confiding sessions together were like family. No matter how filthy it was now, as long as everyone worked together and took the time to clean it up, it would be fine.

After moving the corpses, Xu Xiaotian returned to the hall and packed his belongings. He planned to travel to the capital, Yong'an, as soon as transportation resumed, and join the academy after it reopened.

Like many others, he was left with considerable psychological trauma from these rules. Yunhua had become a place he wanted to leave and escape from.

"Ding."

Just then, his phone rang in his pocket. He took it out and his face lit up with joy.

……

To save battery, Guan Tong turned off her phone midway through the game.

After completing my July plans today, I turned on my phone and found that it still had 37% battery left.

He originally wanted to go online to check out social news, but when he turned on his computer, he was notified that he had received a text message from Xu Xiaotian on the 1st of yesterday.

"Brother Tong, are you still alive?"

Guan Tong saw the text message and replied simply, "Still alive."

The fact that he received this text message proves that Xu Xiaotian also survived. It's a rare and good thing that someone he knows can survive within the rules.

After replying, he browsed the information online.

As expected, most of the information was related to the disaster situation in various places. Among them, the most severely affected were some villages near large cities.

Villages in remote areas were not severely affected by the disaster due to low snowfall. However, these villages near large cities faced the disadvantage of high population density but lacked the advantage of large cities being able to concentrate their disaster relief efforts.

This resulted in many similar villages being completely buried by blizzards, a truly terrifying sight.

Guan Tong saw some videos of villages taken by drones, and they were simply appalling.

The drone flew from one end of the village to the other and captured footage of houses almost entirely collapsed and buried by the blizzard, with no one in sight and the entire village disappearing into the snow.

Given this scene, one can only imagine what the fate of those villagers will be. Even more tragically, it's uncertain when their bodies will be recovered, as urban disaster relief efforts will prioritize the city's needs.

"In this way, the distribution of the population will probably go to two extremes in the future," Guan Tong thought. "One extreme is that the super-population will be concentrated in those mega-cities, and the other extreme is that some people will choose to leave the city and live a self-sufficient rural life in remote areas." Guan Tong tried searching for "Yunhua City" and found quite a few videos.

After clicking, you can see ice walls everywhere in the city, as well as shops that have collapsed along entire streets and large areas of buildings with collapsed roofs.

Without those ice walls, the entire city would look like it had been through a war or earthquake, a scene of utter devastation.

Guan Tong speculated that after these new rules are implemented, major cities across the country will likely undergo a sweeping collective transformation.

For example, after entering the post-apocalyptic era, most of the shops on the street are empty, with no employees or customers, so naturally they no longer have any value.

Even without this new regulation, the authorities would certainly be planning to demolish all these shops and make way for other construction projects that would better benefit the people's livelihoods.

For example, a large-scale supply warehouse could be established in every neighborhood. This way, in the event of a similar natural disaster, refugees could receive aid more quickly, instead of having to send transport vehicles inefficiently as is the case this time.

Of course, Guan Tong wasn't clear on the specifics of the official high-level planning. Since he wasn't in that position, worrying about it was pointless; he should focus more on things directly related to himself.

He then searched online for "tradeable items" and found that there were many people who were just as concerned about this issue as he was.

Some posts have pointed out that the introduction of tradable items will lead to a Matthew effect, with resources being siphoned off by powerful figures and organizations at an alarming rate.

Some people believe that powerful organizations, represented by the government, are likely to concentrate resources on a small number of elite ascendants, thereby accelerating their ascension and enabling them to serve the organization and acquire more resources, thus creating a positive cycle.

Many others share Guan Tong's concerns: the emergence of tradable items will deal a devastating blow to solo Ascendants, turning them into "unclaimed prey" for various organizations, all of whom will try to take a bite.

After browsing online for a while, Guan Tong felt that the social situation was roughly in line with her judgment, so she stopped looking at it and began to act according to her plan.

Over the next few days, while waiting for the snow to melt naturally, he continued to add words, store bullets, and start new pages in the blank book.

Wang Yan and her daughter Chen Na also took Guan Tong's advice and used their free time to improve their mental strength and further develop their items.

They all worked very hard, and even Chen Na, who was only 12 years old, vaguely understood a principle after learning about these rules: to survive, one must rely on one's own strength.

Several days passed, and by July 8th, the three of them had completely run out of food, and the snow on Mingdao Mountain had almost melted away.

Although there is still some snow on the road, it will only cause problems for small cars. Large trucks like Wang Yan's will have no problem driving.

After discussing it, the three decided to set off for Yunhua City the next morning to first check on Wang Yan's stomach ailment at the hospital. If it wasn't serious, Wang Yan planned to check the national highway conditions, and if everything was fine, she would take Chen Na to the capital, Yong'an.

Guan Tong will also be traveling back to Yunhua in the car, but he has no plans to go to the capital. He just intends to settle down first, complete his July plans, and deal with the rest later.

The night before departure, Guan Tong opened the "Wordless Book," and the words on the first page had already been added under his priority.

Looking at the words "Transformable Entity Guan Tong" on it, he infused it with his mental power and summoned it.

After the ethereal humanoid shadow appeared, Guan Tong commanded it to change its shape with his mind. The next moment, it transformed into a long straight line, just as Guan Tong had intended.

Guan Tong glanced at the terminal panel and was pleased to find that this transformation in the ethereal state did not consume mental energy.

With a thought, he commanded the shadow to transform according to his will. The shadow immediately changed from a straight line into something that looked like armor.

Guan Tong let it cover her body in this form, then used her mental energy to materialize it. The next moment, a set of pure black "shadow armor" appeared, enveloping Guan Tong's entire body.

“It really works!”

Guan Tong was overjoyed and transformed his shadow into a personal armor for defense. It was originally just an idea of ​​his, but he never expected that it could actually be realized.

In this way, as long as the attack cannot penetrate the materialized shadow, Guan Tong himself will not be harmed. And as long as his mental energy is not depleted, this "shadow armor" can be maintained indefinitely.

“Not bad.” He nodded in satisfaction. “With the Shadow Armor and this Multifunctional Protective Suit, I’m much safer from ordinary attacks.”

(End of this chapter)