It was an unfortunate fact, but the life expectancy in a regular modern world was less than a hundred years old. In most cases, it was already admirable for one to enter their eighties as it was officially reported that 79 was the average lifespan. Zhan Rong pa.s.sed at the age of 74 and like always, Jiang Li was helpless since, for an unknown reason, his points were useless on her. Even in the previous lifetimes, he never managed to extend her days through the system.
Before she died, she forced a smile and said with great difficulty, "Hey... Don"t go back to h.e.l.l, okay? I believe... in reincarnation. If Zhao Bolin and Gu Mochou can do it... I believe we can too... Jiang... Li... I will kill you... if you look for another!"
Perhaps because her words were so intermittent and sounded more emphasized, the latter parts became more threatening.
Jiang Li could not help but s.p.a.ce out for a moment before he chuckled helplessly at her, "You"re speaking nonsense, Ah Rong. Each time, I only look for you."
"Good," she replied after a long while. By the time she breathed her last as she could no longer fight back the call of the underworld, her face kept a smile. One would be compelled to think that she was in a good mood when she died.
Jiang Li was left in a complicated mood though, feeling sad, but as he was too used to it, he just shook his head.
"I"m done here," he said to himself.
As Zhan Rong was no longer in this world, he naturally would not choose to stay any longer. Anyway, the two of them did not have a kid of their own. There was no whatsoever emotional burden left when Jiang Li simply closed his eyes and vacated the body obtained several decades ago.
He had no idea when the people in the house would discover their icy bodies. It was no longer his concern since his soul immediately went back to the void.
"Congratulations on completing yet another mission!"
Immediately, he heard that crisp childish voice. Where else could it come from if not from the system?
A corner of his mouth went up into a sneer when it said, "Host, you are amazing. You an unsung hero for successfully preventing the destruction of the world!"
"Can"t it think of a more creative lie?"
"Cut it out. Just report my reward?"
To his annoyed tone, the child spirit only quietened down for a second before opening his mouth again. "Host. Your points are now exactly 50100! If you wish, it will be doable to visit one of the previous mission worlds."
The system dutifully announced his gains and Jiang Li frowned since all he got was less than three thousand points.
"Wait. I usually get five thousand per world. You mentioned half comes from you and half is from the soul client… So Dong Lan retaliated?"
"Hehe." If the spirit could only appear before the man, he would have smiled toothily at him.
"Why else?" The system wanted to say, if not for fear the conversation would lengthen and its host would try to pester it to increase the reward.
Jiang Li sneered at the silence he got as a response, a bit displeased as he looked at his total that barely reaches 50,000 even with the recent addition of points.
He didn"t complain though. He knew the major fault lies in him for he resorted to buying a body from the system after learning that Gu Mochou"s method only worked on newborns that just died. As for Dong Lan"s side, even he would split open that man"s skull if he gave him points even after what he did to Gu Mochou.
With a contemplative look on his face, Jiang Li went silent. He only had two options right now.
"If I were to go back like this… With no idea if it will plunge me straight into an apocalypse world, should I risk it even though I am with few points?"
The darkness of the place and the quietness of the system contributed a bit to his faster thought process.
"Hmm. The system never gave warnings about the point of time or place of arrival. And things could easily become sh*tty if it suddenly shoved me into the body of a weak, brainless zombie whose head would soon turn into beehive by a military unit."
"Uhh."
Not long after, he came into a decision.
"Whatever. Next world please." Jiang Li shrugged, not that bothered with the thought that it would take longer to meet the people he really wanted to meet.
"Okay, Host."
And with that as a cue, his vision darkened.
…
Many had predicted that a world war would be the end of humanity.
And well, they were all dead wrong.
Twelve hundred years ago, a third world war did raze down half the globe with various nuclear weapons fired by big nations against each other.
However, humans were oversized c.o.c.kroaches that had the ability to withstand any conditions as long as Earth held even the littlest amount of air and other resources.
Gone were three-fourths of the habitable lands, and more than a hundred fifty countries got erased from the map.
But overall, humanity survived.
After a hundred years, the Earth seemed to be slow on the track to recovery together with its greatest parasites called humans.
Development was sluggish since a lot of technology was lost. There was also so little that could be done about the lack of materials even if knowledge remained in the heads of brilliant scientists and information database of some organizations.
And food… This became the greatest problem. Water source too, since most bodies of water got contaminated.
Que sera, sera[1]. What could go wrong, would go wrong.
So many problems kept cropping up to hind their survival. It was not an exaggeration to say that it was simply a miracle that not everyone was pushed into a hopeless situation.
But then again, humanity survived. And after a few more hundred years, they went back to the level of the previous civilization, and even gradually exceeded it.
They were only putting a break on their reproductive capability to lessen the need for food and s.p.a.ce. It was a strategy that worked well while they waited patiently for more land and resource areas to slowly recover or to be discovered.
Hope was never lost. It would never be. A spark of it would always exist somewhere.
A dark age might have been forced onto humanity who were made to dwell on domed cities, but it also forced them to reconsider their morals and values, and become more resourceful and united.
Great leaders sprouted one by one. Even if it was an era of desperation, they were long past the time when robbers, beggars, and starving citizens filled the street. Order returned to its truest sense. They were surviving without antagonizing one another or causing harm to the environment.
What a dreamy world, right?
It was like the war had devastated an enormous part of the world, but in return, its most dominant specie became more cohesive, sympathetic with each other, and were repenting for their crimes against nature by being more caring towards it.
Alright, that was all just nonsense. Even toddlers would not believe such a blatant lie.
While the part about humans being ushered into dark age was true, and perhaps the emergence of great leaders too, there was one thing that was long proven harder to change than an entire dynasty - human nature.
Human were gifted in survival, but they were inherently greedy and p.r.o.ne to commit stupid acts. Weren"t the barren lands still filled with radiations and other harmful substance the greatest proof? FYI, some parts of the land were ravaged not only once, but multiple times because whenever conflicts arose, they settled it out on those areas for a fairly obvious reason.
Humans being united was a pipe dream. It was impossible. Hope, there might be. But various interests would always clash. Language was a barrier. Racism still exists. And because countries were reestablished, compet.i.tion for resources became more brutal as everything had become more limited than before the world war.
They couldn"t focus solely on exploring the outer s.p.a.ce to get more resources from there due to the various conflicts.
This continued even after a treaty among the new nations was established.
.... That was until a powerful and genuine reason that warranted the unity of the whole humanity suddenly arrived and everyone was made to open their eyes on what real madness and hopelessness was.
A serious threat that if not resolved as soon as possible would prove worse than the extinction of their entire race.
[1] What will be, will be