Apocalyptic Rebirth: Earth's Vast Changes Chapter 1

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The pain from his head made Qin Luo groan and it was then followed by a string of curses. Headache? How could he experience a headache after his space and body were torn apart by the explosion? After mentally swearing several times, Qin Luo abruptly opened his eyes. What he saw shocked him.

A topographic map on a light blue background, detailed to even the smallest of islands. The view he had longed for in the past ten years of his time during the apocalypse. This three-story old villa, all of his loved ones, his bedroom, the bedroom ceiling map drawn personally by his parents. The touch of softness under him felt like his big bed.

What is this? Shouldn't he had died? How could he suddenly appear in this place which was once his home, and on his bed? Moreover his house should have been destroyed by the air raids on the third year of the apocalypse, where the military had chosen the simplest way to eliminate the zombies in a large scale. Qin Luo felt lightheaded, the pain he felt in his head makes it clear that he isn't dreaming.

“Hey, grandpa. I just took my eyes off you and you had taken my wok?”

Qin Luo heard a woman's nagging, it sounded strange but familiar. He turned his neck mechanically in the direction of the sound. A middle-aged woman, dressed modestly, was trying to snatch away the wok which was gripped tightly by an old man with a face who felt wronged.

“Grand- Grandpa*, Aunt Liu…” Qin Luo couldn't believe his eyes. He didn't even dare to blink. He was afraid that the two were just his delusions and would disappear if he did.

*T/N: As Chinese have different ways for addressing grandparents from the paternal and maternal sides. I will use grandfather for the paternal and grandpa for the maternal.

Aunt Liu turned around when she heard Qin Luo's call. Her face paled and she cried out, “Ah, Xiao Luo you are bleeding… Grandpa how could you hit him with the wok."

"Tv - I just imitated what I saw on the tv, but why does Qin Luo not have stars circling his head?" Grandpa said with a face full of grievances as he hid the wok behind him.

Qin Luo groaned whilst holding his sore head, he wasn't sure if he should laugh or cry as Aunt Liu came over to check his injury. That year the virus outbreak was too sudden and swift, although they had all survived the initial outbreak but they were all lost except for him during their escapes.

Qin Luo's bleeding gave Aunt Liu quite a scare as she hugged him with tears in her eyes, "Oh, my poor Xiao Luo, I would not know how to live on if your brain was injured by that hit. There is already one who is mad in the head, and one that is now slow-witted, how will I continue living if you were also turned stupid."

Aunt Liu was still crying when the room's door was pushed opened. "My tummy is hungry, you said you will give me cakes when you finish watering the garden, I want cake."

The tanned middle-aged man stood by the door rubbing his stomach while looking at Aunt Liu with an idiotic look on his face. Aunt Liu hates how she could not just fall over and forget all her troubles.

"Aunt Liu, I am fine. I just had a nightmare so I felt a little uncomfortable. Go ahead and whip up something for Uncle Liu, don't let him stay hungry." Qin Luo said as he gently pat Aunt Liu and wiped the tears off her face.

"He is as strong as a bull it's nothing if he goes hungry for a bit." Aunt Liu grumbled. She patted Qin Luo's head lightly with an aching heart, "Don't be sad, people always say dreams are the opposite of reality. Let Aunt Liu take a look at your injury. It is better if you take a trip to the hospital and do a scan. Grandpa is not light handed, so we should make sure that the injury is nothing serious."

Qin Luo chuckled “It's just a flesh wound, nothing serious, just slap a band-aid on and it's all good."

"That won't do, see it's already swollen." Aunt Liu frowned.

"You know that I get injured easily ever since I was a child. Even if I wasn't turned into a pincushion by the needles, the x-ray would have already turned me dumb, if I had to go to the hospital for every little injury.” Qin Luo hurried to persuade Aunt Liu.

Aunt Liu gave it a thought and she seemed to have heard of a fetus deforming due to being under some kind of scanning. She nodded her head hurriedly, "I will bring you something to apply on the wound to reduce the swelling, and there's no need to go for the scan."

Uncle Lie listlessly headed to the kitchen to find something to eat when he saw the two of them talking and ignoring him.

The old man took the chance to sneak the wok into his room. As he almost reached his door he was flawlessly blocked by the Aunt Liu's fast reflexes. The amazing explosive power of woman! With just three moves the wok was snatched back. She feared that her precious baby's head would be given another bump.

“It looks like I have to keep the wok under lock and key…” Liu Wei muttered.

After allowing Aunt Liu to treat his injury, Qin Luo laid down alone in bed in a daze.

He went back 11 years in time, one year before the apocalypse started, where he was still under the age of 19. He remembered that on the 14th of October this year, a special plane carrying 24 researchers and many advance equipment had lost contact with the ground command center shortly after takeoff from San Lorenzo airport. A rescue team found the plane wrecked early the next morning, in the jungles near San Lorenzo. None of the 24 researchers survived the crashed; this included Qin Luo's only sister, a genius in the field of genetics - Dr. Qin Ya and her husband and mentor, Walter Donaldson.

It is currently the end of July, B University where Qin Luo is enrolled in, is currently on break. He has roughly a month from the day of the accident. Qin Luo is confident he could convince the couple, along with his nephew who is currently overseas to come home within a few days. Compared to their research, 'A brother who is sick and dying' is more important. With their close relationship, if his brother-in-law dares to disagree with Qin Ya's return, the end result will absolutely be terrible.

Qin Luo is very anxious even though the accident would only occur in a month's time. However, he is more worried about the safety of Xiao Qin Ke. This was because the genetically inborn space of Qin Ke is not stable, the family had not noticed it before he reached the age of four. Plus with the hectic lifestyle of his sister and brother in law, the abnormality of Qin Ke was not discovered even after their death. That was precisely why Qin Luo did not fight for Qin Ke's custody with his brother-in-law's brother. Who would have thought after the eruption of the apocalypse, Qin Ke's space evolved rapidly and was discovered by that sly fox, Walter's brother, George Donaldson and he sold Qin Ke to Z.O. Institute. Although Qin Luo had manage to rescue him before he died, the little one was not even human after under several years of their inhumane experiments.

Due to the couple's busy schedule, Qin Ke is now being taken care of by George. Qin Ke is like an unstable time bomb and needs to be separated from that family as soon as possible.

The genetic inborn space does not necessarily appear in every generation of descendants. Before Qin Luo was born, except for his Grandfather*, his dad and sister did not have a portable space. As this space was not of the ordinary, Qin Luo's childhood was mainly spent coop up in the villa with his Grandfather, Grandpa, Uncle Liu, and Aunt Liu. Only after the age of six when he had decent control of his space and had a good understanding of the importance of secrecy of his space, was he allowed to attend elementary school.

Qin Luo always resented this 'space' in his younger days as it prevented him from playing with his friends. However, under the guidance of his Grandfather he gradually recognized the benefit of it. In addition, his sister who was hailed a genius, did not possess this supernatural 'thing'. These reasons made him appreciate his space more, and he put in the extra effort in his training with his Grandfather to cultivate and improve his space ability.

However in the last ten years after the apocalypse, he steadily found that his space was slightly different to the space his Grandfather talked about. As his space could be classified into two different spaces, the mother space which was an independent body whose growth progressed with his; another was known as a child space, which could be divided, transferred, and shared with others. With strong mental powers he could eventually transfer the child space to an object allowing that object to carry space. It's just that there are many restrictions to the child space and its capabilities are not comparable to the mother space.

According to calculations, currently Qin Luo's mother space should not be very spacious and should not be as sturdy as it was in the time of the apocalypse but its form should be solid. Thinking of this, Qin Luo inadvertently looked into his mother space. His face changed into an expression of shocked at what he saw.

He was unsure if it was due to the terrible explosion he suffered but the shape of his mother space had change from its original water drop shape to include a big platform under it. Qin Luo has an impression that the ground looks like half the shape of the yin and yang circle of the Ba Gua Zhong Xin. Furthermore, the curve of one edge of the wall was covered in fog, giving off the feeling that something was hidden behind it. Unfortunately, Qin Luo could not perceive what was hidden and could not extend his touch beyond the fog.

Originally at this time, other than some family items he had kept in his mother space it should had been empty. Qin Luo felt that he could not grasp the changes of his mother space without trying to store something in it. He stood up and threw some random items into the mother space. After pondering for some time, he waved his hand to a corner where his two miniature tortoise sat in a glass bowl.

In the eighth year of the apocalypse, Qin Luo's space could briefly accommodate living creatures. Qin Luo wanted to test if his space could accommodate living creatures after its change. Sadly, only the glass bowl was transferred to his space and his two miniature tortoises tumbled to the floor. The two tortoises flipped themselves around, stretched their heads out and slammed their tails on the floor accusing their master of his atrocities.

Qin Luo sighed. His mother space is similar to the past; it could still store items and suspends its time but regrettably he can't discern what other changes there were in this short period of time. However, for living creatures it seems to be out of the question. Scratching his head, he retrieved the glass bowl from his space and returned the two tortoises

He heard Aunt Liu calling for him from the floor below just as he laid back down on bed after returning all the items back to their original places. She said that there was an overseas package delivery for him. Qin Luo wrinkled his brows and in his heart he had felt a bad premonition.

Translator: DC Proofreader: Naito

Chapter end