The end of the world begins with failing an exam

Chapter 1 The Haze of Sentinel Hill
The dog days in Sentinel Ridge are always so tormenting, the hot weather combined with the humidity in the mountains, it seems that even the air has turned into a sticky and invisible swamp.

On the mass grave in the back mountain.

Chen Jing held a hoe hesitantly, looking at the name of his grandfather "Chen Bofu" on the white marble tombstone in front of him, his expression was full of hesitation.

What he hesitates is...

Do you want to dig up his grave according to your grandfather's instructions?
two days ago.

Chen Jing, who was working in the provincial capital, received a call from his grandfather. Before that, the two of them had not been in touch for a long time.

On the phone, the old man's voice sounded very strange.

There is also a slight current sound of bad signal in the stiffness.

"—Come back [*signal noise]—"

"—go to the east of Back Mountain [*signal noise] and dig up my grave—I left something for you—"

"—Take it away—and [*increasing cacophony]—"

The call was cut off here, and Chen Jing was confused.

Chen Jing knew exactly what kind of person his grandfather was.

Old-fashioned and serious.

Hard and cold.

Like a piece of rusted iron.

The old man is not the kind of person who can make jokes, not to mention that Chen Jing has never seen him laugh since he was a child.

Could it be that he is talking nonsense when he is old and not clear-headed?

Nor should it.

Chen Jing knew how strong the old man's body was.

It is no exaggeration to say that in Chen Jing's memory, the old man has never been ill, let alone Alzheimer's disease.

So after Chen Jing received the call, he immediately bought the ticket back home.

"What the hell is going on...how did you die suddenly..."

Chen Jing looked at the name on the tombstone with a complicated expression, feeling bewildered and sad.

Chen Jing's parents left when he was less than one month old.

The only relatives he remembers are his grandparents.

But grandpa was like a transparent person in Chen Jing's life. He never took care of him since he was a child, and it would not be too much to say that he was the most familiar stranger.

Chen Jing only felt the warmth of his family from his grandma.

So after his grandma passed away, he left Sentinel Ridge, and only came back to see the old man during the holidays.

"How much do you hate my grandma... You obviously bought a place for a joint burial in the cemetery... I didn't expect you to die and would not want to go there..."

Thinking of all the past, the expression on Chen Jing's face became more and more complicated.

He hesitated again and again, knelt down and kowtowed three times, then walked around to the side of the grave with the hoe in hand.

Chen Jing finally decided to fulfill the old man's entrustment, and Mou Zujin dug down with a hoe...

"Oh!"

Every time Chen Jing digs the grave, he uses [-]% of his strength.

Every time he swung the hoe, his eyes would turn red.

Until finally the blackened urn was dug out.

Chen Jing's red eyes were already full of tears, but there was no sound from his mouth.

he knows.

From now on, he has no relatives in this world.

"It's really okay to leave something for me in the tomb...it won't be the real estate certificate of the old house..."

Old people's urns are different from common urns.

The style seems to have been chosen by him.

The cold, bruised black box without any pattern was exactly the same as the old man's temperament.

Chen Jing suspected that the box was the same as the old man.

All made of iron.

A piece of letter paper cut into a square was pasted on the box, and seven large official script characters were carved on the surface.

"It's inside, open it."

Chen Jing could recognize that it was his grandfather's handwriting, so he hesitated for a while, and finally opened the urn with courage...

next second.

Chen Jing was stunned.

Because there were no ashes in the box as he imagined.

There is only one key.

a note.

and an old DV camcorder.

There was only one sentence on the note.

The handwriting is hastily written.

Even the last word was not finished, Chen Jing guessed it.

"Remember to watch the video on the DV!"

At this moment, Chen Jing suddenly had the feeling of playing a reasoning game. Instead of ashes, the urn contained these things...

Is the old man not dead? ?

Thinking of this, the sadness in Chen Jing's eyes instantly disappeared.

"What the hell is the old man doing..." Chen Jing murmured, picking up the camera from the iron box with a puzzled expression.

Let me remember to watch the video in DV?

Chen Jing looked at the DV in his hand.

in his memory.

This camera has never been in his home.

But this machine is obviously not new. Even if the old man just bought it, it is probably second-hand. Even the LOGO sticker on it is blurred and white, and the trademark of "Old Suojia" can only be barely recognized.

"Buy second-hand goods and buy brands... The old man is trying to recharge his faith..."

Chen Jing checked the DV carefully. Fortunately, the operation of this machine, which is almost ten years behind, is not complicated. After simply turning it on, he began to search for the videos stored in the DV.

There is only one video stored in this camera.

After clicking play.

The picture appears on the flip display.

That should have been taken by the old man in his study.

Due to the age of the camera, the shooting pixels are not very clear, so the entire video looks blurry, which is basically a battle-damaged picture quality.

"By the time you saw this video, I should have disappeared."

The skinny old man was wearing a knitted coat and sitting in front of the desk, with the same cold and blunt expression as before, as if the whole person was made of pig iron, and his dry and hoarse voice could not hear any emotional components.

"I know you have a lot of questions, but I don't have much time and I don't have time to explain to you. Listen carefully to every word I say..."

Chen Jing stood beside the grave bag with a video camera, frowning as he watched the scene being played in the video.

He didn't understand what the old man wanted to do, and what the phrase "I should have disappeared" meant.

Is it missing?
still is……

"Human civilization has come to an end...the end is coming..."

Hearing the old man's words, Chen Jing, who was holding the video camera, couldn't help being startled, and most of the worries in his heart were diluted by these wild words.

It seems the old man is crazy.

Not too crazy.

"You old lunatic...how many years have passed since 2012..."

Chen Jing couldn't help sighing, looking at the grave that he had dug open on the ground, he felt extremely helpless.

"Did you trick me back just to make prophecies for the cos Mayans..."

"I did not lie to you."

The old man in the video seemed to have heard Chen Jing's words, and there was a hint of anxiety in those cold eyes.

"Before returning to China... yes! It was 72 years! That year, my colleagues and I were employed by the 'Wood Private Consortium' to go to Antarctica for investigation. That's what was recorded on the ancient tablet I found in Antarctica!"

1972 years?
Chen Jing couldn't help being stunned for a moment, because he remembered that his grandma said that the old man was once a talented student studying abroad. After returning from the other side of the ocean in 1973, he only met her because of an accident...

Before 1973, the old man had been living on the other side of the ocean.

It seems to be a professor of archeology at a university.

As for which university it is, grandma didn't say clearly, and the old man himself couldn't say it... But it is undeniable that Chen Jing had never believed these words before.

He really couldn't imagine it.

An old man who lived in an earthen village at the junction of Sichuan and Guizhou once worked as a university professor on the other side of the ocean... Is this possible?
"No one knows the existence of that stele except me, so I brought it back secretly. It seems to have a magical power that has been bewitching me, making me keep deciphering the content on it..."

"I was eroded by the content above..."

Suddenly, two voices sounded in the video.

One is grandpa's.

The other one belongs to grandpa too.

Chen Jing originally thought it was a problem with the video recording. It was normal for the old machine to freeze, but the grandfather in the video had already started beating the desk hysterically.

"To shut up!"

"Being eroded...I...everyone...will die..."

In the video, the old man tugged at his white hair, and for the first time there was an expression other than a deadpan expression on his blunt and cold face.

That is pain.

"I'm running out of time!"

The old man was staring at the camera hysterically, the whites of his yellow and turbid eyes were covered with bloodshot eyes, the crazy look in his eyes made Chen Jing shudder.

"I've deciphered that stele! So I woke up! I'm not crazy anymore! I know I've been sorry to you and your grandma all these years!"

"So I want to save you! I must save you!"

If the words and deeds of the old man before were insane in Chen Jing's eyes, then what he said at this moment made Chen Jing suddenly feel a little bit.

Maybe he was telling the truth?

Could it be that he stayed in the study like a lunatic all these years, didn't care about the family, and never shed tears even when grandma died... just because he had been going crazy before?

"Listen carefully to the next words! I can say as much as I can!"

"When every civilization develops to a certain stage, it will be pulled into a biological leap exam. If the exam fails, the traces of civilization will be wiped out. This is how the last civilization on the earth perished, so..."

At this moment, the video began to vibrate violently.

Like a TV picture where the signal is affected.

A large snowflake screen appeared.

Even the old man's voice became intermittent, mixed with harsh and boring electric noise.

"The machine is about to break [*signal noise] - hot [*signal noise] - I know it's [*signal noise] interfering - [*signal noise] are after me-"

"The iron box is for [*signal murmur] - take away - box back [*signal murmur] - or [*signal murmur] will find you-"

"We made a deal - I finally got you a [*signal murmur] - bought some time to deal with the end [*signal murmur] -"

"[*signal noise]—[*signal noise]——"

Accompanied by the lengthy current noise, the image and sound of the old man have completely disappeared from the display screen, and the picture has been distorted into strobe lines and snowflakes.

"What the hell is going on..." Chen Jing's forehead was covered with cold sweat.

Although he didn't know what the old man meant by these words, and he couldn't even believe that the "doomsday theory" was true, but the old man's paranoid and crazy behavior really frightened him.

But at this moment, the screen flickered violently a few times, and suddenly returned to normal without warning.

The image of the old man is extremely clear, even too clear for this old machine...

It's as real as looking in a mirror.

Different from the crazy look before, the old man in the picture is very calm, with a smile on his face.

To be honest, Chen Jing is really a little scared now.

Because he had never seen the old man smile.

The old man even had a sullen face in some old photos full of memories.

"I'll take you there now."

"Where are you taking me?"

Chen Jing asked subconsciously, and then he couldn't help being startled for a moment, only to feel that he was talking to the video stupidly.

But in the next second, he knew that he was not stupid.

"Go where you need to go,"

The old man in the video seemed to be able to see Chen Jing and hear what he said. After giving the answer, the old man raised his hand and reached for the camera.

At this moment, Chen Jing was still immersed in the question of "is it a coincidence or is it haunted?" When he realized it, a pair of pale and shriveled hands had already stretched out from the display screen...

After the pale hands experienced a sharp deformation from thin to thick, they grabbed Chen Jing's neck before he was so frightened that he threw away the camera.

Then slammed in the direction of the screen.

In an instant.

Chen Jing disappeared.

The camera fell to the mud for a moment, and the screen flickered twice and then went out.

At the moment of black screen.

An old sigh comes from the camera's speaker.

It's a pity that Chen Jing never had the chance to hear it again.

"Jingjing...don't blame me..."

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(End of this chapter)