My Apocalypse System Arrives 10 Years Early

Top Aunt had been good to him in the past, giving him her full support back when he was just starting out. Li Xiang had never forgotten her kindness and was deeply grateful, so he decided to pay her a visit.

With his speed, he could reach anywhere in the country in an instant.

Unfortunately, when he arrived, Top Aunt’s front door was shut tight. No one answered his knock; she clearly wasn’t home.

Li Xiang gave Top Aunt a call, but as expected, there was no answer.

Then, he sent her a message, asking if she needed any help or was short on supplies.

About half an hour later, Top Aunt finally replied: "I’m not short on anything, thank you. I’ve already moved. You don’t need to worry about me. If you have time, you should rescue some of the other fans."

Li Xiang: "..."

’She seems so much more distant now.’ Of course, he reasoned it might just be the nature of text messages. After all, texting wasn’t like a phone call; it was easy to misread the emotions between the lines.

Since Top Aunt was fine, he felt relieved. He sent a quick reply and went to take care of other matters.

「Yangcheng.」

A fan was trapped on an upper floor of his building, short on food and clothes.

"I told you to stock up, to get more supplies, but you just wouldn’t listen," his wife complained, staring at their empty refrigerator. "Now look at us. There’s nothing left to eat."

Their daughter was crying with hunger beside them.

"Should I go borrow a little from our neighbor?" the fan asked, ashamed.

"Don’t you dare!" his wife snapped.

"There’s really nothing going on with Xiaoqian next door! We’re just normal friends." The fan knew his wife was afraid he’d use this as an excuse to go chat with their neighbor.

"Like I’d believe that! If you go over there to ’borrow food,’ then don’t bother coming back!"

"But we can’t just starve to death, can we? I’ll ask the community center for help." Just as the fan was about to do that, he suddenly saw an announcement posted by Li Xiang in his fan group. He excitedly shared the news with his wife.

The fan said, "I’ve sent Brother Xiang plenty of gifts in the past. It’s not embarrassing to swallow my pride and ask for a little help in return at a time like this."

His wife, who was comforting their daughter, was skeptical. "Isn’t he in Sichuan Province? That’s thousands of miles away. Distant water can’t quench a nearby thirst!"

"Uh, look, there’s a new message in the group. Brother Xiang said it himself—he can make free home deliveries. He says he can get it to you within 24 hours anywhere on Earth. But, he has too many fans, so there might be a delay. It’s first-come, first-served, but if you’re completely out of supplies, you get priority."

"Well, give it a try then." Although his wife was still skeptical, she urged her husband to sign up quickly. There was no harm in trying, after all.

The fan described his urgent situation in the group chat.

About ten minutes later, someone knocked on their door.

The fan rushed to open the door, but there was no one there. All he saw was a large package of supplies on the floor with a note attached: "With regards from Brother Xiang."

The fan was stunned, then overjoyed. He yelled back into the apartment, "Honey, honey! Come help me with this! Brother Xiang really sent supplies!"

His wife came over to look and was also dumbfounded. "Holy crap, he’s like a god! How was he so fast?"

They carried the package inside and opened it. Upon inspection, they found a lavish spread: fresh beef, fresh vegetables, snacks, bottled water, emergency medicine, rice, flour, oil, salt—even seafood.

The couple was ecstatic. The first thing they did—before even starting to cook—was to snap a picture and post it in the group chat: "Thanks for the care package from Brother Xiang! This is an incredible surprise!"

This fan didn’t take Li Xiang’s supplies for free, either. He went to one of Li Xiang’s videos on his account and tipped him an amount equivalent to the value of the goods.

Like this fan, many others began sharing photos, saying they too had received "care packages from Brother Xiang" and expressing their immense gratitude.

With Li Xiang’s speed, helping fans across the country was a simple matter. He could even provide support to someone on the Space Station. Of course, the Space Station wasn’t likely to run out of supplies or suffer from floods. It could, however, face other kinds of emergencies, but that was a story for another time.

Some clever fans began to recall an old rumor and started to suspect it was true. The rumor, which originated on foreign websites, claimed that Li Xiang was the Mysterious Armored Man.

’Otherwise, how could he possibly be this fast?’

Li Xiang couldn’t be bothered to explain. The Apocalypse was almost here anyway, and with his current strength, he no longer feared his identity being exposed. Still, there was no need to admit it himself, so he simply gave no response to the rumors.

...

Even though the country’s countless water systems had been dredged previously, the pressure from the floods was still immense.

The entire Middle and Lower Yangtze River basin was on high alert.

The murky river water, nearly level with the tops of the levees, churned with whitecaps under a Level 8 gale. It carried tree trunks and animal carcasses washed down from upstream, slamming them against the flood-control sandbags.

Tens of thousands of soldiers used both mechanical arms and their own bodies to construct a defensive line. The temporary walls, built with fast-setting concrete, shed dust and debris with each slam of the river’s waves.

"Water level is 2.37 meters above the ’98 record!" The shriek of an alarm from the hydrological station cut through the downpour. Over twenty officials braved the rain to inspect the most dangerous sections of the levee. As the beams of their waterproof flashlights swept across the water, they could clearly see the remains of floating rooftops—the last vestiges of a nearby town on a tributary where the banks had already given way.

One of the officials sighed. "The water is so high and the current so violent... If General Li hadn’t reshaped the main channel of the Yangtze River, carved out twelve subterranean flood-diversion tunnels, and reinforced the levees, they would have burst long ago."

In truth, without Li Xiang’s dredging projects, the major river systems like the Yangtze and the Yellow River would have collapsed catastrophically long before now and would never have held out for this long.