SSFxWD Ch.3: Strange eggs

"It is now 9:00 AM Beijing time, December 23, 2021. Last night, rare and unusually intense meteor shower-like phenomena were observed worldwide. Observation reports indicate that the peak flux of this meteor-like event reached approximately 300,000 meteors, lasting a total of 2 hours and 14 minutes—a scale that has broken the record for the largest meteor shower in history..."

"Experts point out that 'meteor showers' originally refer to predictable and regular astronomical phenomena caused by specific meteoroid streams entering Earth's atmosphere. Among them, nearly all meteoroids are too small to pass through the atmosphere and reach the Earth's surface."

"However, the cause of this meteor-like event remains unknown. A large number of 'meteorites' that defy the laws of physics have fallen in the southeastern, northeastern, and western regions of our country, with no casualties reported so far..."

"These 'meteorites' are 3 centimeters in diameter and have a translucent appearance, very likely related to the mysterious countdown that appeared worldwide earlier. Before relevant official agencies confirm their safety, the public is urged to avoid contact with this substance. If a 'meteorite' is accidentally discovered, please immediately call 099 to notify the regional public security department, or voluntarily turn it in to the district-level government in your area..."

In the dimly lit room, a female voice enunciated clearly.

After a long while, the person in bed turned over with difficulty and turned off the scheduled morning news push notification.

Today was supposed to be some important day, wasn't it?

Oh, right—the end of the world.

Lin Qiukui crawled out of bed, still heavy with sleep, grabbed both sides of the curtains, and whisked them open with a whoosh.

Scenes of monsters, blood, corpses, despair spreading everywhere, and a crumbling social order... none of that was there.

Instead, the road below the dormitory was tidy, the buildings intact, and the cafeteria in the distance wafted the warm aroma of food.

The underground passage was bustling with crowds of students heading to early classes. Apart from the lingering, faint gray mist that wouldn't dissipate, everything seemed perfectly normal.

"So much for the promised apocalypse, Boss?"

She asked for quite a while but got no response—the system was probably in its routine sleep mode.

Whatever.

After sleeping a full twelve hours straight, her fatigue had eased somewhat, and her stomach was now growling. After a quick wash-up, Lin Qiukui wrapped herself in a down jacket and decided to be unusually diligent by heading to the snack street across from the school to buy some soup dumplings.

The snack street, also known as food street, was separated from Qingda's living area by a small park.

In the park lived a calico stray cat named Peng Peng, notorious for her habit of lying by the entrance of the living area and "faking illness to scam passersby." A month ago, Peng Peng had given birth to a litter of kittens. Worried they wouldn't make it through the winter, school volunteers had built her a shelter, regularly provided food and water, and planned to start adoption drives once the kittens were two months old, while also taking the mother cat to be spayed.

Lin Qiukui had money and free time, and sometimes when passing through the park, she'd also drop by to offer snack cans or other treats.

This time, she brought Peng Peng's favorite pouch-style cat food—nutritious, balanced, and delicious. Normally, the cat would have abandoned her kittens and rushed over to gobble it down.

But today, something was off. Despite the familiar food and familiar benefactor, the cat remained coldly motionless inside her cat house. Her two usually round, endearing gray eyes were unnaturally narrowed into slit-like pins.

"Don't recognize me just because I haven't been here for a few days?"

Lin Qiukui tore open the seal and pushed it closer to the cat bed.

Unexpectedly, the scent of the cat food didn't put Peng Peng at ease it only made her more agitated. A low, guttural growl of menace rumbled from her throat.

And it was then that the feeder noticed something wrong: there seemed to be a faint smell of blood around the cat house...

Looking closer, a strange dark red crust had formed on the mother cat's paws and pads. It looked like blood.

Had she been in a fight and gotten hurt?

What about the kittens...?

Following the scent, she parted the grass and within three steps of the cat house, a gruesome sight of torn limbs and shattered bodies came into view.

Peng Peng had given birth to seven kittens in this litter. The little ones had been around humans since birth and were especially trusting of the students who passed by. Whenever they heard someone call their mother's name, they'd wobble over excitedly to lick fingers looking absolutely adorable.

Now they were all lying here, not a single one missing.

Some had their bellies split open, others had hollow eye sockets, and two had their heads crushed entirely. Who had done this?

Lin Qiukui frowned and was about to notify the volunteers when, out of the corner of her eye, she saw the pile of mangled flesh twitch. A tiny kitten, covered in blood, crawled out from under the remains.

It was small and thin, limping as it made its way to the human's feet, opening its mouth to spit out a clot of blood. Exhausted, it collapsed by her shoes, its round eyes staring straight up at her.

"MROW!!!"

Seeing her baby, the mother cat's fur bristled instantly. She let out a fierce hiss and lunged forward.

Lin Qiukui instinctively shielded the kitten with both hands.

In the blink of an eye, her sleeves were torn into several ragged strips. From the base of her hand all the way to her elbow, deep, long scratches appeared, stinging sharply. She hissed in pain, but Peng Peng who had always been gentle and friendly showed no reaction at all.

She crouched low, her back arched into a tense bow, and the look in her eyes was filled with a deeply human-like resentment as if it were humans who had first taken away what she cherished most. Step by step, she retreated into the depths of the grass, disappearing into the shadows, gone.

What was going on?

And what was this?

Lin Qiukui picked up the kitten and noticed, beneath its body, an object that looked like a marble.

"Don't touch it."

A male voice rang out in her mind—calm and cold in tone.

Lin Qiukui: "Is it dangerous?"

"Avoid direct contact as much as possible."

So indirect contact was okay, then?

She pulled a pair of knitted gloves from her coat pocket, but just then, a startled cry came from behind her.

Turning her head, she saw a girl in a knitted jacket, about two meters away, holding another strange "marble" in both hands.

The girl's palm had been sliced open by something sharp, and blood flowed along the lines of her hands to her wrists—some soaking into her sleeves, some dripping onto the ground with a steady drip, drip. Yet she seemed completely oblivious to the pain, simply staring blankly at the marbles in a daze.

One minute.

Two minutes.

A full five minutes passed, and the girl stood there like a statue, a smile gradually spreading across her lips.

"Hey, classmate—"

Lin Qiukui took off her coat and wrapped the kitten in the warm inner layer, planning to remind the girl to tend to her wound.

But upon hearing the sound, the girl reacted as if she were encountering a robber.

She immediately closed her palms together, clutching the marble tightly to her chest, shot Lin Qiukui a hostile glare, and bolted in the opposite direction.

"..."

How strange.

Lin Qiukui withdrew her attention and bent down to pick up the marble from the ground.

It was a transparent sphere no more than three centimeters in diameter, soft to the touch, covered on the outside with a layer of slimy, foul-smelling mucus.

After wiping off the mucus, she could see with the naked eye that there were tiny patterns on its surface—rings upon rings, layers upon layers. At first glance, they might remind one of spiral threads. But what was more bizarre was that they had no beginning and no end.

Far more intricate and subtle than anything within ordinary human understanding, when you stared at it carefully, a peculiar feeling would arise: It's alive.

Yes. This thing was likely a complex, ancient, and long-standing pictographic script, or perhaps some kind of undeciphered code—a pattern that could bewilder the human eye and mind. In any case, it was far more than just circles that looked alike.

—It was far from simple.

Inside the marble swirled wisps of crimson threads, and at its very center was a dark green nucleus, jagged in shape, hard to describe.

If one had to put it in human language, it somewhat resembled a curled-up infant embryo after gestation and the entire marble was like a glowing egg.

Staring at it, Lin Qiukui suddenly felt a violent wave of nausea, as if some kind of unease was about to surge up from her throat.

But this wasn't something she felt subjectively.

Including the twitching of her cheeks and the trembling of her fingers as they pinched the "marble" through the fabric—these were all involuntary reactions of her body. They had neither the consent of her brain nor the control of her nerves. It was as if...

They were doing everything in their power to express their own fear.

"The meteorites brought by the meteor-like shower..."

Recalling what the news report had said, Lin Qiukui simply couldn't associate this kind of thing with natural phenomena.

"What exactly is this?" she asked.

The system: "The initial form of the alien species. You humans call them alien eggs."

"And what are the alien species?"

"Per the original plot setting, the alien species are both the cause of Blue Star's apocalypse and its end. They are currently in a dormant state."

In other words, the countdown was over, gone, and the alien species had arrived—and were now hibernating.

So the apocalypse had begun, but not quite fully begun yet.

After calling the 099 government hotline, Lin Qiukui searched for nearby pet clinics while asking: "So when will they wake up?"

"Look up."

The system always liked to be brief.

She raised her gaze and saw, in the slanted corner of the sky shrouded by gloomy haze, a new countdown had appeared once again.

62:00:00

"After this countdown ends, all alien species will awaken in the darkness and will convert humans into their kind at the fastest possible speed."

"According to the original text's statistics, there are a total of five countdowns throughout the entire story. During the first countdown, approximately 8.62 million alien eggs descended, with 520,000 accidentally lost and 5.42 million sinking into the ocean. During the second countdown, approximately 7.99 million alien eggs descended, with 400,000 accidentally lost and 3.02 million sinking into the ocean."

"The total number of alien eggs that landed on the Earth's surface across both countdowns was 8.41 million. Through two different methods—physical infection and mental contamination—they spawned 4.44 million hybrids, destroyed nearly 20% of the world's land cities, directly caused the deaths of 33.57 million humans, and indirectly caused countless more."

Suddenly, it all felt very real.

After reciting the numbers, the system reminded her again: "Detected that current space usage is only 15%, below the average data. New side quest issued: Increase utilization rate to 50% before the second countdown. Completing the task will earn rewards."

"Got it."

The map showed a pet hospital within 500 meters. After waiting on the spot for government personnel to come and collect the alien egg, Lin Qiukui walked to the clinic, paid to have the kitten hospitalized for emergency treatment, and also had her own wounds tended to.

Then she went to her favorite breakfast shop to have a basket of soup dumplings. Before leaving, she placed a deposit and ordered 200 portions each of soup dumplings, pan-fried buns, boiled dumplings, pan-fried dumplings, fried dumplings, and wontons, agreeing to pick them up at noon.

She didn't know much about car modifications, but after some effort, she found a reliable underground workshop. Relying on last-minute crammed knowledge, she laid out her basic requirements: "Reinforce every part that can be reinforced, replace the glass with bulletproof glass, and swap the tires for all-terrain models. Install a row of powerful spotlights on each of the four sides of the roof, and weld metal bars over all the windows..."

Finally, she added: "As for the rest, just assume the apocalypse has hit and the whole family is hiding in the car to survive. Make it as sturdy and convenient as possible."

The workshop owner was well-traveled and claimed to have served similar extreme-culture enthusiasts before. As long as the money was right, he guaranteed he could turn the three vehicles into impenetrable mobile fortresses, deliver them personally within seven days, and accept no payment if unsatisfied.

Lin Qiukui was very satisfied. She paid double the deposit for super expedited service and agreed on a delivery time of 5:00 PM the next day.

Finally, she returned to the household goods wholesale market. At the top of the list were furniture items like beds, bathtubs, tables, chairs, bedding, bowls, chopsticks, spoons, kettles, rice cookers, electric pots, ovens, clothes racks, and more.

At the bottom were small items like toothpaste, toothbrushes, facial cleansers, disposable towels, body wash, shampoo, laundry detergent, hairdryers, toolkits, disinfectants... And snacks, beverages, and frozen foods—dozens of cases of each—so she'd never have to worry about running out.

After buying all that, plus nearly a thousand baskets of buns, space utilization shot up to 30%.

Remembering there was an afternoon class taught by the notoriously sharp-eyed vice dean, also called the "Extinction Grandmaster," so though feeling tired from shopping anyway, Lin Qiukui slowly made her way back to the classroom, took a seat in the last row, and started browsing e-commerce app categories on her phone.

She skipped everything in beauty, men's and women's clothing, accessories, luggage, and general merchandise.

Various digital gadgets could be useful—she hadn't stocked up on fresh produce and fruit yet either.

Health supplements and medicines could use some more additions...

Just as she was happily filling in the gaps, a sharp reprimand came from the podium: "That student in the back what exactly are you looking at?!"

Thinking she was being called out, the slacker immediately let go of her phone and put on a humble, attentive expression.

But then the associate dean left the lectern, walked past her row, and stopped right in front of the seat ahead of hers.

"What's so interesting? Let me have a look too."

He frowned and held out his hand.

This was the classic expression before the "Extinction Grandmaster" unleashed his wrath. The classroom fell so silent you could hear a pin drop except for the male student with his forehead pressed against the desk, completely unbothered, his shoulders trembling slightly as if he were holding back laughter.

"What's so funny? Is your teacher funny? Or are the attentive students around you funny? A single class is 45 minutes long have you even looked up at the blackboard once?! I don't care what your high school teachers told you—college students are still students, and students should be listening to me properly!"

Seeing the vice dean getting angry, a friend of the student elbowed him: "Ah Ke, Ah Ke just give it to him."

"Huh?" The male student looked up, his face full of confusion as if he had no idea what was going on.

"So this is what you've been staring at the whole class?"

The vice dean snatched the hidden object from his desk drawer—a gleaming, radiant alien egg.

"Is this the meteorite the news was talking about?"

"Ah Ke, where'd you get that? Get one for me to play with too, will you?"

The classmates whispered among themselves.

Two seconds later, a sweet smile suddenly bloomed across the old dean's wrinkled face.

"How beautiful."

He sighed in admiration, as if cradling a newborn infant.

With utmost tenderness and affection, he pressed a kiss to the surface of the alien egg.