Chapter 1: 24-Hour Survival Rate: 2.1%

When Lin Wan opened her eyes, she was holding a carton of milk cold enough to sting her hand.

The white light from the refrigerated case reflected off the glass doors, and the compressor hummed low and steady.

There were no customers in the convenience store. The shelves were neatly lined up, and the coffee machine beside the register glowed with its standby light.

Outside the automatic doors was a street swallowed by night. Streetlamps lit the slightly damp asphalt, and every so often a car passed by in the distance.

Everything looked normal.

But Lin Wan had no memory of ever coming here, and no memory of ever working in a convenience store.

The last thing she remembered was her own room.

Her phone was still on, and she had been lying in bed rereading a novel. She had fallen asleep halfway through.

When she opened her eyes again, she was standing in this unfamiliar convenience store, still wearing a uniform.

Lin Wan put the milk back into the refrigerated case and looked down at the name tag on her chest.

Lin Wan.

Her name.

A blurry face reflected in the glass door.

She stepped closer. The girl in the reflection looked younger than her, with black hair tied back, pale skin, a faint bluish tint beneath her eyes from long nights without sleep, and a shallow scar at the outer end of her right eyebrow that she had never had before.

This wasn't her face.

Lin Wan subconsciously walked deeper into the store. Stranger still, even though she had no idea where the break room was, her feet naturally carried her around the shelves, to the gray door beside the storage room. She even reached out and switched on the wall light without thinking.

The cramped break room had a duty roster hanging on the wall, and an old mirror above the sink.

The girl in the mirror looked straight at her.

Lin Wan turned on the faucet and splashed cold water on her face. Ice-cold droplets ran down her chin, but the person in the mirror did not change at all.

Kidnapping, memory loss, even plastic surgery couldn't explain what she was seeing.

She was still trying to sort out her thoughts when a violent pain suddenly exploded deep in her temple.

A flood of unfamiliar memories surged into her mind without warning.

The occasional faulty key on the register, the location of the coffee beans in the stockroom, the work that had to be handled at dawn, the store manager who always liked to sneak off for cigarettes, and the landlord who came to collect rent promptly on the third of every month.

More scenes followed one after another.

An old welfare home, windows that never shut properly in winter, a rusty slide in the courtyard. The year she turned eighteen, she dragged her suitcase away, and the director secretly stuffed an envelope full of cash into her hands.

"If something comes up, come back. Don't try to carry everything on your own."

After that, she had never gone back to ask for help once.

Restaurants, factories, supermarkets, and finally this convenience store.

Because the night shift paid well, she had rented a tiny apartment nearby and lived alone.

No parents, no siblings, and no one she could call at any hour in the middle of the night.

The pain gradually faded.

Lin Wan braced herself against the sink, cold sweat already beading on her forehead.

She now knew every corner of this store, and with it, she had gained an entire life. Those memories were so ordinary they barely seemed worth remembering, yet they were real enough that she couldn't deny them.

She looked back at the mirror.

The owner of this body was also called Lin Wan.

Beyond that, the two of them had nothing to do with each other.

Those suddenly appearing memories had not replaced her original life. She still clearly remembered who she was, and she could still tell which things truly belonged to her.

This wasn't amnesia.

She had come to another person's body.

When she truly understood that, the first thing Lin Wan thought of was her original self.

Was the body that had been sleeping in bed still alive?

Was she only a consciousness that had left, or had she already died?

Was the original world still continuing on?

No one could answer that.

Lin Wan stood there for a moment, then raised a hand and wiped the water from her chin.

At least for now, she was still alive.

Just then, a line of white text suddenly appeared in the center of her vision.

[Detected: host consciousness activity has recovered.]

Lin Wan's breathing stalled for a beat.

She turned her head, but the text remained fixed in her field of vision. Even after she closed her eyes, the words only became clearer.

[Rechecking host status.]

[Biometric identification matches.]

[Host identity confirmed.]

The lines disappeared one by one, and new prompts immediately appeared.

[External environmental risk exceeds safety threshold.]

[Emergency survival mode activated.]

[Newcomer tutorial activated.]

[Time remaining: 23:59:59.]

The countdown began to tick.

Lin Wan stared at the number.

"Can you hear me?"

[Yes.]

"What are you?"

[Eden Survival Assistance System.]

"Why are you on me?"

[Eden has been implanted into the host's body.]

Implanted.

Lin Wan frowned.

"Who implanted it?"

[Insufficient privileges.]

"Did you bring me here?"

[Insufficient privileges.]

"How do I go back?"

[Insufficient privileges.]

"Can you be removed or shut down?"

[Unable to comply.]

A few consecutive answers were enough for her to understand that continuing to ask about the source was meaningless.

"What can you do?"

[Based on the immediate environment, host status, and existing information, I will construct a survival model and, when necessary, provide survival advice.]

"Will you force me to follow it?"

[No.]

"Is there a penalty for refusing?"

[No.]

At the very least, it wasn't the kind of thing that killed the host the moment she failed.

"What is the newcomer tutorial?"

[During the newcomer tutorial, the host may ask the system basic functions and survival-related questions. After the tutorial ends, system interaction privileges will be reduced.]

Lin Wan glanced at the timer still counting down.

Twenty-four hours.

"Then what's my survival rate?"

The words that had appeared at the start surfaced in front of her again.

[24-hour survival rate: 2.1%]

Lin Wan stared at the number.

"So that means I have a 97.9% chance of dying within a day?"

[Yes.]

"Main reason?"

[Unable to confirm at present.]

"You don't know the reason, but you can calculate the survival rate?"

[The survival rate is the result of calculating multiple risk variables. The model will continue to be adjusted with new information.]

Lin Wan fell silent.

The original owner was twenty-two. Aside from long-term sleep deprivation, she had no serious illness and no immediate danger.

Under normal circumstances, she couldn't possibly have nearly a 98% chance of dying within twenty-four hours.

Unless the real danger wasn't aimed only at her.

"Current time and location."

[3:47 a.m.]

[117 Yong'an Road, Ping'an District, Qinghe City.]

Qinghe City.

Lin Wan had never heard of this city before.

She asked for the date as well. The answer was only one day different from the one before she fell asleep, and the year was exactly the same.

The time was almost synchronized, but the world was different.

Lin Wan walked out of the break room and found the original owner's phone under the register. First she searched for the city she had originally lived in, then she checked familiar schools, companies, and several well-known public figures.

None of the results matched.

This really wasn't the world she had come from.

Once she confirmed that, she actually calmed down a little. Since there was no way back for the time being, the thing she needed to know most right now was where that absurdly low survival rate was coming from.

Lin Wan opened the local news.

The top headline was an urgent report posted less than two hours earlier.

"Man attacks passersby with a knife late at night in North City. Three injured. Police preliminarily judge the attacker to be mentally unstable."

Scrolling down, there were more such reports than she had expected.

An emergency patient suddenly attacks medical staff. Indiscriminate street assaults. Several officers had to work together before they could subdue an out-of-control man.

The causes listed by the news varied: mental illness, alcohol-related violence, unknown drugs. At first glance, they seemed entirely unrelated.

But Lin Wan noticed that similar incidents had been increasing over the past few days.

She opened a video shot by a passerby.

Beside a dim road, a man was pinned to the ground by several people. His left arm was clearly broken, and his face was covered in blood, yet he still struggled with unnatural strength, as if he felt no pain at all.

The image shook violently.

The man suddenly lifted his head and lunged with his mouth at the nearest person.

The video ended there.

Lin Wan looked through a few more reports.

Abnormally violent.

Difficult to restrain.

Slow response to pain.

In two of the incidents, witnesses mentioned biting.

"Are these things related to my survival rate?"

[There may be a connection.]

"Do you know why?"

[Current information is insufficient.]

Just as Lin Wan was about to keep searching, the convenience store's automatic door suddenly slid open.

"Welcome."

A mechanical female voice rang out.

A man in a gray coat came in, one hand braced against the doorframe.

He looked about thirty. His face was pale, and his right hand was clamped hard over his left shoulder. Blood had already soaked through his coat, dripping down his arm and leaving intermittent streaks on the floor tiles.

When the man saw Lin Wan, he staggered toward the register.

"Call the police for me."

His voice was hoarse.

"There's someone crazy outside."

Lin Wan first glanced out the door.

The street was empty. She couldn't see anyone else.

"Who attacked you?"

"I don't know... he suddenly rushed out of an alley," the man panted. "He bit anyone he saw."

Lin Wan's grip on her phone tightened slightly.

Bite.

She called the police at once and briefly explained the address and the man's injuries.

But the dispatcher asked the first question: "Please confirm whether the injured person is conscious, and whether he shows any signs of aggression."

Lin Wan looked at the man.

"He is conscious and not showing any aggressive behavior right now."

"Please keep your distance from the injured person and do not make direct contact with the wound. Police and paramedics are on the way. Estimated arrival time is fifteen to twenty minutes. If the injured person becomes confused, convulses, or becomes aggressive, please leave the scene immediately."

After the call ended, the man looked up.

"How long until the ambulance gets here?"

"Fifteen to twenty minutes."

He cursed under his breath, bracing himself against the register as though he could barely stay upright.

"Do you have anything to stop the bleeding?"

Lin Wan dragged a chair over from the dining area and let him sit down, then went to get the first-aid kit.

Just as she took out the gauze and bandages, a prompt suddenly appeared in the center of her vision.

[It is recommended to avoid direct contact with the injured person's bodily fluids.]

This was the first time Eden had taken the initiative to speak.

"Why?"

[The injured person's bodily fluids pose an unknown risk.]

"Related to those news reports just now?"

[The injured person's condition partially overlaps with the characteristics of recent abnormal incidents.]

Lin Wan put on gloves, packed the gauze and disinfectant into a plastic bag, and placed them in front of the man.

"You press on the wound yourself."

The man frowned. "I can't lift my arm."

"Use the other hand."

"I'm already in this state, and you still won't help me?"

Lin Wan did not move closer.

The man shot her an unhappy look, but in the end he still pulled open his coat himself.

Only then did she truly see the injury.

Two rows of teeth marks had sunk deeply into his shoulder, and near the collarbone a chunk of flesh was missing altogether.

This wasn't an ordinary attack.

It was a bite wound.

The man pressed the gauze over the wound, and cold sweat quickly broke out across his forehead.

"Where's the guy who bit you?" Lin Wan asked.

"Hit by a car."

"Dead?"

The man was silent for a moment.

"I thought he was dead."

His hand began to tremble.

"But then he got back up."

Lin Wan said nothing.

The people in that video, with their abnormal response to pain, surfaced in her mind again.

"Water."

The man suddenly spoke.

His face was even paler than before, the whites of his eyes shot through with blood.

Lin Wan set a bottle of mineral water in front of him.

The man snatched it almost desperately and gulped it down in one go.

"More?"

The second bottle was emptied just as quickly.

Yet his condition did not improve.

His breathing grew heavier and heavier, his body began to tremble uncontrollably, and the gauze on his shoulder was soaked through with blood.

[The injured person's physiological condition is deteriorating.]

"Is he in danger now?"

[Risk is increasing.]

Lin Wan took a step back.

"What's wrong?"

The man lowered his head. The empty bottle in his hand crumpled under his grip.

A few seconds later, he suddenly clutched his own neck.

"Too hot."

The convenience store air conditioner was set to only twenty-three degrees.

But the man seemed unable to feel it at all. He roughly tore open his coat, the gauze slipping from his shoulder, blood running down his arm.

His expression did not change in the slightest.

Lin Wan reached toward the area beneath the register.

There was a short metal pry bar there.

"The ambulance will be here soon," she said.

The man suddenly looked up.

"Did you touch me just now?"

"No."

"You did."

His eyes had changed already.

The panic that had been there at first was gone, his pupils cloudy, but his gaze was fixed firmly on Lin Wan.

The man slowly stood up.

His injured arm hung at his side, his shoulder was still bleeding, but he looked as if he felt no pain at all.

Lin Wan gripped the pry bar.

"Sit back down."

The man gave no response.

His body suddenly jerked once, then froze in place.

Even his heavy breathing disappeared.

[Survival advice: evacuate immediately.]

Lin Wan stared at him.

From the moment it appeared until now, Eden had only taken the initiative to give advice when it judged that something would significantly affect her survival rate.

And this time, it was telling her to leave at once.

The man's lips parted slightly, and a muffled low groan forced its way out from deep in his throat.

The next second, he lunged forward violently.

Lin Wan turned and ran into the stockroom.

The man slammed hard into the register, and a display rack toppled with a crash. She threw the wooden door shut behind her, and the moment it closed, a heavy impact struck from the other side.

Bang!

The entire door shuddered violently.

Lin Wan did not stop. She gripped the pry bar and ran deeper into the stockroom.

The original owner's memories immediately reminded her where the back door was.

Another deafening crash came from behind her.

The wooden door had been smashed open.

The man stormed into the stockroom, making no attempt to go around the shelves, just smashing straight into whatever blocked his path.

Metal racks swayed violently, boxes fell one after another, and he stumbled several times, but as if he couldn't feel pain, he still kept chasing after Lin Wan.

Lin Wan rushed to the back door and shoved down on the handle.

It didn't open.

She immediately remembered the horizontal bolt that had to be fastened at night, and reached out to push it open.

A thunderous crash rang out behind her.

The last row of shelves had been knocked over by the man.

Lin Wan violently shoved open the back door.

Night air rushed straight into her face.

She sprinted into the fire alley, and the iron door behind her slowly rebounded under the force of the door closer. Through the crack in the door, the man stepped over the goods scattered all over the floor and charged directly at her.

Bang!

The iron door slammed shut completely.

The next second, a heavy impact came from behind it.

The whole iron door shook hard.

Lin Wan backed away several steps.

Bang!

Again.

The man didn't turn the handle, and he didn't try to find another exit. He just kept slamming his body against the iron door in front of him.

Lin Wan stared at the trembling door panel.

He didn't seem to be trying to get out.

It seemed more like he no longer knew how to open the door.

The impact kept going.

Lin Wan no longer hesitated and turned to run out of the fire alley.

Only after she stepped onto the sidewalk did she stop, gasping for breath.

The traffic lights at the intersection were still changing on a fixed timer, a taxi drove past in the distance, and the self-service laundromat across the road was lit up.

The city looked no different from usual.

But the man who had been bitten just minutes ago had already turned into something completely unfamiliar.

Lin Wan looked down at the pry bar in her hand.

"What exactly happened to that man just now?"

[Insufficient information.]

"Is it related to those recent attacks?"

[There may be a connection.]

"You don't know what happened either?"

[Current data is insufficient to reach a conclusion.]

Lin Wan looked toward the convenience store.

Eden was not omniscient.

It could analyze risk, but it also didn't know what was happening in this world.

The sudden rise in violent incidents, the people who seemed abnormally insensitive to pain, the bite wounds, and the change in that man just now.

If all of these things were really related, then what had happened tonight was probably far more than an ordinary assault.

Lin Wan was silent for a moment.

"If I hadn't escaped just now, what would have happened?"

Eden paused for several seconds.

White text appeared in the center of her vision.

[Host death.]

Lin Wan stood on the street in the early hours of the morning and did not look away for a long time.

[Newcomer tutorial time remaining: 23:31:42.]

The countdown was still running.

And her 24-hour survival rate was only 2.1%.