Some people sheltered from the rain in small buildings without lightning protection, such as sheds or guard booths. When lightning struck the building, it sounded like an explosion. The top of the structure was destroyed, and some even caught fire. Others, standing close to walls during the lightning strike, felt an electric shock as if struck.
One family, like Yu Xi’s, was caught in a car during the storm. They didn’t notice a nearby tree split by lightning, sending flaming branches crashing onto their car roof. Luckily, the heavy rain soon extinguished the fire, but the initial impact and flames nearly caused them to faint from fear. Some instinctively opened the door to flee, despite others’ attempts to hold them back. However, as one person ran out, they didn’t get far before lightning struck a nearby sign. Flames erupted along the signpost, and the person collapsed, convulsing, before falling into the rain-soaked ground.
This unusual thunderstorm lingered over S City and nearby areas for more than an hour. Sirens from ambulances and fire trucks filled the city. Though the storm had subsided, the rain continued, complicating rescue efforts.
Yu Xi’s family returned safely to their apartment building later that day, still in pouring rain. Due to the storm, the elevator was out of service, so they left their purchases in the car and brought only their cooked food upstairs. Once home, they didn’t eat right away but inspected the circuit breaker and appliances, relieved to find everything intact. Their tall apartment building had professional lightning protection, so it was safe inside. Nevertheless, they turned off all power sources and used two rechargeable camping lights, fearing the storm might return.
They began checking news on their phones and tablets, finding s of similar thunderstorms across the country and worldwide. The storms varied in timing, size, and rain intensity. Late into the night, more cities were being affected, but, fortunately, the warnings had reduced casualties.
People who escaped the storm thanks to warnings felt lucky. Yet, none realized that this planetary thunderstorm was merely a prelude—a beginning. After a period of gradual buildup, the planet had reached a point of explosive self-restoration.
Following the thunderstorm, some plants and animals began growing unchecked, unnoticed by most humans. Experts monitoring the data observed unprecedented spikes, leaving them stunned. Such rapid change defied natural laws. According to their projections, these shifts should have taken three to five years to unfold gradually. This sudden occurrence was unthinkable—something must be wrong!
Caught off guard, scientists scrambled to verify the soaring data repeatedly. After a night of heated debates, the findings were escalated up the chain, yet they couldn’t keep pace with the planet’s transformations.
The next morning in S City, a resident stepped out to a freshly clear sky and opened the balcony door to breathe the clean air. But upon reaching the balcony, he noticed a Venus flytrap among his plants, grown five to six times its original size overnight. Disturbingly, its once small red-green leaves, which could only trap flies, now held a sparrow. The sparrow, still alive, struggled within the plant’s tightly shut leaves and prickly bristles, but it couldn’t break free.
The sight raised every hair on his body. He instinctively reached for his phone to capture the moment, but something felt wrong. Cautiously, he skirted the plant and looked out over the balcony railing.
In front of the residential building was a small park with greenery and low shrubs, and an open area in the center filled with fitness equipment. Many retired seniors would bring children here for morning walks and chats. However, since the recent giant insect incident, the place had become deserted, leaving the park empty.
Now, the central open space of the park had completely vanished. Wild grass grew uncontrollably, pushing through the gray pavement tiles, spreading through every crack. The “wild grass” grew so densely that it filled every space between the shrubs and trees, even spilling onto the park’s pathways and roads, and crawling up the walls and corners of nearby buildings. Everywhere in sight was covered with this “wild grass”—tall and short patches, with small, lush green leaves. Taking a closer look through his phone, the man realized, to his shock, that this “wild grass” was actually moss!
…
In the suburbs, someone woke up to the sound of howling wolves. The person had previously been frightened by the wolves that had escaped from the zoo, and now, upon hearing the noise outside, she nervously approached the window, pulling the curtain back slightly. She saw a gray wolf, about twice its normal size, standing on an air conditioner rack on the third floor, shaking its fur and howling to its companions below. After the howl, it leaped down to the ground to join the pack, unharmed despite the three-story drop. Amidst sporadic cries of alarm, the pack of wolves sprinted off toward the wilderness. The woman held her breath, watching them disappear before hastily closing the curtains and calling the fire department.
…
In the city, the broad river was spanned by a towering bridge. It was still early, and no vehicles were passing over the bridge due to a previous accident. The bridge stood silently in the morning mist, with rainwater puddles lingering on the surface from yesterday’s downpour.
Soon, faint cracking sounds emerged from the bridge deck and pillars. Moments later, the recently repaired concrete surface and pillars began to crack and shatter bit by bit, as though something from within was pushing outward. Eventually, a small, vibrant green shoot sprouted from a crack and began climbing along the bridge deck and pillars. Its stem and roots grew across the bridge, finally unfolding deep green leaves.
If anyone had been there to see, they would have gasped in shock: the culprit behind the bridge collapses across the river was none other than a creeping ivy!
…
On the other side of the city, a taxi driver, who had been working all night, planned to stop by a street market for a hot bowl of spicy pork rib noodles before heading home to rest. But when he parked beside the noodle shop, he noticed several large moths perched on the shop’s glass doors. The moths were of a terrifying size, their gray wings gently flapping, with a cluster of eggs below them.
Through the shop’s glass doors, he saw the customers and staff huddled in a corner, some holding fire extinguishers and insecticide, yet too afraid to approach the door. The driver quickly understood why.
A massive triangular, dirt-yellow head emerged from the wall of the second floor of the noodle shop. With a single bite, it swallowed the head of one of the moths, then devoured its wings as well. Another moth, startled, fluttered over to the taxi’s windshield.
The enormous dirt-yellow head moved slightly, and suddenly, a dark red, rope-like muscle shot out, landing with a smack on the windshield. A crack appeared instantly as the muscle adhered to the moth, pulling it back into the creature’s wide-open mouth.
“A…a dinosaur?! No—that…that’s a gecko!!”
The driver’s face turned pale. He pinched his leg hard, then, with a trembling hand, dialed the fire department…
…
Yu Xi was woken by a strange crackling sound. She had stayed up late scrolling through her phone, reading news, checking reactions from the public, and catching up with messages in her old school and friend groups.
Since childhood, Yu Xi had been sociable, with plenty of friends but none particularly close. Her only good friend had gone abroad for work after university, and they’d gradually lost contact. Now, working as a freelance professional from home, she lacked a typical social circle. Her online art friends were scattered across different cities and even countries, so their relationship was mostly virtual. Occasionally, they’d chat, but when she was busy pulling all-nighters for deadlines, she’d disconnect entirely to work in seclusion.
When those school and friend groups were first set up, she used to chat with others, but over time, everyone got busy with their lives and rarely spoke. Only in the past month or two—especially after the tornado—had the groups become active again. But these past few months had been her busiest. Even in real life, the looming apocalyptic monthly missions left her with no time to relax.
Every day, she was occupied with various classes: martial arts, swimming, diving, fitness, later adding shooting and rock climbing. At home, she researched disaster-related topics and emergency survival knowledge online. So when group chats discussed recent disasters, she didn’t participate. However, the friends in these groups were spread across different cities, so when she looked through chat histories, she would occasionally catch snippets of unique information.
That evening, a sudden, intense thunderstorm interrupted many people’s plans, including Yu Xi’s. After a long day, Fan Qi and Yu Feng had quickly eaten and gone to bed. After her shower, Yu Xi stayed up reading the news until dawn, eventually falling asleep on the living room sofa, fully dressed.
The strange sound was coming from outside the floor-to-ceiling windows—not from her apartment, but next door. Instantly alert, she jumped up and pulled back the curtains, expecting to see enlarged insects. Instead, she saw several white egrets.
These egrets were slightly larger than normal, but still within a reasonable size. They were flapping their wings and repeatedly pecking at the glass of her neighbor’s apartment with their claws and sharp black beaks.
The scene looked oddly familiar…
Yu Xi quickly recalled that, on the day when migratory birds had flown in the wrong direction over the city, an egret got stuck in a window vent and had a conflict with the couple next door. In the end, the egret was shoved out, sliding down the building’s exterior and never flying again. Afterward, several other egrets had furiously pecked at the neighbor’s glass for quite some time.
She’d been quite surprised by the egrets’ behavior then. Now, nearly twenty days later, could it be that these egrets were the same ones? Could they remember what happened to their companion and had returned for revenge?
While Yu Xi stood by the window in astonishment, Yu Feng was also standing by his window, staring down at the city below.
Their apartment was on the upper southeast corner with good lighting, and the south-facing wall was mostly floor-to-ceiling windows. Yu Feng had noticed that his daughter seemed to have something important to tell them last night. Still, she held back, seeing how tired they looked, and told them instead to rest, saying she would discuss something important today.
He hadn’t slept well, often hearing noises outside. Since the apartment windows were reinforced with double-layered tempered glass, soundproofing was excellent, and they couldn’t usually hear outside sounds if the windows were closed. He’d assumed it was just his imagination.
But, thinking of the important matter his daughter wanted to discuss, he woke up automatically at dawn. Not wanting to disturb Fan Qi, he quietly got out of bed, washed up, and then noticed the strange noises outside.
It sounded like people screaming, with car horns blaring and crashes. Was there an accident nearby?
He walked to the south window, pulling the curtain aside slightly to look down. A poplar tree, originally planted along the roadside, was now sprawled across the street. Initially, he thought it had been struck down by yesterday’s storm. But when he fetched his binoculars, he realized that wasn’t the case.
The tree was still growing—at a rate visible to the naked eye.
Its brown branches stretched across the sidewalk, breaking through a nearby shop. It looked as though a giant, once curled up, had stood up and stretched out its limbs. The branches easily tore through nearby buildings as people fled from the unstable structures. Some stumbled, cars collided, and others filmed the poplar, refusing to be dragged away, creating a scene of utter chaos.
The road on either side of the poplar was cracked open, exposing its thick, twisted roots, which broke through the concrete and asphalt. Green leaves continued sprouting from the branches until the tree towered six or seven stories tall. Its canopy, like an enormous green umbrella, sprawled across four lanes, forcing its way through any obstacles to its growth.
One building even had a branch piercing through it, with the branch entering from one window and exiting from another. Clusters of yellow-green flower buds appeared among the branches. A gust of wind blew, and the buds suddenly burst, sending white poplar fluff floating through the air like a snowstorm.
At first, people were mesmerized by the sight, but soon, they began to scratch at exposed skin. Moments later, they screamed, clutching their eyes and faces, fleeing from the drifting fluff…
Yu Feng quickly realized that this shocking growth of plants was happening in more places across the city.
A three- or four-story building was entirely covered in greenery. Initially, he thought it was ivy, but upon spotting clusters of purple, spherical fruit hanging from the vines, he realized it was a grapevine! A flock of brown-yellow birds, each as large as a hen, descended from the sky and began pecking at the grapes. Recognizing their markings, he identified them as thrushes.
Suddenly, a dark red muscle-like tendril shot out, capturing one of the thrushes and quickly retracting it into a gaping mouth—it was a gecko…
This chaotic morning was the first time many people awoke to face these phenomena with no preparation.
All around, there were sounds of screaming, car crashes, buildings being destroyed, and even a few explosions that ignited towering flames. The wails of ambulances, fire trucks, and police cars soon echoed throughout the city.
The air raid sirens blared across the city, sending hearts racing. Some people, lucky to be in areas untouched by mutated plants or animals, abandoned their plans and sought shelter in the nearest building.
Yu Feng looked out over the city, suddenly feeling a shadow fall before him. Lowering his binoculars, he saw a black swallowtail butterfly the size of an adult slowly gliding past their window.
He stared at the enormous butterfly, lost in thought. Was this… the end of the world?
Fan Qi was relieved she hadn’t woken up earlier, sparing herself from confronting this without warning. Their apartment was on a higher floor, with many windows but, for now, unaffected by the plants and animals below. Most flying creatures weren’t aggressive toward humans unless provoked.
In the city below, military and firefighting forces were fully deployed, rescuing those whose lives were in danger. Yet the rescue efforts were challenging, as some plants and animals became highly aggressive when disturbed. What used to be mere instinctual defense was now life-threatening.
After getting up and coming to her senses, Fan Qi rushed downstairs to hug Yu Xi, who stood by the window. “Don’t look. I’m here—there’s nothing to fear!”
“Mom, don’t worry, I’m not scared. In fact, there’s something I’ve been keeping from you for a long time—”
Yu Feng closed the curtains, blocking the chaotic view outside. “Don’t worry, everything will be fine. The military has already been deployed, and if we just stay inside, they’ll take care of those strange plants and animals outside—”
Almost as if to counter his words, a deafening explosion erupted outside. The family quickly opened the curtains again to see that a gas station in the distance had exploded, caused by a plant engulfed in flames. The plant writhed frantically in the fire, its branches thrashing as if trying to shake off the flames. Instead, it launched fireballs around, causing even greater destruction.
A chill crept into Yu Feng’s heart as he quickly closed the curtains again, turning to reassure his family. “Let’s not watch this anymore. We’ll follow the official news updates. Don’t worry—like before, this will be resolved!”
“Dad, don’t be nervous. I’ve known this would happen for a while now, and I’ve been preparing. I’m sorry I kept it from you—”
Fan Qi and Yu Feng exchanged glances but said nothing. One continued to hug Yu Xi, gently patting her back, while the other tried to soothe her.
“I wanted to tell you this yesterday… There’s no need to worry. No matter what happens, the three of us will make it through together.”
Yu Xi then motioned toward the bathroom. “Alright, let’s go activate your ‘traveler identities.’ Then you can enter the Star House, and you’ll understand everything!”
Yu Feng: …
Fan Qi: …?
—Oh no, our daughter’s talking nonsense…
—Usually, she seems so level-headed. How did she start spouting things like this?
Exchanging a look, they continued to stroke her head and pat her back, trying to comfort her. “Why don’t you go back upstairs and get a bit more rest, Xi Xi?”
Yu Xi: …
It was useless to explain. Even now, with everything happening outside, they didn’t believe her at all.
Yu Xi said nothing more and simply led Yu Feng and Fan Qi toward the bathroom.
“Xi Xi, I just went to the bathroom. There’s no rush right now…” Fan Qi said softly.
Without a word, Yu Xi, using her strength, dragged them both to the bathroom door. She then opened it, gesturing inside, “Mom, Dad, please step in. This is the Star House—a sort of extra-dimensional space. As long as you stay in the Star House, you’ll be safe from plants and animals outside.
“I’ve already registered you both, so you now have residence rights in the Star House. You just need to activate it, and you can move in officially. Right now, though, I don’t have enough money to upgrade it, so it’s small, with no furniture. You might have to sleep on the floor for now, or we can put down a mattress.”
Fan Qi stood outside, feeling conflicted as she looked at her daughter standing by the toilet. She wanted to speak but held back.
Yu Feng couldn’t help but lean over to whisper to Fan Qi, “It’s bad… Honey, I think our daughter’s really been frightened out of her mind…”
Fan Qi nudged him with her elbow, whispering, “Shush…”
Yu Feng fell silent.
At this point, the chaos outside no longer seemed to matter as much to them; what concerned them was the possibility that their beloved daughter might have suffered a mental breakdown. Given the turmoil outside, even getting her to a hospital would be difficult.
Yu Xi could guess their thoughts from their expressions. She realized that, to her, this was a Star House filled with supplies, but since her parents hadn’t activated their “Star House traveler” permissions, they still saw it as a bathroom.
With this in mind, she stopped explaining and simply pulled them inside. She called out, “System, activate my parents’ ‘Star House traveler’ permissions!”
[Yes, Host.]
To Yu Feng and Fan Qi, it seemed as if Yu Xi was speaking to the toilet or maybe the shower. Suddenly, a flash of white light filled their vision. They instinctively closed their eyes, and when they opened them again, they found themselves in a strange, gray-toned room about 40 to 50 square meters in size. There was no furniture, and half the space was filled with stacked boxes of various kinds.
In front of them was a pair of gridded windows without curtains, offering a clear view outside. To the left, there was a protruding entryway with a closed black door.
[Host, Yu Feng and Fan Qi’s Star House traveler permissions are now activated. They can freely enter and exit the Star House, and both now have the carry-along functionality in this world.]
Yu Xi was thrilled by the system’s last sentence. “Does that mean my parents can teleport back to the Star House from anywhere?”
[Yes, with the Host’s confirmation, travelers can teleport back from any location in this world. The cost is 30 Star Coins per person per teleport.]
Yu Xi: …
Typical Star House system!
But now wasn’t the time to dwell on costs. Seeing her parents standing in the Star House, faces filled with shock and confusion, she began explaining everything from the beginning.
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