The Apocalypse Solution Provider

Chapter 21: Opening the Gates of Hell

Pushing his door open, Su Jin found Fu Qingdai stepping out from the apartment across the hall.

They locked eyes, both freezing for a fraction of a second.

“Are your parents asleep?” Su Jin asked.

“Mm.” Fu Qingdai nodded softly. “I gave them a double dose. They’re dead to the world. I drew two buckets of water and shut off the main valve.”

She looked up at him, her small face drawn tight. Tears shone in her eyes as she fought a losing battle against crying.

The violent trembling of her shoulders betrayed her absolute terror.

Su Jin forced a tight smile, reached out, and pulled her into a hug.

“Don’t panic. I’ve got you.”

Stroking her dark hair, a rare pang of sympathy twisted in his chest.

For a teenage girl to hold it together this long was a miracle in itself.

It was hard to say who was really saving who anymore.

“We’re out of time. Let’s move.”

He gently pushed her back and pulled out a cardboard box.

“What’s that? What are we doing?” Fu Qingdai asked, her voice hitching.

Su Jin didn’t answer, methodically tearing open the flaps.

Inside sat dozens of industrial superglue bottles, resting on top of a thick stack of printed flyers.

“Lockdown. We start on the ground floor. Jam every keyhole and deadbolt with glue,” Su Jin ordered, his tone completely flat. “When people start turning, sealing them inside their own apartments guarantees our safety.”

“But… what if they don’t turn? Won’t they be trapped in there?” Fu Qingdai’s eyes went wide. “If they run out of tap water, they’ll drink the rain. And what about starving?”

Su Jin pulled the stack of flyers from the box. “I forged these community notices warning about contaminated rainwater. We’ll slide them under the doors. I also bought industrial solvent. If things settle down and the timing is right, I can let the survivors out.”

“Helping them helps us, but we aren’t saviors. This is as much charity as I’m willing to offer. Whether they starve or die of thirst is up to their own luck. If this rain actually pours for a week straight, the ground floor is dead anyway.”

Fu Qingdai sucked in a ragged breath, forcefully suppressing her shivers. She squeezed her eyes shut and gave a stiff nod.

“Got it. Let’s go.”

…

Heading straight to the ground floor, Su Jin slipped outside the building to check the windows.

This era hadn’t yet degraded into a society that entertained itself to death.

People still read newspapers and watched broadcast television. 3D gaming existed, but hardly any family had the hardware to run it.

As a result, the average salaryman went to bed early. By ten o’clock, most were already dead to the world.

Confirming not a single light shone in the entire block, he led Fu Qingdai back inside, systematically jamming every lock with glue and sliding the fake notices under the doors.

He had thoroughly tested the glue after hauling it back from the hardware store, and the results were alarming.

It smelled and flowed like standard cyanoacrylate, but the sheer bonding strength was absurdly higher than anything he’d used in his past life.

Given the technological timeline of these two parallel worlds, this kind of industrial leap made no sense.

He genuinely couldn’t tell if this world just had incredible quality control, or if the manufacturers back home had been cutting corners to a criminal degree.

Each floor housed two apartments facing each other.

Moving with clinical efficiency, they permanently sealed every single household in the stairwell.

Everything except his own apartment, the fourth-floor Supplies stash, and the Fu family residence.

Retreating to the fifth floor, Su Jin ushered Fu Qingdai inside.

She stared at the rows of long, foam-wrapped cylinders lining the living room floor. “Brother, what are those?”

“Steel scaffolding. Secondary lockdown measures. Glue isn’t failsafe against brute force,” Su Jin explained, tossing her a pair of work gloves. “I’ve already batched them. We’re hauling these down and wedging a steel cross-brace between the opposing doors on every floor. We’ll shim the gaps with wood blocks so they can’t rattle.”

Su Jin hoisted a bundle of pipes onto his shoulder, pointing at a pile of scrap wood. “Grab the shims. No foam on those, so watch your step. If you drop one and wake up a neighbor, this entire op goes south.”

“Once the barricades are set, I’ll weld the main lobby doors shut and sever the building’s water line… then we just wait.”

Fu Qingdai gave a grim, silent nod.

…

Another hour of grueling, silent labor passed. The opposing doors on the first, second, third, and sixth floors were now wedged tight behind rigid steel braces.

Chemical lockdown reinforced by structural steel… unless these people learned to fly out their windows, they weren’t breaking into the hallway.

Even if they mutated into monsters, they would just rot in their own living rooms.

Su Jin had preemptively eradicated any chance of neighborhood resource disputes. More importantly, he now held absolute dominion over their survival.

…

Back in his apartment.

Fu Qingdai slumped into a chair, utterly spent, watching Su Jin move like a machine.

He crouched over a duffel bag, systematically tossing food and pill bottles onto the table.

“Multivitamins. Pop one daily. Milk powder—chug a glass morning and night to keep your calories up,” Su Jin rattled off, tossing a plastic bag next to the pills. “Fresh vegetables. Take them. Force-feed them to your parents and finish the perishables before they rot.”

“The grid won’t instantly flatline, but the rolling blackouts will start in a matter of days. Stop pacing around your house. Do pushups. Squats. You need to be able to draw that fifty-pound recurve bow without tearing a rotator cuff.”

“Take these extra glue bottles. The second you get inside, permanently seal every window in your apartment. Don’t give your parents the option to open them. You warned them about the end of the world—once they see this rain, fear should keep them docile…”

“We’re secure for the immediate future, but variables always screw up the formula. I’ll monitor the fallout for a few days before I make contact again.”

Fu Qingdai quietly swept the rations into her backpack.

When she finished, Su Jin sat heavily beside her. “Qingdai, your parents are a liability. When you go back, I’m locking your front door from the outside too. Take my spare key. And listen to me—you breathe a word about the Supplies on the fourth floor to anyone, even your parents, and we are both dead.”

“I never intended to show you that stash. But you earned your clearance, and frankly, half that gear is meant for you anyway… You need to learn how to survive in the shitshow that’s coming. Do not trust a single soul outside this room for now. Let’s move.”

Shouldering her bag, she nodded and trailed him out the door.

She unlocked her apartment and dropped the bag in the entryway.

Suddenly, she spun around and tackled Su Jin in a desperate hug.

A ragged sob tore from her throat, her tears soaking right through his shirt as they stood in the silent, dim hallway.

…

2:00 AM.

Su Jin sat dead center in his living room, fully booted and geared up. He methodically racked and wiped down the Silver Gun over and over, his eyes constantly flicking up.

He stared through the window pane; the night outside was an oppressive, suffocating black.

The apocalypse was scheduled for today, but neither he nor Fu Qingdai had the exact timestamp for when the rain would start.

It could be in the dead of night, or it could be high noon.

But either way, sleep was completely off the table.

Tick. Tick. Tick. The wall clock echoed clearly through the silent apartment.

3:15:42 AM.

In the very next fraction of a second, a violent, jagged purple fissure ripped across the horizon!

The harsh light flared off the barrel of the Silver Gun, blinding him as Su Jin vaulted to his feet!

At that exact moment, an apocalyptic roar tore through the stratosphere, thunderous shockwaves churning within the bruised clouds.

Su Jin’s pupils dilated, every hair on his body standing at attention!

The world let out a deafening howl as the torrential rain plummeted to the earth… the apocalypse had arrived!