The Apocalypse Solution Provider

Chapter 3: The School Belle’s Nightmare

“Ah!”

Fu Qingdai bolted upright in bed with a sharp scream.

Cold sweat clung to her skin, soaking right through her sheer white nightgown.

Jerked awake from the nightmare once again.

She sat there, chest heaving in shallow, ragged breaths, her terrified eyes welling with tears.

The endless gray rain, the gnawing hunger and biting cold, the creeping madness, the cannibalism… the entire world reduced to a living hell.

These visions had plagued her for nearly half a month. Every time, it felt unbearably real—mountains of corpses and seas of blood piled right before her eyes.

Even the metallic stench of blood and rot… matched reality perfectly.

If they were just ordinary nightmares, she could have handled it.

Her breathing hitched. Trembling with dread, she reached out and pulled back the curtains.

Dawn was just breaking outside, casting a faint light on the sky above.

The clouds roiled like ocean waves, rolling out layer by layer in a rigid, terrifying pattern.

Had it been midday, such a magnificent celestial phenomenon would have drawn countless people to snap photos.

But right now, Fu Qingdai was paralyzed.

The tears welling in her eyes finally spilled over, trailing down her pale cheeks.

Her dreams mirrored reality flawlessly, starting from her mundane daily life before aggressively fast-forwarding into the apocalypse.

By the third nightmare, she had noticed the pattern.

The weather patterns in the waking world perfectly matched the horrors in her sleep.

Today was no exception. These strange, wave-like clouds were glaringly distinct, impossible to mistake for anything else.

Her frail shoulders shook. Her knuckles turned a deathly white as she maintained her death grip on the fabric, choking back her sobs.

Judging by the timeline of her previous dreams… that terrifying day was closing in fast.

She had warned people. She had warned her parents. But no one believed a single word.

She was just a high school student. She had done everything she could—what else was there? What the hell was she supposed to do?

Right then, the bedroom door swung open.

Zhang Wan walked in and sat on the edge of the mattress, looking down at her weeping daughter with utter exasperation.

Fu Qingdai whipped around and threw herself into Zhang Wan’s arms, her choked sobs dissolving into desperate wails.

“Another nightmare?” Zhang Wan sighed.

“Mom! It’s real, everything I said is real! The world is ending!” Fu Qingdai looked up, her vision blurred with tears. “Today’s clouds are exactly like the ones in my dream… it all matches perfectly. Mom, please, just believe me this once. We need to stockpile food, or—or we need to move! Let’s move somewhere remote, somewhere away from everyone!”

“Qingdai…” Zhang Wan rubbed her temples helplessly. “You’re just stressed about your studies, that’s all. I already spoke with a doctor about this. The college entrance exams are only a month away. Stop filling your head with this nonsense and focus on your schoolwork. If you just applied yourself, you wouldn’t be having these panic attacks.”

“Knock out some extra practice questions at school today, go to bed an hour early tonight. Get some proper rest and you’ll be right as rain.”

“Mom!” Fu Qingdai’s voice cracked, the tears she had just forced back spilling over once again. “Can you just let me finish!”

“Fine, fine, out with it then,” Zhang Wan sighed heavily. “But make it quick. You need to eat breakfast and get to school.”

Swallowing her despair, Fu Qingdai frantically recounted the horrors of her vision.

Zhang Wan sat there, shaking her head the entire time.

Noticing her mother’s glazed-over look, Fu Qingdai snapped, “Mom, are you even listening to me?!”

“I’m listening. Isn’t this exactly what you told me yesterday?” Zhang Wan dismissed.

“No!” Fu Qingdai’s eyes widened intensely. “I wasn’t finished! This time it was different… I saw a man. And I heard a voice telling me—”

“What?!” Zhang Wan’s gaze instantly sharpened, zeroing in like a bloodhound catching a scent.

Seeing her mother suddenly taking her seriously, a spark of desperate hope ignited in Fu Qingdai’s chest.

Just as she opened her mouth to explain, Zhang Wan sternly cut her off. “Qingdai, are you dating a boy behind my back? This is the absolute worst time for you to be fooling around! Puppy love is going to ruin your future!”

“Mom!” Fu Qingdai shattered, her last shred of hope crumbling. “Do you believe me or not?!”

“I believe you, I believe you… now get dressed and come eat.”

Her patience entirely spent, Zhang Wan stood up and turned toward the door.

Fu Qingdai reached out and grabbed her mother’s sleeve, her voice dropping to a miserable whisper. “Mom… can I have some money?”

“Don’t I give you your allowance every week?”

“I need a little extra. The cafeteria food hasn’t been sitting right with me lately, and… and I want to buy some extra prep books.”

“Fine. How much?”

“…F-five hundred.”

Five hundred? Zhang Wan’s blood pressure spiked.

She was definitely mixed up in something at school. Asking for five hundred right off the bat—what could a high schooler possibly spend that much on?

“Absolutely not! I’ll give you fifty, tops. Now get your act together and get to school.”

Tossing out her final verdict, Zhang Wan marched out of the room, leaving her daughter completely isolated in her despair.

Fu Qingdai viciously rubbed at her eyes, a bitter, hollow ache gnawing at her chest.

She had zero agency. Not a single ounce of trust in her own home!

If only she were an adult. If only she had her own money, maybe her words would finally carry some weight.

Shoving her grief down, she dragged herself over to her desk and began scribbling furiously in her notebook.

Through the closed door, the muffled sounds of the morning news and her parents’ bickering drifted in.

“Old Fu, you need to discipline your daughter! You just sit there staring at the damn TV! Call Teacher Li right now and ask if Qingdai is messing around with some boy!”

“Yeah, yeah… I know. I’ll call him later.”

“Later, later! That’s all you ever say! Day in and day out, you dodge every single responsibility and don’t lift a finger around the house. How did I end up marrying such a useless lump of a man?!”

…..

Inside the classroom, the morning reading session was already in full swing.

Fu Qingdai acted like a hollow shell as she blindly stuffed her backpack into her desk.

Apocalyptic visions continued to run on a horrific loop behind her eyes.

The classroom buzzed with chaotic chatter.

Her deskmate noticed her dead-eyed stare and nudged her. “Qingdai… did you have another nightmare?”

“Mhm…” Fu Qingdai hesitated, giving a jerky nod before grabbing her friend’s wrist, her voice deadly serious. “Xiaoning, everything I told you is real. The world is ending soon… if it starts to rain, whatever you do, do not touch the water. There’s something wrong with the gray rain. You have to hoard food right now. Seal all your doors and windows…”

Xiaoning gave her a weird, pitying look, nodded slowly, and turned back to face the blackboard, heaving a silent sigh.

She’s completely lost it!

The first couple of times, Xiaoning thought she was just being dramatic, but it had been weeks now. It was glaringly obvious that Qingdai was having a total mental breakdown.

Qingdai’s mother had messaged her days ago, asking her to keep an eye on her daughter. Judging by the look in Qingdai’s eyes today, her paranoia was only getting worse.

Shaking her head to clear the depressing thought, Xiaoning pulled out a BL novel and began studying with intense dedication.

The guy sitting in front of them turned around, glanced at Xiaoning’s desk, and lowered his voice. “Hey, you’re still reading that trash? Look at Qingdai—she practically fried her brain reading apocalyptic webnovels. You’re not worried about ending up like her? Keep it on the down-low, the teachers have been super strict with confiscations lately.”

Xiaoning shot him a withering glare and whispered back, “Mine is BL. Even if I go crazy, I’ll just be obsessed with hot guys. Turn around and memorize your textbook!”

“Hah. Just lend it to me when you’re done.”

….

In the blink of an eye, the lunch bell rang.

A tidal wave of students surged toward the cafeteria.

Fu Qingdai moved like a ghost through the stampeding crowd, her frantic gaze sweeping over the sea of faces.

Finally, she locked onto her target. Breaking into a light jog, she reached out and snagged the fabric of a boy’s uniform jacket.

Gao Peng felt the sudden tug. He spun around, only to find Fu Qingdai standing nervously behind him.

Seeing that exquisitely beautiful, if slightly pale, face.

His breath hitched in his throat.

Fu Qingdai was the undisputed school belle of their high school. Nobody really knew who held the vote, but her title was an established fact.

Countless guys had tried to shoot their shot, and every single one had crashed and burned.

Even though she had been acting like a paranoid weirdo lately and her untouchable goddess aura had taken a hit, half the boys in their grade were still secretly thirsty for her!

Gao Peng usually didn’t even have the guts to make eye contact with her. Why on earth was she pulling on his shirt?

Swallowing hard, Gao Peng stammered, “Uh, did you need something?”

Fu Qingdai bit her pale pink lip, staring intently at the tips of her shoes. “Gao Peng…” she fidgeted awkwardly. “Could you… could you loan me some money? I swear I’ll pay you back next month!”

“O-oh… sure,” Gao Peng faltered, his mind racing at a mile a minute. “How much do you need? I only have about a hundred on me tops.”

He was basically broke himself, but the school belle was personally asking for a favor. Refusing her would make him look like a total loser!

Seeing him agree so easily, Fu Qingdai finally looked up and flashed a dazzling smile of relief.

Gao Peng’s heart threatened to pound right out of his chest!

Loaning her money? Loaning her money was a brilliant investment! She smiled at him, she tugged on his jacket… did she actually have a crush on him?!

She borrows it today, she has to pay it back next month. That guaranteed at least two private interactions!

“Then I’ll take the hundred.”

…

A short distance away, a pair of beady eyes locked onto Fu Qingdai while a hand brought a phone up to an ear.

“Auntie Zhang? Yeah, Qingdai is hitting up a guy in our class right now… No, no, he’s just some awkward-looking guy, they’re definitely not dating. But her delusions are getting totally out of hand. You really need to take her to a doctor soon.”