My Courtyard Shelter

Chapter 1: Reborn Ten Years Ago

In a parallel universe, in Luyang City, the capital of Wanzhou Prefecture in the Kingdom of Daxia. In the office of a logistics company, a middle-aged man with a slightly weathered appearance sat at his desk, holding a jet-black fountain pen as he solemnly wrote the three digits “287” in his notebook. “I never imagined that I’d actually get a second chance at life—and that I’d be transported back ten years, to the year before the Great Catastrophe!” It was the middle of the plum rain season; outside the window, the sky was overcast and rainy. Faced with this scene, Xu Dong couldn’t help but take a deep breath. “If my memory serves me correctly, in 287 days, the entire Earth will face an unprecedented, cataclysmic disaster.” February 15, 2022, of the Daxia Calendar. On the very day of the Lantern Festival in the Year of the Tiger, a sunspot group codenamed HX2368 would erupt in a series of massive solar flares. In the span of just one week, these massive solar flares erupted more than 1,000 times—an unprecedented occurrence—with staggering destructive power. Hundreds of these major flares were accompanied by massive coronal mass ejections, which had a devastating direct impact on Earth’s atmosphere. As Xu Dong was not an astronomer, he did not fully understand the scientific principles behind this. But having experienced it firsthand, he knew that over the next decade—right up until the year of his death—the Earth remained in the grip of a severe drought, with no signs of it ending. Take Daxia as an example: by the third year after the Great Catastrophe struck, every river—including lakes large and small—in the two capitals and thirty provinces had dried up, without exception. More than 90 percent of the nation’s land had turned into desert; whether in the south or the north, as far as the eye could see, the world was a gray, desolate wasteland where not a blade of grass grew. The survivors could only barely sustain themselves by relying on limited groundwater resources and large-scale seawater desalination plants. The water crisis caused by the great drought, along with the resulting food and ecological crises, nearly pushed human civilization to the brink of extinction. Snapping back to reality, Xu Dong used his pen to cross out the number “287,” then closed his notebook. Immediately afterward, he opened a Word document on his computer and quickly drafted a resignation letter. There’s no time to waste! The resignation process didn’t take long; after all, Xu Dong was just an ordinary sales representative. Plus, with the Company’s poor performance this year, the general manager approved it without hesitation, without even making a half-hearted attempt to persuade him to stay. In less than an hour, after completing the handover and notifying a few colleagues with whom he’d gotten along well, Xu Dong left the Company where he’d worked for six years. Carrying his personal belongings to the parking lot, he opened the car door and tossed everything haphazardly into the back seat. He drove like the wind all the way home. As he neared his front door, Xu Dong composed himself, pulled the keys from his pocket, and unlocked the security door with his slightly trembling right hand. “Honey, why are you home so early today?” Yang Lina asked in surprise when she saw her husband walk through the door. Xu Dong is 33 years old. Seven years ago, he and his wife met through a blind date, and the two were soon married. The following year after their marriage, Yang Lina gave birth to a pair of beautiful twin daughters. Later, hoping to have a son, she became pregnant with their second child last year—but they never expected to conceive triplets in one go, and suddenly the couple found themselves with three more sons. Xu Dong waved his hand and made up an excuse on the spot: “I just closed a big deal this morning, so the Company gave me a week off.” Yang Lina is currently in the postpartum breastfeeding period, a time when new mothers are particularly emotionally sensitive. Xu Dong didn’t want his wife to worry or be frightened, so he told a white lie. Yang Lina, on the other hand, seemed very pleased. With five children to care for at home, even with just her and her mother-in-law, they were still running around like headless chickens every day, so having her husband stay home would help lighten the load. After chatting with his wife about a few household matters, Xu Dong turned and went to the bathroom to splash some water on his face, then hurried into the bedroom to check on the triplets. In his previous life, due to natural disasters and human tragedies, the triplets had tragically died one after another; of the five children in the family, only the second child had survived. This was a source of eternal pain in Xu Dong’s heart. Xu Dong watched them for a good ten minutes or so, secretly wiping away tears several times along the way. It wasn’t until his wife came in that he changed the subject and asked: “Where’s Mom?” Ever since Yang Lina became pregnant last year, Xu’s mother had been living with her youngest son, first tending to the expectant mother and then helping to care for the baby. In his previous life, Xu Dong’s mother had never left his side until he fell ill from overwork and became bedridden. “Mom went to pick up Ke Ke and Le Le from kindergarten. She’ll be back in a little while.” Xu Dong’s eldest daughter was named Xu Ke, and his youngest daughter was named Xu Le. Both had just turned five this year and were in the senior class at a nearby kindergarten; they were set to start elementary school in September. “Hmm… By the way, what’s for dinner tonight?” Xu Dong asked again. Yang Lina had a vague feeling that her husband seemed a little off, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it: “Um, I’ll make braised silver carp, stir-fried chicken with potato cubes, a tofu and pork soup, and the leftover tomato and egg stir-fry from lunch.” Hearing this list of delicious dishes, Xu Dong couldn’t help but swallow hard. After all, in his previous life, he hadn’t eaten meat for seven or eight years and had almost forgotten what it tasted like. Yang Lina looked at Xu Dong in confusion. Why did her husband look like a starving ghost? Hadn’t he eaten lunch? But that couldn’t be the only reason! Unable to bear her strange gaze, Xu Dong quickly made up an excuse to leave: “Have you finished shopping for groceries? The commission on this big order is at least five thousand yuan. Let’s treat ourselves to a nice dinner tonight to celebrate!” “Not yet. I’ll call Mom in a minute and tell her not to go to the market,” Yang Lina said with a nod. “Okay, honey. What do you think we should get?” “Pork’s cheap these days, so we can get plenty of spare ribs. Let’s pick up some shrimp, too—Le Le’s been begging for them for ages. As for the rest, you decide!” “Alright, I’ll take care of it then.” Xu Dong slipped out the door, looking a bit flustered, but he couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief. His rebirth was the biggest secret of his life. For the sake of his family’s safety, he had no intention of telling anyone, nor did he want to play the saint and “save” the world. His experiences in his previous life had given him a deeper understanding of human nature. Don’t pin your hopes on others—it’s only truly good when you take control of your own destiny. The farmers’ market was less than 500 meters from Xu Dong’s home, and he reached it in under ten minutes. Looking at the scene before him—both familiar and unfamiliar—Xu Dong felt as if a lifetime had passed. In his previous life, this market had long since been converted into a large community cafeteria run by the neighborhood office, where residents from several nearby housing complexes came to buy food every day. In the ten years following the Great Solar Flare, Xu Dong and his wife had spent nearly a third of that time waiting in line here, and they had long since become intimately familiar with every brick and tile in the area. With mixed feelings, Xu Dong followed the crowd slowly into the market and immediately scanned the layout of the stalls. Then, without a moment’s hesitation, he headed straight for the meat section. “Sir, how much is the pork belly?” “Pork belly is 12. 8 yuan. Just look how fresh this meat is,” the vendor said warmly. Hearing that price, even though he’d mentally braced himself, Xu Dong couldn’t help but feel a jolt of surprise. After all, in his previous life, meat was the ultimate luxury—something you couldn’t necessarily buy even if you had the money. Occasionally, it would appear on the black market, but prices were always quoted in liang—even the cheapest spare ribs started at 100 yuan per liang. And at that time, the monthly salary of an ordinary worker was only three or four thousand yuan.