Countdown: Humanity's struggle to survive against yesterday

Chapter 3, First Impression

The alarm kept ringing out, each sound like a hammer blow to the heart. Soon after, the sound of dogs barking echoed through the neighborhood. Jiang Ning looked up at each floor and saw many people hurriedly drawing their curtains and frantically retreating into their homes.

"What exactly happened these past few days?"

Seeing this, Jiang Ning was very puzzled.

The world is just going backwards, it's not the end of the world, there are no zombies or viruses, so why are you all so scared?

At the same time, Jiang Ning was also puzzled as to why no one had come to inform him of such a big event.

As he thought about it, Jiang Ning chuckled again. He vaguely remembered that someone had knocked on his door, and quite loudly, but he didn't respond and even put on earplugs.

As Jiang Ning stepped out of the residential compound, he raised an eyebrow.

The first thing you see is several cars parked haphazardly at the gate. In front of the cars is a trash can that has been knocked over, with plastic bags fluttering in the wind. A black stray cat is rummaging through a box of leftover food in the trash can.

This scene of no one taking care of things and no one cleaning up makes the usually very clean and tidy entrance of the community stand out.

To his surprise, there were many pedestrians on both sides of the street at that time.

These people were walking hurriedly, looking anxious, and all seemed nervous, glancing around nervously.

Looking ahead, most of the once bustling shops on both sides had their doors half-closed. A few shop owners were gathered together, quietly smoking and chatting, making small talk.

Some pedestrians saw Jiang Ning, or were attracted by his hair that looked like it had been chewed by a dog, but they only glanced at him and then walked past.

Jiang Ning walked along Nei Er Road at the entrance of the community, and after walking for a while, he found that most of the shops along the way were still closed, with only a few still open. At one convenience store, a few customers wanted to pay after taking their items, but the shop owner simply waved his hand to indicate that they didn't need to.

Jiang Ning stopped and watched for a few seconds, finding it quite interesting.

With a loud "boom," it sounded like something had exploded.

Jiang Ning instinctively made a dodging motion. After the loud noise subsided, Jiang Ning looked up and saw thick smoke billowing in front of him.

Jiang Ning paused for a moment, then quickly ran forward.

When they reached the main road, they saw a lot of people running towards them from around the corner.

Jiang Ning dodged the pedestrians and peered ahead, only to see a car burning fiercely 200 meters away.

"This is……"

Jiang Ning walked another 100 meters before he could see clearly.

There had clearly been a series of car accidents on this road before, and just now a car exploded.

Jiang Ning glanced at the expressions of the remaining dozen or so people at the scene and found that they looked terrified and were staring at the exploded car with sighs of disbelief.

Jiang Ning followed their gaze, his brow twitched, and his eyes suddenly shrank back in fear.

Inside the car that exploded and caught fire, the window was half open, and in the driver's seat was a burning corpse with its eyes half open, its eyebrows long since burned away, and its face sizzling and dripping oil from the burning seasonal sweater on its chest.

"This is terrible. I hope the world can regress tomorrow!"

A passerby couldn't help but sigh.

Another passerby chimed in, "He looks like a taxi driver. What if he happens to be driving when we reverse tomorrow?"

"Dude, that's a bit too harsh of you!"

"Isn't it obvious? There have been car accidents all over this road these past few days..."

Jiang Ning listened quietly for a while, then suddenly felt a spasm in her stomach and a wave of nausea rushing to her head.

He covered his mouth and ran quickly to the roadside. With a "vomit," he immediately spat out a bunch of acidic water.

After finally feeling a bit better, Jiang Ning looked up to find the pedestrians around her slowly dispersing.

Meanwhile, a patrol of police officers appeared across the street. One of the middle-aged officers was shouting through a megaphone: "Don't crowd around! Don't crowd around! If you live nearby, go home now. If you live too far away, please meet at the Xinhe Hotel at the intersection ahead. They will provide you with accommodation and food there."

Jiang Ning slowly got up, supporting himself on the ground, feeling weak all over.

He knew this was probably because he had been confined to his home for years and hadn't gone out, which had made his body unhealthy or even caused health problems.

In addition to the strenuous running and the psychological impact, the body is sending warning signals—a self-protective mechanism.

Jiang Ning straightened up and looked up at the distance along the road. All he could see were all kinds of cars, stretching as far as the eye could see, like a long dragon of automobiles.

However, this "long line" was riddled with sores, and every short distance apart, a section of the road would be seen to be involved in a chain-reaction collision.

"Young man, hurry home..."

A police officer shouted across the street to Jiang Ning.

Jiang Ning turned to look at the other person and found that the old comrade in uniform looked exhausted.

Jiang Ning nodded instinctively, indicating his willingness to cooperate.

At this point, he knew he had no desire to continue exploring; his only instinct was to go home.

At this moment, Jiang Ning seemed to suddenly understand that it wasn't that the residents of the bustling neighborhood were unwilling to go out and join the crowd, but rather that as an ordinary person, facing a street that looked very familiar, yet the scenes unfolding on it felt very unfamiliar, which would make one feel disoriented and insecure.

"What kind of mechanism is this?"

"After rewinding, the person will immediately revert to the state they were in 24 hours ago."

On his way back to Jiangning, he couldn't help but recall what the news report had said.

He hadn't thought much of it at first, but this short trip outside made him realize that it was a terrifying thing if a person could suddenly revert to their state 24 hours earlier.

The traffic problems I am seeing now are probably just the tip of the iceberg exposed by this disaster, even when looking at all industries across the country and the world.

Jiang Ning took out his phone to check the time.

9:20 a.m. on March 17.

"Isn't the world supposed to be regressing?"

"How come the day has already progressed for 9 hours...?"

Jiang Ning couldn't understand it. He hadn't thought so hard in a long time. He used to be listless all day and didn't even use his phone or computer anymore. This sudden intense thinking made him feel like his brain wasn't enough and he only felt exhausted.

This fatigue came very suddenly.

As Jiang Ning walked, he felt a wave of dizziness, and some blurry images began to appear before his eyes like hallucinations.

The next second, he felt a sense of consciousness being pulled away, a feeling similar to the immense fright he experienced when he first entered a haunted house, as if his soul was about to leave him.

However, I don't feel scared at the moment. I just feel light and airy, and suddenly many tiny dots appear in front of my eyes.

Jiang Ning insisted on taking a few more steps forward. He believed that this was his hallucination, possibly a mental problem caused by depression over the past year. He thought that as long as he got home, taking a sedative would relieve the symptoms.

However, as he took a few more steps forward, everything went black, and a dizzying sensation swept over him.