Wen Qian's name originated from the character "Qian", which means she and her biological parents were not closely connected by fate.
It would be easy to find out which villages the child abandonment site was close to and which women in those villages were pregnant and about to give birth, if one asked around a little.
However, since the baby girl was abandoned by the roadside, the Wen family couple assumed the parents simply did not want her and were trying for a son instead.
The Wen family couple did not want the child to find her birth parents in the future, so they secretly brought her home without telling any relatives.
Yet villagers love to gossip, and Wen Qian was very sensible. Her grandparents were getting older and she did not have the father and mother that most families had.
When she started elementary school, Wen Qian noticed a boy in her class whose father had passed away was also being teased by other students. At the time, she thought both her parents must have passed away.
The mother of that boy whose father died had gone to the city to work. She often sent money back home, yet the boy's grandparents claimed his mother had run away to enjoy city life.
As a result, that classmate always went to and from school alone, not interacting with other students.
It was said that after graduating from a prestigious university, that boy was finally reunited with his mother.
As Wen Qian grew older, she realized that she truly was an abandoned baby picked up by the roadside. She felt heartbroken for a period of time, but then thought about how she still had two family members and did not think about it anymore.
After her grandfather passed away, someone who attended the funeral asked Wen Qian if she wanted to look for her birth parents. Wen Qian declined.
The person even clearly knew which village she was picked up from, so if she really wanted to find them, it would probably be possible.
But since they abandoned her in the first place, what would be the purpose of taking her back now?
Wen Qian was no fool. People always have motives behind their words and actions. In this context, what good could possibly come from getting to know one's birth parents?
There would be no benefits.
Wen Qian has always assumed the worst intentions of humankind.
She should prepare some means of self defense now.
She was a petite girl without much physical strength.
If disasters really occurred like in her dreams, causing social order to collapse, even something as small as a cookie in her hand could get snatched away by others.
She was quite certain of this. During childhood, she had experienced getting knocked down and having candy taken from her hand by stronger kids, who clearly knew they were stronger than their peers and could thus take things from them.
Whether humans or animals, everyone clearly knows who they cannot mess with and who they can freely bully.
And that was just with children. Adults could surely be no better.
Even if she luckily escaped a surprise attack, when confronted with overt harm, the only options would be to run away or counter attack.
In a very stable social environment, there would still be darkness lurking, so what would a collapsed environment be like?
Back in school, Wen Qian had experienced tentative bullying. She would yell back when scolded and fight back immediately when hit, so no one bullied her further.
It was the same when she first started working. When squeezed on workload by sly old-timers, she outright rejected them.
By counterattacking during trials, naturally no one bullied her anymore.
But all this was built on relatively stable social conditions. When disasters like those in her dreams occurred, how sinister could the human mind become?
It would probably be even worse than the criminal law programs on TV.
What should she prepare?
Pepper spray? Stun guns or some hidden weapons? Were bows, crossbows and other medieval weapons allowed without guns? Were 3D printed weapons feasible?
Oh right, she would still have to buy kitchen knives to cut ingredients.
As for stabbing people, it's better not to. Anyone stronger could just take the knife and turn her weapon against her. She should just focus on cutting vegetables.
Wen Qian felt she should hide in the deep mountains and old forests when disasters came, avoiding crowds and bad people.
Online searches showed that even pepper sprays and stun guns could not be sold domestically.
Of course, it was illegal according to the country's laws.
Guns were banned in her country. Like most people, Wen Qian had not even seen one before, let alone know how to use them.
She even imagined whether people from foreign countries with guns would enter her gun-banned country if disasters really happened one day.
She shook her head. Indeed, her imagination was expanding. If she ever got to see real guns one day, she could probably try using them since they were tools created by humankind after all.
For now, she should learn to make her own pepper spray first.
With these thoughts, Wen Qian finally fell asleep.
The disaster scenes in her dreams were still there. But this time, she heard not just ordinary disaster coverage, but reports of disasters that had already caused social unrest and turmoil in countries.
Some countries directly declared bankruptcy as society entered a turbulent period with many refugees appearing in various places.
Her own country still had decent order with the government able to keep things under control.
The country started evacuating citizens, beginning with some countries and regions. Later on, it could no longer handle the growing situation.
With the refugee problem, conflicts erupted between countries due to limited resources and continuous waves of unorganized refugee flows.
Birds that fed on corpses could be seen circling in the skies above, like Wen Qian had watched in previous documentaries. Only this time, the bodies awaiting decay were not of animals but of humans.
At this point, sympathy was no longer enough. People within the country began worrying about their own circumstances as similar disasters descended upon their homeland as well.
Work and school suspensions began. Gradually the nights in cities were no longer brightly lit, and people could see stars instead of the blinking aircraft warning lights they were accustomed to.
Treasuring food and conserving water was no longer just a slogan. Wasting either would lead not just to criticism but beatings.
People gradually doubted whether conditions could improve. Some began losing hope and pleading to heaven for a turnaround of events.
Doomsday rumors emerged once more. Simultaneously, some cults also appeared, preying on people's fragile and confused mental states to recruit followers, asking them to hand over their property, food and possessions.
Eventually, people ended up penniless and destitute, with broken families or even loss of life simply due to putting faith in apocalyptic cults before any actual doomsday arrived.
In short, unnatural deaths skyrocketed, along with many deaths from irresistible disasters.
The fragments in this dream sequence were more disjointed than previous ones, but Wen Qian remembered more details when she awoke compared to prior nights.
She felt as lifeless and exhausted as pulling an all-nighter.
Nonetheless, Wen Qian persisted in going to work. For the first time ever, she took a taxi to get there.
She just needed to get through this work day, and then she would have a day off to catch up on sleep.
That morning, standing outside her company entrance, she recalled the scenes in her dream.
At work, it was constantly about giving one's all for meager pay that could barely meet needs, let alone wants. She mocked herself as a corporate slave with a lifespan mapped out before her eyes.
Yet when disasters gradually descended in the dream, people lost their jobs, and money gradually became useless.
In some small countries, just one or two minor disasters was enough to destroy families.
For vast countries, all sorts of disasters stacked up.
Wen Qian's dreams contained massive snow storms, torrential rains, droughts, and new infectious diseases emerging abroad and spreading globally.
Wen Qian became more determined to resign. During the period when she stocked up on supplies, she reckoned she should continue working for another month to earn an extra month’s pay.
Unsure when exactly disasters might hit, she decided to just keep working for the time being.
