Chapter 1: Shrinking

In the classroom of Senior 3 Class 4.

On the empty floor, a black ant twitched its antennae, bumping around east and west.

Chen Mu leaned against the desk corner, tightly gripping a staple in his hand.

After three deep breaths, he suddenly turned, his whole body thrusting forward with the gleaming silver staple, accurately striking the joint between the ant's head and body.

That black ant had just tried to resist when it suffered a fatal blow; because its nerves were not completely dead, its six legs and antennae continued to twitch violently.

Chen Mu watched as the ant gradually stopped moving, remaining silent for a long time.

……

One hour earlier.

Chen Mu discovered that his body had shrunk.

At first, it was a wondrous experience; everything around instantly magnified countless times—the classroom ceiling resembled the vast heavens, impossibly high, and the desks and chairs turned into skyscrapers in the blink of an eye, making the whole classroom seem like a world of its own.

He didn't know exactly how big he was now, but the ants he used to crush casually while walking were now nearly the size of a small calf.

He had no way of knowing what caused his body to shrink.

But after a minute of confusion, his strong survival instinct forced him to quickly adjust his mindset.

He had been left at the door of an orphanage called 'Open Canon' when he was still in swaddling clothes; as a child he suffered much bullying and hardship, was later adopted, shuffled among several foster families, and afterwards worked his way through school—though not rich in experience, at least his psyche was tougher than most peers his age.

He didn't know how his classmates were faring, and thought he should first find someone before saying anything.

However, after just a couple of steps, the ant that suddenly appeared before him made his legs tremble.

The local big black ant, scientifically known as the Japanese arch-backed ant, can reach over ten millimeters in length, its body glossy black and full of energy; Chen Mu used to catch and play-kill many of them as a child. Such ants usually dwell outdoors, rarely appearing indoors, let alone in a classroom that is cleaned every day.

Chen Mu felt that the wheels of fate had turned, that retribution was inevitable—of course he would encounter an extremely ferocious ant the moment he shrank.

And the ant, upon 'seeing' him, immediately waved its antennae and charged.

Chen Mu had no doubt that its pincer-like mouth could bite off one of his legs.

He certainly wouldn't sit and wait for death; fortunately, half a staple lay on the ground, which he picked up, wielding it like a longsword, and after several bouts of struggle, finally killed one.

The ant's muscles are extremely developed, able to move objects dozens of times its own weight; pure strength, humans at this scale are still far inferior, but lacking intelligence and poor vision, and given that Chen Mu is still noticeably larger than the ant, a single one could barely be dealt with.

This was already the third ant he had killed along the way, and his stamina was considerably depleted.

As he leaned on his 'sword' panting, he heard many excited voices coming from behind.

"Chen Mu!"

"It's really Chen Mu!"

"Boss, over here!"

"……"

Chen Mu turned his head and saw several classmates from his class waving at him from not far away.

Sure enough, everyone had shrunk……

Chen Mu had been worried that only he was experiencing this, but now it seemed everyone was the same.

In a disaster, it's natural to stick together for safety. Yet after shrinking, even though they were all in the same classroom, the desk and chair legs blocked most of the view, making it hard to gather everyone; after over an hour, they had managed to assemble about a dozen people.

Besides, it happened to be recess, so there weren't many people in the classroom to begin with; after meeting, they cross-checked and roughly confirmed no one was missing, and Chen Mu, sitting in the back corner, was the last to be found.

Class Monitor Dong Junwei stepped forward from the crowd, cautiously approaching the ant corpse that still twitched occasionally, glanced at it twice, then said with a face full of disbelief: "Chen Mu, did you kill it?"

Nobody had actually seen him do it, so they found it hard to believe—but with no one else around, disbelief was difficult.

Actually, I killed three.

Chen Mu felt a surge of pride in his heart.

A tall, burly figure rushed out, slamming Chen Mu's shoulder and laughing loudly: "Boss, you're still as strong as ever—I saw that ant and almost pissed my pants; all this strength is useless."

The speaker was Wei Dalei, Chen Mu's die-hard friend, big and thickset.

When they first met, they had fought a few times, but even though Wei Dalei was already nearly 1.9 meters tall in middle school, he could never beat the seemingly frail Chen Mu; after a few bouts, Wei Dalei was utterly convinced, greeting him as 'boss' whenever they met, and their bond became ironclad. Naturally, the reason he fawned so much was mainly his poor grades—he constantly needed Chen Mu to copy homework and, during exams, to pull him a hand.

Among Dong Junwei's circle there were plenty of tall boys, but when they previously encountered similar ants, everyone was panicked and at a loss; finally a girl reminded everyone to pick up pebbles from the ground and throw them as a counterattack, barely saving their lives.

Of course, the so-called pebbles were probably just some sand or dirt particles.

Wei Dalei knew Chen Mu's strength and ruthlessness, but others did not.

After entering high school, Chen Mu never again got into conflicts with anyone; no one would have guessed that this utterly unremarkable classmate could be so formidable.

Dong Junwei is the class monitor, strong-willed and responsible; even after shrinking, she has been the one gathering classmates everywhere, sustaining everyone's fragile psyche, and seeing Chen Mu able to bring strength to the team naturally made her happy as well.

"Let's double-check—did everyone who was just in the classroom gather?"

"Probably all here."

"A girl said: 'Today there's an exchange event with an outside school; most of them went to the field, so those of us in the classroom should be just us.'"

After the confirmation was complete, everyone formed a circle.

Previously they had a goal, but now they just stared at each other, not knowing what to do.

"Class monitor, what should we do next?" someone asked.

"For now, we can only try to survive; you've seen how a few scattered ants can leave us helpless, and if we can't revert to our original size in the short term, survival becomes a major problem."

Although Dong Junwei had been encouraging everyone, she actually had no confidence either, after all nobody had ever experienced such an absurd thing.

"But I want to go home, and I don't know how my parents are now," a petite girl said, voice trembling with tears.

"No need to think about going home for now." The usually quiet study committee member Tang Jing suddenly spoke.

Tang Jing excelled academically, a renowned scholar, with extensive extracurricular knowledge, her cabinet full of miscellaneous competition medals; whenever the class had a debatable topic, she could usually settle it once and for all.

"Why?" the girl almost cried, as if her only hope were about to be shattered.

Tang Jing explained: "According to my observation, our height is now under two centimeters; if I'm not mistaken, the scale has shrunk to 1% of the original—meaning someone who was 1.7 meters tall is now 1.7 centimeters. At our current size, walking ten kilometers is equivalent to walking a thousand kilometers before; think about how far your home is from school, and besides, there's no vehicle to pick you up now."