1 Steel War Truck in the Apocalypse

On the 21st of April, 2000, Shen Cong was born. His parents worked hard for most of their lives and bought six large trucks in succession so that they could open up a transportation company. However, the profit brought by their transportation company began to fall in time while the housing rates increased. Hence, his parents sold five trucks and bought seven houses instead. 

But once the Spring Festival of 2005 ended, an accident happened, and it robbed his parents of their lives. It also resulted in Shen Cong, who personally witnessed the accident, to suffer a one hundred and eighty degree change in personality. 

He was no longer witty, cheerful, energetic, and optimistic. He did not want to make friends, go out, or learn at school. Instead, he was constantly paranoid, thinking that there was someone out there who wanted to hurt him. 

Shen Cong was once known as a potential candidate for key universities, and he even learned how to repair cars at seven, but because of the accident, he turned into a person with a persecution complex. Because of it, he started living the life of a useless shut-in by relying on the cargo truck his parents left for him, the rent from the seven houses, and the 800,000 RMB given to him as reparation from the accident to survive. 

Then, one day in 2016, a thread online changed the trajectory of Shen Cong's life once more. 

[Humankind has been taking excessively from nature, so sooner or later, the apocalypse will arrive! The frequent and abnormal changes in the weather over the past few days is proof!]

The writer of the thread was a nature preservationist, but they could also be considered a delusional crank. They listed out multiple unusual weather changes, magnetic pole changes, the melting of glaciers, the frequency of earthquakes and other data in the thread. With it, they argued their way through to a conclusion that if humankind did not start protecting the environment, the end of the world would soon be around the corner. 

[I predict that the deadline for the apocalypse is 2022! Everyone, if we do not stop destroying nature, it will be too late for us to regret it!]

Perhaps this sort of thread would be useful to foolish noobs who had just joined the world of the internet, but it was plain nonsense to veteran netizens. 

They began to enthusiastically plan how they would save themselves once the apocalypse arrived and what sort of items they should bring to be able to survive. Their discussion was incredibly lively. 

However, since Shen Cong was trapped by the mindset that "there is bound to be someone out there who wants to kill me" and could not get out of it, he immediately believed in the thread writer's words (though it might also be because he wanted something that could serve as an anchor for his spirit and give him strength). After reading through everything, he decided to prepare for the apocalypse so that he could survive when the end of the world arrived. 

He searched for a forum regarding outdoor survival skills and began to pay attention to how he could have a higher chance of survival once he was removed from civilization. 

One month later, Shen Cong turned into a high ranking member in the forum and created a perfect plan to survive the apocalypse. 

He spent a week to type out his plan, and it was so detailed that it went up to nine thousand words. 

When he saw the result of all his typing, a faint thrum of excitement started beating in the depths of Shen Cong's heart. Perhaps it was because he had been living without a direction in his life ever since his parents left him that he decided to set his goal on the apocalypse, even though it was something that had not yet arrived and might never come in his lifetime.

'But if the end of the world does come, then please destroy this bleak world in front of me and take away all my suffering. Please, let me be able to discover my new self in a new world.'

*****

Driven by his persecution complex, Shen Cong made a decision full of illusions of grandeur in a century filled with people who were full of illusions of grandeur: He decided to modify his truck into an apocalyptic war truck. He would drive that war truck around during the apocalypse to survive. 

Then, for a period of six years, from 2016 to 2022, Shen Cong used his talent in fixing and maintaining cars to fulfill his dream of building a war truck fit for the apocalypse. 

Creating the war truck allowed him to find a way to not be so dispirited anymore. 

Since he was going to face the end of the world, he was very eager to use every single day wisely and equip himself properly for the apocalypse. After all, no one knew just how the apocalypse would manifest, but making himself stronger was the most basic response to the end of the world. 

He started doing push ups, sit ups, the horse stance, jogging, swimming, training with a horizontal bar or parallel bars, training with nunchucks, practicing Chinese boxing, and wrestling. 

In fact, Shen Cong even contacted an online seller who sold firearms he personally created. After making a few deals, he bought three high-pressure air guns and two imitation Type 64 pistols from that person. Shen Cong also personally went to the police stations and the People's Armed Police Force stations in nearby county towns, villages, and towns to familiarize himself with those places. He also chose a route and drew a map so that he could hurry to those places to seize weaponry when the apocalypse arrived. 

If he were caught, he would definitely be imprisoned, but Shen Cong was not a dangerous member of society, and he never used his guns after buying them. Instead, he hid them and that was it. 

When he wanted to practice shooting, he went to a shooting club in the provincial capital. 

Usually, he spent his time modifying the truck and training his body in an abandoned warehouse his parents rented when they still operated the transportation company. He also learned how to use a bow, a crossbow, and a slingshot. With time, his level with them was not any lower than that of a professional, and his skill at using a slingshot was especially great. He could hit whatever he aimed at within a range of 20 m, even if it was a soybean. 

Crossbows and slingshots would definitely be powerful weapons during the apocalypse since one could create ammunition for them anywhere. 

*****

The weather was great on that day. 

China had spent a lot of effort in contamination prevention and control, and in 2022, the sky above it was blue once more. It was completely different from the scenario predicted by the thread Shen Cong had seen six years ago, and Shen Cong's belief that the end of the world was nigh was shaken, but since he had already persisted for a few years, he did not want to give up halfway through. Hence, he continued modifying his truck. 

Sizzle, sizzle…

The electronic welding melted steel, making two pieces fuse together. Shen Cong sat on top of his truck and fixed a small radar on an elevating platform. The small radar was an AN/PPS-15A, a surveillance radar the military used in battlefields. Shen Cong had spent nearly 400,000 RMB for it, and it had been pronounced as scraps by the seller when Shen Cong asked to get it in an amateur radio club from the provincial capital. 

Those who had connections in the club could get some scraps from the military and sell it at a high price. 

To fix the radar, Shen Cong spent a lot of time acquiring knowledge. Fortunately, he had a good head on his shoulders along with experience in fixing things. Eventually, after spending nearly a year on the radar, he was able to fix it. 

Since the radar was incredibly valuable, Shen Cong deliberately designed an elevating platform so that when he needed it, he could elevate the radar, and when he did not need it, he could just lower it into a compartment on the truck. 

He finished installing the radar into the platform half an hour later. 

Shen Cong observed the AN/PPS-15A radar in satisfaction and decided to use sandpaper and a file to make the welded part shine even brighter. Once he sprayed camouflage paint over it, it would be perfect. 

Bang!

Shen Cong jumped down from the top of the truck, which was nearly 4 m high, and brought out the electronic key of the truck from his waist. He pointed it at the truck covered in a protective shell of steel. 

Two beeps rang in the air. The armor that covered the head of the truck fell open, and Shen Cong jumped on it. 

The truck was a new Volvo FH heavy-duty truck. It had a displacement of 16.1 liters, and its highest horsepower was 750. It had twelve gears and four reverse ones, while its highest speed was 120 km/h. 

But those were its former specifications. After the truck was modified by Shen Cong, it had turned into a completely new truck. Shen Cong had installed two six cylinder engines on the back wheels of the head of the truck. 

The 9 m long container behind the truck head had its height and breadth increased as well. Right now, it was 3.9 m tall and 3.5 m wide. The entire container was encased in steel panels with steel spikes added to them through welding. 

Unfortunately, Shen Cong could only install 16 mm steel panels on the container because he had to take into consideration that he might be going over the weight capacity of the truck. But after encasing the entire truck in steel panels, the overall weight of the truck was only thirty tons, which was just slightly below the weight where it would affect the speed of the truck. 

Shen Cong also installed a bulldozer blade in front of the truck head. The blade was 4 m wide, and it could sweep away practically all obstacles in its way. 

But Shen Cong had only spent a little effort in strengthening the outer layer of the truck. The main thing he had been modifying over the six years was the inside of the truck. 

It could be said that the Volvo heavy-duty truck had retained nothing but its name—every single compartment had been switched into something better by Shen Cong. 

He once even thought about installing bulletproof glass and shielding the windshield since it was a very weak part of the truck, but in the end, he gave up on the plan and switched to encasing the entire truck with steel panels. As for observing the situation outside? He could just use surveillance cameras and periscopes to do the job. Hence, an automatic driving system was installed into the driver cab. 

There were eight screens of various sizes installed inside to control each position of the truck. 

With familiar ease, Shen Cong started pushing buttons on the operating panel and turned on one of the screens to insert a series of codes. Soon, the screen showed the activation of the information retrieval function of the radar, and about a minute later, the activation was complete. The system connected with the radar on top of the truck, and a scan appeared on the screen. 

Reconnaissance radars used on battlefields could detect targets, such as moving vehicles, people, and other objects, within 1,000 m. 

Shen Cong had installed a radar to have an easier time running away if he detected an enemy beforehand during the apocalypse. He did not want to be dragged into an encounter with the enemy, which was why he also installed infrared thermal image scanners at the head and end of the truck. If he used them with the radar, he could observe his surroundings with greater accuracy. 

Vroom!

He turned on the ignition, and the three engines rumbled at the same time. Shen Cong drove the truck in a circle in the empty space outside the warehouse to get a sense of the wild charge contained in the war truck. If it were not for the fact that his truck would pose too much of a shock to the world, he would drive it out and try letting it run on the road. But now, he could only drive it in a circle in the empty space outside the warehouse. 

The area of the warehouse was incredibly large, and it was located at a remote place. It was also surrounded by walls that were nearly five feet tall, which blocked everyone else from seeing inside. The warehouse was surrounded by farms too, so there were no buildings that were taller than the walls in the area which could allow anyone to see into the warehouse. 

However, occasionally, the farmers who went to their farms to work were able to hear the rumbles within the walls. 

If they walked near, they noticed that at the foot of the walls surrounding the large and supposedly abandoned warehouse was filled with all sorts of scraps and rusted steel parts. Punctured tyres piled up at one corner like they were a wall of their own. However, even though there was a lot of junk by the wall, it was stacked in an orderly pile. 

A small forklift was parked at another corner, and it was clearly used to gather all the junk into a pile. 

If they looked past the junk that filled their entire vision, they would see an abandoned warehouse made of steel. The warehouse was clearly rather old, and many parts of it were broken, but it was held together by all sorts of crude steel panels. 

They made it look like a scrapped tin can. 

Shen Cong had given up on his life in the city (which was much better than living in this place), and stayed here alone. 

Once he fulfilled his addiction of driving around, he parked his war truck at the center of the empty space. Then, he had the armor at the truck head slide open so he could jump out. When he looked at his steel war truck under the sun, it shone brilliantly with a silvery-white glow, and he could even see dense marks on it left behind by electronic welding, making it look savage and domineering. Finally, Shen Cong felt a small sense of safety in his heart. 

Next, he checked the resources in the truck compartment. Shen Cong did not know the accurate date of the apocalypse, which was why when he prepared resources, he placed them inside the truck at all times in preparation for the worst. He also did it to test the maximum loading capacity of Titan. 

'All resources, complete.'

After thinking about this, Shen Cong brought out a spray paint from his pocket and proceeded to spray the name he gave to his steel war truck on its armor.

Titan. 

Aside from the fact that it could not transform, it was just as mighty and powerful as a Transformer. It was, in fact, even fiercer than the truck form of Optimus Prime. 

"Titan, if the end of the world comes, we're going to be buddies."

Right at that moment, the sky rumbled. 

Shen Cong looked up and saw a meteor shower that had begun at some point of time in the originally bright sky. The comets dragged brilliant tails behind them, and even though it was still day, Shen Cong could see them clearly. 

One of the comets seemed to be falling in the direction of the warehouse.