“Buying medicine?” the shop owner asked.

“No, could you please take a look at what’s wrong with it?” John Foster handed the dog he was holding over to the shop owner.

The shop owner leaned back in distaste. “I’m not a veterinarian.”

John Foster didn’t say anything else, just asked, “Can you take a look?” There weren’t any vets nearby, even clinics were scarce and expensive, but in his memory, the original owner had seen this shop owner help someone treat a bird before.

“…I’ll give it a try,” the shop owner said. After all, he had nothing better to do. Business that comes to your door is business you shouldn’t refuse. It didn’t matter if the money was little, as long as there was something to earn.

All the equipment was there. The shop owner couldn’t handle anything too complicated, but he could still do some basic checks.

John Foster paid attention to the instruments the shop owner was fiddling with. Combined with some images from his memory, technology had indeed advanced a lot. Bulky machines had become lightweight, single-function devices had become multi-functional, and operation had become foolproof. Even an ordinary person with no medical background could use these devices to do a simple checkup on themselves—let alone a professional doctor.

About two minutes later, the shop owner came to a conclusion. “Nothing major, just malnutrition. It’s hungry. Feed it well and it’ll be fine.”

People in the new century preferred large dogs. During the apocalypse, some dogs went berserk and became enemies of humanity; others were trained by humans to be guard dogs and fight alongside them. When all electronic tools failed, these dogs were a great help. In some cities, there were even canine statues at the apocalypse memorials, commemorating their contributions to that world war. John Foster’s team had kept dogs before, too.

There was another group—stray dogs that neither went berserk nor were chosen for training. They hid and struggled to survive during the apocalypse, and very few made it through.

As for the one in front of him, it was unclear whether it was a descendant of those meritorious dogs or one of the rare survivors among the strays. Judging by its appearance and fur, even if it was a descendant of a heroic dog, it was a failed crossbreed. Not much value in keeping it. In his mind, the shop owner stamped the dog as “no future.”

The shop owner glanced at John Foster again. Judging by how John Foster looked yesterday, he could barely support himself, and now he wanted to keep a dog with no value?

“This dog… you want to keep it?” the shop owner asked.

John Foster looked at the dog. Whether it understood or not, when it saw John Foster looking over, it wagged its tail.

“I’ll keep it,” John Foster said. The first living creature he saw after waking up—maybe it was fate. Although he was strapped for cash right now, John Foster was confident things would get better soon. He couldn’t rely on the little money left by the body’s original owner forever.

The shop owner didn’t say anything more. People’s choices were their own business; he just did his job and took the money. Pointing at the dog, he said, “Its fur is all matted. Who knows how long it’s been wandering outside. You can’t get it clean by washing—it’s a waste of time and money. Better to just shave it.”

“Then shave it. How much?”

“Fifty for the checkup, a hundred for shaving. But, seeing as you don’t have much money right now, I’ll just charge fifty for the shave. So, a hundred in total,” the shop owner said. He wasn’t overcharging; that was just the going rate. As for why he was willing to give a discount… Anyone who could climb out of despair, who knew what their future would be like? There weren’t many such examples in the black market, but he’d seen a few. It was just a small favor, a good deal for him. Even if the other person ended up dying later, he wouldn’t lose out at this price.

He spent ten on a meal for himself, but a hundred on the dog—was he looking for trouble? John Foster shook his head inwardly. Still, today he’d been reborn, he was happy, and he could be willful. As for whether the dog would stay or run away in the future, he’d just let it be.

After transferring the money, John Foster heard from the shop owner that it would take an hour to finish everything, so he left the dog there for now, planning to go out for a walk and learn more about this world. Only by understanding it could he start planning his next steps.

Leaving the pharmacy, John Foster took the elevator to the fiftieth floor, then walked along the corridor on the fiftieth floor all the way to the end, where there was a protruding platform—a station—where people were already waiting for the bus.

Ahead, the web-like highways stretched from low to high, extending from the sides of various skyscrapers like a spider’s web. The sight was visually stunning for John Foster; the images in his memory were nothing compared to seeing it with his own eyes.

Five hundred years.

The apocalypse had ended five hundred years ago.

The train arrival announcement sounded. The nearly hundred-meter-long train, used as a regular city bus, slowed down and approached. Following the memory in his mind, John Foster used his wristband to scan the area near the door of the nearest carriage, then entered and found a window seat.

It was two in the afternoon. Not many people were riding at this hour; the commuters and students were nowhere to be seen, and there were plenty of empty seats.

As the train moved, the tall buildings quickly receded behind them.

This area was all standardized buildings, one right next to another, with little space in between. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be so many black markets. But as the train left this area, the view suddenly opened up. Sunlight streamed intermittently through the windows, and on the distant skyscrapers, huge light screens flickered with moving figures.

Celebrities, advertisements, promotions…