A strong scent of disinfectant rushed into her nose.
Tan Zhizhi clutched her aching chest and abruptly opened her eyes, her fair little face already drenched in cold sweat.
Before her stretched a clean, brightly lit hospital corridor.
Tan Zhizhi stared blankly in a daze.
Wasn’t she dead?
A mutated jasmine plant’s wildly proliferating branches had pierced through her entire body, and she had bled to death.
So why was she sitting perfectly fine in a hospital corridor?
Could it be…
Tan Zhizhi lowered her head. As if suddenly remembering something, she tremblingly opened her phone.
June 30, 2086.
Her eyes widened abruptly as her heart pounded wildly, sorrow and joy instantly intertwining.
She had actually been reborn!
And she had returned before the apocalypse began.
There were still one week and five days until the apocalypse.
She still had plenty of time to hoard supplies. Never again would she be forced to survive on rotten food, grass roots, and Guanyin clay because of a shortage of supplies.
Moreover, she could sense that the two-thousand-cubic-meter supply-hoarding space she had accidentally awakened before being pierced by the mutated jasmine had also returned with her.
“Waaah…”
Just then, a noisy commotion and crying suddenly erupted from Room 906 behind her.
Tan Zhizhi stood up and left the corridor, heading toward Room 906.
Inside the room, a middle-aged man in his fifties lay weakly on the hospital bed, barely clinging to life. His complexion was waxy yellow, his cracked lips were darkened, and his sunken eyes were filled with despair and unwillingness.
Beside the bed stood a woman whose eyes were swollen red from crying, along with a young man who looked completely frivolous and unruly.
Tan Zhizhi coldly swept her gaze over the three of them before casually pulling over a chair and sitting down.
The three people before her were all her family in name.
Her cowardly and heartless father, Tan Mingxuan, her vicious and cruel stepmother, Liu Xiaomei, and her arrogant and conceited stepbrother, Tan Muyan.
In her previous life, she had treated them as the family members she trusted most, giving them her whole heart and making concession after concession.
Yet all she received in return was a cruel betrayal.
In this life, she had no interest whatsoever in this fake “family affection.”
The crying in the hospital room continued. Since Tan Zhizhi entered, only Tan Muyan had turned to glance at her, while the other two had not even spared her a look.
They simply treated her as if she were invisible.
“Mingxuan, hurry up and sign the inheritance agreement. The lawyer is still waiting downstairs at the hospital.” Liu Xiaomei cried as she took out an inheritance agreement.
“That’s right, Dad. Just sign it already. As long as you leave all the property under your name to me, I definitely won’t let you down. I’ll carry out your wishes and make the Tan Group bigger and stronger.” Tan Muyan staggered slightly as he spoke, the heavy stench of alcohol on his breath almost making it impossible to keep one’s eyes open.
Tan Mingxuan closed his eyes worriedly, unable to make up his mind.
He had already reached the end of his life. No matter how much property he owned, he could not take any of it with him into the grave. Someone had to inherit it.
Now, he only had two children under his care.
Tan Muyan was obedient and sensible, but unfortunately, he was only a stepson with no blood relation to him. Giving all his property to Tan Muyan still left him feeling somewhat unwilling.
Tan Zhizhi was his biological daughter, but she was a useless and foolish girl. If she inherited the property, the elders of the family would surely laugh at him.
This choice was truly difficult!
Liu Xiaomei seemed to have seen through Tan Mingxuan’s thoughts and immediately flew into a rage.
“Tan Mingxuan, don’t tell me you don’t want to give the property to Muyan? Muyan may not be your biological son, but ever since he entered the Tan family at the age of six, he changed his surname to Tan with you. He has always been filial to you and treated you, his stepfather, as though you were his real father. How can you be so heartless toward him?”
“Exactly, Dad. What are you still hesitating for? If you don’t want to give all your property to me, are you planning to give some of it to Tan Zhizhi? Hah! She’s just a girl. She can’t carry on the family line, and once she gets married, who knows what surname her children will have. Does she deserve to spend the Tan family’s money?”
After saying that, Tan Muyan mockingly looked at Tan Zhizhi.
“Besides, without me, her older brother, protecting her, Tan Zhizhi probably won’t even live long enough to get married. She’ll be bullied by thugs and hooligans, reduced to a worthless slut who’s been used by countless men and trampled beneath countless feet, becoming the disgrace of the Tan family…”
Smack!
Before Tan Muyan could finish speaking, a fruit platter filled with kiwis flew straight into his face.
With a wet splat, two of his front teeth, mixed with blood and green fruit juice, flew onto the snow-white wall.
The pain twisted Tan Muyan’s face. He stared at the stepsister who had always been so timid that she barely dared to raise her voice, then roared through the gap in his teeth.
“Tan Zhizhi, what the hell gives you the right to hit me?”
“What gives me the right? Because your mouth is filthy, and because you don’t know your own limits!”
Tan Zhizhi slowly rose to her feet, the sharp heels of her shoes clicking crisply against the marble floor.
“You little bitch! You’ve really become lawless! How dare you hit my precious son? I’ll beat you to death!”
Liu Xiaomei’s fierce maternal instincts surged forth. Her hand, covered in black nail polish, lashed viciously toward Tan Zhizhi.
However, before her hand could touch Tan Zhizhi’s face, Tan Zhizhi had already seized her by the throat and pinned her firmly against the wall.
The force was so great that Liu Xiaomei rolled her eyes in pain and kicked her legs wildly, leaving faint scratches across the white wall.
Not until…
Her lips had turned dark, she was barely clinging to her last breath, and she could no longer even make a hoarse sound from her throat. Did Tan Zhizhi finally throw her aside like a piece of trash?
Liu Xiaomei crashed into the corner of the room five meters away.
Looking at Liu Xiaomei, who was taking in more breaths than she could let out and dared to be furious but not speak, Tan Zhizhi lifted her eyelashes in satisfaction.
Then she turned and gave Tan Mingxuan a meaningful glance.
“Dad, you saw that too, didn’t you? With their pathetic abilities, they’re not qualified to talk about protecting me. And as for the Tan Group…”
Tan Mingxuan frowned as his bloodshot eyes suddenly shifted toward Tan Zhizhi.
After a long while, he finally squeezed out an angry sentence.
“Even if their abilities are limited and their words are unpleasant, they are still your family. How can you beat them so recklessly? You are utterly lawless and completely lacking in manners!”
As he spoke, he tried to prop himself up, seemingly intending to discipline Tan Zhizhi. However, his body was far too weak, and despite breaking out in a cold sweat, he still could not sit up from the hospital bed.
“Hah! Family? I, Tan Zhizhi, have no family like this.”
These were the people who had swallowed up all the Tan family’s property, driven her out of the house, and coldly watched her struggle in the floodwaters.
And they still deserved to be called family?
They were more like enemies.
In her previous life, under Tan Muyan and Liu Xiaomei’s combination of coaxing and threats, Tan Mingxuan had indeed signed that inheritance agreement and left all the property under his name to Tan Muyan, without leaving her a single thing.
But in this life, the property belonging to the Tan family would not be taken away by that mother and son pair, not even a single cent.
“Dad, there’s something I think you should know. Tan Muyan’s biological father is your enemy, Gu Tianwei.”