After tricking the Great-aunt’s family into leaving, Ma Xiaoli locked the front door securely behind them at the very first moment.
Just as she turned around, a sudden bout of intense dizziness washed over her. Stumbling, Ma Xiaoli held onto the front door to steady herself.
Reaching up to touch her forehead, her hand came away dripping with hot sweat.
Once the dizziness subsided, she pulled an electronic thermometer out of the entryway drawer to check her temperature—39.2℃. She was indeed running a fever!
In her past life, Ma Xiaoli had developed a sudden high fever at this exact same point in time, remaining weak for three days. After her fever broke, she had awakened a plant-type ability.
However, during combat, that ability could only serve a supporting role for the team—such as pulling off unexpected sneak attacks. Because it wasn’t particularly useful in the front-line slaughters against zombies, she had remained on the peripheral margins of the team, feeling entirely replaceable—though she did meet a powerhouse later who could use plant abilities to wipe out zombie hordes.
She had even asked the person for advice on techniques to use the ability. But that person was no saint either; after offering a brief couple of pointers about understanding plant characteristics better, they simply walked away.
At this thought, she quickly opened a shopping app and placed an order for books related to plants.
Who knew if the ability she awakened in this life would change, considering she had already awakened that useless “Absolute Fan Favorite” ability through the blind box pull earlier?
Upon hearing her doubts, the System offered another sarcastic remark: [The ability of your past life was the karma of your past life; the ability of this life is the tribulation of this life… Ah, pah! I mean, a stroke of good fortune! Either way, won’t the host find out once you feel it after awakening? After all, even this System can’t quite gauge the exact depth of your bad luck.]
Ma Xiaoli raised her hand and slapped herself across the mouth.
Dumb mouth, you shouldn’t have asked this absurd System!
Too lazy to bother with a System that spoke only in meaningless dribble, Ma Xiaoli placed orders for a stack of related books based on the abilities she was familiar with.
When she finished, she contacted the property management manager, asking them to immediately delete the homeowner records for her Great-aunt’s family so they couldn’t enter the residential complex easily ever again.
Having done all this, Ma Xiaoli walked into her grandmother’s bedroom, intending to fetch the property deed so she could quickly mortgage the house to a bank or sell it off at a bargain price!
Even though she didn’t yet know whether force-binding the Jade Buddha would grant her a massive storage dimension filled with supplies, having resources was always better than having none!
Besides, she needed to rush to the hospital to get her grandmother out first—
In her memory, a relentless, continuous acid rain would begin falling three days from now. This rain would not only ruin all the unharvested crops on the ground, but it would also blanket the entire world in an ominous, dismal gray!
Once the rain ended a week later, almost everyone who had been exposed to it would be infected with an unknown virus.
It would start as an ordinary fever, but blood tests drawn at the hospital would fail to detect any known virus strain!
While doctors stood by helplessly, the condition of these patients would deteriorate drastically within 24 hours. Their bodily functions would plunge rapidly until they all died of sudden cardiac arrest—and just as hospitals everywhere were wringing their hands over how to store the mountain of corpses, these “bodies” would suddenly snap their eyes open at a certain moment and pounce on the people in the hospital.
The “corpses” that consumed forbidden flesh would instantly turn into zombies, and anyone harmed by them afterward would be infected all the same, unable to escape the fate of becoming monsters!
Therefore, no matter what, Ma Xiaoli would never leave her grandmother in the most dangerous place!
Yet she never expected that upon pushing the door open, she would find her grandmother lying unconscious on the bed!
Ma Xiaoli rushed over to the side of the bed and felt her grandmother’s forehead—it was shockingly hot, running a high fever just like her own right now!
“Grandma, are you alright?”
The white-haired old lady opened her bleary eyes. Upon seeing her, her expression instantly filled with emotion as she tightly grasped Ma Xiaoli’s hand.
Grandma’s palm was very cold and trembled uncontrollably. Her eyes spilled over with cloudy moisture, yet she didn’t dare blink, as if afraid the person before her would vanish the moment she did: “Xiaoli… Grandma’s Xiaoli is back…”
Ma Xiaoli’s vision blurred instantly, but she forced a silly grin, gently tucking her grandmother’s blanket in and saying in a soft voice: “Grandma, I’ll get you some water. Just wait a second.”
Grandma was already 76 years old and had been taking medication for chemotherapy continuously. As Ma Xiaoli held up her gaunt, paper-thin body to help her drink water, tears kept streaming down her face every time she blinked.
Noticing this, Grandma raised her ice-cold, calloused fingertips to wipe her tears away: “Xiaoli, don’t cry. Grandma is right here.”
Yes, Grandma was still right here!
Ma Xiaoli quickly wiped away her overflowing tears, went to the kitchen to fetch the stewed soup, and stayed by her grandmother’s side as she ate a little.
Grandma ate very slowly, but she kept looking at her with a gentle smile, as if she could never get enough of looking at her.
However, running a high fever after all, Grandma quickly lost her energy and drifted off to sleep after taking her fever-reducing medicine.
Heartbroken, Ma Xiaoli carefully adjusted her blanket, then quietly searched the carved wooden cabinet nearby for the property deed. Finding a reputable real estate agency online, she requested a young female agent to help her sell the house within two days—or, if no buyers were available, set up a bank mortgage instead.
The young real estate agent had encountered plenty of clients desperate for quick cash, but she had never met anyone with such an urgent deadline. She immediately looked put out: “Miss Ma, two days is really far too…”
Ma Xiaoli: “Whether it’s a sale or a mortgage, the money must be transferred to me within three days. Once it’s done, besides your company’s 1% commission, I will personally give you an extra 1% bonus out of my own pocket!”
The agent: “It’s not a matter of bonus; it’s mostly that the timeframe is…”
Ma Xiaoli interrupted right away: “4%!”
The refusal that was at the tip of the agent’s tongue instantly took a sharp turn: “It’s mostly that the timeframe is way too generous! 1 day! If I can’t help you sell the house by this time tomorrow, I will find a way to get the mortgage processed for you within 2 days!”
Miss Ma’s property was located right in the city center; its location was fantastic, and the residential complex had complete amenities. Although the real estate market had been sluggish recently, quite a few people were genuinely interested in a property like this.
The agent even had a few clients on hand who had previously asked if anyone was listing a unit there!
Although two days sounded completely unrealistic, Miss Ma wasn’t asking for a high price and was paying far too generously—with a 4% commission cut, the agent declared she could definitely do it!
In truth, Ma Xiaoli had originally planned to use this house as her initial base, getting a mortgage from the bank to immediately stockpile supplies before holing up here to quietly develop her strength.
However, with her grandmother running a high fever and needing care, if her Great-aunt’s family had truly been reborn, coming back to cause trouble in the chaos would only worsen her grandmother’s illness—not to mention that Luo Xiaoxiao seemed to be reborn as well. If she kept coveting the Jade Buddha and came over to stir up trouble too…
Settling scores with those ungrateful wretches was in no hurry; protecting her grandmother was what mattered most.
Therefore, Ma Xiaoli changed her mind on the spot and began packing her and her grandmother’s change of clothes, preparing to look for another place to stay—she had already decided exactly where to go.