“Shengyue, your aunt is doing this for your own good! With your fragile health, you should suspend your studies while you’re still young and get married.
If you miss out on Kang Yuankai, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life!”
Just a moment ago, she had been torn to shreds by zombies, ending a lifetime of being threatened and controlled. Yet now, she was sitting completely unharmed in a house from before the apocalypse!
Jiang Shengyue discreetly glanced at the electronic calendar on the wall. The moment she read the display, her pupils contracted violently—
May 4, 30XX!
She had been reborn!
She had returned to one month before the apocalypse!
“If you weren’t just nineteen, young, and a university student, who would ever want a sickly thing like you?”
A look of disgust plastered on her face, Jiang Yimei prattled on endlessly.
Jiang Shengyue recalled this very scene. This was the exact day her aunt Jiang Yimei’s family tried to marry her off just to seize her parents’ inheritance!
When she was five, both of her researcher parents passed away, leaving behind an inheritance.
As she was a minor, her father’s younger sister, Jiang Yimei, was granted guardianship, and the inheritance was handed over to this family to manage.
Yet in her past life, she never knew the true amount of that inheritance until the day she died—she had never even caught a glimpse of it!
Meanwhile, this family lived in utter luxury after the apocalypse, all thanks to that very inheritance!
Relying on her parents’ wealth, Deng Xingpeng became a base leader, surrounded by followers, admired, and respected by all.
And she? Dragging her sickly body along, she had to brawl with multiple people just for a finger-sized multigrain pancake as hard as stone!
She had fought until she was battered and bleeding just for a sip of muddy water!
Seeing Jiang Shengyue sitting there, deaf to persuasion, Jiang Yimei slammed her hand down onto the table with a loud *smack*, her voice shrill and piercing.
“Jiang Shengyue! Kang Yuankai was chosen after painstaking deliberation by your uncle and me! Don’t be so ungrateful!”
Once her emotions settled, Jiang Shengyue spoke slowly, “Your ‘painstaking deliberation’ was finding your own niece a divorced man with a history of domestic violence?”
Who would have thought that her own aunt and uncle, in order to steal the inheritance, were scheming to marry off a frail invalid like her early to bear a child, hoping both she and her baby would die in childbirth?
“Enough! Who taught you to talk back to your elders?”
Her uncle, Deng Xingpeng, barked furiously with a darkened face.
Jiang Shengyue’s pale amber eyes, eerily devoid of warmth, flashed with icy killing intent as she stared at the well-dressed, well-groomed middle-aged man before her.
In her past life, the memory of Deng Xingpeng ruthlessly trampling her into the mud and humiliating her overlapped with the scene before her eyes.
Under Jiang Shengyue’s intimidating gaze, Deng Xingpeng felt his entire body tense, every hair standing on end.
The curses on the tip of his tongue died before he could utter them.
He cleared his throat softly to cover the awkwardness of his momentary cowardice.
“Your aunt and I are only doing this for your own good. We’re your elders; would we ever harm you?”
Looking at Deng Xingpeng, who was still just an ordinary man, Jiang Shengyue took a deep breath, suppressing the murderous urge in her heart—
Now was not the best time for revenge.
The most important thing right now was to take back her inheritance and prepare for the apocalypse.
In this life, she refused to be threatened by anyone!
Jiang Shengyue would show everyone that even as a sickly invalid, she could live better than anyone else!
[Apocalypse Dungeon Spark System testing!]
[Novice test mission issued! Take back the inheritance that belongs to you!]
[Complete the mission to receive the novice reward—Gene Potential Activation Potion!]
Jiang Shengyue was shaken to her core, but she struggled to keep her composure.
Whatever this sudden anomaly was, as long as it could help her survive the apocalypse, she would obtain it at any cost!
Besides—this mission was practically effortless.
Jiang Shengyue took a sip of water to moisten her throat, then lifted her eyelids slightly, her expression dripping with contempt.
“Are people like you even worthy of calling yourselves my elders? Aren’t you just trying to seize the inheritance? You’re hypocritical enough to make me sick. *Tsk*.”
Stung by the disdain on Jiang Shengyue’s face, Jiang Yimei’s voice grew even shriller.
“Jiang Shengyue! My brother’s inheritance should have belonged to me in the first place! Besides, we raised you for all these years! You ungrateful wolf!”
“Don’t try to guilt-trip me. I’ve got no morals for you to appeal to!
Why don’t we calculate, transaction by transaction, just how much of the monthly child support left by my parents was actually spent on me?”
Her parents had set up an account.
Before she reached adulthood, 50,000 yuan in child support was deposited into it every month. Yet throughout all these years, the amount that actually reached her hands had never exceeded 2,000 yuan!
“This… we’re all family, why split hairs over what’s yours and mine…”
The rest of Jiang Yimei’s words choked in her throat.
Right during this tense standoff, the front door was pushed open with a loud *bang*—
“Mom! Take me to the mall! That bratty girl had the nerve to show off her new 10,000-yuan phone! You have to buy me one today!”
Jiang Shengyue narrowed her eyes, looking at the chubby boy who had come in clamoring at the top of his lungs—her ten-year-old cousin, Deng Wenwen.
When the apocalypse arrived in her previous life, she had happened to be resting at home due to a high fever.
To ensure her own family had enough to eat, Jiang Yimei took advantage of Jiang Shengyue’s fever-induced delirium to take all her food and medicine.
They forced her to endure the illness without help, lying to her face that there was no food left in the house.
Every day, they gave her only a tiny piece of bread and cold water, while behind closed doors, their own family ate until their faces glowed with health.
By the time a base rescue vehicle finally arrived, Jiang Shengyue was so emaciated that she was practically skin and bones.
Her face was so gaunt that her eyes looked terrifyingly huge.
And all because of a prank by Deng Wenwen, she was shoved right off the rescue vehicle without any warning.
In her sheer panic, all she caught was the mischievous, triumphant smirk on his fat face.
“You dead girl, what are you doing in my house? There’s no room for you here! Get lost right now!”
This little beast was as repulsive as ever.
The corners of Jiang Shengyue’s lips curled up, forming an eerie smile.
“Deng Wenwen, there may be no room for me here, but there might not be room for you in the future, either.”
“Wenwen, you’re about to get a stepmother soon. Aren’t you happy?”
Jiang Yimei and Deng Wenwen both looked baffled. “What nonsense are you spouting?”
Deng Xingpeng’s heart lurched violently, cold sweat beading beneath his thick hair—what did this wretched girl know?
Jiang Shengyue shifted her gaze, locking onto the faint panic in Deng Xingpeng’s eyes.
“The other day, I happened to pass by Uncle’s company. I wonder who that young, beautiful woman next to Uncle was…”
“Jiang Shengyue!”
She had indeed passed by Deng Xingpeng’s company once and happened to see him acting intimately with a pretty young office worker in a café, so she had kept that in mind.
Jiang Shengyue cast a glance at Jiang Yimei, her eyes brimming with mocking pity—
To treasure a man who had married his way into a better social position—she really was blind.
Jiang Yimei frowned, watching the two speak in riddles. Caught by Jiang Shengyue’s bizarre expression, she felt an involuntary wave of embarrassment and rage.
“Jiang Shengyue, what do you mean by that?”
“What on earth do you want?!”
Deng Xingpeng’s face was ashen. Seeing Jiang Shengyue’s composure, he was certain she had discovered his infidelity; he just didn’t know how much she knew.
“Just say whatever you have to say!”
Jiang Shengyue stated firmly, “My parents’ inheritance. Give it back to me.”
“Impossible!”
“*Tsk*, then don’t blame me!”
Jiang Shengyue produced an old, black mobile phone. Several large words were clearly displayed across the screen—*Recording in Progress*.
As soon as Jiang Shengyue realized she had been reborn, she had quietly turned on her phone’s recording function.
When dealing with vile people, no amount of preparation was ever excessive.
Forcing down the rage in his chest, Deng Xingpeng said in a gentler tone, “Shengyue, we’re all family. Why speak like this?”
“You’re an adult now, too. The curative medicine your parents left behind…” The threat in his words was unmistakable.
Jiang Shengyue sneered inwardly.
It was precisely because they had fabricated the lie of a curative medicine that they had managed to hold her hostage for so many years.
Trying to threaten her with something that didn’t even exist? Keep dreaming!
In this life, she would never be threatened by anyone again!
Yet she let hesitation show on her face.
“The house can stay with you. That’s my final line, or else we’ll just have to bring in lawyers!”
“If your colleagues and subordinates at the company were to find out…”
Deng Xingpeng gritted his teeth, his jaw tightening. He knew she had him by the throat, and pressing the matter further would do him no good.
“Fine! Everything else goes to you, but transfer the ownership of the house immediately!”
Jiang Yimei never expected Deng Xingpeng to actually concede. “Honey! Have you lost your mind?!”
“Shut up!”
Seeing Deng Xingpeng’s terrible expression, Jiang Yimei moved her lips slightly, but in the end, kept silent.
Deng Xingpeng felt a pang in his heart, as though he had somehow lost a great deal.
However, Jiang Yimei could never be allowed to find out about his affair.
Back then, he had exhausted every scheme to hook Jiang Yimei, a love-struck fool from an affluent family, which was why he could live so comfortably today.
If Jiang Yimei found out about the affair, the losses would far outweigh any gains.
Although the inheritance was a sizable sum, this house was also worth a fortune. Since it was gained for free anyway, it wasn’t a total loss.
“Agreed,” Jiang Shengyue smiled faintly.
Under the murderous glares of the family of three, Jiang Shengyue accepted a bank card containing 10 million yuan and a slip of paper reading: *No. 33 Qingshui Road, West Suburbs*.
Jiang Shengyue raised an eyebrow. Ten million yuan might not be much to the truly wealthy.
But to ordinary people, especially a pauper like her, it was an absolute fortune!
The address on the slip of paper was probably where Deng Xingpeng had kept the supplies he mentioned in her past life. She had no idea what was inside that had enabled him to become a base leader.
In her past life, she had been tossed about by displacement and hardship, leaving many things uninvestigated. Fortunately, her mind had worked fast enough just now.
Aside from this house, she had not even known there were other assets in her parents’ inheritance.
To secure the rest of the inheritance, she had first used the affair as leverage, confident that Deng Xingpeng, obsessed with saving face and reluctant to lose the benefits provided by the Jiang family, wouldn’t dare probe deeper.
Then, she feigned yielding under the threat of the medicine, agreeing to leave the house behind to lower their guard.
Deng Xingpeng would only assume she had long known the true extent of the inheritance. Fearing mutually assured destruction, he had no choice but to obediently surrender all the assets to protect his secret affair and keep the house.
A muted glint shone in Jiang Shengyue’s clear, amber eyes—she wasn’t done playing with this family just yet.
The first step after rebirth: make them her first targets!
The next morning, at the Yunlan Gardens residential complex:
“Found it!” Jiang Shengyue held a red property deed in her hand.
[*Ding!* Test Mission—Take back the inheritance that belongs to you: Completed!]
[Novice reward has been issued. Please check your system inventory!]