6 – Invitation to the Yu Family
Yu Zichen had grown up without parents. Though Yu Zhenguo claimed he would treat him as his own son, in reality, he had only hired a nanny to care for him when he was young. As he grew older, he was directly sent to a boarding school.
Ye Jin was also young at the time and couldn’t take care of him. After she started university, the two saw each other even less frequently, as the boarding school only allowed students to go home on weekends.
Ye Jin went to Yu Zichen’s school and applied for a leave of absence for him. The most urgent matter now was to improve his physical condition. She had already enrolled him in Taekwondo and martial arts classes.
During the hour she waited for Yu Zichen at the school, Ye Jin felt extremely anxious.
The siblings had a significant age gap. When Yu Zichen was young, Ye Jin was busy with her studies and rarely had the chance to look after him.
As a premature baby, Yu Zichen had poor health, and his personality was strikingly similar to Ye Jin’s—both were equally aloof and proud.
Ye Jin had always thought Xiao Chen didn’t like her, but in truth, they simply lacked communication.
In her previous life, when the apocalypse broke out, she had been unconscious with a low-grade fever. Xiao Chen was the first to awaken his Mental Power. Despite exhausting his Special Ability, he fought his way into S University to find her. It was from that point onward that his health deteriorated even further.
“Sis?”
Ye Jin looked at the boy before her. He hadn’t yet grown to the height he would reach in her previous life. He was so small and fragile, his tender cheeks still carrying a hint of baby fat.
Although they were siblings, Ye Jin took after their father, with sharp and striking features, while Yu Zichen’s appearance was softer, closely resembling their mother.
At this moment, her heart was filled with countless emotions, and she didn’t know how to face Yu Zichen. Silently, she took his hand and led him away.
Yu Zichen obediently let Ye Jin pull him along, following without a word.
He hadn’t expected his sister to come pick him up. In the past, he had always returned home alone. He remembered Yi Yi Jie saying they were busy working on their thesis recently, and the last time he had seen his sister was a week ago.
Ye Jin brought Yu Zichen to the place where she was currently staying.
“Sis, aren’t we going home?” Looking at the unfamiliar surroundings, Yu Zichen couldn’t help but ask, “Where is this?”
Hearing his voice, Ye Jin could no longer hold back her emotions. She hugged him tightly, tears streaming down her face as she sobbed quietly, “I’m sorry.”
Yu Zichen was completely stunned. He had never seen his sister cry like this before. Softly, he asked, “Sis, what’s wrong? Don’t scare me. Did someone bully you?”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I failed to protect you.” It was all her fault—in her previous life, she had given him far too little care and affection.
“Did Uncle find another way to pressure you? Let’s never see them again. I’ve grown up now, and the money Mom and Dad left us is enough to live on. We don’t need to be controlled by them anymore.”
Though he was still young, he had always known that his uncle’s family was constantly scheming to get their hands on the company shares. When their attempts at emotional manipulation failed, they resorted to threats and coercion, making life unbearable.
Hearing this, Ye Jin felt even more guilty. Her younger brother had always been so protective of her.
After calming herself down, she released Yu Zichen from her embrace, wiped away her tears, and said to him seriously, “Xiao Chen, what I’m about to tell you is very important. You might find it hard to believe.”
With that, Ye Jin gently touched Yu Zichen’s backpack, and in an instant, it disappeared!
Yu Zichen’s face was filled with shock: “What just happened?”
“Just as you saw—this is a Dimension.”
“A Dimension?””Xiao Chen, I had a dream that the apocalypse is coming soon. Half the world’s population will turn into flesh-eating zombies, and anyone scratched by them will become part of the walking dead. In the apocalypse, only a small portion of ordinary people will become Ability Users or mutants. Mutants will awaken speed mutation or strength mutation. Ability Users will possess special abilities – common elemental superpowers include metal, wood, water, fire, and earth, plus other special superpowers like thunder, ice, and the space superpower you just saw!”
Ye Jin looked at Yu Zichen’s slightly agape mouth from surprise and continued, “My dimension isn’t my original ability – it came from grandmother’s jade pendant that she left for mother. What I’ve awakened now is thunder ability.”
She raised her hand and a small purple lightning ball appeared in her palm.
“What should we do now? Will the apocalypse ever end?”
Though Yu Zichen didn’t want to believe it, seeing the lightning ball in Ye Jin’s hand left him no choice.
The thought of the apocalypse made him anxious. Would it be like in the movies? With so many flesh-eating monsters, how would humanity survive?
“I’ve already started preparing, but we absolutely cannot tell anyone about this. I’ve secretly sold all our liquid assets and converted them into supplies stored in my dimension.”
Ye Jin hadn’t expected Xiao Chen to accept this so readily. Good. Though that novel never had an ending, accepting these facts early would help them survive longer in the apocalypse.
“Xiao Chen, I’ve suspended your classes and enrolled you in a martial arts program. Since you’re not in good health, we need to improve your physical fitness starting now. You’ll need sufficient strength to survive in the apocalypse!”
“Okay!”
He trusted Ye Jin unconditionally. His sister was his only blood relative.
The place Ye Jin currently rented had three bedrooms and a living room. The extra room was reserved for Zhang Yiyi and her mother.
She discovered that the spiritual spring in her dimension was renewable. She originally wanted Xiao Chen to drink the spirit spring water for marrow cleansing, but considering his weak constitution, she decided to let him build up his physical strength first first.
These past few days, Ye Jin had been sparring with Yu Zichen while the martial arts coach she hired for him designed specialized training based on his physical condition. She accompanied him to practice techniques at the martial arts studio during the day, then sent him to taekwondo practice in the afternoon.
Meanwhile, she practiced the blade techniques and lightning incantation left by predecessors in her dimension.
Everything from the dimension was top quality!
In just these few days, she could clearly feel her body becoming more agile. Her strength had also increased significantly under the nourishment of the spirit spring water. Her thunder ability had directly broken through to the first level. After leveling up, Ye Jin felt her body temperature had slightly decreased, though it remained higher than normal.
Many people in the apocalypse would awaken abilities after falling into high fever comas, but she had experienced low-grade fever for three months before awakening her abilities – probably because of her tri-elemental ability. However, this also made her the ideal test subject for those research maniacs.
She would never let herself fall into that situation again. Fortunately, her marrow-cleansed body made her awakened thunder ability clearly more powerful than in her previous life. Combined with her past experience, her improvement was particularly rapid.
The only problem was that she had already spent all the money she had, and the housing funds hadn’t arrived yet.
She remembered the company merger date should be approaching soon. Yu Zhenguo should have come up with new schemes by now.
“Ding ding~”
The phone rang. Ye Jin glanced at the screen and raised an eyebrow – Yu Ruanruan?
Well, speak of the devil!Ye Jin was just worrying about how to make money when someone eagerly came to offer themselves for her to pluck.
“Hey, Ye Jin, I heard you took a leave from school. What happened? Are you feeling unwell?”
Yu Ruanruan had gone to school looking for her but didn’t find her, so she immediately called Ye Jin. She hoped Ye Jin wasn’t avoiding her because she had noticed something.
“Yes, I’m not feeling well. I’ve had a persistent cold. Didn’t you know about it?”
Yu Ruanruan was aware that Ye Jin was sick—in fact, she secretly wished Ye Jin would never recover—but she said, “I’m sorry, Ye Jin. I’ve been so busy with schoolwork lately that I haven’t had time to visit you.”
Busy with schoolwork? Ye Jin chuckled inwardly. The low-tier university Yu Ruanruan was attending—which Yu Zhenguo had spent a fortune to get her into—what kind of demanding coursework could there possibly be?
“Of course, I know you’re busy. I don’t blame you at all.”
Hearing this, Yu Ruanruan felt a surge of delight and immediately pressed her advantage: “Alright then, let me make it up to you. It’s been so long since I’ve seen you. Why don’t you bring Xiao Chen and come over to my place? I’ll have the housekeeper prepare a table full of your favorite dishes.”
“Sure! But Xiao Chen isn’t feeling well, so he probably can’t make it. I’ll come alone.”
“Great! It’s settled then—come over to my place tonight!”
As if afraid Ye Jin might change her mind, she hung up immediately after speaking.
Ye Jin sneered coldly. Yu Ruanruan claimed to care, yet she hadn’t even asked about Xiao Chen’s illness. With such clumsy tactics, how had she failed to see through them before?
The Yu Zhenguo family had been leeches sucking blood from her parents. Everything they had taken before, she would make sure they vomited it all back out.
Author’s Note: