“Grandpa, I want this wooden bracelet. Let Sister have the jade bracelet.”
The moment Yan Li heard her cousin say this, she realized that she was not the only one who had been reborn.
Her cousin had also returned to the past.
Judging by the timing, there were now only seven days left before the apocalypse arrived. Exactly one week.
When the apocalypse came, the entire world would first be plunged into a global freeze. After that, animals and humans would gradually begin to mutate.
Ordinary people infected by those mutated monsters would turn into monsters just like them.
As the infected population continued to grow, zombies would eventually surround the cities, and civilization would completely collapse.
Everything happening before Yan Li’s eyes was incredibly familiar.
In her previous life, her cousin, Yang Qingyi, had chosen the exquisite and beautiful jade bracelet. However, when the apocalypse arrived, it turned out to be nothing more than a portable storage space. Apart from serving as a mobile warehouse, it had no other use.
In the end, Yang Qingyi, who had failed to awaken any supernatural abilities, met a tragic death in a horde of zombies.
Meanwhile, Yan Li had picked up the wooden bracelet that had been left behind. Unexpectedly, it brought her an incredible opportunity.
The seemingly ordinary wooden bracelet concealed an extraordinary world within it.
It had granted Yan Li a water ability and a healing ability. Even her blood had become a miraculous medicine capable of neutralizing the virus in infected people.
In her previous life, thanks to the wooden bracelet that her cousin had looked down upon, Yan Li had become the most precious and indispensable member of her small survivor group.
But only Yan Li herself knew how cruel things had been behind that seemingly glorious life, where everyone had treated her like a treasured darling and showered her with attention.
It turned out that she had been reborn on the very day they had chosen their bracelets.
Watching Yang Qingyi take the seemingly ordinary wooden bracelet first, Yan Li showed no particular reaction. Her expression remained perfectly calm.
“Qingyi, this jade bracelet is much prettier. It suits your complexion better, too.”
The elderly man lying in the hospital bed gazed affectionately at Yang Qingyi.
“No! The prettier one should go to Sister. I only want the wooden one.”
Yang Qingyi’s face was filled with an expression of thoughtfulness and consideration, as though she were being exceptionally sensible.
Grandpa smiled with satisfaction.
The other elders gathered around the hospital bed immediately began praising her one after another.
Yan Li sensibly picked up the jade bracelet and slipped it onto her wrist before silently retreating to a corner.
Suddenly, someone forcefully pinched her waist.
Yan Li flinched in pain.
She turned around and discovered that the person who had pinched her was her mother.
Yang Qiulan glared at her with undisguised disgust. Her hand showed no intention of stopping, and she was preparing to pinch Yan Li again.
“Just look at your younger cousin! She’s so sensible and knows exactly what to say. Why can’t you be more like her? You’re always walking around with that miserable expression on your face. You’re nothing but a walking jinx!”
This time, Yan Li refused to let her mother get away with it.
She slapped her mother’s hand away.
Yang Qiulan froze in shock.
“You ungrateful brat! You actually dare to dodge me? Are you asking for a beating?”
The middle-aged woman flew into a rage, her face twisted with fury and cruelty.
Yan Li shoved her aside and ran straight out of the hospital room without looking back.
“Hey! Xiao Li!”
“What on earth is going on with that girl?”
“Cousin, where are you going?”
Calls from her various aunts and relatives came from behind her.
“That uneducated brat has no manners! Her grandfather is still lying in bed!”
“Sister-in-law, I never expected this. Your daughter looks so quiet and gentle, but she certainly has quite a temper.”
All those voices reached Yan Li’s ears, but she paid them no attention.
She ran down the corridor. The wind whistled past her ears, sweeping through the hem of her skirt as it rushed toward the distant horizon.
She had been reborn.
She had truly been given another chance at life.
Heaven had finally taken pity on her and granted her the opportunity to start over.
In truth, Yan Li had always understood that her mother hated her and her relatives did not love her. She had no friends, no confidants, and not a single person in this world who genuinely cared about her.
Even during the period in her previous life when everyone had treated her like a treasured darling, it had all been because of the supernatural abilities granted by the wooden bracelet.
They envied her, but at the same time, they coveted her blood.
Yan Li would never forget how she had died.
She had been locked inside a laboratory, with all kinds of tubes inserted throughout her body. Powerful machines running at high speed had been connected directly to her.
In the end, her entire body had been drained of blood while she was still alive, and that was how she had died.
What supernatural abilities? What wooden bracelet?
Since Yang Qingyi wanted them so badly, then she could have them all!
Yan Li certainly had no desire to keep any of it.
Yan Li walked into the restroom and turned on the faucet. She splashed cold water onto her face.
The cold water jolted her senses, allowing her mind to clear considerably.
Her parents had divorced, and her mother had devoted herself entirely to favoring her maternal uncle’s family. She would rather shower love and affection on her cousin, Yang Qingyi, than spare even a little care for her own biological daughter.
Her father had remarried and had a son with his new wife. He did not care about Yan Li either.
According to her father, she was nothing but a money-losing burden.
In her mother’s eyes, she was a worthless, troublesome burden, an ungrateful wretch who could never measure up to Yang Qingyi.
Yan Li raised her hand, wiped her face dry, and took out her phone.
Her account balance showed that she still had 5,000 yuan.
There were only seven days left before the apocalypse. She still had time to make preparations.
She lowered her head and looked at the jade bracelet on her wrist, remaining silent for a moment.
Then she quickly called a taxi and returned to her rented apartment.
When her parents divorced, she had been abandoned in her mother’s care. She had received neither a house nor a single penny of their property.
Her ruthless father had actually been quite calculating.
He had cheated on his wife while she was pregnant, transferred all their assets in advance, and then simply walked away.
This was also one of the reasons her mother hated her.
Yang Qiulan had always believed that because she had been pregnant with Yan Li, her husband had been left with no outlet for his desires, which was why he had cheated.
After being abandoned by her husband, she became a single mother raising her daughter alone. As the days passed, her resentment and hatred toward Yan Li only grew deeper.
As a result, after Yan Li graduated from junior high school, her own mother refused to let her continue studying. Instead, she drove the young girl out and forced her to work in a factory tightening screws.
Throughout those difficult years, Yan Li had relied entirely on herself. She refused to give up and pushed forward through sheer determination.
She found under-the-table jobs on her own, working from early morning until late at night. Even while attending school, she had to juggle two part-time jobs every day.
During winter and summer vacations, she sometimes worked three jobs at once.
No one was willing to nurture her, so she became her own source of nourishment, supporting herself through her own efforts.
Through sheer hard work, Yan Li managed to finish high school and, to her great credit, was admitted to a fairly good university.
Even so, her mother still looked down on her and continued to treat her with disgust.
As for her father, there was even less to say.
He had probably long forgotten that he even had another daughter.
The first thing Yan Li did after returning to her rented apartment was prick her finger and let a drop of blood fall onto the jade bracelet to establish a bond with it.
Three seconds later, a gust of wind suddenly swirled through the quiet, cramped room.
The breeze carried a faint, pleasant fragrance.
Yan Li took a deep breath and felt an indescribable sensation spreading outward from her chest.
By the time it reached her entire body, she felt completely refreshed and comfortable.
In the next instant, an immense space with no visible boundaries appeared inside her mind.
With a single thought, her entire body instantly entered this mysterious space.
White mist surrounded her in every direction. Only the small patch of ground beneath Yan Li’s feet was clear and brightly illuminated.
A spatial storage!
This time, she was the one who had obtained it!
Yan Li silently focused her thoughts, and in an instant, she returned to the original cramped and stuffy room.
She hurried over to a nearby chair and focused her thoughts again.
This time, both she and the chair appeared inside the space.
The area occupied by her and the chair was now free of white mist and completely visible.
In her previous life, Yan Li had never possessed a spatial storage, so she knew very little about how it worked.
As she continued experimenting and exploring, she discovered that the space had no fixed boundaries.
Wherever she placed an object, the surrounding white mist would disappear, revealing that area clearly.
It was somewhat like a puzzle game in which players could continuously unlock and expand new territories.
Not bad at all.