“Honey, Xiaohuan’s little car is missing.”
Lin Bai called out loudly from the living room.
Only then did Chen Qingqing realize that she had truly been reborn.
During the three years of the Apocalypse, she had lost her son and daughter one after another, along with the husband she loved deeply. In the end, her companions had betrayed her and pushed her into a horde of zombies.
Chen Qingqing’s heart had turned to ashes. Yet when she opened her eyes again, her little daughter had appeared in her arms.
She looked at Shuoshuo, who was quietly drinking from her baby bottle, and felt both heartbroken and overjoyed.
Only a mother could understand what it felt like to regain the baby she had carried for ten months and given birth to.
She had thought this was a beautiful dream and wanted to remain immersed in it forever, but her husband’s call brought her back to reality.
“Qingqing?”
When Lin Bai received no response from the bedroom for a long while, he walked to the door and poked his head inside.
“Husband!”
The sight of Chen Qingqing with tears streaming down her face startled Lin Bai. He immediately hurried over.
“What’s wrong? Did the baby bite you again?”
“No.” Chen Qingqing wiped away her tears.
“The baby’s fine. I-I just missed you all so much.”
Lin Bai let out a relieved breath and smiled as he pulled Chen Qingqing into his arms.
“I was only away on a business trip for a month. You’ve had a hard time taking care of the children at home this month. Didn’t the nanny I hired help you? …Would you like me to find a different nanny next time?”
“Husband, listen to me.”
Chen Qingqing took a deep breath.
In the few minutes since her rebirth, she had already made up her mind.
She would hide nothing from Lin Bai. Just as Lin Bai had given his life for her without hesitation, she would hold nothing back from him either.
“You have to believe what I’m about to tell you.”
Lin Bai had never seen Chen Qingqing this serious, and he grew tense as well.
“All right. Tell me.”
Chen Qingqing briefly described everything that had happened during the three years of the Apocalypse in her previous life. Worried that Lin Bai might not believe her, she asked whether he had been planning to withdraw money that afternoon.
Lin Bai’s expression gradually turned grave.
He really had been planning to withdraw money to buy his wife a gold necklace, but he had wanted to surprise her and had not told anyone about it.
Either Chen Qingqing could read minds, or… everything she had said was true.
Lin Bai believed her. Chen Qingqing loved their children more than anyone, and she would never joke about their lives.
“Honey, you’ve suffered…”
When he heard that Chen Qingqing had ultimately been pushed into a horde of zombies, Lin Bai’s voice caught in his throat. He gently wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
Chen Qingqing wiped away her tears.
What had she suffered?
During those three years of the Apocalypse, Lin Bai had suffered the most.
For their family of four, simply finding enough food to eat had been a huge problem.
Chen Qingqing had to look after the children, and their eldest son was only six years old. Lin Bai was the only one who could go out in search of food.
But they had acted too late and too slowly. The supermarkets in the surrounding area had already been completely looted.
To keep the family alive, Lin Bai had not only had to deal with zombies. Whenever he encountered people, he would beg them desperately for help. It was common for him to kneel and kowtow.
Whenever he was lucky enough to obtain some food, he would endure his hunger and bring it back for Chen Qingqing and their son. Only after they had finished eating would Lin Bai pick through the leftovers.
The incident Chen Qingqing remembered most clearly was when Lin Bai joined a local team in exchange for half a can of infant formula for his daughter.
He had fought to take on the dirtiest, most exhausting, and most dangerous tasks. As a result, he had accidentally been scratched by a zombie and burned with fever for three days and three nights, barely surviving.
Even so, the four of them had still failed to make it to the end. Their daughter had left them in the first year of the Apocalypse, followed by their son, and then Lin Bai…
At the thought of this, Chen Qingqing could not stop herself from crying again.
Looking at the husband before her, Chen Qingqing realized that during the period before his final departure in her previous life, she had almost forgotten what he had looked like at the beginning.
Her husband had been a senior executive at a company. He was refined, modest, and gentle, with bright, starry eyes beneath sharply arched brows. Many people had liked him back when they were in school.
Most importantly, they had been in love for ten years and married for six, and her husband had never lost his temper with her even once.
Lin Bai had worked hard to support the family. He was considerate toward Chen Qingqing and endlessly patient with their children.
Since her husband had left her in her previous life, it had been a long time since she had shed tears.
Now that everything had returned to the beginning, she was being held and comforted by the man she loved. All the grievances she had accumulated over three years surged up from the depths of her heart and turned into tears.
“Dad, Mom, what’s wrong?”
Xiaohuan came in from the living room clutching a teddy bear. Seeing the husband and wife embracing and crying, he stood frozen in place, at a loss.
Chen Qingqing looked at the son she had thought about during the day and cried for at night, the beloved child she had dreamed of seeing again. Her voice trembled.
“Xiaohuan, come here to Mom.”
Xiaohuan padded over in his slippers and gently held out the teddy bear in his hands to Chen Qingqing.
“Don’t cry, Mom. You can hold Xiaohuan’s teddy bear!”
The teddy bear meant a great deal to Xiaohuan. Whenever he cried, Chen Qingqing would give it to him, and he would miraculously stop.
In her previous life, when Xiaohuan died, the teddy bear had already vanished without a trace.
At that time, a zombie had literally torn off Xiaohuan’s arm. He had collapsed to the ground, rolling in agony as he cried out in heart-wrenching misery.
Chen Qingqing’s heart had been torn to pieces along with him.
Chen Qingqing pulled Xiaohuan close and kissed his forehead.
“Sweetheart, Mom won’t cry anymore.”
“None of us are going to cry anymore.”
Xiaohuan obediently leaned against Chen Qingqing’s chest. He looked up at her with his big, blinking eyes and answered, “Mm.”
Chen Qingqing felt that she must have saved the entire galaxy in a past life to have given birth to such obedient and sensible children. She only regretted that she had not been capable of protecting them in her previous life.
…This time, she absolutely would not repeat the same mistakes!
“Mom.” Xiaohuan suddenly looked at the little girl in Chen Qingqing’s arms.
“Little Sister’s neck is glowing!”
Chen Qingqing froze and hurriedly lowered her head. Sure enough, the little jade pendant hanging around Shuoshuo’s neck was emitting a faint light.
If Xiaohuan had not been standing so close and looking at it straight on, it truly would have been difficult to notice.
This was a treasured heirloom passed down through Chen Qingqing’s family. It was passed from mother to daughter, never to sons, and was meant to protect a girl from the moment of her birth until she reached adulthood, keeping her safe and blessed.
Whether it actually worked or not, it represented a beautiful hope and blessing that had been passed down for several hundred years.
That was why Chen Qingqing had given the jade pendant to Shuoshuo, but she had never seen it glow before.
Chen Qingqing tentatively touched it.
Suddenly, a beam of white light flashed out from the jade pendant. Lin Bai instinctively gathered his family into his arms.
When he opened his eyes again, they were in a small room two meters wide and five meters long, with a ceiling height of two meters.
The floor was smooth concrete, while the walls and ceiling were grayish white.
The room was brightly lit and the air circulated freely, but there was no opening anywhere.
Lin Bai immediately checked his wife and children in his arms. Only after confirming that they were unharmed did he relax.
He looked around.
“Where are we?”
“It’s a spatial realm.”
Chen Qingqing lowered her head and stared at the jade pendant.
“…A spatial realm?”
Chen Qingqing knew that her husband was busy with work and never read novels, so she simply explained some of her theories to him.
In her previous life, she had only vaguely heard that some people had awakened supernatural abilities. She had never actually met an ability user, so she had assumed that such things were merely the desperate fantasies of people in the Apocalypse.
When she had first encountered the Apocalypse in her previous life, she had imagined countless times how wonderful it would be if she could possess the spatial realm and supernatural abilities found in novels.
But she had never gotten her wish before she died.
Who could have imagined that less than half an hour after her rebirth… she would actually unlock a spatial realm?