A splitting headache, like countless burning steel needles repeatedly piercing through.
Even worse was the bone-breaking agony, exploding throughout every limb, accompanied by the teeth-grinding sound of flesh being brutally torn off.
“Ugh…”
Ruan Ning suddenly opened her eyes, gasping harshly, the breath stuck in her throat turning into a broken sob.
Before her eyes was not a bloody, stinking tide of zombies, but a familiar yet strange princess canopy bed draped with delicate gauze curtains.
She was wrapped in a soft down quilt, and the air was filled with a faint scent of gardenia incense she had once loved.
Sunlight streamed through the off-white curtains, casting a blinding patch of light on the floor.
Warm, clean, safe.
Hadn’t she already died? Wasn’t she just a soul now? Wasn’t she supposed to be stuck following Lin Jiaojiao?
The last scene before death clung to her nerves like maggots on a bone—the twisted, smug face of Lin Jiaojiao as rotting hands grabbed her and dragged her into a stinking zombie horde, as clear as a close-up shot.
In those eyes was the glee of a successful scheme and contempt for having her underfoot.
“My dear sister, a useless person without abilities should have died sooner…”
Those words, mixed with zombie roars and terrified screams of companions, slithered into her eardrum like a venomous snake.
Hatred, like boiling magma, instantly shattered the haze and confusion of rebirth.
Ruan Ning abruptly sat up in bed, threw off the quilt, stepped barefoot onto the cold floor, and strode to the dressing table.
The mirror reflected a pale but young face, around eighteen or nineteen years old, with eyes still retaining the clarity that her age deserved, not yet eroded by the apocalypse.
But now, those eyes surged with an unnatural, almost tangible hatred and coldness that contradicted her age.
Her gaze locked tightly on her left wrist.
There, quietly wrapped around it, was a jade bracelet glistening with a deep green hue. Smooth and translucent, it was a keepsake left by her mother.
In her previous life, it was this bracelet that, after her death, followed her soul beside Lin Jiaojiao, only then revealing it contained a huge portable space.
But without her knowledge, Lin Jiaojiao cunningly tricked it away, using it as her biggest asset to masquerade as a precious space ability user and thrive during the apocalypse!
And Ruan Ning was kept in the dark, struggling desperately without any awakened abilities, ultimately pushed into hell by the “sister” she trusted!
Only after following Lin Jiaojiao for three years did Ruan Ning realize how malicious and hypocritical the gentle-looking Lin Jiaojiao truly was.
She had long hated Ruan Ning.
Because of Ruan Ning and her mother Ji Wan’s presence, Lin Jiaojiao and her mother Lin Wanyun had always been kept in the shadows.
Only after Ji Wan’s death from illness did Lin Jiaojiao and her mother rise to prominence.
Yet, in front of Ruan Ning, she was always the stepdaughter of Ruan Ning’s father, Ruan Chenyang, not his biological daughter. Her “good dad” Ruan Chenyang had them keep the secret that Lin Jiaojiao was illegitimate from Ruan Ning.
After death, Ruan Ning finally learned the truth, but as a soul, no matter how furious she was, she could neither seek revenge nor justice for her mother.
Thinking this, her heart pounded wildly from the emotional turmoil, beating in her chest like a drum.
Ruan Ning took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down. She remembered Lin Jiaojiao had told her mother in the previous life that the bracelet required a blood oath.
With that in mind, she quickly cut her index finger with an eyebrow razor, letting a drop of blood fall onto the bracelet.
The blood slowly seeped into the bracelet, which then suddenly transformed into a streak of flowing light, entering Ruan Ning’s wrist.
Looking again, a bright green four-leaf clover pattern appeared on her wrist, like a tattoo.
Ruan Ning touched the clover and silently recited, “Enter… let me enter!”
At that moment, a slight dizziness washed over her.
When she opened her eyes, the surroundings had completely changed.
She stood in a gray, misty space. The damp, dark brown earth beneath her feet spanned about the size of a soccer field.
In the center of the space was a bubbling spring of clear water forming a small pool, its edges surrounded by faint white mist, exuding a refreshing aura.
Next to the spring stood a simple, warehouse-like small bamboo house.
Ruan Ning hurried to the bamboo house and pushed open the door.
Inside was empty, but the space was vast. She recalled Lin Jiaojiao had said that the space had a time-freezing preservation function.
It was true! Her mother’s bracelet was really a space! And it seemed to contain a magical spring!
Joy surged over her like a tsunami but was soon suppressed by deeper hatred and urgency.
She clearly remembered—the apocalypse would arrive in one week.
On that day, the sky would turn an ominous blood red, followed by meteor showers and viral outbreaks. Over six billion people worldwide would be infected, suffering persistent high fevers, hospitals overwhelmed.
Electricity, water, and communications would collapse, plunging humanity into panic.
Three days later, some infected would mutate into monsters that only knew how to devour flesh.
Order would collapse, civilization would fall, and the world would turn into hell.
One week! She only had one week!