Turning back to her room, she sat cross-legged on the edge of the bed. With a casual motion, she took out a lightning-element ability crystal core from her space and held it in her hand to absorb.
A faint stream of energy flowed along her meridians into her dantian, then circulated through her limbs and bones. By the time the moon climbed above the willow treetops, she had finally advanced to Tier 3.
A faint smile curved on Li Luoyu’s lips. She changed into nightwear and leapt out of the second-floor window.
Li Hezhi was the daughter of Li Xu, the younger brother of Old Master Li Yuan. In his youth, Li Xu had been neither outstanding nor capable, and he couldn’t endure hardship. He had little to his name and married a sharp-tongued, scheming woman. They had a son and a daughter. The son had run with gangs in his early years and was stabbed to death in a brutal street fight. The daughter, Li Hezhi, married Jiang Qinghui, the second-in-command of the Capital’s “Cutting-Tails Committee.”
They lived in an alley in the eastern part of the city, some distance away from the military compound.
Without disturbing a single blade of grass, Li Luoyu slipped out of the compound. Finding a secluded corner, she took an electric scooter out of her space and arrived at the courtyard where Jiang Chi’er lived in less than half an hour.
Her spiritual sense enveloped the entire courtyard. Oh? It was already so late, yet that cheap “uncle-in-law” hadn’t gone to bed—who knew what he was still studying at his desk.
After scattering a handful of sleeping powder, everyone inside the house fell into a deep slumber.
Li Luoyu strolled leisurely into Jiang Chi’er’s room. Without even needing to search carefully, she found the jade pendant hanging around her neck.
“Hm? Strange. Logically, she should have only bound the space to herself by accident while sorting through my belongings after my death. So what’s going on now? I’m not dead yet.”
“That’s not right… Even if last night was supposed to be the time I died, it still doesn’t make sense. Why did she take the jade pendant ahead of time?”
“Could it be… rebirth? A second rebirth? Is this the third life already?”
Li Luoyu twitched the corner of her mouth and rubbed the phoenix-shaped jade pendant in her hand. “Heh, it actually pairs quite well with my dragon jade pendant.”
Just as she was about to store the pendant into her space, Jiang Chi’er—who had been knocked unconscious—suddenly jolted awake and sat up, staring at Li Luoyu in terror.
“Y-you… why are you in my room?!”
Her gaze dropped to the jade pendant in Li Luoyu’s hand, and she screamed, “Give me back my jade pendant!!!”
She still hadn’t successfully bound the phoenix jade pendant. After thinking it over, she realized that in her previous life, she had accidentally bound it while sorting through belongings. That meant Li Luoyu must not have died yet, so she couldn’t claim it. As long as Li Luoyu died, just like in her previous life, she would be able to bind it and obtain the farm space.
Just now, a sudden sense of dread had struck her—like something important was slipping away. Her heart had pounded uncontrollably, jolting her awake in fright.
Tsk. As expected of a protagonist. Even her sleeping powder could knock out a pig for an entire day and night, yet it hadn’t even been ten minutes before she woke up?
Li Luoyu curled her lips in disdain, raised a middle finger toward the sky, and sneered. Her fingers idly traced the jade pendant as she cast Jiang Chi’er a cold glance.
“My jade pendant stayed with you for one day—how did it suddenly become yours?”
Startled, Jiang Chi’er blurted out, “That was something that belonged to me in my previous life!” As she spoke, she leapt off the bed, reaching toward the pendant in Li Luoyu’s hand.
Li Luoyu let out a cold laugh, her eyes turning icy. Before Jiang Chi’er’s fingers could touch it, she grabbed her slender neck.
“Previous life? So you’ve really lived three lives, huh? Tsk, tsk… so this is all a ‘protagonist’ amounts to.”
Before she finished speaking, her wrist tightened sharply. Jiang Chi’er felt the world spin as her body was hurled backward, slamming heavily into the stone wall.
“Cough… cough…” She curled up in the corner. At least three ribs were broken. A metallic taste surged in her throat, and she spat out a mouthful of blood, staring at Li Luoyu in disbelief.
“Aren’t you… supposed to… die tonight…?”
Li Luoyu crouched in front of her, raising a hand to lightly pat her mottled face.
“Tsk… with a face like this, how did you manage to become everyone’s darling?”
Jiang Chi’er’s pupils trembled violently. How did she know she had been reborn again?
“Y-you… you’ve been reborn too?”
Li Luoyu didn’t bother answering. She stared straight into her eyes and asked coldly, “Why did you report my grandfather?”
Jiang Chi’er shrank back under her gaze. “I… I didn’t… it wasn’t me…”
Smack!
Li Luoyu’s slap sent her head snapping back against the stone wall. The blunt pain made her vision go black. Two of her molars flew out with a spray of blood. She glared at Li Luoyu with hatred, her eyes churning with dark emotions.
But in Li Luoyu’s eyes—eyes that should have been filled with killing intent—there was instead a familiar cold mockery. It looked exactly like how Jiang Chi’er had once looked at herself in the mirror in her previous life, when she had torn apart her engagement with a scumbag.
Li Luoyu released a thread of spiritual pressure, pressing it down on Jiang Chi’er’s head, watching her coldly.
“Hahaha—!”
Jiang Chi’er suddenly threw her head back and laughed wildly. Blood trickled from the corner of her mouth, dripping onto the ground like blooming dark-red flowers.
“Why?
Because I hate how your family always acts so high and mighty! I hate how you’ve been surrounded by admiration since childhood—getting whatever you want!
Why do your parents love each other and still dote on you even though they’re both researchers?
Why is your grandfather a respected old revolutionary, someone even top officials treat with respect?
Why can you just lift a finger and have everyone flock to you?
And me? My grandfather’s a useless loafer, my father used to be one too, and my mother is nothing—doesn’t even have a respectable job! Kids in the compound wouldn’t even play with me—they gave me a nickname: ‘the fallen young lady’!”
“When news of your parents’ deaths came, do you know how happy I was?”
“Hahahaha!”
“I even ran to the east street and set off firecrackers myself—two whole strings!”
“When you died in your last life, I celebrated with two more!”
“When your grandfather died, I set off another two!”
“When your uncle died, I set off another two!”
“Hahahaha! That was when I finally felt like my good days had begun!”
Jiang Chi’er had gone mad. Her bloodshot eyes locked onto Li Luoyu.
“Why are you still alive? Why?!”
For a moment, Li Luoyu actually felt pity for her. After living two full lifetimes, she still hadn’t understood what it meant to be human.
With a flick of her finger, a current of electricity shot out, entering Jiang Chi’er’s forehead and into her brain. After a brief convulsion, a wisp of black mist escaped from her nose—and she stopped breathing.
“A Tier 3 lightning ability is still a bit weak… can’t even blast someone into ashes.”
Frowning as she looked at the body on the ground, she seemed slightly dissatisfied. She had heard that some protagonists were impossible to kill. Just to be safe, she took out a dark green potion from her space and dripped it onto the corpse.
“If you can still be reborn after this, then I’ll gladly play with you in this world.”
This was a corpse-dissolving agent developed by the research institute in her previous life’s base, specifically designed for zombies. Just one drop could rapidly dissolve even the toughest zombie body, reducing bones to powder, and even breaking down the smell of blood in the air into harmless gas—let alone a human body.
It wasn’t that she was cruel or unwilling to give the “protagonist” time to struggle. It was simply that after living in the apocalypse for so long, she had developed the habit of eliminating problems at their root—quick and decisive.
After all, she hated it most when people she disliked hovered around her like flies.
One of her survival rules in the apocalypse:
Men only behave when they’re hanging on the wall—and enemies are no different.
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