In a top-tier apartment located in the core CBD of the western city, the bed in the bedroom was faintly bulging with a slender shape beneath a dark navy cover.

On the bed, the girl’s flawless, pale cheeks were plastered with strands of hair soaked in sweat.

Suddenly, she clutched herself tightly in her sleep, curling up painfully like a silkworm cocoon. Her long, seaweed-like brown hair began to emit a faint green glow, eerily spreading out behind her.

“No…
Si Ye…”

Her expression twisted in pain, her face contorted as groans and cries of distress filled the spacious bedroom. Her delicate white body began to tremble uncontrollably, completely trapped in a nightmare.

The luxurious white crystal chandelier on the ceiling began to shake violently until it suddenly shattered with a crash, scattering shards everywhere. Then followed the glass on the nightstand, the vase nearby, the tempered window glass—everything exploded one by one, blasted apart by some unknown force.

Crackling, crashing, and clinking sounds rang out in succession until a sharp shard of glass sliced across her pale arm, leaving a deep, bone-revealing gash.

The pain yanked the girl out of her nightmare. Ignoring her bleeding arm, she instinctively looked down at her empty embrace.

“Si Ye…” Nan Muran was momentarily lost—where was Si Ye?

She clearly remembered how his emaciated body, covered in blood, collapsed into her arms. In despair, she had chosen to self-destruct, obliterating the underground lab that had trapped them for so long.

But now—what was going on?

She looked up. The endless stretch of white was gone. The blinding fluorescent lights that never shut off were gone. The constant beeping of machinery was gone.

Most importantly, she was no longer naked and confined inside an indestructible glass container. There was no cold, mechanical voice calling her by a code, no label like some lab experiment.

Nan Muran couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Even though the room looked more like it had just survived a robbery, she still recognized it—it was her penthouse apartment in the heart of the CBD before the apocalypse.

Especially when she saw the black silk sleepwear she was wearing, her heart began to race uncontrollably.

Wait.

Realizing something, Nan Muran immediately reached under her pillow.

The moment her fingers touched her phone, joy exploded in her chest.

The screen read: 8:30 AM, May 13th, 20XX—exactly three months before the end of the world.

She had actually returned to the time before all the tragedies began.

Tears of joy welled up in her eyes—she was back. Then… what about Si Ye? Could he come back too?

Just then, a warm sensation on her arm caught her attention. Looking down, she saw a willow vine glowing with a soft green light brushing against the deep wound on her arm. The gash began to close visibly, healing completely within seconds.

“Xiao Liu, you came back too.” Nan Muran reached out to the vine in excitement.

In her past life, she had awakened her wood-type powers in the second year of the apocalypse. By chance, she encountered Xiao Liu in the mountains, and it became her contracted plant. With her help, Xiao Liu eventually evolved into a level-seven mutated tree.

For five grueling years in the apocalypse, Xiao Liu never left her side—until the moment she self-destructed.

Xiao Liu gently nodded in response, then slithered along her extended hand and wrapped around her wrist. Its tip stretched out and transformed into a familiar dark green tattoo.

Nan Muran caressed the vine-turned-tattoo, and her consciousness slipped into a vast, shadowy space.

This was the space ability she developed after being injected with countless experimental drugs in that underground lab.

Unlike other spaces, hers didn’t stretch endlessly or glow with bright white light. Instead, it resembled a commercial building.

She had once estimated it to be about ten floors with a total area of roughly 250,000 square meters—about the size of a mid-sized residential district. Coincidentally, it was the same as a large shopping mall in West City.

Unfortunately, she had only awakened this space ability in the fourth year of the apocalypse, when she was already imprisoned in the lab. She had no opportunity to stockpile supplies.

Nan Muran smiled. “Xuan Wu, you’re still here too.” Xuan Wu was the name Si Ye gave the space. Though it never responded to her, she was glad it remained.

When she stepped out of the space, the devastated room made her frown. She tiptoed barefoot out of the wrecked bedroom.

Judging by the damage, it must’ve been her psychic powers acting up. So once she reached the living room, she immediately focused her mental energy, and a bottle of water from the drink cabinet flew to her hand.

She opened it and drank deeply. The sweetness was almost intoxicating.

After some experimentation, Nan Muran got a clear grasp of her current abilities.

Her psychic and wood-type powers had both dropped from level eight to level two. The space power remained unchanged. But the biggest surprise was Xiao Liu—it had retained its level-seven mutation.

Strange, yes—but definitely a good thing.

In the early apocalypse, a level-seven mutated plant was practically invincible. This was huge.

She now had three months before the world ended—and powers that had taken her two full years to develop last time. She had been blessed with a second chance.

It was time to plan carefully if she wanted to survive this life.

Today was May 13. On August 15, the apocalypse would begin with the first rain.

That seemingly ordinary rainfall would last two full months, growing heavier by the day until the entire city was submerged.

What followed was a second rain—acidic and mutating. Anyone, anything—human, plant, or animal—touched by it would fall into a fever and mutate into zombies.

West City, as a newly elevated national central city and a tourism hub, had nearly 20 million people in constant flow. After the mutation began, stepping outside would mean wave after wave of zombie hordes. Surviving in the city center would be almost impossible.

In her past life, many avoided the acid rain mutation—only to fall to the ensuing zombie tide.

—

Suddenly, a phone ringing pulled Nan Muran from her thoughts. She set the water aside and answered.

“Ranan, it’s Grandma. It’s Saturday—don’t forget to come home for dinner. Your aunt made your favorite sweet and sour ribs, Tingting made soup, and little Qi is here too,” a kind, gentle voice said on the other end.

Hearing that familiar tone, Nan Muran remembered the old woman who always thought herself better than others. And her family—those five people who had ultimately sold her, wounded and helpless, to an underground lab in exchange for instant noodles. Rage exploded in her chest, and murderous thoughts swelled.

She responded perfunctorily and hung up.

Even though hatred boiled inside her, she knew better than to act now. If she killed someone before the apocalypse, she’d end up in jail—and die there when the world collapsed.

But that dinner—she still had to go.

In her last life, over that exact dinner, the Nan family had guilt-tripped her into exchanging her 1.5-billion-dollar shares in Nanqiao Group for a worthless, nearly depleted African diamond mine.

She had actually thought she got a good deal—and that her family cared.

In the early days of the apocalypse, they thrived with the supplies stocked in their chain of seven supermarkets. Living comfortably and smugly.

If not for a flash flood destroying their villa and looters stealing their supplies, they never would have come crawling to her apartment.