“Who…are you anyway?”

In the sterile white hospital room Lan Shiru’s eyes flew open as a flicker of confusion crossing her gaze as brutal, bloody scenes surged through her mind. Was it all a dream?

A faint, helpless cry broke through her daze, bringing her back to reality. She looked down at the small, blood-covered figure beside her, feeling her cold heart start to warm.

Le Bao? Was this really her little Le Bao?

The tiny, wriggling baby, umbilical cord still attached, seemed to sense his mother’s presence and began to cry even louder, as if responding to her.

Tears streamed down Lan Shiru’s face. It wasn’t a dream. None of it—neither the past nor the present—was a dream. Her Le Bao was here, her love was here and her enemies were still here. She was still here. Everything was beginning anew.

The blood beneath her had dried, but she paid it no mind. Reaching for a pair of medical scissors nearby, she cut the umbilical cord, carefully bathed the little one, and wrapped him snugly in a clean, white cloth before drawing him close to nurse.

Little Le Bao was truly famished, suckling eagerly, his small mouth moving with such urgency that it tugged at her heart.

Lan Shiru gently patted his tiny bottom and smiled. “Be good, Le Bao. There’s no rush.”

Today was the first day of the apocalypse, and also the first day of her Le Bao’s life. Outside the private hospital room, the world had become a hellscape, but she felt no need to leave just yet.

Lying at the door, her loyal companion, Jiang Xiang hadn’t woken up yet. She stroked its blood-red, matted fur with gentle affection, her eyes full of joy.

This pure red Tibetan mastiff had been with her through her darkest times—both before and after the apocalypse. They were more than companions; they were family. It had once sacrificed itself to protect her on her path of vengeance. And now, it was here again. She whispered, “This time, I’ll protect you.”

Little Le Bao, content and full, drifted into a peaceful sleep. Lan Shiru laid him on the bed before heading to the bathroom to clean herself up. At the start of the apocalypse, water, electricity, and gas were still running, though they would likely last only a day. Afterward, she efficiently cut her long hair short and changed into athletic gear.

When she stepped out of the bathroom, she glanced at the sleeping baby, who gurgled and blew a tiny bubble in his sleep. Smiling, she bent down to kiss his soft cheek before vanishing into her hidden space.

This hidden space was a gift from Le Bao’s father, who, after their fleeting encounter, had slipped a phoenix bracelet onto her wrist with only the words, “Wait for me,” before disappearing without a trace. When they met again, it was across an unbridgeable divide.

At the beginning of her previous life, Lan Shiru had been filled with resentment, anger, and grief. She had cursed the man she never truly met, who had ruined her life. But thankfully, her adoptive sister found her the next morning, comforting her and giving her the strength to leave the place that had destroyed her life. She took Lan Shiru somewhere quiet, where no one would disturb her, reassuring her that no one would ever know what happened.

Lan Shiru had believed her. But three months later, when she first dared to step outside, she was met not with peace, but with rumors: whispers about her being shameless, indecent, and vulgar. Throughout the upper circles of B City, everyone had a copy of her so-called “bed photos.” She later discovered, quite by accident, that it wasn’t her in those photos. Everything from that night had been destroyed when Le Bao’s father left. The circulated photos were taken by her foster sister, who had found a woman who resembled Lan Shiru just enough. A blurred profile, paired with carefully crafted gossip, ensured that no one questioned its authenticity.

Her foster sister tearfully apologized, claiming she had no idea how the photos had spread, but she assured Lan Shiru that everything would be handled.

Her adoptive parents and brother told her the same: don’t be afraid; they were with her, and no one would harm her.

And she believed them. Grateful, she moved into the hospital they arranged for her, where she soon discovered she was pregnant.

Her initial reaction to the baby growing inside her was fear and unease. But the moment she felt the first tiny kick, she felt alive again and filled with pure joy. She stayed in the hospital, awaiting her little one’s arrival, with newfound hope.

Ten months passed, exactly to the day. Not a day more, not a day less. Then, on the day the apocalypse began, her little one was born. Just like today, her labor started at one in the morning and ended at noon. Alone in the hospital room, she brought Le Bao into the world.

When she woke up, she found that the world had changed. Terrified, she stayed in the hospital room, waiting anxiously for three days until her adoptive parents and family arrived to “rescue” her and her newborn. At that time. She couldn’t have been more grateful as her heart overflowed with thankfulness and even vowed to repay them in this lifetime.

And so, she did. In that first year of the apocalypse, every ounce of energy she had, beyond caring for Le Bao, was devoted to repaying them. But the truth was darkly ironic—they didn’t want gratitude. They wanted her and her child’s lives.

A year into the apocalypse, rumors began to circulate. They said that children born on the day the apocalypse began carried an antibody that could suppress or even cure the virus. People became desperate, searching frantically for these children, willing to sacrifice them for a chance at survival.

So, Le Bao was given away. Her adoptive family used him as an offering, trading him for their own advancement and safety.

It was only then that she truly saw their true nature. She discovered that her so called sister had drugged her that night, setting up her encounter with the man she had never even seen. Her sister’s plan was to ruin her reputation and isolate her.

The so-called “hiding” was just a ruse to make her seem even more shameless.

Hiding her in the hospital was simply a convenient way to let her fade away, leaving her to fend for herself.

Her supposed “rescue” during the apocalypse was the cruelest joke of all. A group of survivors had come to the hospital in search of supplies. Forced to join them, her adoptive family happened to stumble upon her—the forgotten foster daughter. Upon realizing she had developed special abilities, their jealousy took over, and they saw her as nothing more than a tool to secure their own survival. They succeeded; thanks to her awakened water ability, they no longer suffered from thirst and enjoyed special treatment as the family of an ability user.

Yes, she had awakened her water abilities. And in this life, she had awakened them again.

Later, when her adoptive family awakened their own powers and found a path to success, they abandoned her without a trace of regret.

From beginning to end, she couldn’t understand why they singled her out for such cruelty, especially since she wasn’t even their blood relative.

For five years, Lan Shiru exhausted every ounce of her strength to seek justice, but all she managed was to barely scratch the surface of their power. In the end, defeated and furious, she became a corpse—mindlessly wandering in every corner as her soul drifted away, drawn by some unknown force to the side of a man whose face she couldn’t clearly see.

He was Le Bao’s father—a mysterious and powerful man.

He found her decayed body, treating it with the utmost care and reverence, staying by her side as if she were still his beloved. If he hadn’t feared that even the slightest touch would cause her fragile remains to crumble, he would have held her close.

He avenged her and their child, ensuring that those who wronged them met a merciless end. He was destined to be a king among men.

But in the end, he offered himself to her, willingly placing himself within her reach, smiling as he joined her in the descent into darkness.

Through five years of companionship in spirit, Lan Shiru had fallen in love with this man—a man whose face she’d never seen, whose name and origins she didn’t know, and yet who loved her to his very core. He was the father of her child, known to all as Yilong.

“From now on, I am Cang Feng.” The phoenix bracelet on her wrist had long since merged with her flesh, like a vibrant, living phoenix tattooed upon her wrist, wings spread in flight.

Lan Shiru looked around the space—a run-down cottage, fields encircling the area, and pathways of cement connecting each patch of farmland.

The cement paths led to storage areas—vast warehouses with unlimited space, each functioning like its own dimensional storage.

The fields and pastures were empty. In her past life, Lan Shiru had only planted a few plots to feed her family. In the first year, she was too busy to tend to them fully. The next five years, she was consumed by hatred, lacking any will to cultivate. Eventually, she no longer had the strength.

The space, too, was barely utilized, serving only as a convenient place to store the small supplies she occasionally found on trips outside.

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