Zhu Li’s parents had divorced early in her life, each forming new families, and none wanting her. She was raised by her elderly grandparents.
She had lived in the rural area since childhood and always knew she was different from others—she was the child no one wanted.
Her mother had never returned since the divorce, and her father only ca back when she was not at ho. Each ti, he would leave things and go, fearful of leaving anything of her behind. Whenever she saw her elderly grandparents standing at the village entrance, silently shedding tears, she was filled with guilt.
Sotis she felt that she should not have been born, as her existence only brought undue stress and pain to her elderly grandparents.
However, one day, not only did her father return, but his beautiful stepmother and their son ca with him.
They bought her lots of tasty food and drinks, and even took her to the hospital for a check-up.
After returning from the hospital, she was taken to their house—a beautiful and large mansion unlike any she had seen before.
They dressed her in clean, beautiful clothes, and arranged a room just for her, filled with dolls and many pink dresses—it was the first ti Zhu Li had seen so many wonderful things that were not even on television.
Her father was an outstanding surgeon, and her stepmother a musician; her stepbrother, the sa age as her, was only a few months younger. That year, she was just sixteen years old and had just graduated from junior high school.
But during that sumr break, her father made no plans for her to attend a new school. Her stepmother and that brother only smiled at her when their father was around. Once he left, they ignored her completely. Even at al tis, the nanny would bring food to her room as she wasn’t allowed to eat with them at the table.
The initial excitent and happiness faded as the days passed and Zhu Li beca completely calm.
She was a sensitive child and she could sense from her father’s words that he seed to be hiding sothing. Moreover, her brother always looked down on her as if she were trash, unworthy even of speaking to him.
If they loathed her so much, why did they bring her back to this ho?
Then one night, a phone rang in the house—a call in the dead of night. Driven by so unknown force, she stealthily approached her father’s bedroom door.
What she heard then was a horrifying revelation that completely dumbfounded her.
She couldn’t believe a father could be so cruel!
As she was leaving, she accidentally knocked over a trash can and they discovered her.
Then, they locked her in her room. Apart from providing her als thrice a day, she was not allowed out because her body was too frail and malnourished to withstand a heart transplant—a heart ant for his cherished son. Indeed, her father had only taken her to the city to find a compatible heart for his son.
Once the compatibility was successful, their true colors showed.
She thought she might not survive until the age of seventeen.
However, suddenly one day, her family of three began to have fever and cough non-stop. Even though it was sumr, the temperature abruptly dropped below zero.
The nanny at ho also fell ill, and nobody brought her food.
At that ti, an ambulance arrived outside, fully equipped, because the nanny would only leave the food at her own door, so without any communication, she didn’t know what had happened. She wanted to call for help, but those people didn’t give her a chance; they just rushed her into the vehicle and left quickly.
It was so cold, but thankfully, there were blankets in the house, though no thick clothes to wear. She could only wrap herself in blankets and pace back and forth.
After starving for a day, she could no longer bear it, and used the nightstand in the room to smash open the door lock.
Once she regained her freedom and stepped outside, she was greeted by the pungent sll of disinfectant. Although she didn’t know what had happened, she guessed they must have contracted so terrible disease.
Luckily, it was sumr. She didn’t dare touch her sumr clothes and instead, found winter clothes in her stepmother’s walk-in closet. She also found a lot of money, masks, gloves, and disinfectants. Her father was a surgeon, and these things were plentiful at ho. She packed everything into her backpack and then left that ho without looking back.
When she got to the streets outside, seeing the empty streets made her realize the severity of the situation; she couldn’t go back to her grandparents’ house anymore.
There were no buses, no ans of transport at all. Patrol cars passing by urged her to go ho quickly and not loiter on the streets because the virus was everywhere.
Virus? What virus?
Confused, she returned to her father’s ho. Heaven knows how she thought to take the house key with her when she left, but it indeed saved her life.
It was from the television that she finally learned the world was swept by an epidemic virus, with anyone infected dying quickly within seven days.
Seven days, only seven days? Thinking about her father and stepmother, not knowing how long they had been infected. Could it be that they would never co back?
The thought brought an inexplicable sense of relief to Zhu Li. She tried calling her grandparents, but no one answered; she tried calling the neighbors, still no answer. She felt the house was contaminated with the virus everywhere. Before touching anything, she disinfected it first with the disinfectant, and then cautiously took food from the refrigerator to cook.
But the food in the refrigerator would be gone sooner or later. Within a week, all the supplies at ho were depleted. During that week, the virus mutated a second ti, turning the world mad, where people were biting each other. The weather was either scorching enough to peel off one’s skin or cold enough to make teeth chatter. The wind swayed high buildings and uprooted trees at the roadside; the rain flooded houses, and the snow was enough to block the entire door.
Under such harsh conditions, the outco for Zhu Li, without food or drink, was predictable.
From the ti she left her grandparents to her death—whether by starvation, freezing, or burning—it had been less than three months.
When Tangyuan traveled to her body, the whole world seed to be frozen. As she blinked her eyelashes and opened her eyes, the world seed to lt like a glacier, the cold receding like the tide. She tried to move her stiff body and could actually move???
She opened the door of the villa and found that centered around her own direction, the heat rapidly lted the ice. The sun peeked through the dark clouds bit by bit. There was no scorching sensation, and it seed to have returned to normal, but no one knew what this world had turned into because it was already battered beyond recognition—had there been an earthquake, this world might not have existed anymore...
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