Clara Whitfield never thought that after dying in the apocalypse, she’d get another shot at life—with all her powers coming back with her.

Only, she had been reborn into 1970.

Fisherywood County, Hongxing Commune, Whitfield Hamlet Production Brigade.

Late at night, the countryside had gone completely still. By the pond, only the wind brushing through the willow tips made a faint rustling sound.

On a narrow dirt path, a man and a woman stood facing each other.

The woman was fat as a barrel, looked to be pushing three hundred pounds.

"Derek, hurry up and take me with you! I... I’ve made up my mind. I’m going with you!"

"What?" Derek Holden’s eyes darted around. "Clara Whitfield, have you lost your mind?"

"You’re saying you wanna run off with me?"

Clara nodded hard.

Derek’s face dropped. He couldn’t hide the disgust in his voice anymore. "What the hell are you yelling for, you crazy woman!"

"But... but you said it!"

Clara took a step forward, eyes red, voice shaking.

"You said you loved me so much you’d die for me. You said if I scraped together those money vouchers and tickets for you, you’d find a way to take me away and make me the wife of some big official. You said that yourself!"

She shoved him hard in the chest.

"Shut your damn mouth!!!"

Those words made Derek’s face go green, then white. Humiliated and furious, he snapped, "You dead pig, you really think I ever wanted you?"

"The only reason I didn’t tell you to get lost was because your soldier husband sends money and ration tickets home every month!"

"Now your man’s back, and he’s a cripple at that! What the hell use are you to me now? Got it?"

He’d already found himself a better option. Why would he still care about this thing standing in front of him?

Seeing Clara freeze there, dazed and slack-faced, Derek lifted his chin and sneered, "I’m gonna get into college someday!

A used-up tramp like you, married with three kids and still thinking about eloping? I wouldn’t take you if you dropped dead in front of me!"

"Go look at yourself in a mirror!"

"In this whole world, only that cripple husband of yours could stand putting up with you!"

"A three-hundred-pound sow matched with a half-dead cripple. You two really are made for each other!"

"Where’s the money and the tickets? Hand them over. Now."

Clara took a step back and clutched what was in her hand so tightly her knuckles went white. "No. I’m not giving you this."

Derek raised his foot and kicked hard at the bundle she was guarding. "Stupid pig! Still won’t give up till you hit the wall, huh?"

Before he even finished, Clara crashed heavily to the ground. Her head struck a rock, kicking up a cloud of dust.

"Cough, cough—cough cough cough!"

Derek waved the dust away, fighting back his disgust as he crouched down and started prying open the woman’s clenched fingers one by one.

"If you hadn’t kept forcing me to run away with you, I could’ve strung you along a while longer."

"Who knew you were this shameless? Got a husband, got children, and still trying to force me to marry you."

Just then, the woman curled up in the mud slowly opened her eyes.

There was a dead calm in them, and a trace of confusion.

She had just walked back from the edge of death. That look in her eyes was like something that had crawled up from underground—deep, cold, enough to make a person’s scalp prickle.

"Annoying."

The woman pushed herself up with effort. Out of instinct, she tried to call on her dual powers to crush the source of that noise in her ear, only to find her abilities had faded badly, nearly drained dry.

Worse, this bloated body was a disaster. She got out of breath just moving. Nothing worked right.

"Damn it."

Derek had just opened his mouth to curse when Clara looked at him with those strangely icy eyes. He jerked back so fast he landed on his backside.

His work pants got covered in dust, but even then all he dared do was mutter under his breath, "Why’d you have to open your eyes right then? Scared the hell outta me."

Clara ignored him. She braced herself and stood, looked down at this body swollen like it had been pumped full of air, then swept her gaze around.

Everything in front of her was unfamiliar. It was the dead of night, but life seemed to breathe from every corner.

No zombies?

No wasteland?

No scrambling and killing?

No suffocating end-of-the-world rot that drove people past the limit of living?

Had she... been reborn?

Clara frowned. A flood of memories that didn’t belong to her flashed through her mind.

This body’s owner was also named Clara Whitfield. An orphan the production team leader had taken in. She had schemed her way into marrying an army officer, then later gave birth to triplets...

Before she could finish sorting through those memories, the impatient voice beside her started up again.

"Hey! Hurry up! Give me the money and tickets!"

At that bark, Clara forced down the churning discomfort inside her. Her expression didn’t change as her eyes moved from the willow branches swaying by the pond to Derek Holden’s face—both strange and somehow familiar.

Derek slapped the dust off his pants and got to his feet. With a fake smile, he threatened, "You don’t want your husband finding out that while he was gone these past two years, you were always making eyes at an educated youth from the city and acting loose, do you?"

"Back in the old days, a woman like you would’ve been drowned in the pond already!"

"Drowned in the pond?"

Clara slowly lifted her head, voice light and drifting. "You?"

She had just cried her lungs out, so her voice came out hoarse and rough. But her tone was so calm it made the hair on his neck stand up.

The moment she spoke, the air around them shifted without warning.

The willow branches that had been hanging still suddenly began to move like they had a will of their own, thrashing wildly, as if they were carrying some towering grievance and had come to collect a life.

"A ghost—!"

Derek was so scared he scrambled backward on both hands and feet. But before he got more than a few steps, his eyes rolled back and he dropped stiff as a plank, dead unconscious.

Clara lowered her eyes to look at her faintly trembling hand and knitted her brows.

Forcing her powers under these conditions really was a strain.

First she needed a place to recover this body. Then she could slowly figure out this world.

Drip... drip...

The corner of her eye caught Derek sprawled on the ground, then the sour smell spreading through the air. Clara’s brows drew together slightly.

She stepped forward and searched through him for the ration coupons and vouchers the original owner had once handed over. After digging all over, she only found a small part of them back.

Too little. The amount didn’t match the memories.

As if thinking of something, Clara raised her hand with a blank face. A sesame-sized speck of green light slipped silently into Derek Holden’s body.

Dying and wiping the slate clean like that? He wasn’t getting off that easy.

Clara looked out into the heavy night. Her face had gone pale from forcing her powers to move. Following the original owner’s memories, she started walking toward "home."

The word home felt strange to her.

But this world, she was fairly satisfied with.

After all, for someone who had clawed through life in the apocalypse, this place was practically another heaven and earth.

—

Whitfield Hamlet Production Brigade, the very south end of the village. A lone thatched hut stood there by itself.

Broken down, sure, but at least there was a little yard fenced in front, and a big private plot stretching out behind.

Only the front yard was such a mess it was hard to look at, and the land in back had been left wild for who knew how long.

At first glance, it looked like some abandoned haunted shack.

If smoke weren’t drifting out of the kitchen chimney, nobody would’ve guessed anyone still lived there.

"Woo... boohoo... Big Brother, is Mama not coming back? Mama doesn’t want us anymore..."

From the pitch-black yard came the thin crying voice of a child, lost and helpless.

The five-year-old boy called Big Brother pressed his split lip together, tightened his grip on the wooden spatula, and lowered his head as he said softly, "Walter, don’t cry.

Even when she was home, she cursed Dad every day and beat us.

It’s better if she’s gone. If she’s gone, nobody’ll hit us anymore."

As he spoke, the five-year-old was standing on a wooden stool, stirring wild greens in the pot.

Maybe because he’d gone hungry for so long, he looked as thin and undersized as a three-year-old. But the words coming out of his mouth were far too grown-up for his age.

"Go check on little sister and Dad. I’ll stay here and watch the fire."

Arthur gave the instructions neatly and clearly. Firelight from the stove lit up his dark yellow, skinny little face. Bruises layered over bruises on his cheeks, and the sight of them made the chest tighten.

"Okay..."

Walter obediently left the kitchen. It hurt when he walked, and every step made him suck in a breath. He limped across the yard, clearly injured.

He had only just reached the middle of the little courtyard when he heard the fence gate creak open.

"Who is it..."

Walter turned his head. His eyes slowly widened. The next second, his legs gave out and he dropped straight to the ground, his voice changing in fright.

"B-big Brother! Big Brother, hurry and shut Dad’s door!"

"Mama’s back! Mama’s gonna kill Dad!"