[Rebirth in the apocalypse + clear-headed heroine + revenge and face-slapping + survival rules + mutual healing]
Seven days before the deep freeze arrived, I woke up in a pile of corpses.
In my previous life, I trusted my fiancé and gave him the last of our medicine and fuel. But on the night a blizzard sealed off the building, he and the woman who was always smiling sweetly at me locked me outside. They watched as my fingers turned blue with cold, until I couldn’t even cry for help.
This time, I throw away my ring first, then buy a building.
An abandoned apartment block, steel doors, electric fences, diesel, water purifiers, first-aid kits, canned food, alarms: I haul everything inside by the truckload. While everyone else is still complaining that the weather forecast is alarmist, I’ve already welded shut every entrance to the building.
When the freeze finally sets in, people outside start pounding on the doors, while people inside start fighting over food. That’s when I learn that in the apocalypse, the coldest thing isn’t the wind. It’s the human heart.
But I’m no longer Xu Nian, the woman from my previous life who would give up her own life for others.
No one is going to trick me into opening the door.
Anyone who tries to step on me to survive will have their path cut off first.
Here in this icebound fortress, I’ll be the one to write the rules for survival.
As for the man who’s always leaning by the stairwell, watching me like I’m a show put on for his amusement, I only meant to borrow a knife from him. Then, one night during a blackout, he cornered me in the electrical room. His breath warmed my ear as he murmured, “Xu Nian, are you guarding yourself against me, or waiting for me?”
