The stench of blood hung thick in the air.
Lin Xue lay motionless on the cold supermarket floor, her breath shallow, her ribs cracked like dry branches. Her once-white down jacket was soaked red. Around her, shelves had collapsed, and fire licked the edges of shattered glass.
"Sorry, Xue," her ex-boyfriend's voice echoed in her mind, cold and lazy.
"You're just too weak for this world," Jiang Mei had added, a twisted smile on her flawless face as she took the last water bottle and walked away.
They'd taken everything—her food, her bag, even her weapon. Left her as bait.
"I trusted them…"
She coughed blood, vision blurring. The pain dulled, replaced by the distant warmth of approaching death.
But just before her consciousness slipped into the void, her hand twitched—fingers brushing the cold jade pendant pressed against her skin. The only thing she had left from her grandfather. An heirloom everyone said was worthless.
Crack.
A thin fracture formed on the jade's surface, a faint golden light seeping from within. Her blood soaked into the crack—
And the world changed.
—
She fell.
Not in body, but in soul.
She tumbled through black space, winds whispering in ancient tongues, ghostly lotus petals fluttering past.
Then—silence.
A rush of heat, and her eyes snapped open.
April 1st.
She sat up in bed, heart pounding.
Rain tapped against her apartment window. The lights worked. Her body was whole.
"This is… my apartment."
She scrambled to the calendar.
Six months. She'd returned to six months before the apocalypse began.
Lin Xue stared at her reflection in the mirror. Her eyes were no longer soft—they were sharp, steady, hungry.
In her chest, the jade pendant pulsed faintly.
A voice echoed in her mind, neither male nor female:
"Blood recognized.
Heir of the Lin Clan—
Spatial Domain unlocked."
She didn't cry. Didn't scream. She remembered what was coming.
Red rain. Mutated beasts. Human cruelty.
This time, she wouldn't beg.
She wouldn't trust.
She wouldn't be the prey.
She would cultivate, hoard, and kill.
"Let the world burn," Lin Xue whispered. "But I'll be the one left standing."
The city outside her window looked exactly the same.
Cars passed below. Pedestrians scrolled their phones. Stores advertised spring sales like the world wasn't six months away from hell.
Lin Xue gripped the edge of the desk, her knuckles white. Her breathing was slow, measured. Every sound, every color, every heartbeat—felt too real to be a dream.
"This is real."
She checked the pendant again.
The jade surface, once dull, now shimmered faintly with golden patterns—like runes carved by heaven itself. When she closed her eyes and focused, her spiritual sense touched something vast.
"Enter."
She obeyed the voice instinctively.
In the next instant, her consciousness plunged inward—
—and she stood in a realm of light.
A pocket dimension.
The sky inside was painted in a permanent twilight hue. The land was fertile and untouched. There were plots of spiritual soil, a cold spring, and ancient stone platforms etched with cultivation arrays.
Lin Xue stood in awe.
"This was in my bloodline all along… and I didn't even know it."
She moved slowly through the space. Her fingers brushed over the stone slab near the spring. A flash of memory entered her mind—her grandfather's voice, always rambling about the old ways.
"Our Lin Clan once walked among immortals, child. But in this age… it sleeps."
She never believed him. Thought it was dementia. Now, she realized—he was warning her.
"The bloodline hasn't ended," she murmured. "It was just… waiting."
A row of ancient jade scrolls hovered silently in the air nearby. She reached for the first one. As her fingers touched it, text burned into her mind—
— Lotus Flame Art.
A cultivation method that burned corruption and guarded the soul. Clean, ruthless, and ideal for battle.
"Perfect," she whispered.
She exited the space, heart racing.
Time to move.
She checked her bank account. Savings: ¥43,000. Credit lines? Three cards. Unused.
She grabbed her phone and began listing supplies:
Water filters, Canned meat, Rice, instant noodles, Antibiotics, Seed packs, Tools, Hunting knives, Gasoline tanks, Batteries, solar chargers
"The red rain hits in October."
"I have six months."
Six months to prepare. Six months to become unbreakable.
Lin Xue stood before the mirror again.
The girl looking back had died once, now, she was something else, Something becoming.
"I will live. And they will crawl."
She picked up her bag and walked out the door without looking back.
The game had begun.