Chapter 1 Rebirth

At the S City rescue station, Jeff and Neil exchanged thirty potato locust cakes with their meager points, which would be their food for the next ten days.

Six years after the apocalypse, in a world who had experienced multiple disasters, food became incredibly precious.

Plain white rice had long disappeared, and now the best food was pure potatoes and sweet potatoes; potato locust cakes came next, and the majority of people were eating cakes made of potatoes, sweet potato vines, and tree roots.

For Jeff and Neil, exchanging thirty potato locust cakes at once undoubtedly made them the golden children in a world plagued by hunger.

Not long after leaving the rescue station, a group of people followed them.

"Hurry, catch up! Those two women went into the alley!"

On the wide street, a bald man and seven or eight others hurried towards the nearby alley.

In the alley, Jeff miraculously conjured two fire axes out of thin air. "Neil, don't rush out yet. Let me make some trouble first."

Neil took the axe from Jeff, nodding slightly. "You lead the way."

As the group of people approached the alley, Neil stepped back to give Jeff enough space to act.

"Haha, we're lucky today, we caught two women!" the bald man rubbed his bald head and grinned lewdly.

The man next to him, with triangle-shaped eyes, spoke, "Hey, you two, hand over everything you have!"

The bald man grinned, showing his yellow teeth. "It's okay if you don't, you can play with us. If we're satisfied, we'll let you go, how about that?"

Jeff cautiously watched the man and sneered as she approached them slowly.

"Did anyone see you come in here?"

The bald man thought Jeff was afraid of being seen by someone else and chuckled, "You can rest assured, there's no one around. You can scream as loud as you want later."

The other men laughed loudly upon hearing the bald man's words.

Jeff also chuckled. "No one saw it? That's really great!"

As she finished speaking, Jeff waved her hand. The bald man and his group were confused, not understanding what Jeff was doing. However, the next moment, they all widened their eyes.

Huge rocks appeared out of thin air above them and crashed down on them.

Several rocks fell in succession, and Neil immediately rushed forward with an axe and struck at one of the men who was trying to escape.

Jeff also quickly wielded her axe and struck at the man pushing the rocks.

"Monster... monster, don't kill me! Please... ahh!" The bald man's words were cut off as Jeff's axe struck his head.

Monster? She wasn't a monster, she just had good luck. When she was on the brink of death with a fever during the extreme cold, she unexpectedly gained the power of space.

And now, these people who had witnessed her using the power of space... had to die!

Five minutes later, there wasn't a single living person in the alley except for Jeff and Neil.

The two of them tacitly started cleaning up the scene. Neil kept watch at the entrance of the alley, while Jeff gathered the rocks and collected the belongings of the men.

Suddenly, the ground started shaking. Neil was stunned and turned around to shout, "Jeff! Run! It's an earthquake!"

Without hesitation, Jeff didn't even bother to collect the remaining items. She bolted out of the alley.

The tremors grew stronger, and Jeff and Neil, swaying, ran hand in hand towards the open ground.

The buildings around them, which had been exposed to long periods of water and sun, collapsed one after another like dominoes.

"Jeff! Be careful!"

Neil shouted, then shielded Jeff as a high-rise building fell, burying them both in the debris.

...

In the sweltering heat of summer, with the buzzing of cicadas and the suffocating heat, students were sitting together in twos and threes, playing and chatting in the classroom.

Jeff stood on her seat, staring in disbelief at what was in front of her.

Was this a dream before death?

The bright afternoon, the lively classroom, the energetic students...

Everything was so real, without a trace of the apocalypse.

But she should be dead, dead in that cataclysmic earthquake...

Suddenly, she felt a burst of wind behind her. Reflexively, Jeff grabbed the arm that was about to attack her, then used her elbow to push back.

"Cough, Jeff, what are you doing?" Neil, with a frown, covered her chest.

Hearing Neil's voice, Jeff shuddered, then turned around and quickly hugged Neil.

She bit her lip, trying to control her emotions, but the tears couldn't help but fall. In that earthquake, Neil shielded her with his body, but was killed by steel bars and concrete. She herself had her legs crushed and died from excessive blood loss.

She had known Neil since she was 16, through two years of high school, two years of college, and six years of supporting each other in the apocalypse.

A whole decade of companionship.

She knew exactly how she felt when she realized Neil was dead.

Her parents were divorced, and she was left with her grandmother in the countryside. When she was 15, her only companion, her grandmother, died of illness.

Alone and abandoned, she was saved by Neil. Since then, Neil had been her redemption in life.

Neil was the runner-up in women's mixed martial arts, tall and muscular, with a carefree personality.

Even before the apocalypse, Neil always protected her. After the apocalypse, he shielded her from all danger, always the first to act.

In the post-apocalyptic world, Neil had saved her countless times...

Feeling the dampness on her shoulder, Neil felt a bit at a loss. All the anger from being hit by Jeff had dissipated.

She spoke in a flustered manner, "Jeff, don't cry! Whoever bullied you, just let me at them, I'll knock them out so they won't recognize their own parents!"

Jeff remained silent, clutching Neil's wrist, and feeling the pulse, before pinching herself.

The intense pain from her arm made Jeff come to a conclusion. She looked at Neil and asked, "Neil, what year and month is it today?"

Neil was puzzled as she reached out and felt Jeff's forehead. "Feels like you're not running a fever! It's May 4th, 20xx, just after the May Day holiday. Did you forget?"

Jeff looked at Neil in a daze. May 4th, which meant she had returned to just over a month before the apocalypse. 

Was this a reincarnation? Or had she crossed into another parallel world?

But as she doubted whether she had been reborn, she suddenly felt an excruciating headache.

This pain was all too familiar to her; every time she took in an excess of items into her space, she would have a headache for a while.

With her eyes darkening from the pain, Jeff, drenched in sweat, bit her lip and squatted down, clutching her head.

Neil was shocked by her appearance. "Jeff! Are you okay? Is it a headache?"

"I'm fine. Just get me out of the classroom first..." Jeff's weak voice came out.

Upon hearing this, Neil scooped up Jeff and quickly left the classroom.