Faced with the question, Tang Xiaoman merely smiled lightly, as if the matter were trivial.

 

“I’m renovating it for a friend. He suffers from paranoia.”

 

“Oh… I see.” The renovation manager clearly hadn’t expected that answer, but he was smart enough not to ask further questions.

 

After all, the customer was king. As long as the money was there, no request was too strange.

 

Tang Xiaoman continued discussing details with him.

 

She requested a deep-water well to be drilled in the courtyard. The villa also needed a boiler installed and an independent floor-heating system constructed. On top of that, a large fireplace would be built in the master bedroom.

 

The manager’s face flushed red as he listened. He almost blurted out whether she was trying to build some kind of apocalypse bunker.

 

But in the end, he swallowed the words.

 

After all, the client had already said she had a friend with “paranoid delusions.”

 

When you’re rich, you get to be eccentric.

 

—

When Tang Xiaoman stepped out of the building with the signed renovation contract in hand, night had already fallen.

 

The summer heat still hung thick in the air.

 

Somewhere nearby, the smell of freshly cooked food drifted through the streets, instantly awakening the hunger gnawing in her stomach.

 

Four brutal years in the apocalypse had meant extreme shortages of food and resources. Most people had lived on the edge of starvation.

 

Some had even turned to cannibalism.

 

Tang Xiaoman couldn’t even remember the last time she’d eaten a full meal.

 

She swallowed hard and walked into the nearest restaurant, ordering more than a dozen of her favorite dishes in one breath.

 

Braised prawns in oil.

Fish head with chopped chili.

Steamed hairy crab.

Dongpo pork.

Soy-braised pork knuckle.

Red-braised pig trotters.

 

And two cans of ice-cold cola—the drink she had craved for years during the apocalypse.

 

The waiter looked at her in surprise.

 

“Miss… how many people are dining with you?”

 

“I’m meeting some friends. They’ll be here soon,” Tang Xiaoman replied casually, inventing imaginary companions again.

 

Dish after dish arrived, filling the entire table.

 

Of course, no friends would come.

 

She had the entire feast to herself.

 

Picking up her chopsticks, she began eating like a whirlwind.

 

The long-forgotten flavors burst across her taste buds, intoxicating her.

 

Tears streamed down her face as she ate, mixed with saliva. She was crying from pure excitement.

 

In this new life, she would live beautifully.

 

Comfortably.

 

And every single person who had schemed against her or hurt her in her previous life—she would make them pay.

 

When she finally couldn’t eat another bite, Tang Xiaoman finished the remaining half can of cola to cut through the grease.

 

“Waiter. Pack the rest.”

 

—

Tang Xiaoman returned to the small apartment she had rented near Gu Corporation.

 

She had deliberately chosen a place close to the company so it would be easier to work overtime.

 

Thinking about it now, it was almost laughable.

 

In her previous life, she had given everything to a man who wasn’t worth a single breath.

 

And in the end, she hadn’t even been left with a whole corpse.

 

This time, she would make him repay every debt—with interest.

 

She placed the packed leftovers into her spatial storage and turned on the air conditioner.

 

Cool air flowed out, pushing away the suffocating summer heat and humidity.

 

Tang Xiaoman opened a delivery app on her phone and ordered herself a lemon drink. It arrived at her door shortly afterward.

 

The world before the apocalypse really was wonderful.

 

Anything you wanted could be delivered right to your doorstep with a few taps on a screen.

It was almost too good to be true.

 

Unfortunately, that kind of life would soon vanish completely.

 

She drank half the lemon drink and considered going out to shop for supplies.

 

But her body still felt weak.

 

Thinking about how she had worked herself half to death for Gu Heng—like a beast of burden for that bloodthirsty wolf—until she collapsed from illness, she almost wanted to slap herself twice across the face.

 

Instead, she decided to treat herself a little better.

 

First, she would sleep.

 

—

Perhaps because she had spent the entire day running around, Tang Xiaoman slept deeply on her first night after being reborn.

 

For once, she didn’t even have nightmares.

 

When she woke up, she felt completely refreshed.

 

After washing up, she took out the food she had packed from the restaurant. Since it had already cooled when it was packed, she reheated it in the microwave.

 

The aroma of food filled the room, making her mouth water.

 

After four years of hunger in the apocalypse, she now had an almost obsessive reverence for food.

 

Not a single grain of rice would ever be wasted.

 

After breakfast, she let out a satisfied burp and picked up her phone.

 

Just then, it rang.

 

“Hello, Tang Xiaoman!” Shu Jia’s voice came through, carrying a threatening edge. “President Gu told me to pass along a message. If you don’t come back to the company today, you’ll be fired!”

 

Tang Xiaoman laughed in disbelief.

 

“Oh? Fired?”

 

So he was getting anxious now.

 

“President Gu never says anything twice. If you don’t want to lose your job, you’d better report to the office this morning. At nine o’clock there’s an important meeting he’ll be hosting personally. You must attend.”

 

“No time,” Tang Xiaoman replied lazily.

 

“What? What did you say?!”

 

“Why don’t you just let Gu Heng fire me?”

 

She hung up the phone and promptly blocked that number as well.

 

—

In a private hospital’s VIP ward, Gu Heng’s face darkened when he learned that Tang Xiaoman had skipped work again—and even blocked Shu Jia’s number.

 

Lying in the hospital bed, Su Rou looked uneasy.

 

“Why is my sister suddenly treating you like this? Could it be… she found out something?”

 

Gu Heng’s mood wasn’t great, but he still spoke gently to comfort her.

 

“Even if Tang Xiaoman did find out something, it wouldn’t change anything. Your father already kicked her out of the family. Other than Gu Corporation, she has nowhere else to go.”

 

Although Tang Xiaoman had taken her mother’s surname, the family company had long since changed hands to the Su family.

 

She had no inheritance rights.

 

Not a single cent would go to her.

 

After all, her biological mother had died years ago.

 

Her father, Su Cheng, had originally married into the family. But he had been clever enough to persuade his wife to transfer all the company shares to him.

 

Now Tang Xiaoman—the daughter who still carried her mother’s surname—had become the outsider.

 

And Su Cheng had thrown her out of the house.

 

In Gu Heng’s eyes, he had taken Tang Xiaoman in.

 

She should have been grateful to him.

 

“A-Heng,” Su Rou said gently, “I know you’re someone who values promises. Since you’re engaged to her, you should treat her a little better. Maybe go and coax her.”

 

Gu Heng was unmoved.

 

“Rou’er, we grew up together. You should understand how I feel. I only kept Tang Xiaoman by my side to prepare a mobile blood bank for you.”

 

Su Rou suffered from severe nephritis. Her health was fragile, and she frequently needed blood transfusions.

 

Tang Xiaoman just happened to share the same blood type.

 

“The doctor said if your nephritis develops into uremia, you might need a kidney transplant. When that happens, she can donate one to you.”

 

Tears of gratitude shimmered in Su Rou’s eyes.

 

She leaned into his embrace.

 

“A-Heng… now I truly believe that your heart belongs only to me.”

 

The two shared a tender moment in the hospital room.

 

After a while, Su Rou seemed to remember something and looked uneasy again.

 

“My sister has always been completely devoted to you. Why would she suddenly stop working like this?”

 

Gu Heng sneered dismissively.

 

“She’s just throwing a little tantrum to get my attention.”

 

He gave a cold laugh.

 

“Just wait and see. At nine o’clock, she’ll definitely show up to that meeting right on time.”