"Mom, Auntie has had a fever for two days. Shouldn't we take her to the hospital?" Li Aiping glanced toward her own room before turning and entering the main room to whisper the question to her mom.
Li Yuan'ai frowned, silent for a moment before replying, "She'll be fine. Your aunt is just delicate and prone to getting sick. I'll just give her some more fever medicine in a bit."
"But we've already given her several doses, and it's not working. I think taking her to the hospital would be safer." It wasn't that Li Aiping was particularly fond of the young aunt who was living in their house and sharing her room. She was just afraid her aunt would die in there. 'I would never dare to live in a room where someone has died!'
"Go? Are you kidding? Do you know how much a trip to the hospital costs? With your aunt's condition, the doctor would definitely admit her. We wouldn't get out of there for less than thirty or fifty yuan. We can barely afford to eat as it is! Where are we supposed to get the money for your aunt's treatment?" Li Yuan'ai was worried about her little sister, but the thought of the small amount of money she'd just managed to save made her harden her heart. "Besides," she continued, "you kids aren't so little anymore. You need to get married, your brothers have their schooling—which of those doesn't cost money? Even if I could split myself into eight pieces, I wouldn't be able to keep up with your spending. Sigh... We're a poor family. We can't afford to get sick. When we do, we just have to tough it out." Li Yuan'ai sounded helpless as she spoke. As a mother, her instinct was to always think of her own children first.
Li Aiping blushed when her mother mentioned her getting married. "Mom, what are you talking about? I'm still young! Anyway, I'm done talking to you. I'm going to make dinner. Ai Guo and the others should be back soon."
"Alright, go on. Add an extra ladle of water when you make the porridge. Your brothers are all growing lads now, and they need to eat. If there isn't enough food to fill their stomachs, at least they can fill up on the broth," Li Yuan'ai quickly added the instruction, thinking of her rowdy boys.
"Yeah, I know. You always spoil them," Li Aiping agreed, though she felt a pang of jealousy. Her parents had always favored the boys. Compared to her brothers, she was a poor, neglected child.
"You silly girl. If your brothers do well for themselves, won't you have them to rely on later in life? You're a young woman, yet you can't even tell what's good for you," Li Yuan'ai grumbled after her.
Meanwhile, the aunt they were discussing—a little girl of only six—was lying on the bed inside the room. A tiny figure lay covered by a tattered cotton quilt, her small face flushed red. A closer look revealed beads of sweat at her hairline.
A short while later, the shouts and laughter of boys echoed from outside.
That night, Li Aiping was too scared to sleep in the same room as her feverish aunt. Pouting, she carried her quilt and went to squeeze in with her parents.
In the middle of the night, the little girl on the bed slowly relaxed her furrowed brow, and the flush began to fade from her face.
The next morning, before leaving for work, Li Yuan'ai stopped by the room to check on her little sister. She felt her forehead. It was no longer burning hot, and she breathed a sigh of relief. "See? What did I tell you? No need for a hospital. The medicine worked just fine. The fever's broken, hasn't it?"
"Then why isn't she waking up?" Li Aiping asked, peeking from the doorway.
"She's had a fever for three days; her body is weak. Of course she's not going to wake up right away. Alright, I'm off to work. You keep an eye on her. Check in on her often, and if your aunt wakes up, give her some water," Li Yuan'ai instructed before leaving for her job.
She was a family dependent who had followed her husband here for his job. She had found temporary work sweeping the streets, a half-day job that didn't pay much.
Li Aiping pouted as she glanced at her aunt in the room. Finally, with a look of disdain, she shut the door and went to hang out in her parents' room.
Yuan Si was, just as Li Yuan'ai had said, extremely weak. She had woken up once in the middle of the night after finishing the process of integrating the original owner's memories, but her body was so frail that she had quickly drifted back into a hazy sleep.
It wasn't until after three o'clock that afternoon that Yuan Si finally opened her eyes again.
Yuan Si slowly opened her eyes. They darted around, and her brow furrowed slightly as she saw the newspapers plastering the ceiling. As if in disbelief, she slowly turned her head to take in the room's furnishings. Only then did she close her eyes again in resignation.
'I never would have thought... To think that I, a second-generation survivor of the apocalypse, would transmigrate to a world with no zombies or mutated beasts after my death.'
That's right. She wasn't the original Li Yuansi. She was a Level 9 Spiritual System superpower user who had lived through thirty-nine years of the apocalypse.
She had been born in Wolf Mountain Base. Her parents were both superpower users. By the time of her birth, the world had long been locked in a three-way stalemate between humans, zombies, and mutated flora and fauna.
Because her parents' superpowers weren't particularly useful and their levels were low, her family was still struggling just to get by when she was born.
At the age of five, she awakened her Spiritual System superpower by chance. After that, her progress was unstoppable. She shot up from Level 1 to Level 6, then Seventh Level, then Level 8. By the time she was thirty-nine, she had already reached Level 9 and was considered one of the top Advanced Superpower Users in the base.
Perhaps her smooth-sailing life had made her too flamboyant. By the time her parents noticed something was amiss, she had already grown into a young woman with a blunt personality and a fiery temper.
It would have been fine for her to be a bit blunt while living her own life, but her temper became a problem when combined with her rapid rise in power. Her fast growth was a boon for the common people; after all, the more powerhouses the base had, the safer everyone was. For certain individuals, however, it was less than ideal. Unaware of the need for restraint, she was taking up too much space, unknowingly blocking the paths of others.
By the time she realized something was wrong, it was already too late. During a group attack on a Level 10 Giant Rock Flower, she was ambushed from behind and perished.
But unexpectedly, she had opened her eyes to find herself here. The fever of the past few days had been the result of her soul fusing with this new body and absorbing its six years of memories.
Just as Yuan Si was frowning, pondering whether she could ever return to her own world, the door was pushed open from the outside.
"Oh, Auntie, you're finally awake! I've been run ragged these past few days, having to cook for the whole family and take care of you," Li Aiping said as she entered, seeing the little girl on the bed with her eyes open. She was actually quite happy. 'She's finally better.'
Yuan Si's eyes moved to the person in the doorway. 'I'll just have to take this one step at a time,' she decided. 'For now, the priority is to deal with this body's pressing physical needs.' She managed a slight twitch of her lips. "I'm thirsty."
"Of course you're thirsty. You've been lying in bed for three days," she retorted, the unspoken words being, 'And I've been waiting on you for three days.'
"Oh. I need some water," Yuan Si said, seeing that the girl had no intention of getting any for her. She made her request direct.
"Then get up and get it yourself. There's water in the main room. I'm going to tell Mom you're awake; she's been worried sick about you for days." Li Aiping rolled her eyes internally and turned to leave for the other room.
She wasn't about to be ordered around by a six-year-old girl. 'Especially not this little freeloader who's mooching off us and stealing my room,' she thought.
Yuan Si stared at the closed door, her brow furrowing once more. She knew with absolute clarity that she did not like this niece of hers. Whether it was from the memories she had "seen" from the original owner or from her own recent experience, the feeling was the same. Of course, while she might be blunt, she wasn't stupid. It was obvious the feeling was mutual. 'So,' she concluded, 'I need to get better. And then I need to get out of here.'