Only those who have climbed out of Hell can truly appreciate life.
Tang Mo didn't truly understand the meaning of this saying until she ate her first meal on her first day back in this prosperous era.
The bowl in front of her didn't contain rotten, mud-caked insects, but fresh green vegetables and glistening, translucent rice. The water in her cup was actually clear and transparent, not a dark brown sludge mixed with metal dregs. All of it felt so wonderful it was almost unreal to Tang Mo.
Too overwhelmed to even process the shock of her rebirth, she had pounced on the dining table. She slowly but steadily finished three large bowls of rice before setting down her chopsticks in satisfaction.
She had already checked the date on her phone right after waking up. Today was July 14, 2150. There were still seven days until the start of the apocalypse.
For a modern woman who had grown up in a high-tech era and consumed countless sci-fi and fantasy novels and movies, the concept of rebirth, while incredible, wasn't entirely unacceptable.
After waking, Tang Mo had only taken five minutes to accept the fact that she had been reborn to a time before the apocalypse. She spent the rest of her time focused on the battle with the food before her.
The opportunities to savor a good meal were now numbered. How could she bear to waste this food by gobbling it down? She wished she could carve the flavor of every single bite deep into her soul, so she would never forget it.
The meal on the table had been left for her by her mother. Tang Mo's mother, Lin Yi, wasn't home at the moment. Tang Mo remembered that it was currently her summer break from university, and her mom was probably out working a part-time job.
Speaking of Tang Mo's mother, Lin Yi had not had an easy life. Her husband passed away when Tang Mo was five, and she endured countless hardships raising her daughter alone. To take care of her child, she opened a small supermarket by herself. Now that Tang Mo was older and could help mind the store during her break, Lin Yi still took on outside jobs to save up more money for her daughter's dowry. It was a private struggle she never spoke of to others.
Thinking of the person who loved her most in the world, her mother, Tang Mo's expression darkened.
Tang Mo's beauty was all inherited from Lin Yi.
At forty, Lin Yi showed no trace of her age. Calling her a girl of seventeen or eighteen would be an exaggeration, but saying she looked like a mature, charming woman of twenty-seven or twenty-eight was a well-deserved compliment. All those years of raising a daughter alone hadn't ravaged her features; instead, they had endowed her with a unique blend of gentle and resilient grace.
She recalled that around this time in her previous life, her mother had mentioned she was dating someone. If Tang Mo didn't object, they were planning to register their marriage.
But at the time, Tang Mo, who had been sheltered in an ivory tower by her mother, couldn't possibly understand Lin Yi's struggles. She only felt that remarrying would be a betrayal of her father and that she would become a child without a home. So, she opposed it with all her might.
In the end, to spare her daughter's feelings, Lin Yi broke up with her boyfriend.
But who would have thought that just three days after they separated, the apocalypse would descend. At that time, Tang Mo was stuck at her school, far from her mother's side. When she finally made it home half a year later, she discovered her mother had long since passed away. It was then that her mother's ex-boyfriend found her. He was a gentle and refined man, clearly from a wealthy family.
He told her that when the apocalypse began, he had been out of town. By the time he rushed back, Lin Yi was already gone.
Tang Mo could see the grief in the man's eyes as clear as day. She knew it was all her fault.
Overwhelmed with guilt toward her mother and the man before her, Tang Mo refused his offer of protection and set out into the apocalyptic world alone.
Afterward, she often found herself wondering: if she had just let her mother marry that man, would she have survived? Had she single-handedly destroyed her mother's only chance at survival?
But no matter how advanced technology became, no one ever invented a pill for regret. No amount of remorse could take Tang Mo back to that moment.
'If Mom brings up getting married again in this life, I'll support her with everything I have. I'll make sure she can live happily.' Tang Mo made a silent vow in her heart.
Having eaten and drunk her fill, Tang Mo closed the supermarket's main door. She returned to her room and began to carefully recall everything she had experienced in her past life.
'Are you kidding me? Everything in this supermarket will be a treasure later on. There's no way I'm selling any of it.'
'What's money? In a week, it'll be nothing but paper.'
The apocalypse she was about to face was different from the ones in novels. There were no crazed zombies—only endless hunger.
Seven days from now, the earth would begin to turn a purplish-black. All plants growing in the soil would die, and no matter how hard people tried, nothing new would ever grow again.