Chapter 1

As my vision was blurred by thick blood, I heard a dull thud as the bones in the back of my head shattered.

In this apocalyptic heatwave, I risked my life to evade thugs on the street who would slit each other's throats over half a bottle of muddy water in order to deliver water and food to my daughter. When I finally made it into my ex-wife's house, I was greeted with a metal baseball bat that slammed into the back of my head.

"Why aren't you dead yet? You didn't hit me hard enough."

A pair of dusty leather shoes appeared in my blurring vision ; they belonged to David—my ex-wife's lover.

His ex-wife Anna stood behind him, her voice devoid of any fear after the murder, only filled with disgust: "Stop talking nonsense, get rid of him quickly , don't leave him in the house, the body will start to stink."

I tried to struggle, but the blood and foam that rushed into my lungs choked my cries for help back down my throat.

On the floor, the bottled water and food I had desperately brought were scattered everywhere. A pair of familiar sneakers stepped precisely over my bloodstains and stopped next to the water bottle.

She is my sixteen-year-old daughter, Sarah, whom I cherish dearly.

"How much did he bring?" Her voice held no fear or sorrow, but rather a knowing greed.

David put his arm around Anna's waist, casually kicked my face with the tip of his shoe, and said to Sarah, "That should last the three of us for a while. At least you won't have to call this useless green turtle 'Dad' anymore."

It felt as if an invisible hand was squeezing my heart tightly; the intense, throbbing pain even overshadowed the fatal injury to the back of my head.

“I’ve had enough.” Sarah scoffed, looking at my dying form with utter disgust. “If David hadn’t gone bankrupt and faced liquidation back then, and my mother hadn’t asked you to take over while she was pregnant with me, I wouldn’t have acknowledged this good-for-nothing as my father. He pretended to be a good girl every day to get pocket money; it was disgusting. ”

She said to Anna and David, " Now that he's dead, let 's go and take over his convenience store with the underground warehouse. There must be a lot of supplies hidden inside ."

The soul was utterly torn apart by these casual words.

This sham marriage that lasted for over a decade turned out to be nothing more than a meticulously planned scam to secure a long-term meal ticket! What makes me even more desperate is that the daughter I risked my life to save was never my biological child . She knew all along and, in collusion with her biological parents, treated me like an easy-to-manipulate mobile ATM.

No wonder she insisted on going with Anna when the divorce papers were being finalized; it turns out Anna was just eager to reunite with her family.

The tinnitus engulfed everything like a tsunami, and then, boundless darkness completely swallowed me up.

...

"Mr. Elias? Did you hear me clearly?"

A male voice, tinged with professionalism, abruptly pulled me up from the dark depths of the sea. The intense feeling of weightlessness made me gasp for breath.

I was breathing heavily, and my vision gradually focused from blurry.

There was no sweltering heatwave. In front of me was a large walnut conference table, and the air conditioning was so cold it made my scalp tingle. A well-dressed divorce lawyer was pushing up his black-rimmed glasses and sizing me up.

An unsigned divorce agreement lay quietly on the table.

I was reborn, back to three months ago. Everything was still in order, and we were sitting in the law firm, conducting our final negotiations.

I slowly raised my eyelids, my gaze sweeping coldly across the other side. Anna sat with her arms crossed over her chest, the girl I hated to the core sitting beside her.

“Elias, don’t waste everyone’s time. David is still waiting for us downstairs.” Anna tapped the table dismissively. “Sarah has been close to me since she was little, so custody should naturally go to me. You just need to transfer the child support to my account on time every month.”

him your decision while the lawyer's here today ."

On this day in my previous life, at the same critical juncture, she chose Anna without hesitation, and even squeezed out a few tears to say goodbye to me in a hypocritical way. I was worried that my daughter was not doing well, so I sent her money to help her, and even after the apocalypse, I did not forget to send her supplies.

The meeting room was so quiet you could hear a pin drop; the lawyer had even picked up his pen to take notes.

However, the girl opposite remained silent for a long time.

A full half minute passed before she slowly raised her face.

The moment our eyes met, my heart sank. It was not the look of a pampered, rebellious sixteen-year-old girl—her face was deathly pale, and deep in her pupils was a ruthless, calculating glint.

"No."

Anna's smile froze , and she frowned as she tugged at Sarah's arm: "Sarah, what nonsense are you talking about?"

Sarah stared at me like she was grasping at a straw, her eyes instantly reddening, tears streaming down her face. She rushed around the conference table to my side, hugging my arm tightly, crying with a pitiful expression.

"I want to stay with Dad! I'm not going anywhere!"

Anna flew into a rage: "Are you crazy?!"

“I said I want to go with him!” Sarah interrupted Anna sharply, raising her voice.

In the half-second it took for her to slightly turn her head and bump into her biological mother, I keenly caught a quick glance from her—a look that was both soothing and warning, yet also conveyed a ruthless "shut up and cooperate with me" message.

Anna swallowed the curse that was on the tip of her tongue, her face filled with disbelief as she swallowed her anger.

A chilling coldness, however, rose uncontrollably in my heart.

A spoiled, selfish, and ungrateful person is unlikely to suddenly have a change of heart.

That exchange of calculating glances just now was proclaiming to me an utterly absurd, yet undeniably true, fact:

This dear "daughter" who clung to me so tightly has also been reborn.