'This man is even more vigilant than she is.'
Jiang Si offered a friendly smile. The man reined in his intense aura and gave a slight nod.
She fastened her seatbelt and closed her eyes to rest.
Maybe it was a false impression developed over the past ten years, but she constantly felt his gaze secretly watching her.
Jiang Si shifted uncomfortably. Only after hearing the faint sound of him leaning back in his seat behind her did she slowly let out a breath.
After getting off the plane, Jiang Si hailed a cab to go straight home.
The driver, hearing the address, kindly said, "Miss, this place is a bit far out."
Jiang Si nodded. "I know. That's fine."
Since he had given her a heads-up, the driver felt at ease.
The taxi drove out of the city center and into Baijiang County, and Jiang Si gradually began to see familiar streets.
Her house was halfway up a mountain in the Baijiang County Forest Reserve. As the driver wound through the roads, the main road narrowed to a single lane, and the vehicle following them suddenly became obvious.
Jiang Si glanced back. The driver remarked casually with a smile, "Looks like the taxi behind us came from the airport, too."
'For someone else to be coming back from the airport to such a remote place at the same time... was she being followed?'
'She had been so careful when purchasing supplies and using her space.'
Seeing that they were about to reach the village entrance, Jiang Si decisively told the driver to stop. "I'll get out here."
As she got out, a man exited the car behind her at the same time.
It was none other than the strange man from the plane.
She took the suitcase the driver unloaded for her, and the man also took two suitcases from his trunk.
'Could it be a coincidence?'
'That would be too much of a coincidence.'
Jiang Si didn't let her guard down. She dragged her luggage along, secretly observing the man from the corner of her eye.
Just then, Li Cui spotted Jiang Si and approached her like a wolf seeing meat. "Sisi, you're back! With such a big suitcase, what nice things did you bring for your parents?"
Everyone in the village here was related in some way, so logically, Jiang Si should have called Li Cui 'Auntie'.
But in her past life, Li Cui had instigated the village chief, Lin Jiangyuan, to lead a group of people to wreck their house, which ended with her grandfather's head being bashed and bloodied. She didn't deserve any pleasantries from Jiang Si.
Jiang Si's expression was ice-cold. "I went out to work but didn't make any money. I couldn't afford anything."
Li Cui's hopes of getting a freebie were dashed, and her mood soured instantly. Her gaze fell on the man behind Jiang Si, and she jeered, "Oh? Your boyfriend is all bundled up on such a hot day. Is he too ugly to show his face?"
Jiang Si glanced back at the man. She couldn't read his expression behind his sunglasses. "Watch your mouth. Be careful his girlfriend doesn't show up and tear it off your face."
Li Cui was so angry the space between her eyebrows twitched. "How dare you speak to me like that! You've been gone for a few years, and you haven't learned any skills, but you've forgotten how to address your elders!"
Jiang Si lifted her gaze. "An elder? Are you worthy of the title?"
Li Cui's eyes widened in disbelief. "You... you... I'm going to go ask your parents just how they raised you!"
"None of your damn business."
"AHHH—"
Li Cui shrieked in a rage and lunged forward to grab Jiang Si.
She dodged lightly, and Li Cui tumbled right into a ditch, getting a mouthful of mud.
Li Cui stayed on the ground, wailing, "Jiang Si is out of control! She came back and is hitting her elders!"
The weather was scorching, and the village houses were spread out. Everyone was staying indoors, so no one came out to see the commotion. Her cries fell on deaf ears.
The look Jiang Si gave her was like a knife, ready to strike at any moment.
Li Cui was frightened. She scrambled to her feet, not forgetting to leave a parting threat, "Just you wait, I'm telling your grandma!"
'Heh, Grandma!'
'In her past life, while she was out on a mission for the Northern Base, Sun Xiu and Shen Fu had taken the opportunity to carve flesh from her mother's leg to trade for food. They even tried to sell her mother off to be violated.'
'In this life, she had no grandmother!'
Not knowing she was courting death, Li Cui ran off to tattle. Jiang Si sneered, dragged her suitcase to a fork in the road, and the man followed close behind.
She finally couldn't help but ask, "You've been following me. What do you want?"
The man stopped. His gaze lingered on her face for a few seconds before he suddenly pointed to an abandoned house next to Jiang Si's house and said succinctly, "My home."
"..."
Now it was Jiang Si's turn to be stunned.
'His home?'
'In her last life, he had never appeared!'
'Why was there a sudden change? Had she inadvertently caused a butterfly effect?'
Jiang Si asked tentatively, "Are you Qin Shen?"
"Mmm."
'It really was him!'
'The timid pushover who used to hide in haystacks and the cold, unapproachable man he was now... the contrast was just too stark.'
"I'm Jiang Si from next door. We probably met when we were kids. Are you planning on staying long-term?"
Qin Shen gave a cold nod, showing no intention of communicating further with his neighbor. He walked straight past her toward the dilapidated house.
Jiang Si froze on the spot, the corner of her mouth twitching. 'He doesn't think I'm interested in him and is guarding against me, does he?'
Her cell phone suddenly rang, breaking the brief, awkward silence.
She answered it. "Hello? Dad, I'm almost there."
"Dad's com—"
Jiang Linhai's voice cut off abruptly. 'Did the phone die?'
'That can't be right. It was fully charged when I got in the car.'
Jiang Si tried to restart it, but the screen remained black.
A commotion arose from behind her. A few people who had been playing cards rushed out of the small convenience store, muttering, "Why'd the power suddenly go out?"
"Maybe a circuit breaker tripped!"
"Hurry up and fix it! It's boiling in here without AC. And I had a good hand, too."
"Hey, what's going on? It doesn't seem like a tripped breaker."
A moment later, a woman appeared on the roof of a neighboring house and shouted to the people around, "Did your power go out, too?"
She immediately got responses from everyone.
"Yeah, it's out!"
"Someone call and ask what's going on!"
Soon, someone exclaimed in shock, "Hey, hey, hey! My phone's busted! It won't turn on!"
"Mine too!"
"Mine too!"
'For phones to lose power for no reason... this kind of situation had only happened when the electromagnetic field vanished during the global blackout.'
Jiang Si's heart skipped a beat.
'Today is May seventh. There should still be three weeks until the global blackout…'
'No, wait. She was already reborn. What was so impossible about the apocalypse starting early?'
Suddenly, a tremendous roar came from within the clouds, and everyone looked up.
"RUMBLE—"
A passenger plane was falling from the sky at an incredible speed, the deafening rumble sounding like it was grinding right next to their ears.
Everyone watched helplessly as the plane got lower and lower, until it shot past right over their heads, kicking up a powerful downdraft of flying sand that forced them to shut their eyes.
"BOOM—"
A massive explosion rang out from the mountain, shaking the very earth. Billowing black smoke rose from the forest.
The villagers opened their eyes in a daze and said in disbelief, "Good heavens, a plane crashed!"
"Oh my God—call 911!"
"Call 911 my ass! The phones aren't working!"
"Then drive to the fire station for help!"
Someone jumped into their car but climbed out a moment later in disbelief. "My car won't start! Did the plane affect it somehow?"
Just as the villagers were debating whether to form a team to look for survivors, the roaring sound returned.
The village chief, Lin Chenghua, pointed at the sky, his voice trembling. "Another one! There's another one!"
In the time it took him to speak, another passenger plane came crashing down.
The villagers still hadn't realized what was wrong, but Jiang Si quickly walked over and grabbed Jiang Linhai, who was about to go help with the rescue. "Dad! Come home with me first!"
'Even if they went to help, it would be pointless. The death rate for a plane crash is one hundred percent.'
'Even if there were survivors, they'd be doomed if ambulances couldn't reach them!'
'The protective measures at home weren't complete yet, and the scorching suns would be next. She had to warn her family that the apocalypse had arrived and impress upon them the grave danger of getting involved in other people's business.'