029, knock Chu Yan unconscious!

After death, the ten years of blood-soaked survival in the apocalypse and the twenty-one years of drifting and living under others' roofs before it—thirty-one years of life flashed before Qi Ran’s eyes like a revolving lantern.

Only then did she achieve true enlightenment:
At age five, her biological mother had abandoned her at the gates of an orphanage without a second thought.
From age ten to twenty-one, she spent eleven years in the Qi household. Despite her excellence, she never managed to cultivate a shred of genuine affection from them. Her parents, from beginning to end, had only ever viewed her as a bargaining chip, a mere pawn.
During the ten years of the apocalypse, she had braved death countless times for Qi Sheng, Mu Jingchen, and Wen Wan’er, yet she could not exchange those efforts for a single ounce of sincerity in return.
Before Qi Sheng, twenty-one years of life as siblings could not compare to someone who had been dead for ten years.
Before Mu Jingchen, eight years of childhood sweethearts could not compare to a manipulative, weeping "lotus" flower.
Before Wen Wan’er, the debt of abandoning her own daughter at five and ignoring her for eighteen years could not compare to the bond with a stepdaughter who shared no blood relation at all.

So, it turned out that she was destined to have thin family ties, a person unable to trade her sincerity for the sincerity of others. She should never have chased after such ethereal, hollow things.

Reborn, she had taken the lessons of her past life to heart. Naturally, she would no longer waste any surplus emotion or kindness on those who were undeserving. People like Qi Sheng and Mu Jingchen were not worth it, and neither were the villains she happened to encounter. Since she intended to hinder Qi Sheng’s growth, and since she had run into these people, Qi Ran decided to take the opportunity to lock them away for three days, cutting off their chance to awaken their talents on the fourth day of the apocalypse.

Qi Ran dashed through the entrance of the grilled fish restaurant and kicked open the locked kitchen door with a violent thud. Inside were about twenty people. She tossed Qi Sheng to the ground and moved with such blinding speed that her hands became mere blurs. In less than five seconds, before anyone could react to the sound of the door being kicked in, a shadowy figure—appearing faintly armored—appeared before them. Because of her high-speed movement, not one person in the kitchen could discern her identity before they fell, one after another.

This group consisted of the very people who had followed Qi Ran and Qi Sheng after she first awakened her talent in her past life. Because Qi Ran had been too kind—and kindness is often met with bullying—in her memory, every one of these people had, to varying degrees, cheated or betrayed her. Not a single one of them was virtuous.

From their perspective, however, Qi Ran’s first awakened talent in her previous life had been a rare A-rank, a highly offensive fire-type ability. Yet, possessing such a powerful talent, she had willingly served as a stepping stone for Qi Sheng, acting as his lackey to ensure he could awaken a powerful talent as well.

Even though she was only forty-five zombies away from reaching Level 1, she had never considered herself. From the fifth day of the apocalypse, when she reunited with Qi Sheng in the storage room, he had impatiently demanded she go upstairs to save Chu Yan. Upon hearing from Chu Yan’s "plastic" best friend that she had already been rescued, Qi Sheng was devastated. Seeing that Qi Ran had stumbled into the "good fortune" of awakening an [A-Rank Talent: Fire Profundity], he was filled with jealousy and resentment. He demanded, with an iron-fisted attitude, that she kill zombies for him so he could obtain the same power.

Because of the constant, cyclical brainwashing by her parents, who insisted that the Qi family’s adoption of her was a supreme favor, Qi Sheng had always felt entitled to command her. And because Qi Ran had cherished their sibling bond, she had never felt there was anything wrong with it. Thus, in her past life, from the fifth day to the tenth, she had exhausted herself using her skills to bind zombies and deliver them to Qi Sheng to slaughter. She had believed that as her brother, sacrificing herself to give him the ability to survive was worth it—it was only right.

Yet, these actions, which she deemed so reasonable, were viewed by others as the behavior of a fool, someone easily manipulated. It was no wonder that, later on, the people who followed her were replaced batch after batch; she could never truly hold a team together.

Qi Ran lifted her hand and let out a sigh of relief. She had truly been afraid that one or two of them might have constitutions too fragile and would be killed by a single palm strike. After knocking them out, she stuffed them all into the non-static area of her personal space. The non-static area could grow crops, so it could naturally contain living things. However, except for the owner of the space, the higher the intelligence of the creature, the shorter the time they could stay inside. Creatures with lower intelligence, like chickens, ducks, or geese, could survive for eight or ten years without issue, but humans could last at most ten minutes. Ten minutes was more than enough to transport this group.

Although these people had betrayed and harmed her, each had their own motives. Still, Qi Ran showed no mercy in knocking them all out.

For one thing, in her past life, none of these people had awakened their talents on the fourth day. After the apocalypse began, they had hidden in the kitchen; with food and drink available and the smell of fish masking the scent of blood, they had been safe, and the zombies rarely bothered the restaurant. They had never gone out to kill zombies. Therefore, by moving them and locking them away, she wasn't actually changing their fate much from the previous timeline.

For another, if she had only knocked out and abducted Chu Yan and her friend, her intentions would have been too obvious. Once people began to awaken their talents on the fourth day, they would inform their friends and family. "Killing zombies awakens talent" would no longer be a secret. By intentionally knocking out Qi Sheng, Chu Yan, and the others in the seventh-floor storage room and locking them inside, she prevented them from going out to kill zombies. They might later guess that someone had done this to stop them from awakening their talents, and since Qi Sheng and Chu Yan were both very clever, they would realize she hadn't appeared.

Furthermore, since Chu Yan and Lu Xue’er were people she knew, and they were singled out from the crowd of survivors to be locked away with Qi Sheng, Qi Ran’s suspicion would be high. This would inadvertently reveal that she had known the conditions for talent awakening in advance. To be safe, she didn't want anyone to know she was behind it. So, she simply knocked everyone in the kitchen unconscious and locked them all in the seventh-floor storage room.