When it came to love, Julie wasn't old-fashioned at all.
Once, a man kept saying how much he loved her. That very night, she gave him what he wanted.
But the next morning, he tried to kill her in her sleep to steal her supplies.
In the apocalypse, supplies like food, water, and weapons were everything you needed to survive.
At the moment he made his move, she opened her eyes, snapped his neck, and watched the surprise, fear, and pain in his eyes before finishing him off.
---
Julie didn't judge the original owner of the body. After all, it was because of the original owner that she could live again. She wouldn't do something like criticize the body she now lived in.
From now on, she would use this body to enjoy life, live seriously, and not waste this second chance.
Julie had been starving for a day. Her stomach was completely empty, and her head hurt a little. She wasn't sure if it was a concussion.
She finally started to feel a little better.
She looked around the room she lived in — it was a complete mess, too horrible to look at.
Trash was everywhere, and it smelled sour and rotten.
There was a thick layer of dust on the table and dressing stand. Who knew how long it had been since the place was cleaned?
Feeling a bit more energetic, Julie thought about moving around a little.
She wanted to see if the house could still be saved. If not, she would just tear it down and rebuild it.
Looking at her own hands, she saw they were covered in dirt.
Her clothes were greasy and stained with something black. Who knew how long it had been since they were washed?
Her hair was so greasy that it stuck together in clumps. Julie wanted to just cut it all off with a knife.
Right now, she only wanted one thing — to take a shower and wash her hair.
When Julie walked out of her room, she saw three men standing there looking nervous.
One of them, especially, sneaked a look at her but quickly lowered his head, unable to hide the fear and disgust in his eyes.
From her memories, Julie knew this was Lorrie, the youngest of the three.
As for him accidentally killing the original owner and causing her to come here, she felt neither grateful nor vengeful.
In the apocalypse, the first rule of survival was not to meddle in other people's business.
No one deserved pity. Anyone who acted like a saint either ended up dead or became a zombie.
Haven, the second brother, looked at her worriedly and said,
"Wife-lord, are you okay? It's all the little brother's fault. Big Brother and I already taught him a lesson. Can you please not hand him over to the officials?"
The eldest brother, Bailee, didn't say anything, but his eyes were also begging her for mercy.
Lorrie, the youngest, stood stiffly and shouted,
"Don't beg her! It's useless! Julie, it was all my fault. Don't hurt my brothers anymore. Take my life if you want!"
After shouting, he suddenly pulled out a wooden hairpin and tried to stab it into his own temple, but Bailee quickly stopped him, grabbing his hand and giving him a look to calm down.
Julie wasn't interested in watching their little act.
She just wanted to take a shower as soon as possible and feel clean again.
She gave them a cold look, then walked straight to the kitchen to heat some water.
Bailee frowned. He felt that something about the wife-lord was different since she woke up.
The way she looked at them just now was like looking at corpses — a kind of coldness and strength the old wife-lord never had.
The old wife-lord would often hit and scold them, but she had never had that kind of look in her eyes.
She felt like a completely different person — more like... an assassin.
Haven also noticed something wrong.
With the old wife-lord's temper, she should've yelled, hit them, and immediately tried to send the little brother to the authorities.
How could she just ignore them and walk away like they didn't exist? It was too strange.
Haven and Bailee looked at each other and decided to follow her to the kitchen.
Julie wasn't some rich young lady.
She grew up in an orphanage, doing laundry and sewing repairs from a young age. She learned to survive through her own hard work.
Although she was terrible at cooking — whatever she made barely counted as food — she could at least get things done.
Quickly, she carried a few buckets of water from the well outside and poured them into the pot to heat up.
She stood quietly by the pot, waiting.
Haven, still trying to figure her out, asked carefully,
"Wife-lord, what are you doing? Are you cooking or bathing? Let me help you."
He thought it was strange. Their wife-lord had never done any of this before. And firewood was low — they hadn't had time to collect more yet. He didn't want her wasting it.
Julie glanced at him but didn't say anything.
In her mind, she recalled the image of this man from the original owner's memories.
The original owner couldn't see it, but she could — he was a fake.
He acted gentle and obedient on the outside, but inside he was full of schemes.
He had been poisoning the original owner's food.
The original owner drank clean porridge, while they only had wild vegetable soup.
Men weren't allowed to sit at the table or have porridge in this world.
The porridge had been laced with poison. It was slow-acting, so the original owner hadn't noticed right away.
When Julie woke up, she could already feel a slight trace of poison in her body.
If it had continued, the original owner would have eventually died from it.
But Julie wasn't worried.
She was someone who was immune to many poisons, skilled in martial arts, and even had a space filled with detoxifying medicine and life-saving pills.
Clearly, the original owner's life here had been tough.
In the original owner's memories, those so-called "friends" were nothing but troublemakers, encouraging her to mistreat the three brothers and giving her bad advice.
It was no wonder the original owner ended up like this.
Julie didn't like dealing with messy drama, nor did she enjoy talking much.
After surviving more than ten years in the apocalypse, her life had become numb and monotonous.
She couldn't even remember the last time she had smiled.
As long as no one bothered her, she just wanted to live her life quietly.