Rebirth in the Apocalypse: Third Time's a Charm

Both Wang Yi Chen and Wang Chao looked at me startled when I gave them that piece of information. And by the looks on their faces, I could tell that Liu Wei didn't share that juicy bit of gossip either. I looked over at him and he just smiled at me, getting comfortable as if about to watch a show.

"You didn't tell them," I said to him, my head tilted. I thought that they would have had his complete loyalty. Apparently not.

"Wang Chao does not believe you 100% and has refused to kill Wang Zi Mo. I figured not knowing the details about the future would not hurt him," he replied shrugging his shoulder.

"Huh," I said, nodding my head in approval. "Let's go with your plan. I won't tell them anything more and they can figure things out as you go. I assume though, that you will be staying in City A in October?"

"Yeah," Liu Wei replied, the two of us completely ignoring the men from the Wang family. "I don't suppose you have any more of those butter tarts, do you?"

"Of course! I emptied out an entire bakery a while back. I probably should go do it again sometime soon. There are just some things that they can make better than me," I said as I waved my hand. A plate of butter tarts appeared on the coffee table and I grabbed it before Wang Chao could. I glared at him, knowing that he was wanting my butter tarts.

Liu Wei picked up his tart and put it in his mouth just as the Old Master demanded an explanation. Indicating that his mouth was full and he would not be able to answer, I rolled my eyes and opened my mouth.

"You are going to have to be a bit more specific," I said, trying to be understanding, but I was falling back into the step one category with the Wang family. Especially after I saw Wang Zi Mo's face.

"How do I die?" Asked Wang Chao, opening his mouth for the first time in a while.

I rolled my eyes at his question. "No idea, next?"

"What do you mean you have no idea, you just said that Wang Chao and 90% of the Wang family---" started the Old Master, only to be cut off by me.

"Disappeared. I have no idea if they died or not. They were just not in City A for at least thirteen years after the apocalypse."

"If I was away from the city for more than thirteen years, I was probably dead," said Wang Chao, as if he was not discussing his death.

"Not necessarily," I replied, munching on a tart. If I wasn't fast Liu Wei would take them away from me and they were mine! Mine I tell you!... Okay, so I might need to get over my addiction to butter tarts.

All three men looked at me this time. "What?" I asked confused. "You took a plane to Country S four days before the EMP went off. If you were not in the air when it did, there would be a chance that you could have lived. And Country S is a pretty big country. Keep in mind that there would be no vehicles of any kind, you would have had to walk the entire distance. Add on the zombies and it is completely possible that you were still alive thirteen years after the start and still not able to make it back to City A. Not probable, but definitely possible."

I thought about what I just said and then added, "But if you were on a plane, then there would have been no chance as you would have fallen out of the sky and died a fiery death."

The three men continued to look at me. I simply rolled my eyes and continued eating my snacks.

"Alright, let's get back to the topic," said the old man, looking at my plate of butter tarts. Was everyone after those things?!?

"We had a topic?" I asked in return, genuinely not remembering what we were talking about in the first place.

"The entire Wang family dying and the Zhao family taking over," reminded Wang Chao.

"The entire Wang family didn't die, the Old Master was still alive… and Wang Zi Mo," I clarified. I was getting tired and we had yet to come to a conclusion about whether the Old Master staying here or not.

"How did my sister and her fiancé die?" asked Wang Chao.

"Poison," I replied.

"Who poisoned them?"

"Wang Zi Mo."

"Impossible! He would never hurt a member of our family. Now I know that you are lying through your teeth to get something from us!" yelled the Old Master as he stood up. Once again, the guns of the bodyguards were pointed at me. And once again, I was remembering my first step. If I burned everyone, would my house burn down at the same time? I used to be strong enough that I could concentrate my flame just on certain areas, but I didn't know if I could do that anymore.

I guess there was only one way to find out.

I flexed my right hand and my pink flame came to life. I had learned, by accident last week that the blue flame burned a lot hotter than my pink one. The poor field that I was in will recover in a little while… I hope. I didn't know if I should practice it now or wait until the zombies came. I figured that in order to see the true effect of that flame I would have to wait to experiment on the zombies. They were harder to kill than humans.

Trying to hide my pink flame from Liu Wei, who clearly wasn't smart enough to stay away from it, I didn't take into account Wang Chao standing up and grasping my right hand. I was startled but didn't let go of the flame.

This man didn't believe me, and to a certain extent, I didn't expect him to. So if he happened to be burned, maybe that was the only way for him to learn.

"You will not touch my grandfather," he growled, looking down at me.

In return, I smiled and looked up at him. "Who said that I would touch your grandfather? I can reach him just fine from here… no touching needed. Now, if you don't want to have more problems, I highly suggest that you tell your men to stop pointing their guns at me. If you don't want to hear my truth, then you still have a few months to change it. The ball is in your court. You can see yourselves out."

I increased the strength of the flame until Wang Chao flinched and dropped his hand. I didn't owe him or his family anything… if nothing else, it was they who owed me. They would learn the hard way, just like I had to, or they would die.