Jing Shu shook her head slowly, the images on the screen reflecting in her eyes. This year, countless island nations had vanished, their names scrolling in silent memoriam on the news ticker, and the global population had dropped by twenty percent, a number so vast it felt abstract, a statistic of unimaginable loss.
On the television, time-lapse satellite footage rolled, a silent, terrifying animation. Waves tens of meters high, walls of grey water, slammed inland, swallowing half of a city's skyscrapers in one strike, the buildings seeming to dissolve rather than collapse. The sea advanced at a speed visible to the naked eye, a dark stain spreading across the land. In just a few minutes, the towers were gone, their lights winking out. Within an hour, the entire city disappeared, replaced by a featureless, churning expanse.
In the face of catastrophe, life became painfully small, a fleeting spark against the implacable tide.
In less than a day, only a few dark, rugged mountain peaks still showed above water like the backs of drowning beasts. Everything else on the island was submerged, every road, every field, every home.
The footage left everyone in the room stunned, the only sound the hiss of the TV and the relentless rain outside. Last year's predictions, the heated debates and dismissals, had come true with a terrible, literal finality. Was the Earth really going to be swallowed by the ocean? The question hung, unanswerable, in the air.
"International news reports that, as of now, only the African highlands have not suffered flood disasters." The anchor's voice continued, clinical. "Local governments are encouraging people to continue living in underground dwellings. Several European countries are discussing migration to Africa. We will continue to follow this story."
Africa had only received the flood later because of its elevation, a geographical accident granting a temporary, precarious reprieve.
Grandma Jing stared at the screen, her knitting forgotten in her lap, her face pale with fear. "If even high-rises are underwater, is it still safe for us to stay in one? What if Wu City is flooded too?" Her voice was thin, the fear of their concrete tower becoming a tomb suddenly very real.
The whole family fell into a moment of panic, a shared intake of breath. If an entire country, with all its concrete and steel, could be drowned, what chance did a single city have? What chance did their single building have?
Wu You'ai held up her phone, the screen bright in the dim room. "Grandma, don't worry." Her voice was deliberately calm, a steady anchor. "I've got the latest Wu City update from big-data feeds. It refreshes every thirty minutes. Right now the flood is rushing toward the city center, away from us." She turned the phone to show the map, a pulsing red line of water movement snaking away from their grid location.
"Exactly, Grandma," Jing Shu said, her voice firm, pushing back against the collective anxiety that threatened to rise. "We're at the foot of the mountain. Our elevation is much higher. We'll be fine." She stood up, a gesture of certainty. "At night, wear the automatic life jackets on your wrists. I've also got two inflatable boats. Even if the water comes, we won't panic." She pointed to the closet where the compact, bracelet-like devices and the tightly packed boats were stored.
After dinner, the family discussed flood self-rescue procedures in detail, who would grab what, which exit to use, how to inflate the boats, then went to pack their go-bags with renewed purpose. Starting today, everyone consciously wore an emergency life jacket on the wrist, the lightweight bands a constant, reassuring pressure.
Jing Shu sat in the courtyard under the shelter of the eaves, the sound of rain on the awning a steady drumroll, and cracked into a large crab, a small luxury amid the crisis. She carefully finished the legs, sucking the sweet meat from each segment, then ate the golden roe in the middle, rich and briny. She tossed the empty shells to Xiao Dou, who waited patiently. Xiao Dou gulped them down whole with a crunchy snap, who knew what flavor she even tasted in the brittle calcium.
Jing Shu took the chance to tidy the Rubik's Cube Space with her mind, a familiar mental exercise. She visualized the organized stacks and shelves within the extradimensional storage, checking inventory and shifting a few items for better access.
After the Rubik's Cube Space advanced to Level 6, there were still dozens of cubic meters left, a cavernous void she had been diligently filling. She had moved everything from the basement that could be ruined by damp, bags of rice, flour, documents, electronics, into the Rubik's Cube Space, and now she had stuffed it full again, a curated archive of their preparedness.
It looked like upgrading the Rubik's Cube Space enough to hold all the villa's supplies before migration would still be difficult, a race between her progress and the accumulating hoard.
Every thirty minutes, like clockwork, Wu You'ai broadcast the newest updates to the family group chat and the larger community group, her phone chiming with notifications.
"@Everyone, the flood has already reached a height equal to the fourth floor in the new urban district. The oil-base community in the development zone has completed full evacuation. The old city remains intact for now. Evacuation continues in the other five affected areas."
A later message followed. "The flood volume has increased by one third, but it's still some distance from our community."
No matter the distance, the concrete information was enough to chill the blood, more than seventy people in the group chose to sleep on higher floors that night. Most just carried up a damp quilt and made do, finding a patch of bare floor in the unfinished units.
That night, when everyone finished packing their personal bags, Jing Shu brought up the bulk supplies: tents, bedding, sleeping mats, bottles of water, packets of dry food, and even disposable toilets, hauling them up the eighteen flights in multiple trips.
Grandma Jing, practical to her core, wanted to bring the pigs and chickens too, worried for their livestock.
"Grandma," Jing Shu said, pausing on the stairs with an armload of gear, "are you going to carry a pig up to the eighteenth floor by yourself?"
Only then did Grandma Jing give up on the idea with a resigned sigh. She fed them one more time, scattering extra feed, then joined the others, casting a last look back at the penned animals.
Jing Shu left Xiao Dou to guard the villa, the dog sitting attentively by the door. She locked the doors, engaged the heavy security mechanisms, turned on all the surveillance cameras, and then left, the familiar space behind her feeling suddenly vulnerable.
The family moved through the dry, echoing underground garage passage, their footsteps muffled, so they reached Building No. 25 without getting rained on, emerging into another stairwell.
A year of drinking Spirit Spring had made everyone robust, their breathing even and strong. They climbed the stairs in one breath, no one lagging far behind. Jing Shu's strength had become downright terrifying. She hauled a mountain of luggage, bags hanging from both shoulders and gripped in her hands, and still ran fast, taking the steps two at a time.
On the top floor, in the empty, dust-smelling unit they had chosen, Su Lanzhi swept the floor with a broom brought from home, raising small clouds. Jing An mopped twice, the wet swish of the mop head on concrete loud in the bare space. Jing Lai wiped down every corner with damp rags and sprayed medicated oil to cut the smell of mildew and construction. They were used to the spotless comfort of the villa, and an unfinished, gloomy unit with cold concrete walls felt hard to bear.
No matter. They would adapt tonight. Tomorrow they would sleep on the mountain anyway, was the unspoken consensus.
The commotion from Jing Shu's family, the sweeping, mopping, and unpacking, startled Fatty Niu, who had also come up to sleep on the top floor with her family. She shone a flashlight beam into the hallway from the neighboring unit, the light cutting through the dimness.
Seeing Jing Shu's large-scale operation, wiping surfaces, mopping floors, hauling planks to lay as a floor barrier, pitching spacious tents, laying out thick sleeping bags, Fatty Niu scratched her cheek, her own family's arrangements seeming paltry in comparison. "Sorry to bother you. We just put on more layers and came up, figured everyone else would do the same." She gave an awkward laugh. "You take your time. You are really… prepared."
The small interruption passed quickly. Grandpa Jing laid out the planks to keep their bedding off the cold, damp concrete. Only then did Jing Shu pull the tab on the pop-up tents, and they sprang into shape with a soft whoosh of fabric, the one-pull, foolproof design living up to its name.
She inflated the two boats too, using a small foot pump, the vinyl swelling into rigid, orange forms, creating an extra safety net lined up against the wall. With that, the family finally lay down to sleep in their separate tents, the space feeling a little more like a temporary camp.
"You sleep. My eyes are good. I'll stand watch," Jing An said from the doorway, where he had dragged a plastic stool. He still could not rest easy and insisted on keeping guard, his silhouette a dark shape against the slightly less dark hallway.
Jing Shu slid into her soft sleeping bag, the familiar scent of home clinging to it, zipped the tent flap shut for privacy, stripped off her outer clothes, and fell asleep in seconds, the day's physical and mental exertion pulling her under. She had no idea her actions at the supermarket, captured in shaky phone videos, were already trending on Wu City's local news feeds, her face blurred but the shark submarine unmistakable.
It was a solid, dreamless sleep, but she was shaken awake at six in the morning, the grey light of dawn barely seeping around the edges of the windowless room's door.
"Jing Shu, wake up! The flood's coming our way. We have to go now!" Su Lanzhi yanked open the tent zipper and shook Jing Shu so hard her teeth rattled, the panic in her mother's voice sharp and immediate.
"The flood, coming here? That was wrong." A cold clarity washed over Jing Shu's sleep-fogged mind. Was her memory off, or had history changed? The thought was a jolt of ice water.
Jing Shu threw on sportswear, then a down jacket over it, her movements quick and precise. Mornings were still cold, especially in the bare concrete space.
"Where has the water reached?" Jing Shu asked, her voice low and steady. Right then, from a tent across the room, Jing An's snores rumbled in the distance, the old man having finally succumbed to exhaustion after his watch.
Wu You'ai, dark circles under her eyes from a night of monitoring her phone, said, "Downtown is completely under. Even buildings over thirty stories high are gone. Last night tens of thousands ignored the evacuation notice, thinking high floors were safe. The latest report says they're all missing." She swallowed. "The city center is an ocean now." She scrolled on her phone. "The flood has already spilled over from the Ai Jia supermarket side. It's rising slowly, but at this rate it could reach us in a few hours."
Jing Shu let out a slow breath, the initial spike of alarm receding as the details aligned. It was still the same as her previous life. The flood would not reach here, the spillage was along the predicted channels, threatening but not breaching their specific elevation. The panic was from incomplete information.
"Wu City has thirty-five emergency shelters." Wu You'ai continued reading updates. "Most are underwater now, and the rest filled up yesterday. The Hongshan Ecological Park to the north has the highest elevation. It can hold over a hundred thousand people, and it's not far from us. Our community has been assigned there. An official mobilization notice just came through."
The Hongshan Ecological Park was a famous Wu City scenic spot and a shelter the city had poured serious funding into. It was maintained year-round, sturdily built, and fully equipped with emergency systems. The inside of Hongshan was hollow, a fact known to locals.
There was a colossal central cavern and over a thousand small caves branching out into a massive maze. If you didn't get lost and kept walking, you still might not finish exploring it in hours, the passages twisting deep into the mountain.
Fortunately, it was riddled with passages, with countless entrances and exits on different sides, a natural labyrinth turned public shelter.
What a coincidence. In her previous life, Jing Shu's family had spent three unforgettable, despairing days inside that echoing, crowded stone belly. So in this life, they were going back after all. The thought was a strange, heavy familiarity.
Wu You'ai sighed, the sound tired. "Pack up. We need to leave now. If we wait for the flood to expand this way, it will be too late." She looked at Jing Shu, then at the rest of the family beginning to stir. "I'll gather the others in the group. We should move together."
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After Killing Dao Partner, the Villainess Becomes the Demon Ancestor has officially gone through the book vetting process and is now available on my profile! So far, I've translated 100 chapters, and my impression? This novel is pretty solid.
The beginning is packed with schemes, like layers being built up and peeled away one after another. It's more about scheming than fighting at first. Then from chapter 100 onward, the scheming runs really deep. You can't just set it aside and only look at the fight scenes. The level of intrigue is almost on par with Gōngdòu (宫斗), the "Palace Fight." That kind of scheme-driven tension and pacing is super rare in xianxia, which makes this novel feel really fresh. Of course, the fight scenes are also well written.
I think it's good overall, though the author's writing in the early chapters can feel a little stiff or awkward at times, mostly because it focuses on Yun Qingyue's intelligence and intricate intrigues. I get what the author wanted to convey, and I polished it a bit so it's easier to digest. At least I think it's better now—though I'm curious what you'll think!
The later chapters with fighting are really well done. I even found myself laughing and speechless in some moments, lol. There's that saying, "you will find happiness watching others' misfortune." She's definitely not a saint—she's ruthless, and I'd say she's somewhat similar to Song Wanníng.
The author has a very distinctive style—I got this unique feeling while reading and translating it, something I haven't experienced in other novels I've worked on.
Anyway, I personally think you should give this one a shot!
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Yun Qingyue never expected her grand wedding to end in divine execution. All because a manipulative little junior sister with a hidden "system" and a talent for tears convinced their entire sect to force Yun Qingyue aside. When she unleashed her full power to crush the traitors, it wasn't her enemies who finished her—it was the Nine Heavens' Thunder Tribulation, a punishment she never deserved.
She thought it was the end. But a shred of her soul survived, now trapped in a mortal body so weak it's practically a prison. Her spirit root is gone, her meridians are feeble, and her immortal path is sealed shut.
But Yun Qingyue has finally seen the truth: her "pure" junior sister is a system-wielding thief, her sect are all pawns, and the very Heavens are blind. So if the heavens call her a villainess, she'll become the demon they fear. If the path of immortality is closed, she'll open the road to the Demonic Path.
Her new philosophy is simple: sever all karma and dominate everything in her path. This time as Xie Zhaolin, she's not just climbing to the top; she's burning the entire mountain down on her way up.