The Stepmother's Counterattack: Raising a Child in a Bygone Era - Chapter 167: Unprovoked Kindness, Either a Scoundrel or a Thief

Qiao Nan: Crap! I am your biological daughter, yet I am treated as if I was picked up from the streets. In fact, you treat me worse than that!

Mother Qiao: Qiao Nan, you are not as pretty or smart as your elder sister. You are not as blessed as her. You have no right to study, marry, or to have your happiness!

Qiao Nan: Why am I not allowed to study, marry, or to seek my happiness? I will find a man right now and marry him!

Qiao Nan is dumbstruck upon discovering that the man right beside her is a powerful figure in the quad—the person who has the most promising prospects to be the future Chief.

Qiao Nan stares at the well-built man in front of her. He has firm abs and cold, chilling eyes. She swallows the lump in her throat as she says her greetings, “Good Morning, Chief!”

Is money really everything in a life?

When the Soul Plague arrived, it struck fast, transforming its victims into soulless monsters. The horde swept across the land unchecked—until the Awakened appeared. These survivors, immune to the plague, turned the tide of war into a bloody stalemate. But while the front lines held, the plague continued to spread and the horde only grew in number.Desperate for reinforcements, the World Government began conducting controlled infections of its able-bodied citizens to produce more Awakened. Hill was one of the conscripts. After going through a harrowing trial induced by the plague, his life was torn apart and remade: he emerged Awakened, endowed with strange new powers—but also bound by a dark curse that resides deep within his own soul.As Hill learns to wield his abilities alongside fellow survivors, he uncovers unsettling truths about the plague’s true nature and the hidden price of becoming one of humanity’s last line of defense.