Chapter 1 Rebirth Before the Calamity
The tenth year of the natural disaster, winter.
Within Rong Kingdom’s Slave City, beyond its moat, lay the snow-covered forest.
Wen Xueling sprinted barefoot through the snow. Even though her legs were numb with cold, she dared not halt for even a moment. Behind her, soldiers pursued relentlessly; she was their sole prey for the day.
This nightmare began seven years ago.
That year, her mother perished in the bitter winter. Wen Xueling traveled north to find her father, only to discover he had long remarried in the capital, even raising a daughter who was merely a year younger than herself. Her four elder brothers, born of the same mother, astonishingly treated the new family as their own, showing more affection to the stepmother than to their birth mother.
Wen Xueling, feeling the injustice for her mother, accused her scumbag father. However, she was intercepted by her four brothers, who chastised her for meddling, believing it commonplace for a man to have three wives and four concubines—and her scumbag father had only taken one additional woman.
Rong Kingdom had a clear decree: any woman a man married other than his legal wife was considered a concubine. Yet, that woman blatantly occupied the position of wife! Her four brothers deemed her unreasonable and confined her within the Prime Minister’s residence. For over a month in the capital, no one knew the Prime Minister had another daughter.
Later, Wen Xueling sought an opportunity to escape, only to be attacked en route. When she awoke, an unfamiliar man lay beside her. The stepmother then burst in with others, framing Xueling for seducing her daughter’s fiancé. Not a single person believed her explanation. Even her four full-blooded brothers demanded she kneel and admit her fault. She chose death over submission, while her stepsister cried, threatening to jump into the pond.
The matter reached the Emperor, resulting in her banishment to Slave City, to become the lowest form of bed-warming slave for the three notorious city lords. She endured seven years of bitter hardship. The only thing that sustained her was her mother. If she were to die like this, she would be letting down her mother's spirit in heaven.
But……she was almost at her limit. Her legs ached terribly, her feet were numb, and her white clothes were long since stained crimson with blood, barely clinging to her emaciated frame.
“A generous reward for capturing the runaway slave!”
“Life or death, it matters not!”
A voice, incredibly familiar yet strangely distant, echoed from behind. With no time to think, she hunched her body, frantically seeking cover. In her desperate flight, Wen Xueling halted in terror. Before her lay a deep pit, piled high with skeletal remains. There was no way forward, no way back. Was this to be her destiny in this life?
But she was not resigned! She had not yet made those people pay their price. How could she die while the wicked still lived? Wen Xueling clutched the fire-weapon in her hand. That man said, just throw it, and everyone within ten zhang will be blasted to death. In an instant, her eyes hardened with resolve. Even if the chance of survival was slim, she had to gamble everything.
She hid behind a tree, just as she was about to make her desperate, all-or-nothing move, her gaze locked with a pair of cold, emotionless, yet familiar eyes. He was drawing his bow, aiming directly at her, his eyes devoid of warmth. Wen Xueling’s motion to throw the fire-weapon abruptly froze. In that moment of stunned hesitation, a long arrow, whistling through the air, pierced her body. The force of it sent her stumbling backward, half her body suspended over the deep pit.
She stared down blankly, seeing the familiar marking on the arrow feather. This was the arrow she had personally designed for her eldest brother, after months of burning the midnight oil, painstakingly refining it. On the battlefield, one such arrow was enough to claim a life, yet now it was savagely embedded in her own heart. Her eyes felt as though thousands of needles were pricking them. Wen Xueling looked up, seeing the man smiling, accepting congratulations from those around him.
“Congratulations, General Wen, on successfully shooting down the runaway slave!”
“This fox fur prize……is the General planning to give it to his sister? I hear the General's sister is frail, and fox fur is most warming.”
“Naturally, all the good things in the world must be given to my Jin'an,” the man’s voice radiated pleasure.
All sounds in the world abruptly ceased. Wen Jin’an, her paternal half-sister, was one of the culprits who had trapped her in this predicament. The cold wind whipped her long hair, which had come loose and fell to her sides, revealing her horrifying face and the slave marks on her cheeks. She was withered like a specter, utterly devoid of her former beauty that could topple nations.
All the past events replayed in reverse before her eyes. Wen Xueling scoffed, a bitter self-mockery. Yes, her father and her four brothers had long since become Wen Jin’an’s father and brothers. And her life was worth less than a piece of fox fur.
The wind stirred, and she fell. Wen Xueling closed her eyes. If given another chance, she vowed to make these people pay their blood debts.
“Ling'er, wake up. Mother is here.”
Wen Xueling was drenched in cold sweat. Her eyes snapped open, and she sat up abruptly, meeting a pair of worried eyes. She mumbled, “Mother……” Had she arrived in the underworld so soon?
Mu Qingyu hugged her tightly, soothing her, “Don’t be afraid, it was just a nightmare.”
Wen Xueling felt dazed, tears falling uncontrollably. No, it wasn’t a dream; it was seven years of real suffering. She buried herself in her mother’s embrace, weeping like a helpless child who had lost her way home. From childhood until now, she had never cried so heartbrokenly in front of anyone, her tears soaking the front of her mother’s robe.
Wait! Wen Xueling’s body stiffened. Her mother’s embrace was warm. Realizing this, she urgently clutched Mu Qingyu’s hand. Warm! The nerve in her brain tightened. Her trembling hands caressed her own face—smooth and unblemished, without the uneven scars from whippings, and certainly without the branded “slave” marks on her cheeks. She cautiously moved her legs; there was no bone-deep ache from re-mended bones that had accompanied her day and night.
Wen Xueling then realized an impossible yet true fact. She……had been reborn. Reborn before the natural disaster, when her mother was still alive! She quickly recovered from her shock, tears mingled with laughter. How wonderful! They were both still alive, and there was still time for everything.
Unwilling to repeat the past, she decided to tell her mother about her scumbag father’s remarriage in advance. Whether her mother chose to divorce him or share him with another woman, she would respect her mother’s decision. But she would absolutely never acknowledge that scumbag father again.
“Mother, Ling’'er has something very important to tell you. Just now, I had a dream……”
She recounted what she had seen in her past life, slowly. Mu Qingyu's face turned shocked and pale. Suppressing her emotions, she asked, “Ling'er, what you’re saying……is it true?” Remembering how her scumbag father doted on his stepmother, Wen Xueling couldn’t bear for her mother to remain in the dark, so she nodded heavily. “Yes!”
“He and that woman’s daughter are only eight months younger than Ling’er.” Mu Qingyu’s face instantly drained of color. An intensely strong voice within her told her: This isn’t a dream; these things are real.
“Mother believes you!”
Unwilling to burden her loving mother with the horrors of Slave City, Wen Xueling only said that she had been sentenced to forced labor for seven years and later died of sorrow. Mu Qingyu’s heart felt as though a piece had been brutally carved out, leaving her utterly disillusioned with her scumbag husband.
“And your four brothers? Did they protect you?”
Her four brothers……The eldest brother who shot an arrow through her heart, the second brother who drugged her with a muscle relaxant, the third brother who held her head down to make her kowtow and apologize to her stepsister, the fourth brother who protected the stepmother. A healer cannot heal herself. Although her mother possessed medical skills, her body was extremely frail; she might not be able to bear all this. Her eyes darkened, and she said softly, “They……did not appear in the dream yet.”
After speaking, Wen Xueling suddenly remembered: the blizzard night was only three months away. Since heaven had given her a second chance, in this life, even if it meant traversing mountains of swords and seas of fire, she would reclaim everything that belonged to her and her mother. She gripped her mother’s hand, urgently saying, “Mother, tomorrow morning, we’re going to the capital!”
0 Comments