The night was alive with screams.
Lu Ming staggered down a street that no longer resembled a street, just a jagged trench of broken stone and collapsed beams. The flames leapt high, devouring roofs and temples, clawing at the heavens with greedy fingers. Smoke pressed down like a suffocating blanket, thick with the reek of blood and burning flesh.
This was Luoyang, the beating heart of the Han — and now it was a graveyard.
His vision swam as he braced against a shattered wall. The plaster was hot beneath his palm, still glowing from the fire that had licked it moments ago. His robes were torn, heavy with blood. Each breath came shallow and wet, rattling like rusted iron.
His body was ruined. His city was ruined.
And his family…
Lu Ming forced his gaze forward. The avenue ahead, once lined with bustling shops, was a corridor of corpses. Nobles who once strutted with silks and pride lay stripped naked, their wealth stolen, their bodies desecrated by laughing soldiers. Children's cries echoed faintly in the distance, cut short one by one.
Dong Zhuo's men were thorough.
The thought made bile rise in his throat. He spat blood into the dust and pressed onward. His legs trembled, but he moved. He had to. He refused to collapse here, amid the filth of looters and traitors.
A charred carriage lay overturned across the road, its wheels still smoldering. Beside it, a man in scholar's robes hung from a wooden beam, rope digging into his neck, his tongue swollen purple. Recognition pierced Lu Ming's fog — a court clerk he had once debated Confucian rites with over wine. Dead, discarded like a dog.
He stumbled past without slowing. If he stopped for every corpse he knew, he would never move again.
The palace was a silhouette of ruin on the horizon, towers collapsing into themselves, sparks dancing into the sky. The ancestral halls had been looted, imperial tombs desecrated, the city's lifeblood drained in a frenzy of greed. The Son of Heaven fled west, a puppet clutched in a tyrant's hand.
Lu Ming dragged his feet through the ash, his mind whispering the same truth again and again.
This is the moment I feared. This is the moment I knew was coming.
He had dreamed of Luoyang's burning long before he lived it. In his first life, trapped in a cubicle with fluorescent lights flickering above, he had read the records, played the simulations. He knew this was inevitable. He knew history.
And yet, standing in the ruins now, it felt like a cruel joke.
The weight in his chest grew heavier with each step. His ribs ached from more than broken bones. Every sight, every smell, carved regret deeper into him.
A toppled statue blocked the next alley — once a proud general cast in bronze, now split in half, the torso lying face-down in the gutter. The inscription was blackened, unreadable. Beside it knelt a woman, hair matted with soot, clutching the lifeless body of a child to her breast. Her sobs were hoarse, animal-like, echoing in the flames.
Lu Ming stopped. His lips parted, but no words came. What could he say? What comfort could he offer when he had none left for himself?
He lowered his eyes and walked on.
The city's walls had been breached, its gates torn down. Lu Ming knew he had little time. Stragglers like him were hunted for sport. His body already teetered on the edge of collapse, yet still he moved. Somewhere beyond these ruins, beyond the laughter of soldiers and the crackle of fire, there might be silence. A place to fall where his family's shadows would not smother him.
The memory clawed at him again, unbidden — his brother's bloodied figure at the northern gate, back straight, sword raised. Lu Yan had fought like a lion, shouting for the family to flee. His blade had broken; the spears had pierced him from every side. Lu Ming could still hear that last roar before it was choked in steel.
His stomach turned. His legs buckled, but he forced them straight. Not here. Not yet.
The street sloped downward, opening into what had once been a market square. Stalls lay shattered, baskets overturned, food ground into mud beneath stampeding boots. A horse's carcass sprawled across the center, its belly split open, steam curling into the night.
Lu Ming staggered into the square, breath rasping. The edges of his vision pulsed black. The firelight blurred.
And yet… his mind refused to fade. It clung stubbornly, dragging up the images of what had been lost, dragging him through each torment as though he hadn't suffered enough.
He saw his mother's eyes, soft even in famine, smoothing his hair when his fever burned as a child. He heard his sister's laughter in the courtyard, fragile but bright. He remembered the family meals, the voices, the warmth.
Gone. All gone.
The heavens had given him a chance — no, two chances. A modern life, wasted. A second life, reborn with knowledge, wasted again.
The flames roared louder, as though mocking him.
Lu Ming stumbled, fell to his knees in the square, coughing until blood stained his chin. His fingers dug into the dirt, trembling. The fire painted the night in red and gold, but all he saw was ash.
---
The square blurred before his eyes, but the firelight carved ghosts into the smoke. They rose from the ashes, dragging him backward into memory, forcing him to see again what he most wanted to forget.
He saw Lu Yan first.
His older brother had always seemed carved from stone, tall and broad-shouldered, with their father's stern brow and the stubbornness of a soldier bred into his bones. As boys, Lu Ming had trailed after him through the courtyards of their home, struggling to match his stride, always chasing his shadow.
"Hold the sword like this, Ming."
"You're too soft. Again."
"If you can't strike me, then at least don't drop the blade like it's a burden."
Lu Yan had been merciless in training, yet gentle in the quiet moments — sneaking dried fruit to him during winter hunger, taking the blame when Ming shattered their father's porcelain brush rest, shielding him with the confidence of an elder brother who believed he would always be there.
That belief shattered at the northern gate.
The scene replayed without mercy: the gates trembling under the assault, torches burning in the distance, the chaos of screams. Lu Yan standing alone at the breach, shouting for their mother and sister to flee, for Lu Ming to stay behind him. His sword arced through the night, cutting men down, each swing desperate, furious.
And then it snapped.
Ming remembered the sound, clear even over the roar of battle — steel shattering like glass. He remembered the spears driving into Lu Yan's chest, his brother's roar of defiance gurgling into silence. He remembered the moment the world tilted, when the unshakable pillar of his life fell into the dust.
The memory cut deeper than his wounds.
He tried to swallow the sob that clawed its way up his throat, but it escaped anyway, a broken sound swallowed by the crackle of flames.
His vision shifted, and the smoke birthed another ghost.
His mother. Lady Yuan.
She had been concubine-born, a second daughter in the great Yuan clan, but in their household she was the heart. Nobles whispered of pedigree and politics, but to Lu Ming she was warmth. Her hand on his hair when fever wracked his body. Her voice reciting old poems by lamplight. Her quiet strength when famine gnawed the city and she divided what little food remained so her children would not starve.
He remembered her eyes the most — dark, steady, full of patience. Even when his childish stubbornness made him refuse medicine, she would only smile and coax. Even when war crept closer, she had not allowed despair to poison her children's days.
But her eyes in the end were not patient. They were frightened.
He saw her again, clutching his sister as soldiers poured into the streets. She pushed Lu Ming away, shouting for him to run, even as her grip tightened on her daughter's shoulders. He had turned back once, just once — and he saw the sword fall, saw her crumple, saw her hand slip from her daughter's arm.
It had been gentle hands that raised him. It was a bloodied hand that he held in the end.
Lu Ming's breath broke into ragged gasps. He pressed a palm against his ribs, as if he could cage the pain clawing through him. But the heavens were merciless — they dragged him deeper still.
The last face came, fragile as a reed.
Lu Xian. His little sister.
She had been born frail, her body always too light, her cheeks pale even in spring. She laughed easily though, a soft chiming sound that filled their courtyard like the flutter of sparrows. She had clung to Ming's robes as a child, begging him to sneak her into the study, into the practice yard, into every corner she was not allowed.
"Brother Ming," she had once whispered, holding a wooden sword too large for her hands, "when I grow up, I'll fight beside you and Brother Yan. No one will dare bully us."
But she never grew strong enough to lift the blade properly.
The last time he saw her, she was stumbling through the smoke, too weak to keep up, calling his name with a cracked voice. He had tried to reach her, gods he had tried — but bodies surged between them, chaos tore the street apart. He heard her scream, high and thin, cut short in an instant.
Now, in the ashes of Luoyang, he heard it again. Over and over.
His knees buckled. He collapsed against the stones, coughing blood onto the dirt. The heat of the flames could not warm him. His body shook, but not from cold.
Three ghosts, bound to him by blood, now swallowed by fire and betrayal.
His brother, cut down with broken steel. His mother, gentle hand falling limp. His sister, voice stolen before she reached womanhood.
And him? He had survived.
What worth was his survival when he had failed them all?
The heavens had cursed him with memory. He had known what was coming, had seen their deaths written in the scrolls of history. And still, when the moment came, he had done nothing. No words, no action, no desperate gamble to save them. Only silence. Only fear of being branded mad.
Now all he had was regret.
The flames hissed and popped, consuming the square, consuming his family's faces until nothing remained but ash.
Lu Ming bent forward, pressing his forehead into the dirt, his body trembling. His voice broke from his chest in a hoarse whisper, raw and jagged.
"Forgive me."
But there was no one left to forgive him.
---
The dirt beneath his forehead was coarse, grinding against his skin, but he did not lift his head. What dignity was left for him? His body was a husk, his spirit hollowed.
And yet his mind refused to die. It dragged him backward, farther than smoke and steel, farther than blood and betrayal. Back to that first life.
Back to the cubicle.
He smelled it again — stale coffee, cheap instant noodles, printer ink. He heard the hum of fluorescent lights overhead, that constant buzzing that seemed to gnaw into his skull after ten hours staring at spreadsheets. He saw the clock, hands crawling past midnight while the city outside glittered with life he no longer touched.
He had been a marketing grunt. Disposable. Rewriting slogans, analyzing customer data, packaging lies into something palatable enough for consumers to swallow. His bosses called it "strategy." He called it suffocation.
Every campaign was the same — polish the illusion, sell the dream, squeeze another drop of effort from the tired masses. He hated it. And yet he endured, because what else was there? Rent. Debt. A life chained to necessity.
Sometimes, on his few scraps of freedom, he'd sink into history books, into strategy games, into the tales of the Three Kingdoms. There, at least, heroes fought with purpose. There, men and women rose and fell with their names carved into history, their choices echoing across centuries.
Not like him. Not like the man who grew old in office chairs and fluorescent light, waiting for a weekend that vanished in an instant.
He had dreamed of being Zhuge Liang, of being Cao Cao, of commanding armies and shaping destinies. But it was only play, only fantasy.
Until death came.
He could not even remember how, not clearly. A cough, a collapse on the train, the blur of hospital lights, then darkness. And when he opened his eyes again — he was in the cradle of the Han, born into a military family, tied by blood to Lu Zhi himself.
A second chance.
He had thought it was a gift. A cosmic joke, perhaps, but one offered to him alone. He carried knowledge no other soul possessed: the patterns of history, the rise and fall of lords, the burning of Luoyang, the battles yet to come.
He could have changed it. He could have spoken. Warned. Prepared.
But he had not.
The fear was always there, whispering. If he revealed too much, if he spoke of events yet to happen, would they call him cursed? Demon-touched? Would they burn him alive before his life even began?
So he said nothing. He smiled when expected. He trained with his brother, learned from his tutors, walked the streets of Luoyang as if he belonged. But he never truly belonged. The weight of two lives pressed against him, an adult trapped in a child's skin. Every gesture of love from his family felt both real and foreign, as though he were a guest wearing someone else's clothes.
And when the storm came — when Dong Zhuo seized the court, when betrayal stained the streets, when the fires rose — he did nothing.
He had seen it coming.
He had known.
But he had chosen silence.
And silence had cost him everything.
Now here he was, crawling through ashes, his ribs shattered, his blood soaking into Luoyang's broken stones. His brother gone. His mother gone. His sister gone. His name nothing but a curse carried on the wind.
Two lives.
One wasted in tedium, in a cage of routine and cowardice.
One wasted in fear, in silence, in failure to act.
He wanted to laugh. The sound came out broken, half a cough, half a sob. What irony. What cruelty. To give a man two chances at life and watch him squander them both.
The fire flared higher, sparks raining into the square. He lifted his head, eyes burning not only from smoke but from the sting of regret. His lips twisted into a bitter smile.
"Is this it, then?" he rasped. "Two lives… and nothing to show."
He dragged himself to his feet. Every muscle screamed. Blood dripped from his mouth with each breath. But he stood, swaying in the firelight. His eyes fixed on the sky, blackened with smoke yet pierced by distant stars.
The heavens had mocked him long enough.
He spread his arms wide, a broken figure silhouetted against the inferno, and shouted with what voice he had left:
"Is this all you want of me? To crawl? To fail? To watch and do nothing?"
The words tore his throat raw, but he screamed them anyway. His voice echoed across the burning square, swallowed by the crackle of flames.
"If there is fate, then damn it! If there are heavens, then I defy you!"
The fire hissed as if answering. His legs gave out, and he fell once more to his knees. But the cry lingered, a curse cast upward, a refusal etched into the night.
He was finished. His body knew it. His blood seeped into the dirt, hot and fast. He would not see dawn.
But his last thought, bitter and fierce, seared itself into the fabric of the world.
If I am given another chance… I will not waste it.
Then darkness closed over him.
---
Darkness.
Not the quiet of sleep, but the abyss of nothing. No fire, no screams, no blood. No Luoyang, no ghosts, no regrets gnawing at his bones.
For a heartbeat — or a century — there was nothing.
And then, breath.
A gasp tore from his lips, sharp and desperate. His lungs filled not with smoke, but with the crisp scent of spring. The air was clean, heavy with the fragrance of budding blossoms and damp earth. His chest heaved, the agony of his wounds gone, replaced with a strange vitality thrumming through his body.
He opened his eyes.
The sky stretched overhead, blue and unmarred by ash. Sunlight spilled across his face, warm and alive. He lay beneath the branches of a plum tree, its flowers trembling in the breeze, petals drifting down like pale snow.
For a long moment, he simply stared.
Alive.
He was alive.
His hands rose to his face, trembling. Smooth skin met his touch, unscarred, unmarred. His arms bore no wounds, no shattered bones. He pressed his palm against his chest and felt the steady beat of his heart, strong and unbroken.
A laugh bubbled up, jagged and disbelieving. It spilled from him in broken gasps, half hysteria, half joy. Alive. He was alive again.
But as the euphoria surged, so too did dread.
This was no afterlife. No illusion. He knew this sensation — the strange, jarring clarity of rebirth. He had felt it once before, when he first opened his eyes in the cradle of the Lu family. And now… again.
The heavens had not discarded him after all.
They had thrown him back once more.
"Three lives…" he whispered, his voice hoarse, as if the word itself carried weight. "Three chances."
But why? To mock him again? To watch him stumble, to laugh as he wasted yet another chance?
No.
He clenched his fists until his nails bit into his palms. The image of his family rose unbidden — Lu Yan falling with spears through his chest, Lady Yuan's trembling hand slipping from her daughter's grasp, little Xian's scream cut short. Their ghosts lingered. Their blood stained him still.
He would not let it repeat.
Not again.
He pushed himself upright, forcing his body to obey. His limbs felt younger, lighter, free of the exhaustion that had clung to him in the end. He glanced down — his frame was lean, not yet fully grown, but no longer a child.
Eighteen, he judged. The prime of youth.
And then he froze.
Voices drifted on the wind. Rough, angry, chanting words that sent a shiver down his spine:
"The Azure Sky is already dead. The Yellow Sky will soon rise. In this year of jiazi, let there be prosperity under Heaven!"
His blood ran cold.
The Yellow Turban Rebellion.
The spark that would plunge the Han into chaos, the fire that would ignite the age of warlords. He knew the timing. He knew the devastation that was about to sweep across the empire. And now he was here, alive, reborn at the very edge of it.
A bitter smile curved his lips.
"So that's it," he murmured. "The heavens throw me into the flames before the fire begins."
Once, he might have cowered. Once, he might have waited in silence, afraid of being marked as strange, cursed, unnatural. But not this time. Not with his family's ghosts clawing at his soul, not with the weight of two wasted lives burning in his veins.
He lifted his head, eyes blazing with the reflection of blossoms and sky.
"If fate dares to play its game again…" His voice was steady now, cold and sharp. "…then I will play mine."
The chant of the Yellow Turbans rose louder in the distance, drums beating like thunder. But Lu Ming did not shrink from the sound. He stared toward it, as if daring the chaos itself to come.
"Third life," he whispered, a vow etched into his bones. "This time, I will carve my name into history. Not as a pawn, not as a shadow. If the heavens will not allow it… then I will defy the heavens."
A single plum blossom drifted down, landing in his open palm. He closed his fingers around it like a seal, like a covenant with himself.
The wind carried the rebels' chant across the fields. The Yellow Turban Rebellion had begun.
And with it, so too began the life of a man who would no longer bow to destiny.