"Don't leave, Nian Nian. I love you."
A man's voice trembled in the dark—low, desperate, edged with pain. "Stay, please."
Shi Nian lay on the wide bed, moonlight spilling across her face. The nightmare had claimed her again. Her fingers clenched the bedsheet, as if holding it tighter could hold back the fear.
Her eyes snapped open. She stared into the dim room, breathing hard. Slowly, the panic ebbed, replaced by the stillness she knew too well—the stillness born from survival.
On the surface, she looked fragile. But behind those calm eyes was the weight of six lifetimes.
She rose quietly and went to the bathroom, splashing cold water on her face. The water slid down her cheeks, mingling with the faint traces of sweat. In the mirror, her reflection met her gaze with a single question: Howlongwillthisonelast?
Her first life had been simple—a family that loved her, a man who loved her dearly, a future she believed in. Until it shattered. They had been murdered before her eyes, and no matter how she tried to change that ending, it never altered.
Not once.
"When will this end?" she whispered, her voice barely more than a breath. "This curse… and blessing."
It was both. A curse because she remembered. A blessing because each rebirth allowed her to see them again, fleetingly.
She leaned on the counter, watching her reflection blur.
Her memories tangled—faces and voices from different lives overlapping until even she could not separate them. Every life ended in loss, every choice in regret.
SiYehan… The name slipped from her lips like a prayer, or an apology. I'm sorry. I won't let you suffer again.
Her chest tightened, but her eyes stayed steady. Nomorestruggle. Nomorechasingwhatfatewon'tallow. Iwilllivequietlythistime.
Yet the past never released her. It clung to her thoughts, a memory from her past life.
She remembered the hospital corridors. The intense smell of antiseptic. The echo of her own desperate voice: "I saw them! My family didn't commit suicide—they were murdered!"
No one believed her. Not the police, not the doctors, not even her friends.
Even the CCTV records showed her parents and fiancé taking their own lives at their wedding ceremony.
And yet she was determined to fight, even till the end of her life.
Then she was reborn. She returned to her early twenties, when she had just been engaged and her parents alive, Yet she could feel it—the presence of the mark deeply etched into her soul.
Assassins came, in every lifetime, in different forms, stealing joy, leaving blood. She learned then that this curse was beyond the world's understanding, beyond reason. She became something in-between: half alive, half bound by fate.
Her path led her to cultivation, a hidden world behind the eyes of the ordinary people. She trained, studied forbidden scripts, chased strength that could defy heaven itself. Every victory came with loss. Every mastery met with death.
---
Extricating herself from her thoughts, Shi Nian walked back to her bed, "Perhaps I should rest," she said lightly, though her eyes were empty.
But sleep did not come. Her thoughts refused to settle. She sat cross-legged and meditated, trying to seek calm.
Minutes passed. Suddenly, she felt something was wrong.
The qi in the air moved, a trace of spiritual energy flowed through her meridians before vanishing. Her heartbeat halted. She reached inward with her divine sense—and froze.
Her dantian was gone. It had shattered.
Shi Nian's lips curved into a faint, bitter smile.
"So even when I choose not to fight, you still won't let me go?" Her voice was low, steady. "Do you wish to see me suffer early this time?"
Taking her own life would achieve nothing. She had done so in her fourth life, it was a futile attempt in this vicious cycle of rebirth.
She lifted her gaze toward the ceiling, as if peering at heaven itself.
"Heaven… you've taken everything from me in every life—my family, my strength, my name. What are you afraid of? That I'll uncover the truth of who I am?"
She exhaled slowly. "Shi Nian," she whispered to herself, "you said you wouldn't struggle anymore."
Once, her name made the heavens tremble. Now, she was nothing but a powerless girl.
***
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