Images flashed behind my eyes like a high-speed shutter burst.
A world of martial spirits. A continent ruled by strength. The Qiao family. The disgrace of an illegitimate pregnancy. And the book.
My breath hitched; I knew this world. I didn't just know it; I had obsessed over it during long stakeouts, reading chapters on my phone while waiting for celebrities to stumble out of clubs. Chronicles of the Dragon God. It was a classic cultivation novel.
The protagonist, Lin Xiao, started as a "cripple," awakened a heaven-defying dragon spirit, and proceeded to slap the faces of everyone who ever looked at him wrong.
He collected jade beauties like Pokémon and ascended to become the ruler of the heavens.
And me? I was Qiao Ling—the minor antagonist from the first arc. The vain, cruel mother of the early-game villain.
My gaze drifted back to the baby in my arms. This meant he was Qiao Mingye. In the novel, Qiao Mingye was a tragic figure.
Abandoned by his mother and abused by his clan, he grew up twisted and hateful. He became a demonic cultivator purely to spite the world that rejected him.
He was the first major stepping stone for the protagonist—a "boss" character meant to demonstrate Lin Xiao's growth.
But there was a twist. The voice I just heard... he knew the future. He knew about Lin Xiao.
Regressor.
The word hung in my mind. My son wasn't just a villain; he was a regressor. He had lived through the timeline, died, and had come back to fix it.
Holy shit. I was holding a ticking time bomb.
'Make no mistake,' the baby's internal voice continued, his eyes drooping as the fatigue of being a newborn caught up with him.
'I will tear Lin Xiao's tendons out one by one. I don't care that he is the Child of Destiny. I don't care that the heavens favor him. This time, I will burn it all down.'
His mental voice faded into silence as sleep overtook him. His grip on my shirt loosened, but he didn't let go. I stared at the ceiling, my mind racing at a million frames per second.
This was a disaster. A complete, unmitigated disaster.
I knew the plot of Chronicles of the Dragon God. Lin Xiao wasn't just strong; he was unreasonably, illogically protected by plot armor.
He was the type of protagonist who could fall off a cliff and land on a pile of ancient treasure. If you tried to poison him, he'd gain immunity and a stronger cultivation base.
If you sent assassins, he'd learn their secret techniques during the fight. He was the "Most Talented Person Under the Heavens."
And my son? My tiny, angry, breastfeeding son wanted to go to war with that? It was a suicide mission.
If Qiao Mingye followed the path of revenge, he would die again. And as his mother—especially a mother he apparently remembered hating—I would definitely be collateral damage.
In the original story, Qiao Ling died miserably. She was either executed by the family for causing trouble or killed by her own son when he finally snapped.
I couldn't remember the specifics, but the ending was definitely "Dead."
"Madam?" The midwife returned to the bedside, wiping her hands on a rag. "Is the young master done?"
I looked at the sleeping face of my son. He looked so peaceful, so innocent. It was hard to believe that inside that small head, he was currently fantasizing about tearing tendons.
"He's asleep," I whispered, my voice raspy.
"Good. You need rest too. The Patriarch... he will want to see the child tomorrow. We need to prepare."
The Patriarch. My "father." The man who viewed me as a bargaining chip and my son as a stain on the family honor.
A surge of protective anger flared in my chest. It was a foreign emotion, likely bleeding over from the original Qiao Ling's residual feelings mixed with my own stubbornness.
I was a paparazzi. I survived in a tank full of sharks by being smarter, faster, and more ruthless than the people I photographed. I didn't have cultivation yet; I didn't have a martial spirit—wait, I did.
I closed my eyes, focusing inward. There, in the center of my consciousness, floated my martial spirit. It wasn't a sword. It wasn't a beast. It wasn't an element. It was a black, sleek, mechanical box with a glass eye.
My camera.
I almost laughed aloud. Of course. Even in a fantasy world, I couldn't escape my profession.
But this changed things. If I followed the script, I was dead. If I let my son follow his revenge script, we were both dead.
Wait, suddenly a question appeared in my mind. The old Qiao Ling didn't have a martial spirit. This was one of the reasons she became a mere pawn for political marriage.
If she hadn't suddenly become pregnant, she would've been married off to some powerful figure.
Maybe because I replaced her soul? I nodded to myself.
I looked down at Qiao Mingye again.
You hate me now, I thought, brushing a finger against his soft cheek. You think I'm the same woman who ruined your first life. You think you're alone in this fight against a god.
He shifted in his sleep, a tiny frown marring his face.
Well, you aren't wrong. But how about we retire ourselves this time?
If I followed the plot, the very next day when the Patriarch came, he would hand the baby over to a demonic cultivator with the intent to kill him.
As a mother who possessed beauty rivaling even the female protagonists of the book, I was supposed to start hating my son for destroying the future I could have had with this face.
But now, it's me in this body. I could change anything if I intended to. As the first step toward survival, I had to escape this family.