C2 She Was Reborn!

Wen Jiu was haunted by that nightmare once more.

That night, a torrential rain battered the frail windows and wooden doors, threatening to tear them from their hinges.

A stranger burst through the window, ripping her clothes apart, indifferent to her frantic struggles and cries for help...

He remained silent throughout the ordeal.

Amidst the downpour, the only sound was the incessant creaking of the wooden bed, a sound that had tormented Wen Jiu for over a decade.

Time and again, she fought through the same dream, yet she could never make out the man's face.

A searing pain jolted Wen Jiu awake.

"It hurts so much..."

Her eyes fluttered open to the inky darkness of the night.

The man's breath, heavy with the stench of alcohol, brushed against her face, sending chills down her spine. Grasping the silver hairpin beneath her pillow, she plunged it into his chest.

"Get off! Or I swear, I'll kill you!"

Wen Jiu's voice was ice.

For the first time in years, she had found the strength to fight back against the man in her nightmare.

She thought she was dead.

Why then, was she still subjected to such degradation?

With all her might, Wen Jiu drove the hairpin deeper into the man's flesh. His blood, warm and sticky, spread over her, filling the air with its metallic scent.

She was paralyzed, at his mercy.

"Have you been drugged?" Wen Jiu sensed something off about the man; despite his injuries, he wouldn't stop. "I know what to do. Get off me, and I'll help you..."

He hesitated, then rose and stood by the bed. Wen Jiu swiftly slid off, grabbed a chair, and hurled it at him.

"Go to hell!"

He was quick to react, snatching up his clothes and leaping out the window, leaving Wen Jiu at the sill, the man long gone.

The dilapidated window, shattered by the man's escape, roused the old man in the next room, who erupted in a tirade: "What a waste! Can't even keep the peace in the dead of night!"

Lightning tore through the stormy sky, briefly illuminating the decrepit room, the bare walls—Wen Jiu's childhood home. She picked herself up, staggered to the bed, and felt for the two taels of broken silver hidden in her pillow.

In that moment, she was torn between sobbing uncontrollably and bursting into hysterical laughter.

She had been given a second chance at life.

Reborn on the very day her innocence was stolen.

Here she was in the Wen family's earthen house, still fifteen-year-old Wen Jiu, the daughter of a once-prosperous merchant now fallen on hard times.

"Jiu? What's wrong, Jiu?" Her mother's worried voice came from outside, followed by the creak of the wooden door swinging open. A woman entered, bearing a dimly lit oil lamp.

"Mother..."

Tears streamed down Wen Jiu's face at the sight of her. In her past life, after fleeing from the Xie Family, she never saw her mother again. She had only heard from fellow townsfolk about the war that ravaged Changping County, where tens of thousands were slaughtered by the invading army. No survivors, the dead indistinguishable, their bones unclaimed—no gravestones to honor, no place to pay respects.

Fourteen years had passed since that separation—how could she not weep at the chasm between life and death?

Yet, amidst her tears, she was jolted by Mrs. Wen's sharp cry: "Blood..."