Reborn on the Day Her Tendons Were Severed
“Even if you die, no one will care. Don’t you find that laughable?”
That voice gradually faded away, and Yu Shuwan screamed.
But in the next moment, the smell of her charred body dissipated.
Even the searing pain in every part of her body seemed to vanish at this moment.
The rush of fresh air into her throat made Yu Shuwan’s eyes fly open, and she stared in terror at the scene before her.
A stout woman in coarse linen clothes walked toward her impatiently, the sickle in her hand glinting coldly.
“What are you screaming for, you little slut? Severing your tendons is for your own good! When the time comes, you’ll marry Erzhu and obediently bear his children!”
Yu Shuwan’s entire body was curled up on the ground, gasping for breath.
The sickle was already swinging toward her legs with the speed of a thunderclap.
Acting on instinct, she rolled on the ground. With a sudden burst of strength from nowhere, she grabbed a handful of dirt and spun around, flinging it at the woman.
With a shriek from Liu Chunlan, Yu Shuwan could not care about anything else. She scrambled to her feet and staggered away, running for her life.
The pain in her leg was nothing compared to the terror in her heart.
She ran past a field of wheat that rippled like a green wave, where a scarecrow stood dressed in tattered, floral clothes.
Yu Shuwan’s terror nearly consumed her.
Was this hell?
Why was it exactly the same as in her memory?
She ran until she collapsed from exhaustion into a patch of undergrowth.
Sharp branches scraped against her exposed skin, leaving behind bloody scratches.
The pain was so clear…
Yu Shuwan raised a trembling hand, her mind gradually clearing.
Though these hands were covered in scars and calluses, they were still made of flesh and blood.
The air was free of the stench of burnt flesh; her nostrils filled with the scent of a free wind she had never smelled in the capital.
That scarecrow… she had made it with her own hands and placed it in the rice paddies of Liu Jia Village.
Liu Jia Village.
Liu Erzhu.
Marriage.
Sickle.
Liu Chunlan.
She had been reborn!
Reborn at the age of fourteen, on the day Liu Chunlan tried to sever her tendons to marry her off to the brutish fool at the edge of the village!
Soon, her biological father, Zhongyi Hou, would rush here to take her back to his residence, only to find a timid, lowly, crippled daughter who would limp for the rest of her life!
And all of this was the handiwork of the fake young miss, Yu Guiwan, who had stolen her life for fourteen years!
It was precisely because the Yu family had doted on Yu Guiwan for all those years that she, fearing she would lose their favor, had specifically instructed her adoptive mother, Liu Chunlan, to ruin her before Zhongyi Hou arrived!
A sharp pain in her calf brought Yu Shuwan back to her senses.
She struggled to sit up and rolled up her pant leg.
The ghastly wound on her otherwise fair, slender leg gaped open, the flesh turned outward in a nauseating sight.
In her previous life, she had been unable and too afraid to escape, and Liu Chunlan had severed the tendons in both of her feet with that sickle.
Even after she returned to the Houfu, the injury could never be healed. She was left with a lifelong disability, which made her self-abasing and timid.
But in this life, she had successfully escaped. Did this mean she might be able to change her fate?
Tearing off a strip from her relatively soft inner garment, Yu Shuwan gritted her teeth and crudely bandaged the wound on her leg.
The sky was gradually darkening, with all the signs of an impending storm.
Yu Shuwan dug her fingers into her palms, steadied herself against a tree trunk, and managed to stand. She stumbled onto another path.
She was acquainted with the doctor in town.
If she was lucky, she could make it to town before the rain started and have him treat her wound. Perhaps she could save her left leg.
But her luck had always been bad, a fact that even rebirth hadn’t changed.
Halfway there, raindrops as large as beans began to fall, striking her skin with a stinging pain.
The surrounding area was empty, with nowhere to take shelter.
She could even feel her body growing feverish, the heat blurring the road before her eyes.
Despair crept into her heart.
Could it be that she had just been reborn only to die here?
No!
Absolutely not!
Biting her lip, she forced herself to keep moving. In the distance, Yu Shuwan saw a faint glimmer of firelight that grew clearer as the sound of horse hooves approached.
“Help me… Save me!”
Yu Shuwan used the last of her strength to let out a hoarse cry.
A flash of lightning illuminated her deathly pale face, but the ensuing thunder drowned out her plea for help.
As the muffled thunder rolled, Yu Shuwan couldn’t help but flinch.
But she dared not give up this one and only chance for survival.
She took two quick steps forward, but the movement pulled at her injured leg, and she collapsed to the ground with a muffled groan.
Seeing the carriage seem to slow down, Yu Shuwan gritted her teeth, staggered to her feet, and threw herself against the carriage shaft.
Her body, battered by the rain and cold wind, trembled uncontrollably. Her voice was a shivering, incoherent mess.
“Kind sir, I beg you, please take me to the clinic in town. I have money, I can pay…”
“Who is it?”
A deep, resonant male voice came from inside the carriage. The familiar sound was like an electric shock, sending a violent shiver through Yu Shuwan.
The rain grew heavier, and lightning threatened to tear the sky apart, for a moment making it as bright as day.
Then, a deafening clap of thunder boomed in her ears, like the most resentful roar in Yu Shuwan’s heart.
The curtain was lifted, revealing the face of a middle-aged man, somewhat stern and serious.
Yu Shuwan could barely stand.
It really was…
It was…
Yu Fangyi.
Yu Shuwan’s body swayed even more violently in the rain, her teeth chattering.
She was all too familiar with the man before her. It was her biological father, Zhongyi Hou, Yu Fangyi.
He had conquered half of the Qi Kingdom with his glorious military achievements and was one of Emperor Qi Jing’s most trusted right-hand men.
In her past life, upon learning of her existence, Yu Fangyi had immediately rushed to this small village to bring her back.
When they first met, he had even shed tears seeing her covered in wounds and had solemnly promised to find the best doctors to heal her feet.
But when she was sent back to the He Residence by Yu Guiwan and tortured to the point where death seemed a mercy, her husband would make a point of telling her just how much her family adored Yu Guiwan.
While she danced on her crippled feet to please He Huaixin, Yu Fangyi and the others had summoned an imperial physician because Yu Guiwan had accidentally sprained her ankle.
While she was locked in a dark room, starving and on the brink of death before being burned to ashes, Yu Fangyi and the others were celebrating Yu Guiwan’s pregnancy.
…
Yu Fangyi and her family had always been Yu Guiwan’s greatest source of confidence and support!
Everyone in the capital knew that the young miss of the Zhongyi Houfu was their treasured darling.
Even though this thief who had stolen her life was the daughter of a despicable human trafficker, in the Zhongyi Houfu, she was a princess adored by all!
In the entire capital, there was hardly a maiden more noble than she!
For many nights, Yu Shuwan would still dream of the sneering Liu Chunlan severing her tendons, and of Yu Fangyi bringing her, barely able to walk, back to the Houfu.
Because she was “vicious,” she “resented” Yu Guiwan for stealing her life.
In the end, even after she was married, she continued to “resent” Yu Guiwan.
Therefore, the “vicious” her deserved to be loathed by her parents and scorned by her brothers.
On the day of Yu Guiwan’s grand wedding to the crown prince, her own husband drank himself into a stupor.
She had finally found a chance to escape!
But she had only just reached the city gates when she was discovered by Yu Fangyi, who had come specifically to see off the ten-li-long bridal procession.
“What are you trying to do at Guiwan’s wedding banquet now?”
“Looking like this, have you no shame?”
He had frowned, his eyes filled with disgust.
“Send her back to the He Residence. Tell Huaixin to keep a close watch on her.”
That was the closest she had ever come to freedom. She was so close to starting a new life.
Her desperate pleas, her promises to stay far away from the capital and never return, were all swallowed by the dust kicked up by Yu Fangyi’s departing horse.
She could have gone to see the magnificent rivers and mountains of the world.
But she never got another chance.
The night she was sent back, her husband doused her with a pot of tung oil and set her on fire.
The despair of being consumed inch by inch by the flames made her wail and scream. She vaguely heard his cold question, “You think you’re worthy of causing trouble at Guiwan’s wedding banquet?”
…
The sound of the rain nearly drowned her. Her body alternated between cold and hot, and Yu Shuwan felt as if she were once again witnessing the moment she was burned to ashes.
Her body went limp and she collapsed to the ground. The flood of memories made her clutch the front of her robes, gasping for breath.
Meanwhile, in the flash of lightning, Yu Fangyi had gotten a clear look at the young girl’s face.
Though she was sallow, thin, and utterly wretched, he could still see a face that was forty percent similar to his wife, Su Jintang.
This was the person he was looking for!
“Xiaowan, Xiaowan!”
Ignoring the heavy rain, Yu Fangyi leaped from the carriage and rushed to lift the girl into his arms.
Yu Shuwan’s last memory was of that pair of eyes, filled with worry and alarm.
Heh…
Concern?
It was all fake.