I took a tentative step toward the figure shrouded in the mist, desperate to catch a clear glimpse of her face.
But the swirling clouds shielded her. Her features remained a blur; I could only make out the silhouette of a tall, slender girl.
Saying nothing, I watched her closely as I drew nearer. Seeing my approach, she backed away, maintaining a persistent distance that kept her face just out of reach.
“Yuning, I’m sorry.”
“Please wake up. I’m waiting for you.”
Suddenly, she spun around and bolted into the deep fog.
I gave chase, lunging to grab her, but she ran faster and faster. My strength rapidly failed me. Right at the agonizing moment my fingers were about to brush her clothes, I lost my balance and tumbled backward into a void.
The Sterile White Ceiling
Blinking through the haze, I woke to the sight of a monotonous, sterile white ceiling. The moment I tried to move my head, a sharp, searing pain shot through my skull, forcing a gasp of agony from my throat.
As the fog cleared and I took in my surroundings, I realized I was in a hospital.
Then, it all came rushing back. Right. Shen Leqing had stabbed me in the basement. I must have blacked out from blood loss and been rushed here.
The ward was deathly quiet. My bedside table was crammed with bouquets and gift baskets, suggesting a steady stream of visitors had come by while I was unconscious.
“A-Ling, you’re awake.”
Zhang Youning pushed the door open. Instead of stepping inside, she stood frozen at the threshold, her hands hidden behind her back, watching me with a deeply conflicted, unreadable gaze.
Everything had happened too fast. For a moment, I had no idea how to face her.
She stepped in slowly and clicked the door shut, her eyes never leaving mine. She was acting incredibly strange today…her gaze was ice-cold, yet the rims of her eyes were flushed a vivid red. She was a stark, terrifying contrast to the person I knew.
“Youning, what’s wrong?” I sat up, instinctively shrinking back toward the headboard.
She didn’t answer. It was impossible to tell if she even understood me. She just kept closing the distance, step by step.
A dark sense of dread pooled in my stomach.
Reaching the bedside, she gently reached out and stroked my hair. “A-Ling, it’s all over now.”
Before I could even process her words, a pair of scissors plunged deep into my chest.
My eyes widened in sheer disbelief as I stared at Zhang Youning. Gripping the handles, she wrenched them out and drove them right back into my flesh.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. It won’t hurt much longer… Please don’t hate me…”
She pinned my body to the mattress, systematically stabbing me five times.
My already battered, unhealed body couldn’t withstand the assault. The agony choked the breath from my lungs, leaving me entirely speechless. All I could do was stare at her face with pure, burning resentment until the darkness finally claimed me.
She finally stopped. Cradling my blood-soaked body, she sobbed hysterically as she tried to wipe the stains from my face.
“I’m sorry, I had no choice… I can’t lose you…”
I’m the one who should be crying here, alright? You don’t want to lose me, so you stab me to death? How does that make any sense?!
I was too exhausted to care. Before the next cycle of reincarnation began, I just wanted to sleep. Maybe it was for the best. Being sent off meant I wouldn’t have to deal with the absolute mess of this lifetime anymore.
A New Vessel, A New Life
Darkness enveloped me. I felt myself sinking into a bottomless abyss, drifting deeper and deeper without an end in sight.
The phantom pains vanished completely, leaving my body numb. Stripped of all emotion, I closed my eyes and waited to slip into a new body.
Let’s see what kind of person I’ll be in this life.
Beep… Beep… Beep…
A piercing light shattered the gloom. Forcing my eyes open, I realized I was…infuriatingly…still lying in a hospital bed.
Damn it. Did I somehow end up right back where I started? Did I survive?
I took a closer look. It was definitely a hospital, but the layout and decor were entirely different. In fact, this private room looked significantly more luxurious than the last one.
As I was scanning the room, a young nurse pushed the door open and walked in. She glanced at me, and since I was staring back out of sheer curiosity, we locked eyes for ten solid seconds. When reality finally clicked, she let out a sharp gasp and bolted down the hallway.
Am I… really that terrifying to look at?
“Director Lin! The patient in Bed 4 is awake!”
Within moments, a swarm of doctors and nurses flooded the room. Before I could figure out what was happening, I was surrounded. They poked, prodded, and examined me like a pig on a slaughterhouse block. I let them manipulate my limbs with a blank face, but inside, I was absolutely panicking.
The lead female doctor glanced at my chart, then looked down at me. “Sweetie, do you remember your name?”
My… name?
Who… am I?
Suddenly, fractured echoes of memories shattered my mind:
“Sis! You’re finally home from school! Did you buy me candy today?”
“I swear, I’ll never separate from you, Sis!”
“You’re a mistake. You deserve to die. You shouldn’t even exist in this world.”
“Wen Yuning, I hate you…”
Wen… Yuning? Is that me?
I opened my mouth to speak, but no sound came out. To be precise, it wasn’t that I had forgotten how to talk; it was that no matter how hard I strained, the words physically refused to leave my throat.
Wait, what? Am I a mute now?
The doctor checked my vitals and turned to her staff. “Overall status is stable. She’s conscious, and her vitals are normal. No major issues.”
The moment the doctors left, I grabbed the young nurse’s sleeve, staring at her with desperate urgency.
She hesitated, clearly torn. Sensing an opening, I deployed my secret weapon: I tugged gently on her hand, blinking my wide eyes in a display of pathetic, puppy-dog helplessness.
Sure enough, she crumbled. After a quick glance around the room, she leaned in close and whispered, “Do you have any idea how long you’ve been asleep? Two whole years! If you hadn’t woken up soon, they were going to discontinue life support.”
Her expression softened into something heavy. “Whatever happened in the past, it’s over. Don’t think about it anymore. You have to stay strong and move on. There are still people out there who love you!”
I was utterly bewildered. The nurse gave my shoulder a comforting pat, grabbed her clipboard, and hurried out.
Maybe because my soul had just transmigrated into this body, my brain felt like a corrupted hard drive. Fragments of unloaded memories were still waiting to be pieced together. And so, I lay there until nightfall.
It was bizarre. Why did I inherit the original host’s memories in this specific reincarnation?
My name was Wen Yuning. Age twenty.
Good. At least I got a fresh name this time.
But along with those twenty years of memories came the perfect inheritance of all her afflictions—both physical and psychological. A twenty-year-old girl in the prime of her youth should have had a beautiful life ahead of her. Instead, she was left permanently disabled, pinned helplessly to a hospital bed.
Suddenly, my eyes darted to the door.
My pupils dilated. Framed perfectly within the small glass window of the hospital door was a horribly familiar face.
The moment she realized I’d spotted her, she bolted. I tried to give chase, but the tangled web of medical equipment kept me anchored to the bed. I couldn’t even stand.
What is she doing here?
Zhang Youning.
No… wait. She wasn’t Zhang Youning.
My mind fractured again, a violent wave of vertigo triggering an excruciating headache as the floodgates of the past opened.
Two Years Ago
“Are you really skipping my coming-of-age ceremony too?”
A soft sigh echoed from the receiver, followed by a mature, soothing voice. “Be good, Yuning. Sis is just flooded with work right now. There are so many clients waiting for me to handle their lawsuits.”
I squatted by the curb, unable to form a coherent sentence for the longest time.
Hearing the heavy wind whipping against my phone, she gently chided, “Are you still outside? It’s freezing out there, and it’s getting late. Go home.”
“Zhang Tianyu.”
“Yuning, I told you not to call me by my full name.”
I caught the sharp edge of displeasure in her voice, but out of petty spite, I snapped back, “Zhang Tianyu, I hate you.”
With that, I slammed the phone down.
She loathed her own name…I’d known that since we were kids. But whenever we fought, weaponizing it was my favorite way to get under her skin. In reality, she never truly stayed mad. Afterward, she would always flood my chat with cute cat emojis until I smiled again.
I stood up and stared into the boundless, dark expanse of the ocean. A profound sense of helplessness washed over me.
Zhang Tianyu, you promised we’d be together forever. When are you finally going to take me away from here?
I wandered aimlessly along the coastal highway, letting the biting ocean breeze whip across my face as I stared at the pitch-black water. Even though my hands were frozen bright red, the thought of returning home repulsed me.
That place wasn’t a home. It was a living hell that consumed people whole.
It wasn’t until the early hours of the morning that I finally dragged my feet back to the alleyway and stepped into that so-called house.
The moment I pushed the door open, I saw a woman weeping silently in the living room. She was covered in bruises, her clothes torn to shreds. Scattered across the floor around her were shards of shattered beer bottles, scraps of fabric, and clumps of her own ripped-out hair.
I stood before this 35-year-old woman, completely silent. Meanwhile, from the bedroom, the rhythmic, loud snoring of a man echoed through the house.
Sensing her light being blocked, she slowly raised her head. When she saw it was me, she quickly looked back down.
I knelt down in front of her. Sifting through the debris, I picked out a wicked, razor-sharp shard of glass, wrapped one end in a rag, and handed it to her with a deadpan expression.
“Stop crying. Kill him.”
She snapped her head up in utter disbelief, glaring at me with raw resentment. “Are you insane?! He’s your father! Murder gets you locked up for life! How can you be so utterly cold-blooded?!”
My expression didn’t change. I stood up slowly, slipped the shard into my pocket, cast a passing glance at the bedroom where the monster slept, and walked back to my own room.
He isn’t my father. He’s an animal. And animals don’t deserve respect.
As for her, she was just a pathetic, narrow-minded woman.
The Storm Arrives
On my eighteenth birthday, I went out and bought myself a cheap bowl of longevity noodles and a mass-produced mango-layered cake. Sitting by the sea, I lit a single cotton swab as a makeshift candle and hurriedly whispered my wish.
The moment the flame sputtered out, I tossed the cake straight into the trash.
Turning back around, I stared into the ocean. The wind whipped through the strands of my hair and billowed the hem of my bright red dress.
By evening, I pushed the front door open, entirely unsurprised to find that man waiting inside. He hadn’t gone out drinking today. Instead, he sat at the dinner table directly across from my mother.
The click of the door caught his attention, and his gaze slithered over to me, completely unbothered and unashamed.
My red dress is vibrant. Beautiful, isn’t it?
Ignoring them both, I walked straight to the table, sat down, and picked up my chopsticks to eat. My mother glanced at me, opening her mouth to speak, but a cold glare from me choked the words back down her throat.
Two solitary tears slipped down her cheeks.
Silence enveloped the room…a deeply unsettling, suffocating peace. Outside, thunder roared in the distance, and sharp flashes of lightning ripped through the sky.
I knew the storm had finally arrived.