She no longer owed the Yan family anything.
This was Yan Zhuxing’s last thought before she died.
“I’m sorry. It was my willfulness that implicated you.”
She vaguely heard someone apologizing to her, followed by a sigh.
Who would be saddened by her death?
She was just a fake heiress who had usurped another’s rightful place, monopolizing the doting affection her parents and brothers should have shown their little sister for many years.
She had caused her sister to suffer out in the world for so long.
A daughter of a criminal like her didn’t deserve to live in this world at all.
To die on this battlefield now, having saved the people of a region, was for the best.
She felt as if she had been drifting for a very, very long time.
Hm?
Why hadn’t the Heibai Wuchang come to collect her yet?
When she opened her eyes again, Yan Zhuxing found that her soul had actually floated back to the Marquis’s manor.
Her obsession must have been too deep, preventing her from reincarnating, which was why she had returned here.
“My lady, the Eldest Miss’s death was truly not in vain. Not only did it earn the Second Young Master a noble title, but it also made His Majesty, grateful for her contributions, decree a marriage for the Second Miss, making her a princess consort.”
Her mother Wen Rushuang’s personal attendant, Li Shi, was beaming with delight, celebrating her death.
“Two marquises in one family, and a princess consort to boot. From now on, my lady, you will be the most envied person in the entire capital.”
“Indeed, she died a worthy death,” Wen Rushuang said with a faint smile.
“It wasn’t a waste for me to have found her so lively and cute on the street back then, bringing her home and raising her for so many years.”
She rummaged through a chest and pulled out a gold bracelet worn by an infant, dangling it before her.
“Seeing as she has earned so much glory for the Marquis’s manor, I will have her personal belongings from childhood buried with her. Perhaps she can even meet her birth parents in the underworld after she dies.”
“My lady is merciful,” Li Shi continued to flatter from the side.
Yan Zhuxing’s soul trembled.
What did that mean?
Hadn’t they said they took her home because she was pitiful and homeless?
And that they had accidentally lost their own daughter while picking her up?
Why did it sound like her mother had brought her back intentionally?
“Mother, how should we handle Yan Zhuxing’s body? Are we really going to let her into our Yan family’s ancestral tomb?” At that moment, her second brother, Yan Mingxiu, ran in.
“She’s not a child of our Yan family. On what grounds should she enter the ancestral tomb?”
“Mingyue hasn’t been sleeping well these past few days. She says that every time she closes her eyes, she dreams of a blood-soaked Yan Zhuxing coming to scare her.”
“We should hire a master to shatter her soul. That way, she won’t dare to pester us again.”
Yan Zhuxing’s eyes widened in disbelief.
Her second brother was such a sinister villain.
Her death had earned him the title of a marquis.
It was one thing for him to be unwilling to give her a decent burial, but he even wanted to have her soul shattered so she couldn’t reincarnate?
She clenched her fists.
“Ah, Second Brother, you are mistaken,” her eldest brother, Yan Mingyuan, had also arrived.
“Although Yan Zhuxing is dead, she was so beautiful in life that many men coveted her. I heard that Grand Tutor Lu’s grandson, who died the day before yesterday, was particularly fond of her.”
“Why don’t we talk to Grand Tutor Lu and arrange a ghost marriage between her and that boy, Lu Chi. That way, our family can also establish a connection with the Grand Tutor.”
Yan Zhuxing’s soul began to tremble.
She was already dead, yet they wouldn’t let her go. They even wanted to exploit her one more time?
They wouldn’t rest until they had squeezed every last drop of value from her?
“Mm. We’ll do as you say. Remember, you must not anger His Majesty. After all, she is a hero for having preserved the Prince of Yong’an’s body intact,” Wen Rushuang nodded, agreeing to her sons’ proposal.
Yan Zhuxing couldn’t listen anymore. She urged her soul to float to the room of her second sister, the Yan family’s true heiress, Yan Mingyue.
Yan Mingyue was doing her makeup in front of a mirror.
A young maidservant combed her hair, her face full of worry. “Second Miss, what if the Second Young Master fails to hire a master? The Eldest Miss haunts your dreams every night. What are we to do?”
Yan Mingyue sneered. “She couldn’t win against me when she was alive, so why would I be afraid of her now that she’s dead? She has never once entered my dreams.”
“I just want Second Brother to have her soul shattered to pieces.”
Shameless!
Yan Zhuxing could no longer suppress the fury in her heart and lunged at Yan Mingyue.
However, she passed straight through her body.
Only then did Yan Zhuxing realize she was dead.
She couldn’t do anything to Yan Mingyue at all.
She was filled with hatred, unwilling to accept it. How could she have died for this family of heartless ingrates?
If she could live again, she would make them pay the price.
She would kill them all.
She would make them taste the agony of being pierced by a thousand arrows that she had felt before her death.
She would claim their lives. Not a single one of them would escape.
“Eldest Miss, what are you still dawdling for? You dirtied my young miss’s clothes, and the Eldest Young Master has punished you by making you wash them yourself. How dare you still try to slack off?”
A piercing voice came from above her head.
Yan Zhuxing opened her eyes and stared at the wooden basin of dirty clothes in front of her, then glanced at her own fingers, which were red from the cold.
Then she looked up. The person pointing at her nose and scolding her was none other than Yan Mingyue’s maid, Mo’er.
A sharp pain twisted in Yan Zhuxing’s abdomen.
She remembered.
This was the day she got her first period. She had moved to make way for Yan Mingyue, but ended up getting blood on Yan Mingyue’s skirt.
Yan Mingyue had been aggrieved and had burst into tears.
Yan Mingyuan had punished her by making her wash the clothes by hand.
This was the dead of winter, with snowflakes still drifting outside.
She had used this basin of icy water to wash Yan Mingyue’s clothes, and from then on, she developed a condition where her abdomen would ache every time she had her period.
Over time, and after many occurrences, the army physician took her pulse and told her that the cold had invaded her body, making it difficult for her to ever conceive.
So…
Had the King of Hell heard what she had said in her heart and deliberately sent her back to fulfill her wish, to kill all these hypocrites?
“Are you trying to get out of washing them? Believe me, I’ll go and tell the Eldest Young Master. When that happens, you’ll be punished to wash all the clothes in Yaohua Courtyard,” Mo’er looked down on her condescendingly.
Everyone knew that the Eldest Miss was not favored by the masters of the manor. She wouldn’t make a sound even when bullied; she was a complete pushover.
That was why she loved this task of punishing the Eldest Miss the most.
The next moment, she suddenly felt like she couldn’t breathe.
She looked closely and saw that Yan Zhuxing, who had been squatting on the ground in a daze, had abruptly stood up.
And those hands, chilled from the icy water, were now on her neck.
“Go ahead, if you have the life to tell him,” Yan Zhuxing said, her face devoid of expression.
Mo’er’s eyes widened in terror, as if she had seen a ghost.
“Eld… est… Miss, you… aren’t… you… afraid…”
Before she could finish her sentence, Yan Zhuxing snapped her neck.
“So you do know I’m still the Eldest Miss. You’re just a mere maid. If I kill you, I kill you. What is there to be afraid of?”
Yan Zhuxing smiled faintly, released her hands, and watched the body slump limply to the ground.
She submerged the maid’s head in the basin and wrapped Yan Mingyue’s dress tightly around her neck.
She sprinkled snow into the basin.
Before long, the water in the basin turned to ice, freezing Mo’er’s head firmly inside.
This maid was Yan Mingyue’s enforcer and had bullied her countless times on her behalf.
Therefore, Yan Zhuxing felt no psychological burden for killing her.
In her past life, she had killed far too many people on the battlefield.
Besides, heaven had given her a chance to live again. If she didn’t take revenge for herself, wouldn’t she be wasting heaven’s kindness?
Yan Zhuxing walked expressionlessly toward Yan Mingyue’s courtyard.
Yan Mingyue had harmed her; she deserved to die.
Wen Rushuang had deceived her; she also deserved to die.
As for the brothers Yan Mingyuan and Yan Mingxiu, one wanted to use her corpse for a ghost marriage, and the other wanted to have her soul shattered. They deserved to be sliced into a thousand pieces even more.
She was going to kill them all.
Rage drove her forward, step by step.
Halfway there, she suddenly stopped.