Chapter 1: Death Isn’t the End

Snow fell gently outside the palace walls, but inside, the air was soaked with blood.

Yan Zhi lay on the cold jade floor of the inner court, her crimson dress spreading beneath her like a dying flame. Her back was scorched with pain, her body broken. The blood dripping from her mouth tasted of betrayal.

“Why?” she rasped. Her voice was barely audible—more breath than sound.

Her cousin knelt beside her, tears glistening in her eyes. But her hands held the dagger steady, slick with fresh blood.

“I always envied you,” the girl whispered. “You were always so composed, so perfect. The capital’s favorite beauty. The Empress’s goddaughter. The one everyone loved. It wasn’t fair.”

Behind her, Yan Zhi’s fiancé stood silently, the same man who once swore eternal loyalty. He didn’t look away when her eyes met his. He didn’t flinch when she mouthed his name. He simply raised his sword and turned his back.

She felt her heart stop—not from the wound, but from that final look of indifference.

And then darkness took her.

But she didn’t stay in it long.

—

She woke to pain. Not the sharp kind from swords, but a dull, choking kind. Her head throbbed. Her chest heaved. Something heavy pressed against her ribs.

Her nose filled with a horrible stench—pigs. Rotten grain. Smoke.

She sat up with a gasp, flinging off a filthy quilt. The wooden bed creaked beneath her. The room around her was small, smoky, and crumbling at the corners. There were holes in the walls. Chickens pecked near the doorway.

“What the hell…”

Her voice was hoarse, but not the same. It was higher. Younger.

She scrambled to the side of the bed, saw her reflection in the cracked bronze mirror across the room—and froze.

The face staring back at her was round, puffy, and bruised. A swollen lip. A black eye. The body wrapped in a tattered cotton robe was thick—too thick. Her limbs were heavy. Her fingers short. This… wasn’t her.

She stared in disbelief. Then she closed her eyes.

And that’s when the memories hit.

Like a flood.

The village. The beatings. The humiliation. The original owner of this body—also named Yan Zhi—had been mocked all her life for her size and poverty. A village girl with a dead mother, a drunk father, and no future. Two days ago, she’d been dragged out of her house by the village chief’s son, Wu Er, who wanted to marry her by force. She’d resisted.

They’d beaten her for it.

And that’s when her soul had arrived.

So this was it? Rebirth?

She stared at her swollen hands again. Her once-elegant fingers were gone. The golden rings. The polished nails. All replaced by rough, callused hands that spoke of manual labor and frostbite.

Yan Zhi didn’t panic.

She sat there in silence, piecing together the memories, until her breath steadied.

“I died,” she muttered. “They killed me.”

She touched her chest. No wound. No blood. Just fat. And pain.

“They betrayed me. But this time…”

Her eyes narrowed.

“This time, I’ll play the game better.”

She stood slowly, her legs shaky, her body unfamiliar. But her spine straightened.

From outside the hut came voices.

“She finally croaked?”

“No, Wu Er said she’s alive. Damn woman’s like a pig—can’t even die right.”

Laughter.

She opened the door.

Four villagers froze mid-laugh when they saw her. Normally, Fat Yan Zhi would’ve cowered, maybe cried, maybe begged. But the girl in the doorway wasn’t the same.

She stepped out barefoot into the mud.

Wu Er sneered. “Well, well, the pig wakes. Ready to be my wife now?”

The other villagers laughed harder.

Yan Zhi stared at him. Calm. Silent.

Then she walked right up to him—and before anyone could react, her knee shot upward.

CRACK.

Wu Er let out a shriek and dropped like a sack of rice, holding his crotch.

The other three took a step back, stunned.

She didn’t stop there.

She grabbed the firewood stick from the side of the hut and swung it once—clean across the back of another’s knees. He collapsed too.

The third tried to run. She hurled the stick after him and it hit squarely between his shoulders. He fell face-first into pig dung.

The fourth just stood there, mouth open.

Yan Zhi looked at him.

“Want to be next?”

He shook his head furiously.

She stepped closer, her voice low.

“Tell your father: if he dares come near me again, I’ll cut off his other son’s manhood and feed it to the dogs.”

The man turned and bolted.

The courtyard went silent.

Yan Zhi exhaled. Her body trembled from exertion—it wasn’t used to this. Not yet. But it would be.

She looked down at Wu Er, groaning in the mud.

“The old Yan Zhi may have been a joke. But I’m not her.”

And she turned and walked back into the hut without another word.

This time, she wasn’t just going to survive.

She was going to conquer.

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