Volume One: Bloodstained Rebirth - Chapter One: Nirvana

Pain.

Excruciating, searing pain.

It felt as if an invisible hand were crushing her lungs, wringing them tight. Every cough sent jagged bolts of agony tearing through her entire nervous system.

Shen Qingxu lay curled in a cold corner of the bed, the cheap, rough sheets scratching against her skin. The air in the cramped rental apartment was thick with the sour stench of expired medicine and leftover instant noodles. Peeling walls bloomed with mold. This was the end. The final, pathetic stop of her twenty-five years of life.

The dim glow of her phone screen illuminated the family group chat. The last message was a voice note from 'Mom'. With a trembling finger, she tapped it. Wang Xiulian's sharp, frigid voice instantly filled the squalid space:

"Shen Qingxu! Fifty thousand! If you don't transfer the money to your brother by tomorrow, we'll disown you! After all we've done raising you, this is the thanks we get? You ungrateful wretch!"

Heh...

A bitter laugh tried to escape, but it triggered another violent coughing fit. A sudden, metallic sweetness flooded her throat, an unstoppable tide of coppery rust.

"Cough—ptui!"

A spray of crimson blood splattered across the filthy floor, a stark, horrifying contrast.

Her vision blurred. Consciousness, like a kite with a severed string, drifted into an endless darkness. Regret, resentment, and bone-deep hatred... these venomous vines twisted around her dying soul.

'Shen Qingxu... your life... has been a joke...'

'If I could do it all over...'

'I swear... I will drink their blood, feast on their flesh... make them pay... a hundredfold...'

Her final thought extinguished. The world fell into absolute silence.

"Qingxu! Qingxu! Wake up! The ceremony is about to start! How can you still be asleep here?"

A voice, so familiar it sent tremors through her very soul, sounded in her ear, laced with a false sense of urgency.

Shen Qingxu's eyes snapped open.

Harsh light made her squint. What greeted her was the dazzling refraction of light from a gorgeous crystal chandelier. The air floated with the elegant scent of high-end perfume. She was sitting on a plush vanity stool. In the huge floor-length mirror before her was reflected a face—young, beautiful, perfectly made-up.

A crown of diamonds sat atop her head. She was draped in an exquisitely tailored, undoubtedly priceless, wedding gown... This was her. Shen Qingxu, five years ago. In the bridal preparation room, just before her wedding to her nominal husband—Lu Yanxiu.

Had she... been reborn?

This wasn't a dream! Her senses were hyper-aware. Her heart hammered violently against her ribs, threatening to break free. The girl in the mirror had delicate features and flawless, dewy skin, but her eyes held a trace of fatigue from the previous night and... a hint of bewilderment and resignation about the future. It was this very resignation that had pushed her into the abyss of utter ruin.

"Qingxu, are you okay? Are you too tired?" Zhang Xue, her "best friend" from her previous life, stood behind her, a picture of flawless concern plastered on her face. But this time, Shen Qingxu didn't miss the flicker of jealousy in Zhang Xue's eyes as they swept over the custom, hand-stitched Italian wedding gown.

Memories of her past life crashed over her like a bursting dam. Her family's parasitic demands, Zhang Xue's betrayal, Lu Yanxiu's indifference, and the child she never got to meet—the one who slipped away unnoticed, unknown... The final, cold despair of coughing up blood until death was seared into her soul.

Hatred, like hellfire, instantly incinerated the confusion in her eyes, replacing it with a glacial coldness and steely resolve.

"Xue'er," she spoke, her voice husky from sleep, yet unnervingly calm. "I'm fine. Just a little thirsty. Could you get me a glass of water? I'd like a moment alone."

Zhang Xue paused, seemingly sensing something different about the Shen Qingxu before her. Those eyes, usually so gentle, even timid, were now as deep and inscrutable as a frozen pond.

"Oh, sure. Wait here, I'll get it right away." Suppressing her unease, Zhang Xue smiled and turned to leave, considerately closing the door behind her.

The moment the door clicked shut, Shen Qingxu shot to her feet, almost stumbling as she rushed into the private bathroom adjoining the preparation room.

She twisted the faucet, splashing her face repeatedly with icy cold water, trying to shock herself into fully grasping this unbelievable reality. Droplets streamed down her smooth cheeks, mingling with the tracks of tears shed earlier—evidence of her former self's fear and anxiety about the future.

She lifted her head, her gaze locking onto her own reflection in the mirror—the radiant, wedding-gowned version of herself.

"It's real... I really came back..." she whispered, her voice trembling, then growing rock-solid. "Back to five years ago... Before all the tragedies began..."

The images from her death throes flashed before her eyes. Her mother's vicious face, her brother's entitled demands, Zhang Xue's hypocritical smile, that pool of glaringly bright blood...

SMASH!

With all her strength, she drove her fist into the smooth surface of the mirror! The glass shattered instantly, a spiderweb of cracks spreading outwards, reflecting countless versions of her own eyes, now blazing with the fire of vengeance.

Shards sliced her knuckles. Beads of bright red blood welled up, the sharp sting a welcome sensation.

The pain made her even more alert, more present.

She stared at the fragmented, yet unyielding, reflections in the broken mirror. Her words, ground out from between clenched teeth, were a solemn vow:

"Shen Qingxu, remember this blood. Remember this pain."

"In this life, I will slaughter any god who stands in my way. I will slay any buddha who blocks my path!"

"Everyone who owes me a debt... not a single one will escape."

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