The patellae of her legs, shattered ten years ago after the injury, were crushed anew, leaving her flesh and blood a bloody mess.
The pain was so intense it almost made her faint, her vision flickering, now clear, now blurred.
“Tsk… it hurts just looking at it,” a delicately dressed, beautiful woman shielded her vermilion lips with her hand, feigning distress. “Xia Qingtian, look at you! Where’s any trace of a Miss Xia family daughter? Tsk, tsk… how pitiful!”
“Mo Jianing…” Xia Qingtian could only curse her own foolishness.
When her legs were crippled and she was deeply devastated, Mo Jianing had offered to record her voice and help her debut as a virtual singer. She should have known then that it was all Mo Jianing’s conspiracy.
Now, Mo Jianing enjoyed fame and fortune using her voice, and even her husband had imprisoned her completely, tormenting her day and night.
“I won’t let you go, even as a ghost!” Xia Qingtian’s eyes were bloodshot, hatred surging in her heart. “You and Song Junhan… I was truly blind…”
“Won’t let us go?” Mo Jianing laughed. “Your Xia family making Junhan a live-in son-in-law was a humiliation to him! A man of his pride, enduring such disgrace, was all for the day he could rise above everyone and trample your Xia family underfoot!”
Mo Jianing’s gaze fell on Xia Qingtian’s bloody legs. “You still don’t know, do you? That car accident that crippled you was also arranged by Junhan.”
“What!” Xia Qingtian felt as if struck by lightning.
“Also, there was a chance you could have walked again, but we swapped your reports, making you resist treatment. We also made you believe your father had completely abandoned you. To prevent them from visiting you, we truly went to great lengths,” Mo Jianing seemed very pleased with Xia Qingtian’s expression, her whole demeanor becoming smug. “But now, it all seems worth it.”
“It was you! It was all of you!” Xia Qingtian’s eyes widened. After the car accident, when she needed company the most, it was Song Junhan and Mo Jianing who stayed by her side, making her believe her father had handed over the Xia family to her stepsister. She hated her unfeeling father, hated her stepsister who had stolen everything from her, and even more, hated her hypocritical stepmother… All of this, it turned out, was a facade!
A facade fabricated by Mo Jianing and Song Junhan!
“Your stepsister is a fool. We only had to tell her that you had a high fever and were having convulsions late at night, and she dared to go out alone in the middle of the night. Now… she’s nowhere to be found,” Mo Jianing shook her head with a look of pity. “And your stepmother, she’s also a fool. To give up a large inheritance and follow your short-lived father to commit suicide?”
“This way… as long as you die… all that money will be ours…” Mo Jianing burst into laughter.
“Jianing, stop wasting words on her,” Song Junhan, dressed in a suit, entered the room carrying a gasoline can, splashing it around a few times. Finally, with a look of disgust, he threw the nearly empty can onto Xia Qingtian.
The gasoline splashed onto Xia Qingtian’s mangled knees.
“I won’t let you go! I won’t let you go even in death! In my next life… in my next life…” The pain in Xia Qingtian’s knees could not extinguish her hatred.
“But you’ll need to have a next life for that,” Song Junhan sneered, his eyes chillingly cold. He had consulted a master; burning Xia Qingtian to death at this time was best. Afterward, they would dig a well here, seal it, and bury her soul to prevent her from ever reincarnating!
Checking his wristwatch and noting the precise time, Song Junhan linked arms with Mo Jianing and walked away, tossing a lit lighter behind him onto Xia Qingtian’s gasoline-soaked legs.
The flames quickly spread across her entire body.
Screaming, she rolled on the ground in pain as the flames devoured her skin, inch by inch, bit by bit. The agony mixed with the smell of burning flesh filled the air, Xia Qingtian’s roars tearing through the night sky.
Just then, a downpour began. Shortly after Song Junhan and Mo Jianing left, a bolt of lightning struck the burning house again. Xia Qingtian, already charred, was further shattered by this lightning strike.
Only a faint blue current could be seen coiling around a translucent spiritual body.
The fire raged for a day and a night, finally giving way to a wisp of black smoke as dawn broke.
The next day, Song Junhan had a deep well dug where Xia Qingtian had died.
It wasn’t until the well was sealed seven days later that Song Junhan truly relaxed, linking arms with Mo Jianing and swaggering away.
Meanwhile, in the infinite darkness she had fallen into, Xia Qingtian faintly heard another voice.
“What rotten luck! It had to be a heavenly tribulation, forcing me to entangle with such a resentful spirit full of black smoke… truly… the worst luck!”
“Who’s speaking?” Xia Qingtian’s vision was empty.
“Hello, Master. I am the Chosen One System. Activating system now. You will receive a free rebirth journey. Do you wish to bind and activate it?”
“Rebirth?” Xia Qingtian’s eyes, in the darkness, flared with boundless hatred. She could be reborn?
“Yes.” The blue current circled Xia Qingtian. Since it was trapped in this infernal place and severely injured by the heavenly tribulation, it might as well use this vengeful spirit to alter the timeline and find another chance to undergo tribulations.
“Good! I want to bind the system! I want to be reborn!” Xia Qingtian made up her mind immediately. She would make those people pay!
As soon as Xia Qingtian finished speaking, she felt a blinding blue light envelop her, and then she lost consciousness.
The voices in her ears grew distant. Xia Qingtian strained to open her eyes, the world before her flickering. After a few seconds, Xia Qingtian finally managed to get a clear look at the person in front of her.
“Dad…” Her voice was hoarse, and Xia Qingtian’s nose prickled.
After her legs were broken, she had felt hatred and resentment. Later, when she learned news of her father, it was his death.
The company’s accounts were severely in deficit and involved financial fraud. Her father had been framed and driven to his death.
“It’s good you’re awake, good you’re awake!” Seeing Xia Qingtian wake up, her father finally breathed a sigh of relief. “Qingtian, does your head still hurt? How are you feeling? Do you want to go to the hospital?”
“I’m fine.” Xia Qingtian reached up and touched the back of her head, indeed feeling a bump there.
“If you’re fine, then get up quickly. Junhan will be here soon. Don’t let him see a joke the first time he visits,” her father said, then turned to look at Xia Qingyu, who had remained silent. “Qingyu, you and your sister can’t be this rowdy anymore! What kind of feud between sisters is worth fighting over!”
“Song Junhan?” Hearing this name, Xia Qingtian’s eyes narrowed slightly. She immediately recalled that this was the first time Song Junhan was visiting the Xia family.
It was a month before she was to take her college entrance exams.
Song Junhan had come to the Xia family under the guise of being a tutor, ostensibly to give her pre-exam tutoring. In reality, her father intended to recruit Song Junhan as a live-in son-in-law to foster a relationship.
On the day Song Junhan arrived, she overheard her stepmother chatting with Xia Qingyu. Xia Qingyu had said she wanted a tutor too and asked why her sister had one while she didn’t. Xia Qingtian had then taunted her stepsister a few times, and Xia Qingyu had pushed her.
Her head hit the bookshelf, swelling into a large lump that only hurt for two to three days.
Xia Qingyu was also punished with confinement for a full week.
Looking at her father’s cheerful demeanor now, she figured he had no idea that the live-in son-in-law he so eagerly sought was actually an ungrateful wretch!