Chapter 1

Under a pale moon and sparse stars, surrounded by mountains, a small village lay in silence. Inside a dilapidated thatched hut, the night wind blew in through a broken window, brushing against the worn-out interior. On a simple wooden bed lay a thin and frail girl, her face sallow and her forehead beaded with fine, cold sweat, her brows furrowed tightly.

Suddenly, the girl on the bed bolted upright, gasping for air, her dark eyes filled with terror.

The pain of being repeatedly stabbed in the stomach by refugees before her death still made her body shiver uncontrollably.

Su Yin glanced around the room, and in an instant, she understood  she had been reborn, and the memories she once lost had also returned.

Her name was Su Yin. She came from the Blue Star’s Hua Nation, reincarnated into an ancient rural family surnamed Su.

At the age of two, a severe fever caused her to lose all memories of Blue Star. When she turned sixteen, refugees invaded the village. Her family abandoned her, her mother, and her Sister to their fate, leaving them to be tormented by the refugees.

During her resistance, she enraged the invaders and was stabbed to death, one blade after another.

Her soul floated in the air, witnessing the group of marauders feast on her body.

The young men of the village fell one by one in pools of blood. Houses burned, their flames accompanied by the heart-wrenching screams of women and children.

Young girls were cruelly tortured before their deaths and then dismembered. Some of the attackers even skewered children on spears, stringing them together and raising them high at the village entrance for amusement.

The invaders laughed gleefully, relishing in the slaughter and the pleasure it brought.

The once tranquil village turned into a hellscape overnight.

Before dawn broke, a glowing halo appeared above Su Yin, pulling her soul into it.

Before being drawn in, Su Yin recalled her memories of Blue Star from her past life.

The thought of her tragic end filled Su Yin with suffocating despair. She climbed out of bed and opened the door to let in some air.

“Creak…”

The three doors opened simultaneously.

Yang Chunxiang, Su Yin’s mother, and Su Baozhu, her Sister, both froze in place.

The three exchanged bewildered glances.

Su Yin looked in surprise at the woman who had walked out of the neighboring room.

“Mother.”

Under the moonlight, Su Yin noticed the beads of sweat on her mother’s forehead and the lingering fear in her eyes.

Fear?

Could it be…

A thought sprang unbidden to her mind.

Before she could react, Su Yin’s mother suddenly embraced her tightly, tears streaming down her face as she murmured softly, “You’re all still alive, still alive.”

Su Yin’s eyes widened slightly.

“Bang…”

The door across from them slammed shut. Her Sister, Su Baozhu, turned and went back to her room. Before leaving, her gaze filled with hatred and fear unexpectedly met Su Yin’s.

As Su Yin watched the now-closed door, she withdrew her gaze, a bold suspicion taking root in her mind.

For now, she couldn’t dwell on it. She needed to confirm her mother’s condition first.

Pulling her mother outside to the courtyard, they sat by the edge of the field. The night was silent except for the occasional chirping of insects. Bathed in moonlight, the mother and daughter crouched together, but the faint glow could not dispel the unease and anxiety weighing heavily on their hearts.

“Mother, why did you say we’re still alive? Haven’t we always been alive and well?”

Su Yin’s mother didn’t know how to respond at first. After calming her emotions, she finally spoke.

“Daya, I just had a terrible nightmare. I dreamed that… that we all died.”

Her voice trembled slightly as she spoke, still unable to shake the fear of death.

As Su Yin had suspected, her mother had been reborn too.

If her mother and Sister had died alongside her and now walked out of their rooms, it was highly likely that her Sister had also been reborn.

Understanding this, Su Yin grasped her mother’s hand tightly. “Mother, that wasn’t a dream. It was real.”

“Real? How is that possible? Aren’t we alive and well?” her mother murmured, confused and unable to comprehend.

“Mother, I also experienced the moment when the refugees invaded our village.”

“What!” Her mother froze.

“You, Sister, and I we were all captured by the refugees. I was stabbed to death, one knife after another. None of this was a dream; it all truly happened. Only, heaven took pity on us and gave us another chance to come back and change our fate.”

Su Yin tried her best to explain in a way her mother could understand, emphasizing that this wasn’t just a bad dream.

For Su Yin, who once lived in a world of rapid information exchange, the concept of reincarnation was not difficult to grasp.

But for her mother, who had spent her entire life in a remote mountain village and never ventured farther than twenty miles away to the nearest town, understanding the concept of rebirth and why it happened was far more challenging.

“Rebirth?” her mother muttered the word, as if trying to digest and understand its meaning.

“Yes, rebirth. A second chance to live again,” Su Yin confirmed gently.

Her mother hugged her tightly, breaking into uncontrollable sobs, releasing her fear, sorrow, and the heartbreak of being abandoned by her family.

“Mother, don’t be afraid. It’s not too late to change everything now,” Su Yin said softly, patting her mother’s back in comfort.

After her mother calmed down, she looked at her daughter with tear-filled eyes. She couldn’t shake the feeling was it just her imagination, or had her eldest daughter, Daya, changed somehow? She seemed… different.

“Daya, we need to tell your father, your grandparents, and everyone in the village right away,” Su Yin’s mother said anxiously.

“Mother, calm down. How do you plan to tell them? Are you going to say you were reborn and that the village is about to be ransacked? Do you think Grandfather and Grandmother will believe you? Will the villagers trust what you say?” Su Yin paused, then continued, “The village shaman might even claim you’re possessed by a ghost. When that happens, they could tie you to a post and burn you alive as an evil spirit.”

This kind of thing had happened before.

In a neighboring village, a young girl fell into the river and, after being rescued, began speaking incoherently. Her family thought she’d gone mad. The village shaman declared the girl was possessed by a wild ghost. In the end, the villagers tied her up and burned her alive.

Su Yin’s mother recalled the tragic fate of that girl and shivered, her composure unraveling.

“Daya, what should we do?” she asked, her voice trembling.

“Mother, you cannot tell anyone about the rebirth. Remember, not a single person can know. If others find out, both you and I will die. Do you understand?” Su Yin said sternly.

In their past life, their deaths were closely tied to the actions of her grandparents and uncle.

If she were still the same Su Yin the weak, submissive girl who was constantly bullied by her extended family she might have panicked like her mother or foolishly confessed everything to her family.

But now…

A cold glint flashed in Su Yin’s eyes.

Her mother nodded repeatedly. “Daya, if this isn’t just a dream but that… that rebirth thing, then what should we do now?”

There were about two weeks left before the refugees would invade the village.

In truth, the villagers had had a chance to escape in the previous life, but most of them didn’t believe the warning.

Before the refugees reached the village, the second son of the Li family, who traveled as a peddler, had rushed back home. He warned everyone in the village, saying that chaos had broken out outside.

Severe droughts and locust plagues had devastated Minzhou, Yunzhou, and Ganzhou, leaving thousands of miles barren. Large numbers of refugees had begun raiding nearby counties, looting, burning, and killing. He warned that it wouldn’t be long before the unrest spread to their village in Meizhou.

Unfortunately, most people dismissed his warnings, refusing to believe such disaster could come to their quiet village.

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(Tagline for the story: “I love survival stories. My entire family has been reborn.”)