Chapter 1

Original work is hard to create, plagiarism is shameful!!!

Recently, I’ve found books plagiarizing my work. Please help me supervise and support originality!]

Three meters away, at the execution platform,
Lu Zhanye’s cold gaze fixed on the not-so-distant figure.

More stars had been added to the epaulets on his military coat.

At this moment, he was signing the execution order.

As the pen tip scratched the paper, Shen Nanxing’s fate was sealed.

“Criminal Shen Nanxing, guilty of trafficking counterfeit drugs causing seventeen deaths…”

The howling northern wind swallowed the words of the verdict.

Cut to 1984 winter solstice, a thick layer of snow piled on the iron bars of a northern border prison.

Shen Nanxing curled up in a pile of rotten straw.

Her shackles had already worn her ankle bones bare.

The scabs on her wounds were a bluish-gray — the result of using expired streptomycin.

Shen Nanxing never dreamed she’d travel thirty miles through the snow only to steal counterfeit medicine from a military supply truck.

“Prisoner No. 9037, time to move out!”

Two prison guards dragged her out of the cell.

As she stumbled, she bumped into a kerosene lamp hanging on the corridor wall.

In the flickering shadows, she thought she saw the figure of her younger brother, Shen Xiaoman.

The small figure was crouched in the corner.

Twelve-year-old Shen Xiaoman wore a patched cotton jacket, his palm still clutching a nearly melted fruit candy:

“Sis, with candy, medicine won’t taste bitter…”

“Hurry…”

A cold gun barrel pressed against the back of Shen Nanxing’s head.

She was pushed forward clumsily by the guards, finally collapsing onto the snow-covered ground…

Above, the man raised his hand sharply.

At once, the iron chain on her wrist was unlocked.

Shen Nanxing’s eyes fixed on the silver acupuncture needle case in Lu Zhanye’s hand.

It was the family heirloom her father had given her on his deathbed — now in the executioner’s grasp.

“Lu Zhanye…” Shen Nanxing let out a bitter laugh.

Thin streaks of blood seeped from her cracked, frozen lips.

“The bullet lodged near your lumbar spine, has it shifted?”

Hearing this, Lu Zhanye’s pen halted abruptly.

The pen tip stopped on Shen Xiaoman’s death certificate.

As the rifle fired, Shen Nanxing lunged at the nearest soldier.

In the chaos, she bit down on his wrist.

She didn’t traffic counterfeit drugs — someone else was behind it.

Even in her final moments, she fought back fiercely.

Before she could fire the gun she snatched, a bullet pierced her left shoulder.

It was Lu Zhanye’s gunshot.

No one noticed the fleeting emotion in Lu Zhanye’s eyes.

“The medicine you gave…”

Shen Nanxing fell onto the snow mound, clutching a button torn from the soldier’s uniform.

“It’s the proof that killed Xiaoman. Cough, cough… It was you all along…”

Blood sputtered from her throat, choking off her last words.

Snowflakes landed on her eyelashes as she faintly recalled a winter night a year ago…

Lu Zhanye had injected streptomycin into her brother’s veins — she would never forget the label on the glass vial.

Soon after, Shen Xiaoman convulsed.

He gripped Shen Nanxing’s wrist: “Sis… it hurts… it hurts so much.”

That medicine was personally authorized by Lu Zhanye, and personally handed to Shen Nanxing…

“Execute!”

At the sound of five gunshots…

Shen Nanxing’s body arched backward in pain.

As the shots rang out, the silver needle case slipped from Lu Zhanye’s hand.

Bang!

The seventh bullet struck Shen Nanxing’s heart, and she heard the sound of time shattering.

The silver needle case burned hot in her hand.

Her father’s voice seemed to pierce through life and death, echoing in her ear:

“Xing’er, live again…

This time, you can do it.”

Blood splattered on the 1983 divorce certificate.

When Shen Nanxing suddenly opened her eyes again, Li Dazhuang was smashing the torn marriage certificate fragments onto her forehead:

“Three years cleaning pigsties to pay off debts!”

The cold wind carried the stench of pig manure.

By the broken house window next to the pigsty, Shen Xiaoman was still curled on the kang bed, coughing up blood, clutching the fruit candy he refused to eat.