1.

Fire ripped through Sua’s chest before she even registered the deafening crack of the gunshot.

​The impact threw her backward, the muddy trenches of the battlefield rushing up to meet her. A raw scream clawed its way out of her throat, instantly choking on the sudden, coppery taste of blood. Her hands frantically gripped her uniform, pressing against the gaping wound inches from her heart.

​Footsteps squelched in the mud. Polished, black military boots stopped right beside her face.

​She forced her heavy eyelids open, gasping for air that refused to fill her lungs. Through the haze of agonizing pain, the face of her shooter came into focus.

​Bian Yu.

​Her lover’s pistol was still smoking. There was no hesitation in his dark eyes, no trace of the warmth he had shown her just hours ago. Just a chilling, absolute emptiness.

​"Bian... Yu?" The betrayal burned hotter than the bullet tearing through her flesh.

​He stepped closer, crouching slightly to look down at her. "You were always too busy trying to save the world, Sua," he murmured, his voice infuriatingly calm. "I just needed to save myself."

​He raised the gun again, aiming the black barrel right between her eyes. He didn't even blink as he pulled the trigger.

​The deafening roar of the battlefield vanished, and the muddy earth gave way to an endless, suffocating void.

• • ​

​Ice-cold water crashed over her face.

​Sua gasped, her lungs heaving violently as she spat out brackish water. She wasn't dead. The mud, the gunpowder, the deafening artillery—it was all gone. Replaced by the damp scent of moss and the rush of a wild river.

​She dragged her trembling body onto the rocky bank. Every muscle screamed in protest, but it was a completely different kind of pain. Her chest was intact. There was no bullet wound. Instead, her skin burned with a maddening, blistering itch.

​Pushing herself up on shaky arms, she caught her reflection in the moonlit water. The face staring back wasn't hers. It was a young, gaunt girl, her skin marred by oozing, angry red pustules. Her ancient, ragged dress clung to a frail, malnourished frame.

​"What...?" Sua rasped, her hands flying to her foreign cheeks.

​Before she could process the impossible, a tidal wave of strange memories slammed into her skull. She doubled over, clutching her temples as the dying echoes of the body's original owner flooded her mind.

​Pain. Betrayal. Again.

​“Liu Chang Hai!” The girl’s desperate, trembling cry echoed in Sua's head. A memory materialized: The girl, shoved violently into the dirt. A handsome man in elegant silk robes—her fiancé, Liu Chang—standing over her. His arm was wrapped intimately around the waist of her own younger sister, Cai Ji.

​“You ugly wretch, you are no longer worthy of standing beside me,” Liu Chang sneered. His hand twisted viciously into her hair, yanking her head back. “You must die today, so I can marry your sister and secure the Prime Minister’s favor.”

​A brutal slam. Forehead against jagged stone. Warm blood blinding her vision.

​Through the fading consciousness of the memory, a brief, fragmented image flashed—a fleeting glance from a man with piercing eyes and a dangerous aura. The exiled Crown Prince. A man whose passing shadow of interest in her had sparked the deadly jealousy of her sister. But before Sua could grasp the context of that royal rumor, the memory shifted back to sheer agony.

​Cai Ji’s mocking laughter. The slow, burning poison slipped into her daily meals over months, destroying her beauty and rotting her from the inside out. Then, the final, fatal blow from the man she loved before her broken body was tossed into the merciless river.

​The barrage of memories receded, leaving Sua panting heavily against the trunk of a massive tree.

​This broken body belonged to Sua Linjin Feng. Betrayed by her fiancé. Poisoned by her sister. Murdered and discarded just days before her wedding.

​"Two lifetimes," Sua whispered, her voice laced with a dangerous, bitter edge. She stared at the festering blisters on her hands. "Two lifetimes, ended by the men we trusted."

​Her stomach violently twisted, a hollow ache demanding sustenance. The poison in her veins was potent, but the lingering instincts of her past life recognized the symptoms. It wasn't incurable. If she was going to exact revenge for both herself and this pitiful girl, she needed to survive the night first.

​Forcing herself to her feet, she stumbled deeper into the dense, shadowy woods, scanning the moonlit underbrush for any recognizable medicinal herbs or roots.

​Crunch. The sharp snap of dry leaves made her freeze.

​Footsteps. Fast. Heavy.

​She threw herself behind the thick roots of an ancient banyan tree, holding her breath. Through the gaps in the foliage, she saw dark figures darting through the trees, the steel of their blades glinting in the pale moonlight.

​Assassins?

​Before Sua could retreat further into the shadows, a hand shot out from the pitch-black darkness beside her.

​A solid, muscular body slammed her back against the rough bark of the tree. The sharp, metallic tang of fresh blood filled the air, mixing with a dangerously masculine scent. A large, calloused hand clamped tightly over her mouth, muffling her gasp.

​Through the darkness, a pair of feverish, predatory eyes locked onto hers. The man's broad chest heaved against her, his breathing ragged and hot. She felt the ice-cold, hard edge of a dagger press firmly against the pulse point of her throat.

​“Don’t scream,” the man whispered against her ear.