The night rain was as cold as a knife, slashing slantwise across Yang Tian's face.
He curled up beneath a car wheel, drenched in blood, mud, and the burning agony of a bullet wound to the chest.
His phone glowed beside him, screen frozen on a single name: Liu Ruyan.
The person he trusted most. His obsession for ten years. His once radiant light.
But she had been the one to push him into this trap.
"Yang Tian, did you really think you were the chosen one?" Ji Xiaolan crouched beside him, her smile cold and sinister. "Your father's company, your mother's trust fund, even your life—they were all just stepping stones for me."
"Ruyan, Shen Xue... they're both on my side."
Yang Tian's lips twitched. He wanted to speak, but blood rose up before the words could.
His vision blurred. Consciousness slipped away bit by bit.
—And just then, a voice as faint as a whisper echoed in his mind:
[Reboot authorization in progress...][Soul collapse imminent. Initiating memory awakening protocol.]
A second later, his eyes flew open—
Sunlight. Not a rain-soaked night.
A high school classroom. Not a bloodied highway.
Yang Tian sat up with a gasp, drenched in cold sweat.
He raised his hand—the finger that had once been shot through was now whole and unscathed.
Outside the classroom, summer cicadas chirped noisily. The seventeen-year-old him was sitting in Class 6, Grade 12, of No. 3 High School.
[This time, every one of you will pay the price.]
He stood at the corridor window, watching the summer sun slant through the classroom. Everything felt both familiar and foreign.
Yang Tian took a deep breath, pressing his fingers to his chest—where a bullet had once torn through, where blood had poured out like a river. Now, it was whole again.
"Is this rebirth... or Heaven's mercy?"
Suddenly, hurried footsteps echoed nearby.
"Yang Tian!"
Liu Ruyan's voice rang out, flustered, from the staircase.
Before he could react, another voice followed—
"Tian-ge!"
It was Shen Xue. Her eyes were red and swollen, like she had cried for a long time. Like she had waited for years.
She rushed to him, nearly choking on her words:
"Let me make up for it... This time, I'll protect you... I'll destroy everyone who tries to hurt you..."
Her voice was grief-stricken and earnest, like a remorseful flame from hell.
Yang Tian's mind jolted.
—She had come back too?
In the past life, after his death, Shen Xue had collapsed. She exposed some of Ji Xiaolan's crimes and eventually went white-haired overnight.
But now, in this girl's eyes, there was no confusion—only regret and resolve.
"You..." he began, but was cut off.
"Yang Tian."
Liu Ruyan stood at the doorway, her gaze cold and lifeless.
She saw Shen Xue crying in his arms. Saw that Yang Tian didn't push her away.
Saw the calm—and clarity—in his eyes.
In an instant, Liu Ruyan felt her heart clench.
Had he... also been reborn?
She couldn't be sure. But Shen Xue's words were too revealing—"atonement," "clear the obstacles"… Even if she were a fool, she'd suspect something.
Her nails dug into her palms until blood seeped out. She didn't loosen her grip.
—Meanwhile, at the far end of the corridor, a figure hid in the shadows.
Ji Xiaolan smiled faintly.
"Heh, here we go again..."
But just then—
[Ding—System Alert][Warning: Hostile entity "Ji Xiaolan" within 30 meters. Another system presence detected.]
The mechanical voice in Yang Tian's mind shattered all emotion in an instant.
He snapped his head around, eyes sharp.
—The enemy had never been far.
Yang Tian looked into Shen Xue's eyes and stayed silent for two seconds.
Then, he suddenly stood up.
"Come with me."
"Huh? Where to?" Shen Xue blinked in confusion, but before she could react, he grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the classroom.
As they passed the doorway, he paused for a moment.
Liu Ruyan was standing there, fingers curled, palm bloodied.
She looked up at him, lips parted slightly—but said nothing.
Yang Tian only glanced at her lightly, not stopping, offering no explanation.
He left, holding someone else's hand. A single step away from her, yet it felt like two worlds apart.
—Bang.
The classroom door closed.
Liu Ruyan stood frozen, as if something had been hollowed out inside her.
She had never seen Yang Tian look at her like that—so distant, so guarded, like she was a stranger.
A strange fear crept into her chest.
"What's wrong?"
Ji Xiaolan had appeared beside her at some point, her gaze soft as it fell on Liu Ruyan.
Seeing the blood on Liu Ruyan's hand, she quickly stepped forward to support her. "You're bleeding. Come on, I'll take you to the infirmary."
Liu Ruyan instinctively wanted to refuse, but her mind was in chaos.
She still didn't understand how Shen Xue had suddenly come to Yang Tian, or why she said those things. And she didn't understand why Yang Tian had become so cold toward her...
Ji Xiaolan led her downstairs, muttering softly along the way:
"He's changed. You saw that, right? He never used to treat you like that... He'd never be so close to Shen Xue."
"I've always thought something was off about him... He was never serious about you…"
"You don't need to be sad over someone like him. He's not worthy of you anyway."
Liu Ruyan didn't catch everything he said. Her mind was blurry.
She only lowered her head, staring at the smear of red in her palm—where her nails had dug in too deep.
Strangely—
She didn't feel any pain at all.
At the school gates, the summer heat rippled through the air. Students walked by in twos and threes, none of them noticing the boy standing in the shadows.
Yang Tian pulled out his phone and found that familiar name.
—Old Wu.
The call connected in under two seconds, a deep, calm voice answering:
"Young master."
He remembered that voice. Remembered the man behind it.
In his previous life, after Yang Tian's death, the entire Yang family was gutted by Ji Xiaolan almost overnight.
Only one man never betrayed him—Old Wu.
The family's longtime steward, loyal to Yang Tian's father for decades. Flawless in his duties. Loyal to the bone.
He had been wounded, nearly killed, trying to uncover the truth. In the end, he and Shen Xue had worked together to deliver a confidential file to the police—
That was the moment Ji Xiaolan finally slipped up.
And now, he was still alive.
Yang Tian looked down at his phone, voice calm and steady. "Old Wu, I'm at the school gate."
"Understood. I'll arrive in about five minutes," came the reply, followed by a pause: "The documents you requested are in the car."
Yang Tian's lips curved faintly. "Good."
He hung up, a renewed sense of control settling over him.
Beside him, Shen Xue still wasn't sure what this "cutting-class escape" was about. She asked softly:
"Tian-ge... where are we going? Should we call the school and ask for leave?"
She wasn't worried about school—but about being watched. Ji Xiaolan wasn't far behind.
Yang Tian glanced at her, voice flat:
"No need. Someone will take care of it."
Shen Xue paused, but a strange sense of security welled up inside her.
She thought of the version of herself who had trusted all the wrong people.
Now, she stood beside a Yang Tian who would never fall again.
The wind had shifted—blowing in their direction.
In the distance, a black Maybach rolled slowly toward them.