The patellas of her legs were smashed to pieces once more, a decade after her injury, leaving her flesh and blood a bloody mess.
The pain was so intense it almost made her faint, the world before her flickering, at times clear, at times blurry.
"Hiss… that looks painful." A delicately beautiful woman covered her crimson lips with her hand, feigning a look of unbearable distress. "Xia Qingtian, what trace of a Xia family heiress is left in you looking like this? Tsk, tsk, tsk… how pathetic!"
"Mo Jianing…" Xia Qingtian only cursed her own foolishness.
Back then, when her legs were crippled and she was deeply affected, Mo Jianing offered to record her voice and help her debut as a virtual idol. She should have known then that it was all Mo Jianing's scheme.
Now, Mo Jianing enjoyed fame and fortune with her voice, and had even conspired with her husband to imprison her completely, tormenting her day and night.
"I won't rest even as a ghost!" Xia Qingtian's eyes were bloodshot, her hatred surging. "You and Song Junhan… I was truly blind…"
"Won't rest?" Mo Jianing chuckled. "Your Xia family making Junhan a live-in son-in-law was an insult to him! He's such a proud man; he endured humiliation and hardship just so he could one day rise above and step on your Xia family!"
Mo Jianing's gaze fell upon Xia Qingtian's bloody legs. "You don't know this yet, do you? That car accident that crippled you was also arranged by Junhan."
"What!" Xia Qingtian felt as if she had been struck by lightning.
"Also, there was a chance you could have stood up 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, growing more smug. "But now, it all seems worth it."
"It was you! It was you all!" Xia Qingtian’s eyes widened. After the car accident, when she needed companionship the most, it was Song Junhan and Mo Jianing who stayed by her side, making her mistakenly believe her father had handed the Xia family over to her stepsister. She hated her heartless father, hated the stepsister who stole everything from her, and even more, hated her hypocritical stepmother… all of this was actually an illusion!
An illusion fabricated by Mo Jianing and Song Junhan!
"Your stepsister is a fool. We just tricked her into believing you had a high fever and were convulsing in the middle of the night, and she dared to go out alone late at night. Now… she's utterly annihilated." Mo Jianing shook her head with a look of regret. "And your stepmother, she's also a fool. She actually followed your short-lived father in committing suicide, rather than inheriting a hefty inheritance?"
"This way… as long as you die… all that money will be ours…" Mo Jianing burst into laughter.
"Jianing, stop wasting words with her." Song Junhan, dressed in a suit and tie, carried a gasoline can and splashed it a few times into the room. Finally, with a look of disgust, he threw the nearly empty gasoline can onto Xia Qingtian.
Gasoline splashed onto the bloody knees of Xia Qingtian.
"I won't let you go! I won't let you go even in death! In the next life… in the next life…" The pain in Xia Qingtian's knees couldn't extinguish her hatred.
"But you need to have that next life first." Song Junhan sneered, his eyes sinister. He had consulted an expert who said that burning Xia Qingtian to death at this time was best. Afterward, they would dig a well here, seal the cover, and suppress her soul, preventing her from ever reincarnating!
Glancing at his watch and checking the time, Song Junhan linked arms with Mo Jianing and walked out, tossing a lit lighter backward. It landed on Xia Qingtian's gasoline-soaked legs.
Flames quickly spread throughout her body.
Screaming and rolling on the ground in agony, the flames devoured her skin, inch by inch, the pain mixed with the smell of burnt flesh pervading the air. Xia Qingtian's roars tore through the night sky.
At that moment, a downpour began. Shortly after Song Junhan and Mo Jianing left, a bolt of lightning struck the burning house again. Xia Qingtian, already charred by the fire, was completely disintegrated by this lightning strike.
Only a faint, subtle blue current could be seen coiling around a semi-transparent spirit.
The fire raged for a day and a night, and finally, with the first light of dawn, a wisp of black smoke rose.
The next day, Song Junhan had a deep well dug where Xia Qingtian had died.
It wasn't until seven days later, when the well was sealed, that Song Junhan truly felt at ease. He linked arms with Mo Jianing and swaggered away.
Meanwhile, on the other side, Xia Qingtian, plunged into infinite darkness, faintly heard another voice.
"So unlucky! It's a lightning tribulation, forcing me to be entangled with such a vengeful spirit full of black smoke… truly… the worst luck!"
"Who's speaking?" Xia Qingtian's eyes saw nothing.
"Hello, Master. I am the Chosen One System. Activating system now, offering you a free rebirth journey. Do you wish to bind and activate?"
"Rebirth?" Xia Qingtian's eyes shone with infinite hatred in the darkness. She could be reborn?
"Yes." The blue current coiled around Xia Qingtian. Since it was now trapped in this cursed place and had been severely injured by the lightning tribulation, it might as well use this vengeful spirit to alter the timeline and find another opportunity to undergo tribulation.
"Good! I want to bind the system! I want to be reborn!" Xia Qingtian immediately made up her mind. She would make those people pay!
As soon as Xia Qingtian spoke, she felt a dazzling blue light envelop her, and then she lost consciousness.
The voices in her ears grew closer and further away. Xia Qingtian struggled 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 tingled.
After her legs were broken, she had harbored resentment. When she next heard news of her father, it was his death.
The company's accounts were in severe deficit and involved financial fraud. Her father was framed and driven to his death.
"It's good that you're awake, good that you're awake!" Her father, seeing Xia Qingtian awaken, 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, feeling a bump there.
"If you're fine, then get up quickly. Junhan will be here soon. Don't let him see a joke on his first visit." After saying this, her father turned to look at Xia Qingyu, who had remained silent. "Qingyu, you and your sister can't be so unruly! What kind of feud between sisters is worth fighting over!"
"Song Junhan?" Hearing the name, Xia Qingtian's eyes narrowed slightly. She immediately recalled that this was the first time Song Junhan had come to the Xia family.
It was a month before she took her college entrance exams.
Song Junhan came to the Xia family under the guise of being a tutor, ostensibly to give her pre-exam tutoring. In reality, her father wanted to take 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 said she wanted a tutor too and asked why her sister had one and she didn't. Xia Qingtian then mocked her stepsister a few times, and Xia Qingyu pushed her.
She hit her head on a bookshelf, resulting in a large lump that only hurt for two or three days.
Xia Qingyu was also punished by being confined for a full week.
Looking at her father's happy expression now, she guessed that he had no idea that the live-in son-in-law he so eagerly sought was a white-eyed wolf!