Chapter 3 – Echoes of the Past
The moon hung high in the sky, casting a silvery glow across the village. Lin Yue lay in her small bed, restless, as the warmth of the night seemed to mingle with strange, unsettling thoughts. Her mind was filled with images, jumbled and disorienting, as if someone else's memories were pressing in from the edges of her consciousness.
In her dream, she was back in a place that seemed distant—too distant. It wasn't the small village where she had been reborn; this place was cold, sterile, and filled with the hum of computers and fluorescent lights. She was sitting at a desk in an office, the world outside her window a blur of concrete and steel. The air was thick with stress and deadlines.
She could feel the weight of exhaustion in her shoulders, a constant ache that never left. Her eyes were heavy as she stared at the screen, numbers and reports scrolling before her, but none of it mattered. It was all so meaningless. Her boss—just a man, like the rest—hovered over her, demanding more work, more time. "Finish this by tomorrow," he barked, as if she didn't already feel the strain of being overworked.
She wasn't allowed to rest. She wasn't allowed to live. The constant demands from men, her boss, her coworkers—nothing ever stopped. They took everything from her.
And then there was her relationship—another failure. She saw the face of a man she thought she could trust, someone she had been with for months. But the look in his eyes was different now, cold, dismissive. She remembered his words clearly, even though they were painful to recall: "I'm not happy anymore. It's over."
Her heart broke again as it did the first time. She had been used, abandoned, and left to pick up the pieces of a shattered trust. Again.
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Suddenly, the scene shifted, and she was no longer in that suffocating office. She was alone in an apartment, the silence thick with the absence of warmth. No family. No support. Just the emptiness of her existence.
The dream flickered like a broken film reel, showing moments from different times in her life—moments of isolation, pain, and struggle. Men had always walked in and out of her life, always with promises of love, but always leaving her empty. She had never known the joy of a family, the warmth of a real connection. She had always been an outsider in her own life.
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Lin Yue woke with a start, gasping for air as though the weight of her past life still pressed on her chest. Her heart pounded in her ears, and she clutched the blanket as though it could anchor her to this world. The dream—the memories—felt so real, so vivid. She could still feel the exhaustion in her bones, the loneliness that had followed her through that life.
She wasn't sure what it all meant, but she couldn't shake the overwhelming sense that something was missing. Family, she thought. Love. Warmth. I never had that in my past life.
For a moment, she just lay there, staring at the ceiling, lost in the fog of confusion. What had she been? A worker? A woman forever chasing after something that always slipped through her fingers? No. There was more to it than that.
Her thoughts drifted to her present life. Her mother—Liu Hua—was so different from anyone in her past life. Strong, confident, and capable of love. She was the head of the family, a woman who had built an empire of her own. Yue had always admired her mother, but now, more than ever, she wished to understand the truth behind her dreams.
She wasn't sure why the memories had come to her now, but she knew one thing for certain—this time, she wouldn't let history repeat itself. She wouldn't let herself be weak and lonely. Not again.
It was almost as if these memories were preparing her for something bigger. A life where she would have everything she had missed before—power, warmth, love. Family.
Yue didn't understand it all yet, but she felt something stirring inside her. The world was different now, and she was determined to make it her own.
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The next morning, as the light from the early dawn crept into her room, Yue found herself standing by the window. She could hear the sounds of the village outside—laughter, voices, the clinking of tools as the villagers worked. But the noise felt distant, as though she were watching life unfold from the sidelines.
Her thoughts returned to the dream. Her past life had been nothing like this—a place where women were rulers, where men were housewives. She had never been the one in charge. In that life, she had always been someone's employee, someone's girlfriend, always waiting for the next disappointment.
But not this time.
Yue turned away from the window, her heart set. She might be young, but she wasn't going to let this life slip away from her. She would find her place, take control, and never allow the same mistakes to happen again. This world—her new life—would be hers to shape.
And no one would stand in her way.