Prologue – The Man Who Dug Too Deep
The wind howled across the deserts of Central Asia. Amid the sands, under layers of stone and dust buried for millennia, a man crouched with trembling hands. His sharp eyes, hidden behind cracked spectacles, gleamed with unrelenting hunger.
Yang Xinyi, age thirty. A man who had chased history across continents, scaling cliffs, diving into tombs, translating fragments of languages thought extinct. The world hailed him as a prodigy archaeologist, yet few knew the truth: he was an orphan with no name to carry, no roots to claim. His only family was history itself.
Every language, every craft, every weapon style, every law and art he learned—was his way of touching the eternal. If he could master the skills that built civilizations, perhaps he could glimpse the very soul of humanity.
And then, one day, he found it. A book. Its leather cracked, its words written in archaic calligraphy no one alive should have known. The record of a dynasty erased from time, a truth so devastating that even modern nations would tremble if it were revealed.
He closed it with shaking hands. He smiled faintly.
"So this is what it costs."
From that moment, Yang Xinyi knew. He would not live long. The shadows were already closing in. He boarded a plane back to Beijing, but never reached the ground. Flames split the night sky, steel rained into the sea. In the brief instant before death claimed him, he thought not of glory, not of discovery, but of his empty apartment, the hollow silence of his life.
"If only… I had someone to return home to."
Darkness.
__|||||The Second Dawn|||||__
Pain. Breathless, burning pain, as if he had drowned yet been dragged ashore. Yang Xinyi's eyes fluttered open.
The scent of medicinal herbs lingered in the air. Wooden rafters loomed above him. Outside, he heard the sound of horses, of vendors shouting, of swords clashing in distant drills.
He sat up violently—and a tidal wave of foreign memories crashed into his mind.
The same name. The same face, younger by five years. But this body belonged to a world not his own.
This Yang Xinyi was twenty-five, a frail man who worked himself into fever trying to care for three siblings. Seven years ago, their parents—soldiers of the Great Wei Kingdom—had died defending Tian Xia Pass. Since then, the eldest son bore every burden, scraping for food, taking up odd jobs, training by night in the hope he might one day inherit his parents' mantle.
And he had died for it. A simple fever, untreated. Too much exhaustion, too little medicine.
Yang Xinyi clutched his head, trembling as his two souls fused into one. His archaeologist's knowledge wove itself with the fading echoes of his other self's memories.
Then, softly, he heard a voice.
"Brother… you're awake?"
At the doorway stood a young man of twenty-two, shoulders broad from labor, hands scarred by years of sword drills. Yang Rui. His younger brother, eyes red from nights of worry.
Behind him was Yang Lei, age twenty-one, stubborn fire in his gaze, holding a wooden spear as if it were a lifeline. And peeking from behind their legs—Yang Shuying, only eighteen, her eyes soft as spring, yet burdened by a maturity no girl her age should carry.
Family. A word Yang Xinyi had never once felt in two lives.
His throat tightened. He reached out, his fingers brushing against Yang Shuying's hair.
"I'm home."
__|||||The World of Great Wei|||||__
The days passed, and Yang Xinyi slowly pieced together this parallel realm.
It was Earth—yet not. The kingdoms mirrored the era of the Three Kingdoms he once studied, with bronze and steel, cavalry and banners, sprawling cities of tiled roofs and bustling markets. But there were no Zhuge Liang, no Cao Cao, no Liu Bei. The dynasties here were different, their histories unrecorded in his old world. A blank canvas of fate.
Tian Xia Pass, where the Yang family lived, was a strategic gateway of the Great Wei Kingdom, the only shield against northern raiders. Soldiers drilled daily upon its stone walls. Merchants thrived under its shadow. And orphans like the Yang siblings struggled to survive between duty and hunger.
The swords left by their parents hung on the wall of their modest home. Each bore the scars of war, yet gleamed with silent pride. To wield them was not only honor, but burden.
The previous Yang Xinyi had died trying to prove himself worthy. But now, a different man stood in his place.
A man with the knowledge of empires. A man who had studied the failures and triumphs of thousands of years. A man who had died once and been reborn with only one wish: to protect the family he never had.
__|||||The Vow|||||__
One night, under the lantern's glow, Yang Rui voiced what weighed on them all.
"Brother, the pass is tense. The generals recruit more men every day. If we do nothing, we'll be conscripted like cattle. If we volunteer, we may die… but at least we choose our path. What should we do?"
The archaeologist within Yang Xinyi stirred. He remembered all the wars he had studied, the rise and fall of legions, the strategies of forgotten kings. His gaze drifted to the swords left by their parents.
He placed one hand upon the blade. The steel was cold, yet it warmed his blood.
In his first life, he sought only knowledge. He had lived for books, for mysteries, until they killed him. But here—here he had siblings who looked to him, a family who needed him.
He could not die again without fulfilling this bond.
"I'll take responsibility," he said softly, yet each word rang like iron. "This life, I will be the shield of this family. Rui, Lei, Shuying—whatever comes, we face it together. No one will take this from us."
For the first time, his siblings wept not from despair, but from relief. And Yang Xinyi felt something he had never known: belonging.
__|||||The Foreshadowing of Storms|||||__
But fate is never kind for long.
Whispers of war stirred in the north. A rival kingdom gathered its armies, their banners blotting out the horizon. In the south, noble houses schemed for power, exploiting the weakness of the Wei court. And in the shadows, assassins moved, their daggers glinting with unseen plots.
Yang Xinyi knew the signs. He had read this story a thousand times, in a thousand different lands. Dynasties always fell when the people were hungry, when the nobles grew fat, when the borders shook.
Yet this time, he was no longer an observer. He had a role to play.
He looked at his siblings training in the yard, at Rui's determined swings, Lei's fiery thrusts, Shuying's quiet but precise strikes with a dagger she had hidden. They were not scholars, not warriors yet, but they were his blood.
He clenched his fist.
"This time… I will rewrite the story."
In his first life, Yang Xinyi uncovered truths that destroyed him.
In his second, he found the one treasure he had always longed for: family.
Armed with the skills of countless disciplines, with the mind of a strategist and the heart of a brother, he would carve a path through war and conspiracy alike. Not for glory, not for kings—but for the siblings who had become his world.
The drums of battle thunder in the distance. The banners of kingdoms rise and fall. A storm of blood and fire approaches Tian Xia Pass.
But atop the wall, beneath the fluttering flags of Great Wei, stands one man with a vow burning in his chest.
Yang Xinyi.
Orphan, scholar, warrior, brother.
Reborn not to seek history—
—but to create it.
__|||||The Second Life of Yang Xinyi|||||__
"In a world of kingdoms and blades, family is the only destiny worth fighting for."