"Don't leave, Nian Nian. I love you, okay?"
A man's voice trembled in the darkness—low, desperate, and full of pain. "Stay, please."
Shi Nian lay on the wide bed, moonlight spilling across her face. The nightmare had seized her again.
Her fingers clutched the bedsheet as if she could hold back the fear itself. A broken whisper brushed against her ears. A promise, or maybe a curse.
Her eyes snapped open. For a long moment, she stared into the dim room, breathing hard. Then she exhaled slowly. The panic eased, replaced by a familiar stillness—the kind born from survival.
On the surface, she looked fragile. But behind her calm eyes lived the weight of six lifetimes.
Shi Nian rose, walking quietly to the bathroom, and splashed cold water on her face, the water slid down her cheeks.
She stared into the mirror, in the mirror her eyes reflected the same question that haunted her every life: How long will this one last?
Her first life had been simple—a family that loved her, a man who swore to protect her, a future she once believed in. Until it shattered. They were murdered before her eyes, and no matter how she tried to change that ending in the lives that followed, the result never changed.
She could not save them. Not once.
"When will this end?" she whispered. Her voice sounded small in the silence. "This curse… and blessing."
It was both—cruel and merciful. A curse because she carried the pain of remembering. A blessing because each rebirth let her see them again, even if only for a while.
She leaned on the counter, watching her reflection blur. "Months, weeks… or days?" she murmured. It didn't matter. Every time, fate took them away.
Her memories were tangled—faces and voices overlapping from different lives until she couldn't tell them apart. Six lifetimes of love, loss, and failure. Every one of them had ended in regret.
"Si Yehan…" Shi Nian thought of the man who spent each lifetime with as the name left her lips quietly. "I'm sorry. In this life, I won't let you suffer again."
Her chest tightened, but her eyes stayed firm. "No more struggle. No more chasing what fate won't allow. I'll live quietly this time."
But as much as she wanted to let go, the past didn't let her. It clung to her thoughts.
She remembered the hospital corridors. The white walls. The sharp scent of antiseptic that never left her mind. "Crazy?" she had shouted once, her voice echoing down the hallway. "I saw them! My family didn't commit suicide—they were murdered!"
No one had believed her. Not the police, not the doctors, not even her friends.
To them, she was unstable—another woman broken by grief. She fought anyway, even when the world turned its back on her.
And then, she was reborn.
Her parents alive. Her fiancé smiling at her as if nothing had happened. Everything looked normal—too normal. But she could feel it . The presence of mark deeply entrenched into her soul.
The assassins in black came again, in every lifetime, in different ways , stealing and destroying her joys.
She understood then that this curse was not something the world could explain. It was beyond logic, beyond reason. She had become something in-between—half alive, half bound by fate.
That life had led her to the world of cultivation—a realm hidden behind the ordinary one. She had walked its paths, trained her body and mind until pain became familiar.
She learned ancient methods, memorized forbidden scripts, and chased strength that could defy heaven itself.
Yet with every victory came loss. Every time she reached a higher realm, death found her again.
Still, she refused to yield. If her curse had made her a tool of fate, she would use it to fight back.
It wasn't until the final moments of her third life she understood—the mark she carried wasn't just guilt. It was a curse. A seal that bound her to this endless cycle of rebirth and loss.
She had learned enough to know that fear was useless. And love—love was dangerous.
Now, as she stood before the mirror of her seventh life, Shi Nian's gaze steadied
.
Shi Nian had lived through six lives—each one ending in blood, failure, and loss. No matter how hard she tried, the result never changed.
In her third life, she fought harder. In her fourth, she trained longer. By her fifth and sixth, she had mastered everything worth knowing—Arrays, Talismans, Beasts, Alchemy, Forging. Her name once made the cultivation world tremble. Yet, when the heavens struck, all her power was meaningless.
Her true battle had never been with mortals. It was with fate itself.
But she hadn't known that—until now.
———
In the present, Shi Nian lay on her bed, laughter breaking through her quiet despair.
"Ah… perhaps I should rest," she said lightly, though her eyes were empty.
Sleep didn't come. Her thoughts refused to settle, so she sat cross-legged and began to meditate, hoping to calm the unrest within her chest.
Moments passed. Then an hour. But something felt wrong.
The air moved, the faint trace of spiritual energy stirring around her—then slipping away like water through her fingers. She frowned and tried again.
Her heartbeat quickened. She reached inward with her divine sense—and froze.
Her dantian was gone, it had shattered.
The source of her power, the core that had followed her through lifetimes, had vanished. She could no longer gather qi.
Shi Nian's lips curved into a faint, bitter smile.
"So even when I choose not to fight, you still won't let me go?" Her voice was low, steady. "Do you wish to see me suffer early this time?"
Taking her own life would be pointless. She had done that in her fourth life. Only to be reborn again.
She tilted her head toward the skies, almost as if peering into the heavens. "Heaven, you've taken everything from me in every lifetime—my family, my strength, my name. What are you so afraid of? That I'll uncover the truth of who I am?!"
She exhaled slowly. "Shi Nian," she whispered to herself, "you said you wouldn't struggle anymore."
Once, her name had made the heavens tremble. Now, she was nothing but a powerless girl.