Chapter 12
Edward Quan ·
I looked at him.
"Then why did you fail the last seventeen times?"
His smile faded.
Slowly, I stood.
"You've tried seventeen times."
"And failed every time."
"Why?"
He said nothing.
"Because I always stopped you."
His eyes turned cold.
I smiled.
"Didn't I?"
He suddenly raised his hand.
An invisible force clamped around my throat and lifted me off the floor.
I couldn't breathe.
Lu Changsheng approached.
"You think you've won?"
He gritted his teeth.
"You're only mortal!"
I struggled.
He sneered.
"I've spent twenty years preparing for this."
"No one's coming to save you!"
Just as my vision began to darken, the child spoke.
"Mommy."
"Close your eyes."
I did.
Warmth spread from my belly through my body.
In the dark, a little girl stood before me.
She held out her hand.
"Mommy."
"I'm giving your memories back."
I took her hand.
Seventeen lives flooded my mind.
I saw myself fleeing through rain.
Holding my child in a hospital.
Standing at the well.
Mingyuan kneeling and weeping.
My mother-in-law pouring medicine into soup.
Mr. Lu dying and coming back.
And at last…
I saw a secret I'd never understood in the last seventeen lives.
Lu Changsheng hadn't started the cycle.
I had.
Chapter 8: The Mother Who Began Seventeen Cycles Herself
I opened my eyes.
Lu Changsheng was still strangling me.
But this time, I wasn't afraid.
I looked straight at him.
"You're wrong."
He frowned.
"What?"
I smiled.
"You didn't give me eighteen chances."
"I gave you eighteen failures."
His smile vanished.
I placed a hand on my belly.
"The last seventeen times, I wasn't only trying to save my child."
"I was finding a way to break your array."
He stepped back.
"Impossible."
"Did you think you were the only one who remembered the cycles?"
"Did you think you made these coffins?"
I looked at them.
"No."
"I left them here."
His face changed.
I remembered now.
Everything.
In the first cycle, I'd discovered Lu Changsheng's plan too late.
My daughter had just been born.
He controlled Mingyuan.
The Chen family curse bound my mother-in-law.
I'd fled to the well with my baby.
But there was nowhere left to run.
Lu Changsheng wanted my daughter to complete his ritual.
In desperation, I'd used the Song family's forbidden art.
The Life-Reversal Array.
An array that could turn time back to the beginning.
But each reversal cost its user a part of their memory.
I'd known the price.
And accepted it.
Because I wanted to save my child.
The second time, I woke just after becoming pregnant.
I remembered a few things.
Tried to change them.
And failed.
The third time, I woke earlier.
The fourth, earlier still.
After every failure, I left a coffin in the basement.
Not to bury my daughter.
To store my memories.
Each held a piece of the truth.
By the seventeenth time, I'd almost understood the entire array.
But Lu Changsheng discovered it.
He deliberately altered my daughter's memories.
Made her believe I'd killed her.
He wanted us to doubt each other.
Wanted me afraid of her.
Wanted her to hate me.
Because the Life-Reversal Array could work only while the two fate-souls still trusted one another.
Break that trust, and the array would collapse.
Lu Changsheng would win.
But he hadn't expected this.
My daughter had found another way.
She kept all seventeen lifetimes of memories.
Then she deliberately lied.
Told me I'd killed her.
Not to make me hate her.
To put me on guard.
So I wouldn't trust others so easily.
So I'd come to this house.
And uncover the truth.
I looked at Lu Changsheng.
"Do you know why she could speak to me from the sixth month this time?"
He didn't answer.
I smiled.
"Because she's strong enough now."
"After seventeen cycles, her fate-soul isn't just a tiny fragment anymore."
"She's learned to fight you."
"Shut up!" he roared.
His grip tightened.
This time, it did nothing.