Chapter 1: Rebirth

Chapter 1 Rebirth

"The young master of the Minister of Rites' mansion is truly a perfect match for Ayi."

The pale-skinned youth spoke with difficulty, his voice heavy with barely concealed bitterness.

His frame was already frail, and the oversized, faded old clothes made him seem even more fragile, as if a gust of wind could break him in half.

"In the future, I only wish..."

He tried to speak words of blessing but his throat tightened, so he could only press his lips into a thin line, swallowing the bitterness that threatened to overflow.

He dropped his gaze.

His long, thick lashes cast a faint shadow under his eyes, perfectly concealing the scheming buried in their depths.

But in doing so, he also missed the sudden change in the other's expression.

————

Cheng Yi was startled awake by a stabbing pain in his chest.

The bone-chilling agony instantly tightened his tall, straight frame to the breaking point.

His ears rang, his breathing turned rapid, and a bloodthirsty ferocity blazed in his eyes.

The Duke Zhenguo estate, the Marquis Zhongyong estate, the Prince Wu'an estate...

Eyes wide open in death flooded his mind, and blood-curdling screams sent rage searing through him.

All dead... every last one of them...

He was dead too.

He died in the Hall of the Golden Throne.

Under the charge of treason, he was run through the heart by his closest friend and the person he had loved for ten years, with a single strike.

His eyes snapped open, and overwhelming hatred consumed Cheng Yi.

But what he saw was not the underworld, but a familiar face.

It was the face of the man he had remembered and trusted for ten years—the man who had slaughtered his family and run him through with his own hand.

Xie Yulin!

But something was different.

This face lacked the emperor's cold, sinister majesty.

Nor did it hold the resentment and fury behind the words, "As long as you live, I cannot sleep."

The person before him was merely sixteen or seventeen, with a hint of youthful immaturity still lingering in his features, and the restraint and ambition in his eyes not yet fully concealed.

His handsome face was pale, his slender build fragile and wretched.

This was... Xie Yulin as a youth.

A youth?

Cheng Yi's pupils contracted sharply. His blood ran cold, his heart seized as if by an invisible hand, and his breath stopped instantly.

He had... been reborn?

Reborn ten years in the past.

And the first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was the seventeen-year-old Xie Yulin.

Shock. Absurdity. Disbelief.

A storm of emotions raged in Cheng Yi's eyes.

The next second, hatred surged like a breached dam, instantly drowning all reason.

Kill him!

All Cheng Yi could think of was killing him.

While he was still weak, before he could ascend to the imperial throne;

Before his family was slaughtered, and his friends and family were still alive;

Before any of the tragedies happened...

Kill him!

"Ayi... Ayi, what's wrong?"

At that moment, the long-lost way of calling his name made Cheng Yi freeze, and his shattered reason briefly ground to a halt.

Xie Yulin saw the youth before him suddenly go bloodshot-eyed, his aura surging, his murderous intent pressing down so heavily that Xie Yulin could barely breathe.

He took two instinctive steps back, his heart pounding uncontrollably.

So this was the Little War God, the one who had been to war and taken lives?

In that instant, he had the illusion of being torn to pieces by him.

Such a terrifying presence—he had never seen anything like it.

But then he reasoned that the angrier Cheng Yi was, the more he must care about him.

So Xie Yulin felt somewhat comforted.

When he spoke again, his eyes were brimming with bitterness.

"Ayi, you know how awkward my situation is. Compared to me—a humble prince raised in the cold, neglected palace—Young Master Shen is clearly more worthy of you."

"Besides, you're so outstanding—your reputation as the Little War God shakes the entire capital. You were born for the battlefield. How could you let me hold you back?"

"In the end, you and I simply weren't meant to be."

As he spoke, bitterness nearly overflowed from his eyes, his lips went pale, and his already thin frame looked even more fragile and pitiful.

In the past, seeing him show such an expression would have thrown the youth before him into a flustered panic, his heart aching.

But today, Cheng Yi's gaze was strangely distant.

Ayi...

He hadn't heard that name from this man's lips in years.

At first, it was "Ayi," spoken softly, tenderly, dripping with affection.

Later, as he steadily climbed the ranks among the princes, Ayi somehow became General Cheng.

Then he rose to become the War God of Great Yao, commanding power over the entire court, and he finally seated him upon that supreme throne.

So General Cheng became Beloved Minister Cheng once more.

Until the very end, when he screamed at the top of his lungs in the Golden Throne Hall—treacherous courtier Cheng Yi.

Treacherous courtier?

Hah~

At that moment, surrounded by shadow guards, Cheng Yi let out a bitter laugh, his eyes hollow with despair.

Ten years he'd spent putting him on that throne. In those ten years, how many times had he faced mortal danger, how many times had he cheated death? And what did he get in return? A hysterical accusation of treachery, plus a meticulously crafted conspiracy to frame him?

"Why?"

Cheng Yi's voice rasped, his eyes frozen over.

He genuinely didn't understand.

In the Golden Throne Hall, Xie Yulin's once-handsome face had twisted into something monstrous.

The Seventh Prince, once so meek, now an exalted emperor—not a trace of that gentle young man remained.

The warmth in his eyes had long since been swallowed by fathomless, venomous darkness. That gaze seemed to want to devour him whole.

"A fine Prince Wu'an indeed! One might think you were the true master of Great Yao!"

He flung the memorial—listing dozens of Cheng Yi's alleged crimes—at him, recounting each of his "treasonous deeds" one by one, along with the so-called letters of "treasonous collusion with the enemy" and evidence of "mustering troops to rebel"...

Cheng Yi found it all absurd. Laughable, even.

Anyone in the world could doubt him, could condemn him—but not Xie Yulin.

Yet it was Xie Yulin himself who, word by word, shoved these baseless crimes onto his head.

He'd said: "Cheng Yi, while you live, I cannot rest."

"Cheng Yi, you are a traitor, deserving of death a thousand times over!"

His childhood friend, who'd grown up with him, now stood beside Xie Yulin.

His old friend drew his blade, eyes burning with cruelty and hate.

Cheng Yi was shocked, furious—but...

"Want the Duke Zhenguo and Marquis Zhongyong estates buried alongside you?"

One sentence, and all his will to fight drained out of him.

They knew his weakness all too well.

He'd thought they just wanted him dead—but he'd underestimated just how cruel Xie Yulin could be.

That night, the Duke Zhenguo and Marquis Zhongyong mansions ran with blood, and not even a single ant escaped the Prince Wu'an mansion alive.

Just thinking about it made Cheng Yi's blood boil, killing intent surging like a hurricane in his eyes.

He'd been blind in eye and heart, trusting the wrong man. His downfall was his own damn fault.

He deserved to die!

But what had his family—his brothers—done to deserve this?

The entire Cheng clan had been loyal unto death. And those innocent household servants—what sin had they committed?

So Xie Yulin had to die!

The presence of Great Yao's War God could crush even the most powerful men in the realm—let alone a seventeen-year-old nobody like Xie Yulin.

In an instant, Xie Yulin's face went white as paper under Cheng Yi's terrifying aura, his blood freezing in his veins.

"Ah... Ayi."

Xie Yulin shook, biting down hard on his lip.

"I know how you feel about me, but this is the Emperor's decree. The imperial command cannot be defied—neither of us has a choice."

Marriage decree...

Cheng Yi's mind was yanked back a decade.

Back then, he had just turned seventeen.

Young and reckless, flaunting fine clothes and a spirited steed.

His grandfather was the Duke Zhenguo, his father the Marquis Zhongyong.

At seventeen, he'd won fame in his very first battle, earning the title "Little War God" that set the whole capital buzzing.

The day he rode back into the capital, armored in gleaming steel with a crimson cape, he was the picture of youthful triumph—and the whole city went wild.

His heart was full of joy at the thought of seeing his beloved—only to be hit with an imperial marriage decree.

To him, it was like a bolt from the blue.

He tried to refuse on the spot, but the Old Duke held him down firmly.

Once back at the Duke Zhenguo estate, the Old Duke gave him a sound thrashing.

"Refusing the decree on the spot—are you asking for trouble?"

"You little whelp, not satisfied with dying on the battlefield, are you?"

His grandfather was red in the face with rage.

He clenched his jaw and stayed silent, not even flinching as his back was torn to shreds. He knelt in the ancestral hall for three days without yielding an inch.

All he could think was: would his beloved be heartbroken when he heard the news?

So the moment he was allowed out of the estate, he rushed to explain himself.

And that was the moment he was reborn—back to this very instant.

Cheng Yi twitched the corner of his mouth, his eyes dark with gloom.

His seventeen-year-old self was truly pitifully naive, no wonder he'd been made a fool of by this man for a full ten years.

He deserved to die.

But the twenty-seven-year-old him could easily see through Xie Yulin's strategic retreat, and also perceive the coldness and ambition hidden beneath his eyes.

Bringing up the betrothal—wasn't that just to goad this hotheaded kid into defying the imperial order?

The kicker? In his past life, he'd done exactly that.

And he'd succeeded.

The Emperor, mindful of his recent achievements and bright future, and with the Old Duke pleading on his behalf, had weighed the merits against the faults—no reward, no punishment, and the betrothal was dropped.

What the seventeen-year-old him hadn't known was the storm brewing behind that "balanced merits and faults," nor what it had cost his grandfather.

Xie Yulin saw Cheng Yi staring straight at him, his gaze shifting and unsettlingly deep.

A strange unease crept up on him.

So Xie Yulin, always reserved and composed, mustered his courage and stepped closer on his own.

He reached for the young general's sleeve, but his pale, slender fingers pulled back hesitantly, and when he looked up, his eyes were already reddened.

His eyes glistened with tears, on the verge of spilling, but he held them back.

Anyone seeing him like this would feel a pang of sympathy.

"Ayi..."

His voice was thick with tears, but he forced a stubborn edge into it.

"When I heard you were coming back victorious, I was over the moon, but when I heard the Emperor had bestowed a betrothal upon you, I felt like the whole world had gone dark."

"If the Emperor had even a drop of love for me, I could've fought that Young Master Shen for you, but I..."

Xie Yulin let out a bitter laugh, and the tears finally spilled over, no longer able to hold them back.

His frail frame swayed, looking more unsteady by the second.

A Xie Yulin like this was enough to make the earnest young man's heart ache with guilt, sealing his resolve to defy the decree and refuse the marriage, while secretly vowing to make a name for himself fast, to free him from the royal cage and give him the respect he deserved.

But now, standing before him was Cheng Yi at twenty-seven.

A Cheng Yi who'd been through despair and death, battered and scarred.

How could a man who'd already died once make such a stupid mistake again?

"Seventh Prince—"

Cheng Yi suddenly spoke, his voice hoarse, his scattered composure already back under control.

The solid reality of being reborn made him pause before he went on.

"Since fate didn't give us a chance, let's part ways here—each to our own happiness."

The young man's voice was ice-cold, without a hint of warmth.

Xie Yulin was still reeling from the cold "Seventh Prince" when he heard those heartless words, and he froze on the spot.

"What did you say?"

Too shocked, he couldn't even hide the surprise in his eyes.

This wasn't supposed to happen.

Panic surged in Xie Yulin's chest, but when he saw Cheng Yi turn to leave, the utterly calm look in his eyes made him even more frantic.

He instinctively reached out, but Cheng Yi sidestepped, dodging his hand.

In that moment, the dark, terrifying aura around the young man made Xie Yulin feel like he was utterly repulsive to him.

His outstretched hand hung frozen in the air as the young general turned and walked away without a second thought.

"Ayi?"

How could this be? Xie Yulin couldn't believe it.

Cheng Yi ignored him; the hostility around him had faded, but his steps got faster.

Xie Yulin couldn't die now.

The seventeen-year-old Cheng Yi hadn't known that the Duke Zhenguo's household was already a thorn in that person's side.

So even if Xie Yulin was a stain that person hated to the bone, he couldn't die by Cheng Yi's hands.

Because he was a prince, after all.

He couldn't hand that person a weapon.

Right now, Cheng Yi desperately wanted to see his family—the ones he'd gotten back after losing them.

Since heaven had given him a second chance, everything could still be fixed.

But the moment he stepped out, someone blocked his way.

A young man in brocade robes sat on a fine horse, a long whip in hand.

One brow arched, chin lifted, radiating pure arrogance.

"I heard you'd rather get whipped bloody by the Old Duke than marry me?"

Even his tone went up at the end.

He looked down at Cheng Yi from his horse, his tone dripping with mockery, his expression smug—exactly like in his past life.

This was his fiancé—Shen Yichen.

==========Author's Note:==========

New story alert, new story alert—trying something different this time.

Here's your reading guide:

This story has the "gē'er" setting, but there are also women in it.

Male × gē'er —> can only have male/gē'er kids

Male × female —> can only have male/female kids

I'll add more if I need to later.

Also, I'm posting three chapters in a row on day one—don't miss any, folks.