She should've trusted her gut.
The perfume wasn't hers—cloying and sharp, clinging to Feifan's hoodie like a woman's claw. But she'd brushed it off. After all, today was their anniversary. Five years. She was out early, humming along the aisles of the high-end boutique, fingers gliding over gift boxes and leather wallets.
Then she saw them.
Across the glass pane of the Rosewood Hotel, through gold-trimmed doors, he walked in—Feifan, wearing that same hoodie. His arm looped around a slim waist. The girl turned her head, lips brushing his. Samantha. Her best friend. Her only friend.
Her bag dropped.
He was laughing, whispering something against Samantha's ear as they handed over their IDs. Neither of them looked toward the street. They never even noticed her.
Ari ran.
She didn't think. Her heels skidded on the asphalt. Horns screamed. Tires screeched.
The world flipped sideways.
And then—
Crimson. So much of it. Pooling around her ribs, warm and gushing, sticking to her fingers as she tried to crawl forward. One last reach toward that lobby where her entire life had just been shattered.
Why?
Her lungs filled with blood and fury. It wasn't sadness that broke her—it was rage.
"If I ever get a second chance... I'll destroy them both."
Her vision faded.
Darkness.
A sharp gasp.
Ari's eyes flew open. Her throat burned, chest heaving, skin damp with cold sweat. She sat up too quickly—and her head split like it had been cleaved with an axe.
"Ah Li Xiao Jie!" A panicked voice. "You're awake?! How do you feel? Wait—I'll call Master and Madam!"
A girl in a pale green hanfu darted from the room, braid swinging behind her.
Ari blinked. The walls were wooden, the lanterns dim, the sheets under her stiff with brocade and embroidered with plum blossoms. The air smelled like incense and plum wine.
Where the fuck...
Then it hit.
A lightning bolt of memories not her own cracked through her skull.
—Ah Li, daughter of merchant Li Wenhao...
—Fell in love with a poor scholar she met in a teahouse…
—Saved money, sold jewels, fed him silver under the table so he could study…
—He passed the imperial exam…
—Now he's marrying the Prime Minister's daughter…
—She confronted him in the garden, but he only said, "I never asked you to help me. You did it yourself."
—The Prime Minister introduced him to his daughter, San Mande.
—San Mande. Samantha. Feifan.
Ari staggered out of bed, gripping the carved post like a lifeline.
Even the names were the same.
Even she was Ah Li. Just like Ari. A cruel little joke.
So that was it. The original girl—heartbroken, humiliated—tried to kill herself. Slammed her skull into a pillar and bled out.
And Ari?
Ari had taken her place.
No. This was her place now.
The gods had twisted fate itself to throw her into this life, into this body.
The man she once loved had betrayed her in two lifetimes.
But now? Now she had power. She had gold. A family name. Influence. She would not cry. She would not break.
She would play the game. She would smile. She would watch. And then—
She would burn them both to the fucking ground.
-
The doors burst open.
"A-Li'er!"
A tall man with specks of grey in his sideburns stormed into the room, his silk robes in disarray. Behind him, a gentle woman clutched a handkerchief to her mouth, her eyes red-rimmed but luminous with relief. They were too well-dressed to be nobles, but their bearing screamed wealth. Merchant wealth—earned, not inherited.
"Sweetheart! Oh, my baby girl!" the mother wept as she rushed to the bedside.
Ari blinked. For a moment, she almost recoiled. This woman was nothing like her own cold, polished mother who measured affection in decibels of disappointment. This woman sobbed openly, gripping Ari's hand like it was the only thing tethering her to life.
"Why would you do such a thing, A-Li'er? What demon possessed you to hurt yourself like that? You've never even cried in front of us before!"
"I—" Ari opened her mouth, but the man—her father, apparently—crashed to his knees beside the bed.
"We thought we lost you! We were ready to beg the gods for your soul!" His voice cracked. This man had rough hands. A businessman's hands. And yet they clutched her palm like she was made of the most delicate porcelain.
They didn't know.
They truly didn't know anything.
Not about the letters hidden under her pillow. Not about the jade bracelets pawned off to cover a poor scholar's ink and rice. Not about the endless, sleepless nights Ah Li must have spent sewing her own dowry in secret, imagining a wedding that would never come.
They thought their daughter went mad. A whim. A storm of girlhood hysteria.
And now they were holding her like they had failed her.
Guilt stabbed her, sharp and sudden.
Not hers.
Ah Li's.
The girl had loved these two. She had suffered in silence to preserve their pride. She hadn't wanted them to know she'd been used as an ATM.
"I just… had a nightmare," Ari murmured. Her throat was raw, her voice hoarse.
Her mother gasped, immediately smoothing Ari's sweat-damp hair. "There now, it's over. No more bad dreams. Mama is here. Papa is here."
Her father nodded quickly, his face trying to hold firm but breaking anyway. "We'll ask the physician to stay through the night. No more of those bitter tonics. We'll get ginseng from Yunnan. Anything you want. We can close the shop, I don't care."
"No," Ari said softly. "Don't stop your business because of me."
That startled them both. The Ah Li they knew had never shown the slightest interest in profits or ledgers. But now her voice was measured, her eyes lucid, far older than eighteen.
"A-Li'er?" her mother whispered, touching her cheek.
Ari blinked. She softened her expression, relaxing her face into something more childlike, more naive.
"I'm just… tired. But I feel better now. I promise."
Her parents exchanged a glance—relief tangled with worry.
"We'll leave you to rest," her father said finally. "But we'll be right outside. Just call if you need us. Anything at all."
They lingered by the doorway like they were scared she'd vanish again. Only when the maid ushered them out did Ari let her shoulders drop.
She was alone again.
Ah Li was gone. Dead, buried, bled out on cold tiles.
And Ari? She would be everything Ah Li never dared to be.
Not some soft, naive girl pining after a man who only saw her as coin and convenience.
No, she'd make her parents proud in a way Ah Li never could.
And when Feifan looked at her again, it would be from below. On his knees. Begging.
But mercy? That was a luxury she'd buried in the modern world. Along with her heart.
-
Ari looked at the mirror, and the mirror stared back.
Smooth, heart-shaped face. Skin like cream. Sloped brows, a soft nose, lips that quivered even when she wasn't speaking. The body of a girl not yet hardened by war, not yet broken by time.
Ari—no, Ah Li—tilted her chin.
This girl looked like her. A younger, untouched version. One still full of hope. One who hadn't yet learned that hope was the first knife the world drives into your chest.
She turned her head slowly. The mirror gleamed with a soft lacquered finish. Her gaze sharpened.
No scars. No lines. Just a stranger's face that carried her soul.
She exhaled through her nose, crisp and slow. Five years. That damn number again. She'd wasted five years in the modern world—loyal, doting, dumb. And again, five years here. Waiting, pining, bleeding money and time into a man who never saw her as anything but a temporary vault with tits.
No, she hadn't slept with him. Thank the old gods for that. In this time, virginity was half a woman's worth. But she had wasted five years dreaming of wedding silks and scholar robes. Selling bracelets for him, sneaking coins from her allowance, even skipping her own schooling at times to help copy exam scrolls for him.
And what had it bought her?
A clean rejection. "You did it on your own, I never asked you to." Same line, different life.
But not again.
Never again.
She straightened her spine and let her fingers glide over the polished wood of the vanity. In the corner of the room, Xiao Huan was folding robes, eyes peeking up now and then with the nervousness of a child afraid her mistress might relapse at any moment.
"Xiao Huan," Ari said evenly.
The maid flinched. "Yes, xiao jie?"
"No more white robes in my closet," she said, watching her reflection as she spoke. "No pale blue, no sickly greens. Remove them all."
"B-but… those are your favorite, miss—"
"They were her favorites," Ari corrected, voice low but firm. "I hate it now."
Xiao Huan froze, brows furrowed in confusion—but she nodded with a bow. "Yes, xiao jie."
Ari's gaze flicked back to the mirror. That girl, Ah Li, had waited for someone to love her like her parents loved each other. Like it was simple. Natural.
She understood now.
The world didn't give you love. You took it—or better, you became too powerful to need it.
Her parents… honest merchants, kind to a fault. Never sought rank, never played court politics, never threw their daughter into the concubine lottery even though with her looks and education she might've been chosen. They truly just wanted her to be happy.
They had no idea how close they'd come to losing her. How close they'd been to losing everything they'd spent their life building.
No more.
Ari would not let their devotion go to waste. She'd learn. Train. Harden. Cultivate herself until no man could dismiss her, no scum could touch her.
And if Feifan and San Mande ever dared appear in her life again?
She wouldn't cry.
She'd smile.
Because revenge… oh, revenge could wait. Ten years. Twenty. It didn't matter.
By then, her name would ring louder than theirs. And when they knelt before her, begging for crumbs?
She'd remind them, softly, sweetly—
"I never asked you to kneel. You did it yourself."
-
hanfu (汉服): Traditional Han Chinese clothing, often with flowing sleeves and layered robes, worn during historical periods.
xiaojie (小姐): A respectful way to address a young unmarried woman, similar to "Miss."