August.

Abundance City.

Night.

Twenty years ago, this had been the finest residential quarter in Abundance City. Now it was the oldest, most worn-out street in the whole place.

Living room.

Boom!

A heavy roll of thunder cracked outside.

It was like a soul that had fallen into an abyss was yanked back in one brutal pull.

A young man a little over twenty sat there, face pale, forehead slick with cold sweat. The shock in his eyes had not fully faded.

He stared ahead at that still-young, still-unworn face.

“I really came back.”

He, Victor Thornton, had come back from that hopeless Saint Transformation Tribulation, back from the enemy siege, all the way to his student days, when graduation was still close at hand.

A fragrance drifted out from the kitchen.

Victor’s body shook. He turned and looked over.

Hazel Caldwell was wearing a floral qipao. It hugged her figure tight, drawing every line clean and graceful. Her glossy hair, smooth as a black waterfall, was pinned up behind her head, showing that fine, stunning face without reservation.

There was a soft, noble air about her, that quiet grace only a Huaxia woman seemed to carry naturally.

A face like that. A figure like that. That bearing. That dress.

Calling her one in ten thousand was not praise enough.

The moment Victor saw Hazel standing before him, he went still. He was flat-out stunned.

Victor came from a fallen family. Hazel was the abandoned daughter of hers. The two had lived together since childhood, proper childhood sweethearts in all but name.

Hazel laughed, bright and crisp. “What, am I really that pretty? Look at you. You’re staring like a fool.”

She smiled wider, then stepped lightly over to him. One slender finger, pale as carved jade, tapped softly against his forehead.

In this world, only Hazel Caldwell could tap Victor Thornton on the forehead like that.

If it had been anyone else, just standing in front of Victor without their legs going weak would already count as strength.

“Pretty. More than pretty.” Victor looked at her, really looked at her, and his emotions surged so hard his chest hurt. His eyes reddened at once. “There isn’t another woman in this world prettier than you, Hazel.”

She was here.

Alive. Real. Standing right in front of him.

A thousand years to become an Immortal Emperor.

A thousand years through reincarnation.

All for the sake of seeing one person again.

And now he was back.

Reborn before the lowest point of his life.

Back before the woman who loved him was humiliated to death.

Back before the woman he loved was tortured with savage cruelty.

Wild joy crashed through Victor’s heart like a flood breaking a dam. He did not know why the heavens had allowed Jerome Thornton to return from death and dust. But since he had come back, then everything from the last life—

none of it would happen again.

Knock, knock, knock—

A sudden rap sounded at the door.

“Guests?” Victor looked toward Hazel.

“No idea who it is.” Hazel went over and opened the door.

“Oh? Uncle Wang, Aunt Wang, why are only you two here?”

Outside came a middle-aged man’s voice. “Hazel, it’s like this. Our Han’er had something to deal with tonight, so he couldn’t come in person. I hope you understand.”

“I see. It’s fine. Uncle, Auntie, come in and sit for a while,” Hazel said.

“Hazel, no need. Your aunt and I still have things to do. We only came today to say a few words, explain one matter, and then we’ll leave. No need to go inside.” The man’s voice was stiff, awkward, hard to get out.

“What matter?” Hazel asked.

The man hesitated, but before he could speak, a middle-aged woman cut in, her tone cold and flat.

“If you can’t say it, I will. Hazel, we came today on Han’er’s behalf to break off the engagement.”

Victor stood inside and listened to every word. A sharp light flashed in his eyes.

So these two were from the Wang family—the family tied by childhood betrothal to Hazel through her parents long ago.

“Break off the engagement?” Hazel sounded surprised. Her expression dimmed, complicated and faintly gray.

“Yes.” The middle-aged man’s tone turned firm. “Our Han’er already has someone he likes. We came today to cancel the marriage.”

Victor looked at the pair outside the door.

His whole body trembled.

He remembered.

It started here.

From this very night, all the misery he had never been able to let go of began.

In his last life, the Wang family broke the engagement with Hazel. At the same time, the company she had been running while studying lost its funding chain. The business collapsed. Then her family dragged her back, shut her in a small courtyard for years, and later used her in a marriage alliance, marrying her off like a bargaining chip. From then on she lived in pain, crushed in spirit, and never truly stood up again.

Many years later, when he was being hunted down, Hazel risked her life to hide him.

To protect Victor, she was seized by the cultivators who burst in and subjected to brutal torture. By the time Victor recovered enough to move, what he saw was only her dying body.

Scene after scene rose again before his eyes.

Like a curse.

Like blades scraping bone.

They had haunted him every hour of every day.

And now, in this moment, they all came back in full.

“…A… Qi… don’t… blame yourself… In all my life, I only ever loved you. Being able to protect the one I love… I’m happy…”

“In this life, my only regret… is that I never told you… In the next life… let’s be childhood sweethearts again… I’ll tell you myself… I… love you… goodbye…”

Goodbye.

A goodbye that became never meeting again.

Those two lines had echoed in Victor’s head for ages.

Now he had returned through rebirth. How could Victor let Hazel’s tragedy replay itself?

Hazel Caldwell—

in his last life, she had loved him in silence for an entire lifetime.

Victor suddenly lifted his head.

There was no trace of tears left on his face.

What replaced them was a hard, steady expression. His lips pressed into a thin line. His eyes were arrogant, cold, and dark, carrying a charm that was hard to put into words.

He rose from the sofa. His face sank, and his voice turned flat and icy.

“If you want to break it off, then break it off. With trash like your Wang family, you’re not even fit to curry favor with Hazel Caldwell.”

“A-Qi…” Hazel stared at him, caught off guard.

Victor had always been mild-tempered. So what was wrong with him today?

And that detached, almost untouchable air around him—it made her heart skip without warning.

The Wang woman’s face dropped at once when she saw a man walk out from Hazel’s house and even dare to step into their business.

“Who are you? Is there any place here for you to speak?”

Hazel kept her face calm and said, “Breaking the engagement is fine. But I need a sum of money to keep my company running.”

“You still want money?” The Wang woman’s voice turned shrill and vicious on the spot. “Hazel Caldwell, let’s just lay it out plain. If it weren’t for that company of yours, we would’ve broken this engagement years ago. But look at that company in your hands—it’s getting worse and worse. It’s practically at the edge of collapse now. When that happens, you’ll be carrying a mountain of debt. If we lend you money, won’t that just be money thrown into water? Borrowing is impossible. We won’t give you another single coin.”

“And not only that—the money we lent you these past years to keep that company alive, you have to pay it back.”

Hearing that bitter, needle-sharp voice, Hazel’s face turned ugly at once.

Victor’s expression turned colder still, until it was pure frost.

“Good. Very good,” he said. “Back then, when your Wang family was still just some minor clan, it was the Lin family that helped raise you up. Now your Wang family has grown fat, and not only do you not repay the favor—you turn around and bite the hand that fed you, then kick someone while they’re down. Very good indeed.”

Wang Ren’s face shifted blue, then red, then blue again. It looked awful.

But the confusion in his eyes deepened even more.

Who was this young man?

And how did he know something that secret?

“That was all in the past,” Wang Ren said stiffly. “Back then the Lin family stood firm in Shu Province. No one could match them. Of course they had the right to make others bow their heads. But now? Her own parents don’t want her. She was thrown out of the family. Hazel Caldwell, with the status of a slut, what right does she have to ask us for money? We only waited until today to come cancel the engagement—”

He did not finish.

Because the Wang woman had already said what she had clearly wanted to say for a long time.

“Slut.”

The word hit like a slap.

Hazel’s face went white, then ashen. Her eyes filled with hurt and humiliation, and beneath it, a stubborn unwillingness to submit.

Victor heard that one word, and something savage exploded in his chest.

Rage.

Violent, black, choking rage.

The fire in his eyes surged up at once, fierce enough to burn the night.