"Is that thieving little bitch dead yet? If not, tell her to hand over the money now!"

Song Qingtian woke to the sound of shouting. As she opened her eyes, an old woman's furious voice echoed through the courtyard.

"Mom, please calm down. Qingtian is still unconscious. Just wait—I'll tell you as soon as she wakes up."

Her heart skipped a beat. Both voices sounded eerily familiar.

In her memory, the harsh, aged voice belonged to her grandmother, Old Madam Song, while the timid, pleading one was her mother, Yang Xiulian.

Peering through the window into the courtyard, she confirmed it—the two women arguing were indeed her grandmother and mother.

"Am I... not dead?"

Instinctively, she reached down to touch her legs—and froze. They were intact.

Ever since the car accident three years ago, she had lived without them.

But now, her fingers traced smooth, slender skin.

Disbelieving, she pinched her own arm.

It was thin. And it hurt. This wasn’t a dream.

In her memory, after the miscarriage that wrecked her health, she had taken hormone treatments to conceive again, bloating her body beyond recognition. She had never been this slender since.

A mirror hung by the window beside the bed. Leaning closer, she caught her reflection—a youthful, achingly familiar face.

Large eyes, long lashes, a straight nose, a delicate pointed chin, and lips like ripe cherries.

Isn't this exactly how I looked in my youth?

Had I been reborn?

Was this truly a rebirth?

Song Qingtian was momentarily stunned. She pinched her arm again, wincing at the sharp pain, before finally accepting the reality—she had indeed traveled back in time, returning to her teenage years.

Only then did Song Qingtian take a proper look around the room.

The space was modest, barely over ten square meters. A large wardrobe stood by the bed, and on the opposite wall hung a propaganda poster that read, "Learn from Comrade Lei Feng." Beneath it sat a simple wooden table, upon which rested two enamel mugs emblazoned with red five-pointed stars.

The furnishings were sparse and crude, yet everything felt achingly familiar. It was an exact replica of her childhood home in the early 1980s—not a single detail out of place.

Outside in the courtyard, her domineering grandmother, Old Madam Song, was berating her kind-hearted mother yet again. Even from a distance, Song Qingtian could tell the topic was the same as before—the accusation that she had stolen money.

In her memory, the year was 1982, and she had just turned fifteen. That year, the fourteenth day of the lunar New Year fell on a Sunday.

On that fateful day, Song Qingtian had been helping her grandmother make tofu. Parched from the labor, she had gone inside to fetch hot water. The thermos was kept in Old Madam Song’s bedroom, so she had entered briefly to retrieve it and pour herself a drink.

But by afternoon, her grandmother claimed that 300 yuan had gone missing from her room.

Her second aunt, Sun Guiying, testified that she had seen Song Qingtian enter the room with her own eyes. With that, Old Madam Song had immediately accused her of theft.

Cornered by her grandmother’s relentless interrogation and unable to defend herself, a tearful Song Qingtian had fled to the nearby Song River that evening. In a desperate bid to prove her innocence, she had thrown herself into the icy waters without hesitation. Fortunately, a passerby had pulled her out in time, saving her life—though she remained unconscious throughout the night.

Now, it seemed, was the morning after her suicide attempt.

And Song Qingtian remembered all too well what came next.

Old Madam Song didn't relent in her persecution even after Song Qingtian's attempted suicide by drowning. She forced Yang Xiulian, Qingtian's mother, to make the girl confess to stealing money. Subsequently, the family home was sold off by the old woman, and mother and daughter were driven out of Songhe Village, with Qingtian's reputation as a thief spreading far and wide.

Taking refuge at her uncle's home, Song Qingtian lived alongside her cousin Yang Yuting, thus beginning a lifelong feud between the two.

The mere thought of Yang Yuting now made Qingtian's blood boil with rage.

This cousin had been her sworn enemy in her previous life—the very architect of her demise. From the moment they lived under the same roof, Yuting treated Qingtian like a slave, constantly ordering her about and subjecting her to endless bullying.

But that wasn't all. Consumed by jealousy, Yuting envied everything about Qingtian—her striking beauty, her academic prowess.

Later, she even grew envious of Qingtian's handsome fiancé Zhao Gengju, repeatedly throwing herself at him in shameless pursuit.

On Qingtian's wedding night, Yuting pulled a despicable stunt—she and an accomplice knocked the bride unconscious and slipped into Gengju's bed, only to be dragged out by Qingtian who regained consciousness in time.

A year later, when Qingtian was seven months pregnant, the vindictive Yuting pushed her into a ditch, causing a miscarriage that left Qingtian permanently infertile.

During Qingtian's convalescence at her mother's home, Yuting seized the chance to sow discord between the couple, urging Gengju to divorce her. When this failed, Yuting set fire to the house at midnight, killing Yang Xiulian while Qingtian narrowly escaped.

After this atrocity, Yuting mysteriously vanished.

With her weak-willed husband Zhao Gengju proving useless beyond enjoying the good life, Qingtian had no choice but to rely on herself. Through twenty years of relentless effort, she built the massive Sunny Sky Group empire, while her idle husband continued mooching off her success.

Three years ago, when Sunny Sky recruited new staff, Yuting reappeared—now with a new face and identity after plastic surgery. Unrecognizable to Qingtian, she was hired for her competent work and that inexplicable sense of familiarity, eventually becoming Qingtian's close assistant.

Little did Qingtian know she was inviting a wolf into her home. The reinvented Yuting not only rekindled her affair with Zhao Gengju, but also turned the spineless husband against his wife, exploiting Qingtian's infertility to wound Gengju's fragile male pride.

Completely bewitched by Yuting, the handsome but empty-headed Gengju conspired with her to stage a car crash that left Qingtian a double amputee, before systematically seizing control of Sunny Sky Group's assets and power.

Under the pretense of caring for her, Yang Yuting secretly placed mercury in her room, causing her to suffer from chronic poisoning. Her skin festered, her hair turned brittle and pale. Though barely forty, Song Qingtian looked like an old woman, bedridden day after day, tormented by illness, enduring three years of living hell.

Finally, Song Qingtian uncovered the truth—she had been poisoned. But Zhao Gengju and Yang Yuting showed no mercy. They forced a lethal dose of sleeping pills down her throat, sending her into a deep, endless slumber.

Now that fate had granted her a second chance at life, she refused to relive the past—decades of relentless struggle, only to be betrayed in the end.

The deep-seated hatred she bore for Zhao Gengju and Yang Yuting demanded vengeance.

Right now, Old Madam Song was just beginning to pressure her mother into admitting that Song Qingtian had stolen money.

She couldn’t let Old Madam Song bully her. She couldn’t let everyone believe she was a petty thief. She couldn’t let Old Madam Song sell off their family home.

The days after moving in with her uncle had felt like the start of a nightmare—one she would never relive.

Song Qingtian was determined to change everything, starting from the root.

"Mom—!"

She deliberately drew out the word, calling out loudly.