The north wind howled, carrying snow with it, and when it hit a person’s face, it stung like a blade.
Evelyn Hartley stood outside the Hartley family gate in thin, tattered clothes, her face bruised and swollen. In her blood-smeared hand, she carried a filthy canvas bag. Through the window, she watched the Hartley family gathered around the dining table, eating a rich, steaming dinner, and there was a wild, dangerous look in her eyes.
Just half an hour ago, she had killed her “husband.”
And now, she was here to kill the whole pack of rotten-hearted devils who had shoved her into hell.
She lifted her head and looked at the Hartley family’s little Western-style house. This place had trapped her for ten whole years, a true pit of demons. The thought that, in just a few minutes, it would become the burial ground of the Hartley family made her want to laugh out loud.
Ten years ago, her biological father, George Hartley, had lied to her and brought her here, saying her mother needed money for medical treatment. Once she arrived, she was turned into a servant and punching bag for her stepmother Diana Hartley’s family. Later, just to pave the way for George Hartley’s stepson Marcus Whitmore, they shoved her into Edmund Stanton’s bed like she was some object.
But not one promise from that beast George Hartley had ever been kept.
Not only did he never pay to treat her mother, he even had her mother locked away and used her to threaten Evelyn, making sure she never dared fight back.
It was only three months ago that Evelyn learned the truth: her mother had actually taken her own life five years earlier.
That animal George Hartley had gone so far as to hire someone to imitate her mother’s voice and trick her for five full years.
After learning that truth, she hadn’t screamed or made a scene. She still swallowed every insult and every blow, acting obedient, as if her spine had long since been broken, letting those beasts trample and torture her without the slightest dignity.
Until she had everything prepared.
Tonight was the perfect night to end all of it.
How nice. She had waited ten years for this day.
Without making a sound, Evelyn Hartley opened the canvas bag and took out what was inside.
It was ten bundles of powerful explosives, a full ten pounds altogether.
She placed the explosives around the outside corners of the Hartley house one by one and lit each fuse.
For the last bundle, after lighting it, she hurled it hard at the living room window.
Crash.
The explosive smashed through the glass and dropped straight into the Hartley family living room.
“What’s that?”
“A bomb!”
“Run!”
“Help!”
The screams bursting from inside the Hartley family living room filled Evelyn with a twisted kind of joy. The people inside fought desperately to get out.
But it was too late.
Boom—boom—boom—the Hartley house was blown straight into the sky.
The ground within a whole kilometer trembled.
When she made the explosives, Evelyn had mischievously stuffed quite a lot of fireworks inside them too. Brilliant fireworks bloomed over the exploding Hartley house, beautiful enough to make her clap.
She had never done a single thing for society in this life. So in her final moments, she thought she might as well let everyone enjoy a fireworks show on New Year’s Eve.
Wrapped in that dazzling blaze, Evelyn Hartley turned and walked away.
Two days later, the public security officers hunting for Evelyn Hartley found her sitting against her mother’s gravestone.
Only by then, Evelyn Hartley had already stopped breathing. In her arms, they found a canvas bag. Inside it was evidence of the crimes of the Hartley family, the Whitmore family, the Stanton family, and every connection behind them.
**** Clackety-clack—clackety-clack—the train rocked from side to side, packed so tight it was hard to breathe.
A somewhat heavyset woman pinched the half-asleep young girl beside her.
“Get up and pack your things. We’ll be getting off soon.”
The girl jolted awake. The moment she saw what was in front of her, her eyes widened in shock.
What was going on?
Hadn’t she poisoned herself to death in front of her mother’s grave? Why was she on a train?
The burning pain in her stomach still seemed to linger, but everything in front of her looked real, too real.
Before Evelyn Hartley could figure out what was happening, the woman next to her pinched her again.
“What are you spacing out for? I told you to pack your things. Are your ears stuffed with donkey hair? Honestly, with how slow and stupid you are, I really don’t know why sir bothered bringing you to Harbor City. Aren’t you embarrassing enough already?”
Evelyn turned to look at the woman, and her pupils shrank at once.
Auntie Li, the Hartley family servant, and the person Diana Hartley trusted most.
Why did she look so much younger?
And why did everything in front of her feel so familiar?
Could it be...
Evelyn saw a passenger across from her flipping through a newspaper. She reached out and snatched it over, then hurriedly turned to the front page.
In the date column, it said: May 10, 1995.
She... had been reborn?!
“Hey, what’s wrong with you? Don’t you have any manners at all?”
The passenger across from her glared at Evelyn, clearly annoyed.
Auntie Li quickly snatched the newspaper from Evelyn’s hands and returned it to the passenger. “Sorry about that. This dead girl’s from the countryside, doesn’t know any rules. Don’t lower yourself to her level.”
The man took the paper with a huff. “Country bumpkin.” After saying that, he shot Auntie Li a sideways glare too.
Auntie Li was instantly furious. She raised her hand and was just about to slap Evelyn across the face. This little wretch was hopelessly unpresentable, making her lose face right along with her.
But the moment her hand swung out, Evelyn grabbed her wrist hard and twisted it outward.
“Ah—my hand... my hand...”
Auntie Li let out a scream like a pig being slaughtered, making people all over the train turn their heads.
“You dead girl, let go now, or I’ll skin you alive!”
Seeing that she still dared threaten her, Evelyn tightened her grip even more. Auntie Li’s arm bent into a strange angle, and the pain brought cold sweat pouring down her face.
“Let go, hurry... I... I... I won’t hit you anymore... please, let go...”
Evelyn released her hand, stood up, and patted down her clothes. “Pack the things properly. I’m going to the toilet.”
Ignoring Auntie Li’s murderous glare, Evelyn squeezed into the narrow washroom.
Looking at the young, tender face in the mirror, Evelyn couldn’t help pinching herself.
It hurt.
So this really wasn’t a dream.
She truly had been reborn, reborn to ten years earlier, on the train where George Hartley had tricked her into going to Harbor City.
She pulled open her clothes and looked at the unbroken skin on her body, hatred surging through her like a stormy sea.
After entering the Hartley house in her previous life, there had never been a single part of her body left unharmed. If it wasn’t bruised here, it was purple there. Worst of all was her arm—Diana Hartley, that madwoman, had scalded off a huge patch of skin with boiling hot oil.
At the time, Auntie Li had stood right there watching. Worse, when Evelyn cried and screamed from the pain, Auntie Li had even covered her mouth.
And that was far from the only time. Almost every time Diana Hartley beat and tortured her, Auntie Li had stood nearby as an accomplice.
So the hatred Evelyn felt toward Auntie Li was no less than what she felt for the rest of the Hartley family.
Since heaven had given her another chance at life, then those beasts—every last one of them—would be dragged straight down into hell.
Evelyn pulled her clothes back into place and looked at herself in the mirror once more. Then her gaze dropped to the gourd-shaped jade pendant hanging at her neck.
Her mother had put it on her with her own hands the night before she left for Harbor City. It was the only keepsake her mother had from Evelyn’s grandmother.
In her previous life, not long after she arrived at the Hartley house, Diana Hartley’s daughter Davina Whitmore had snatched the gourd away and thrown it into the lake by the Hartley family gate. Evelyn had searched in that lake the entire night and still never found it.
In this life, she would protect everything that belonged to her.
Her mother, and this gourd too.
Evelyn reached up and gripped the pendant tightly.
The jade felt smooth and cool at first, but in her palm it suddenly began to heat up, growing hotter and hotter until she hurriedly lowered her head to look.
The milky white jade gourd had turned a strange, eerie red.
Evelyn thought her eyes were playing tricks on her, so she rubbed at it with her fingers. But then her vision blurred, and in the next instant, she found herself in an unbelievably strange place.