Darkness did not feel the way Yan expected.
She had always imagined death as emptiness. A sudden stop. A silence so complete that even thought would vanish.
But this darkness breathed.
It moved around her like deep water, cold and endless, carrying whispers she could not understand. Some sounded like prayers. Some sounded like curses. Some sounded like children crying in places too far away to reach.
Yan tried to open her eyes.
Nothing changed.
She tried to move her fingers.
Her body did not answer.
A strange thought entered her mind.
Had she survived the fire?
No.
She remembered the library.
The smoke in her lungs. The burning shelves. The ancient book turning its pages beside her. The painting untouched by flame. The poem that had appeared before her death.
When the lost goddess dies,
the wheel shall turn again.
Yan's heart should have raced.
It did not.
There was no heartbeat in this darkness.
Only the slow turning of something vast beneath her.
A wheel.
No — not a wheel.
A chessboard.
The moment she thought of it, the darkness split.
Light poured in.
Yan fell.
She did not fall onto the floor. She fell through images.
A child running barefoot through snow.
A woman coughing blood into her sleeve.
A prisoner laughing before an execution blade.
A bride standing alone in red wedding robes while the world burned behind her.
A soldier pierced by arrows.
A beggar starving beneath temple steps.
A mother reaching for a child she could not save.
One life.
Then another.
Then another.
Each death struck her body like a blade.
Yan tried to scream, but no sound came out. The memories were not hers, yet they tore through her as if she had lived every breath, every fear, every ending.
The number came to her without reason.
Fifty-five thousand, six hundred and ninety-seven.
Yan did not know how she knew it.
She only knew the number belonged to her.
The darkness shattered.
She opened her eyes.
The first thing she saw was a sky full of silver clouds.
Yan lay on the edge of a lotus pond, her hair spread across the grass like spilled ink. The air smelled of rain, sandalwood, and something ancient she could not name. Around her, flowers bloomed in impossible colors, their petals glowing faintly as if they held moonlight inside them.
For a long moment, she could only stare.
Then she coughed.
Her lungs filled with air.
Real air.
Yan shot upright.
"I'm alive?"
Her voice sounded different.
Softer. Clearer. Like it had passed through a bell before leaving her mouth.
She froze.
Her hands were not burned.
There was no smoke on her clothes. No blood. No ash.
Instead, she wore layered white robes embroidered with silver thread. The fabric rested against her skin like mist. Her black hair, which had only reached her waist before, now fell past her knees.
Yan stared at herself in silence.
Then she said, very calmly, "No."
The lotus pond rippled.
Yan looked around.
The place was not the library. It was not a hospital. It was not even the old house from her memories. Mountains floated in the distance, half-hidden behind clouds. White cranes circled above the pond. A stone path stretched from the garden toward a hall with golden pillars.
And beneath the grass, barely visible through the soil, were lines.
Straight lines.
Intersecting lines.
Yan slowly stood.
The ground beneath her feet glowed.
The grass faded like an illusion, revealing polished white and gold beneath it.
A chessboard.
An enormous chessboard spread across the garden floor, each square carved with ancient symbols. Some symbols pulsed faintly when Yan stepped closer. Others remained dark, as if waiting for something to awaken them.
Yan backed away.
The square beneath her lit up.
A voice echoed across the garden.
"Lu Tao Yan."
Yan turned sharply.
No one stood there.
The pond rippled again. This time, the water rose, forming a mirror as tall as a doorway. In its surface, Yan saw not only her reflection, but countless shadows standing behind her.
Women. Men. Children. Warriors. Servants. Prisoners. Brides. Criminals. Saints.
All of them looked at her with the same eyes.
Her eyes.
Yan's throat tightened.
"What is this?"
The voice answered, calm and ancient.
"Return."
The word struck her harder than the fire.
The garden shook.
The chessboard beneath her feet released a blinding light. Yan staggered back, pressing both hands to her head as memories clawed their way upward.
Not all of them.
Only pieces.
A throne of white jade.
A river of souls.
A man with silver eyes placing a seal on her wrist.
A woman in red robes laughing while holding a wine jar.
A battlefield covered with broken divine weapons.
A child crying for her mother.
And pain.
So much pain.
Yan fell to her knees.
Her body curled forward as if something inside her was being ripped open. She gasped for breath, but every breath became another memory. Every heartbeat became another death.
"I don't want this," she whispered.
The chessboard dimmed.
For a moment, the pain eased.
Then the pond mirror changed.
The library appeared in its surface.
Yan saw the burning shelves from above. Fire swallowed the history section. Smoke rolled through the windows. People gathered outside, shouting. Water rained from the ceiling, too late to save anything.
At the center of the fire lay her body.
Yan stopped breathing.
She watched strangers carry her out beneath a white sheet.
The ancient book was gone.
So was the painting.
Only a black mark remained on the eastern wall, shaped almost like a chess piece.
Yan stared at the image until her vision blurred.
"I died."
The pond showed no mercy.
The image shifted again.
This time, she saw the hooded intruder standing on a rooftop beneath the rain. In one hand, he held a jade box. In the other, a rolled painting wrapped in black cloth.
The man looked toward the burning library.
Then, slowly, he turned his head.
For one terrifying moment, it felt as though he was looking directly at her through the water.
A laugh escaped him.
Soft.
Mocking.
"Still asleep," he said.
Yan's fingers clenched.
The pond went dark.
The garden became silent.
For the first time since waking, fear gave way to anger.
"Who was that?"
No answer.
Yan forced herself to stand, though her legs trembled. "You brought me here. You showed me all this. Then answer me."
The chessboard beneath her feet pulsed once.
A path of golden squares lit up, leading toward the distant hall.
Yan looked at it.
Then at the pond.
Then at the sky.
A bitter laugh left her mouth.
"Wonderful. I died, woke up in a garden that talks through floors, saw my corpse, and now the floor wants me to follow it."
The lotus flowers swayed as if amused.
Yan narrowed her eyes at them. "Don't laugh. I'm not in the mood."
The flowers immediately stilled.
Yan stared.
"…Good."
She followed the golden path.
With every step, the world around her changed.
The garden grew wider. The lotus pond stretched into a river. Mountains rose higher, their peaks cutting through clouds. Birds and beasts gathered at the edges of the path, bowing their heads as she passed.
Yan wanted to ignore them.
She failed.
A white fox with three tails lowered itself to the ground.
A crane folded its wings.
Even the wind seemed to pause.
Yan's uneasiness deepened.
No one bowed like that unless they were afraid.
Or waiting.
The golden path ended before the great hall.
Its doors were taller than any building Yan had ever seen, carved with suns, moons, stars, and a circle that looked painfully familiar.
The wheel of reincarnation.
Before Yan could touch the door, it opened.
Inside was not a room.
It was a sky.
Stars floated beneath her feet. Galaxies moved slowly around enormous pillars of light. At the center of the hall stood a throne made of white jade, but no one sat upon it.
Instead, above the throne, a golden decree hung in the air.
Yan stepped closer.
The characters on it were ancient, but she understood them as easily as breathing.
By the law of the Heavenly Pact,
the slumber ends when the forgotten name is called.
The Goddess of Reincarnation shall return to her seat.
Yan read it once.
Then again.
Her lips parted.
"No."
The decree glowed.
A line appeared beneath the first.
Lu Tao Yan.
Fifty-five thousand, six hundred and ninety-seven lives completed.
Twenty-four lives interrupted.
Seal status: unstable.
Authority: awakening.
Yan's blood ran cold.
"Goddess of Reincarnation…"
The title felt impossible.
And yet the moment she said it, something inside her answered.
A silver mark appeared on her wrist, shaped like a small wheel surrounded by broken chess pieces. It burned bright enough to light the hall.
Yan clutched her wrist, biting back a cry.
The memories surged again.
This time, one face broke through the chaos.
A man.
Tall. Broad-shouldered. Dressed in dark robes edged with silver. His eyes were cold enough to frighten the dead, but when he looked at her, they softened with a pain so deep it made her chest ache.
He reached for her through the memory.
"Yan."
The name left his mouth like a promise.
Yan staggered.
"Who are you?"
The vision vanished before he could answer.
The hall trembled.
Somewhere far away, bells began to ring.
Once.
Twice.
Nine times.
The sound spread across the divine realm like a warning.
Outside the hall, countless voices rose in panic.
"The reincarnation seat has awakened!"
"How is that possible?"
"She should still be sealed!"
"Inform the officials!"
Yan lifted her head.
The golden decree burned brighter.
Then one final sentence appeared.
The first piece has returned to the board.
The hall doors slammed open.
A violent wind swept through the stars beneath her feet. Yan turned, shielding her eyes with one sleeve.
A figure stood beyond the doors.
Not the hooded intruder.
Not the old man from the book.
This man wore black divine robes, his long hair tied back with a silver crown. A blood-red seal glowed faintly at his throat, pulsing in the same rhythm as the mark on Yan's wrist.
His face was the one from her memory.
Cold.
Beautiful.
Terrifyingly familiar.
The moment he saw her, all the anger in his expression shattered.
"Yan," he said.
This time, she heard his voice clearly.
Her heart, which should not have remembered him, ached.
The man stepped into the hall.
Behind him, the bells continued to ring.
Yan looked at him and whispered, "Who are you?"
His jaw tightened.
For a moment, he looked like her question had wounded him more deeply than any blade.
Then he lowered himself to one knee before her.
"I am Jin Liwei," he said. "God of Death."
He lifted his eyes to hers.
"And the man who failed to save you."