Chapter 5: Rebirth

Immediately after Zi You’s father finished speaking, a lightning flashed across the sky followed by a sudden downpour which lasted five days. It was as if the gods wanted to cleanse the world.

Five days later, the upper society came to learn of Zi You’s plight. The daughter of the general’s household, had passed away at the tender age of seventeen.

Zi You’s grandfather, Old General Mu had a long military career with uncountable achievements. In his lifetime, he only had two sons.

Old General Mu’s older son was Zi You’s father. Zi You’s mother had passed away from an illness when she was only nine. Merely three years later, her father remarried. Her stepmother, Yi Ping, the aunt of Lan Xuan inherited her birth mother’s position as the legal wife.

Seven months ago, while fighting rebels in Nanjiang, Old General Mu and his younger son succumbed to a disease and died together on the battlefield.

Zi You was the apple of Old General Mu’s eye and it was truly a pity that she followed her grandfather’s footstep and died soon after. The way she died made people sigh….

When Zi You regained consciousness, she thought she was in the netherworld.

What’s unexpected was that there was a bed in the netherworld and the room that she is currently in resembled the room she stayed in when she was twelve.

Just as Zi You was about to look around the room, she saw a woman walk in. The woman seems to be around sixteen to seventeen years of age. The woman asked “Zi You, you’ve finally woken up? You scared mother. Your fever persisted for the past three days. Lucky i managed to get some holy water from the MingYuan Temple. It wasn’t easy getting it. I had to kowtow all the way to the temple before being bestowed with holy water.

As Yi Ping said that, she took out her handkerchief and started wiping her eyes. Zi You was shocked! Yi Ping, my stepmother, why is she here? Furthermore, isn’t she already in her twenties? How could she look so young?

Subconsciously, Zi You stretched out her own hand only to receive a pleasant surprise. Her hand was a few sizes smaller. It was not the hand of her seventeen year old self.

Zi You stumbled down the bed and walked to her bronze mirror. The reflection in the mirror was that of a young girl about eleven to twelve year old. It was the exact replica of her when she was at that age.

Is it possible that i’ve been given a second chance? Zi You couldn’t believe it. She stared at Yi Ping in disbelief and questioned “What year is it now?”

The Great Yan Dynasty was where Zi You lived. She remembered that when she died, it was the twenty-third year of Xuanwu and the emperor was Shangguan Haoyu who inherited the throne when he was twenty-one. At the time of her death, Shangguan Haoyu was forty-four.

Yi Ping didn’t know what was wrong with Zi You. “Zi You, are you alright? It is currently the eleventh year of Xuanwu. Dont scare me…I’m calling your father over now.”

In a panic,Yi Ping left the room. Since she left in a hurry, she missed out on Zi You’s watery eyes and excited expression.

Zi You thought ‘So it seems i’ve been transported back in time by five years?’ That was correct. When she was twelve, she remembered that she had a high fever which persisted for three days and all the physicians said that it was incurable. It was due to the holy water that her stepmother had gotten from Mingyuan Temple that she was able to recover.

It was after that incident that she got close to her stepmother, to the extent that she did whatever her stepmother said.

Just because Yi Ping said “Girls should not engage in violent activities such as playing with swords, people would gossip about you being unrefined”

She gave up learning martial arts from her grandfather and second uncle, without a care of how disappointed they felt.

Just because Yi Ping said “Studying medicine is not suited for nobles and only peasants would learn it. Even respectable males do not dabble in medicine much less females.”

She gave up on reading all her medicinal manuals and research on medicinal plants. Otherwise it was impossible for grandfather and second uncle to succumb to a disease while fighting the rebellion in Nanjiang.