Li Xiuying's scream died in a throat that wasn't her own.
The waterfall, the moonlight, the familiar comfort of failure—all of it vanished like morning mist. Instead, she stood on a battlefield that reeked of blood and smoke, wearing armor that felt both foreign and perfectly fitted. The weight of a bloodied sword in her hand sent shockwaves of confusion through her consciousness.
This isn't real. This can't be real.
But the stench of death filled her nostrils with nauseating clarity. The ache in muscles she didn't recognise felt absolutely genuine. And the memories—gods, the memories—crashed over her in waves that threatened to drown her completely.
Mei Lin. Her name is Mei Lin. Was Mei Lin.
The knowledge slammed into Li Xiuying's consciousness like a physical blow. This body belonged to a woman who had lived eight hundred years ago, a general who had fought in the Crimson Dynasty's final war. She could feel Mei Lin's experiences layering over her own thoughts: the weight of command, the bitter taste of battlefield politics, the desperate love for a homeland that was already ash.
Around her, the battle raged with inhuman fury. Armored soldiers clashed with desperate roars, their weapons singing deadly songs through smoke-choked air. In the distance, enemy cultivators floated like vengeful spirits, raining destruction down upon mortal troops who could only die screaming.
"General! The eastern flank is breaking!"
Li Xiuying spun toward the voice, her body moving with deadly grace she'd never possessed. A lieutenant stumbled toward her, his left arm hanging useless, blood streaming down his face. In her original body, Li Xiuying would have frozen in terror. But Mei Lin's instincts kept her focused, kept her functional.
How is this possible? Li Xiuying's thoughts raced even as her borrowed body assessed the tactical situation with professional efficiency. Am I really experiencing someone else's life?
"Pull back to the secondary line," she heard herself say with Mei Lin's voice, the words emerging from knowledge she'd never acquired. "Have Captain Zhou take the cavalry around their left flank. We'll make them pay for every step."
The lieutenant saluted and raced away. Li Xiuying stared after him, stunned. Those weren't her words, her strategies yet she understood them completely, felt their grim logic resonate in bones that weren't hers.
This is what the system meant, she realised with dawning horror and fascination. I'm not just remembering someone else's life. I'm living it.
A whistling sound made her duck. A massive fireball crashed into the ground where she'd been standing, leaving a crater of melted earth and charred bones. Above the battlefield, enemy cultivators prepared another volley of spiritual techniques that would tear through her troops like paper.
Mei Lin's memories whispered the brutal truth: We can't win. We never could. But we have to try. Honor demands it.
Li Xiuying felt tears on her cheeks whether hers or Mei Lin's, she couldn't tell. The futility of this battle was overwhelming, the weight of every soldier's death crushing down on shoulders that bore the responsibility of command. Yet beneath the despair, she sensed something magnificent: Mei Lin's unwavering determination, her refusal to surrender even when defeat was certain.
This is courage, Li Xiuying thought as enemy forces pressed closer. Real courage. Not the absence of fear, but acting despite it.
As if summoned by her thoughts, a figure descended from the sky—an enemy cultivator whose spiritual pressure made the air itself tremble. His robes marked him as Foundation Establishment realm at minimum, possibly Core Formation. Against him, Mei Lin's mortal sword skills meant nothing.
"General Mei Lin," the cultivator said, his voice carrying clearly across the chaos. "Your resistance ends here. Surrender, and your soldiers may yet live."
Every rational part of Li Xiuying wanted to run, to scream, to wake up from this nightmare. But Mei Lin's courage flowed through her like molten steel, burning away fear and replacing it with something far more dangerous—purpose.
The general raised her bloodied sword and took a fighting stance that Li Xiuying's muscles somehow remembered.
"A general does not abandon her troops," she said simply.
The cultivator's expression didn't change. "Then you choose death."
He raised his hand, spiritual energy gathering around his fingers like liquid lightning. Li Xiuying felt Mei Lin's acceptance wash over her not resignation, but a fierce peace. The general had always known this moment would come. All that mattered was facing it with honor.
I understand now, Li Xiuying thought as the cultivator's attack began to form. This isn't just memory. This is a test. I have to live her final moments completely, accept her choices, inherit her strength.
The lightning descended like the wrath of heaven itself, beautiful and terrible in its absolute finality.
Li Xiuying didn't flinch. Even as the killing light approached, she felt something fundamental shift inside her consciousness. Mei Lin's memories, her sword techniques, her unbreakable will—all of it flowed into Li Xiuying's core like water filling an empty vessel.
The trial is complete.
The lightning struck.
Pain beyond description tore through every nerve. Li Xiuying felt her borrowed body begin to dissolve, felt Mei Lin's final breath leave lungs that were already turning to ash. But in that moment of ultimate agony, she also felt something magnificent: the crystallisation of a lifetime's worth of skill and determination into something she could carry back.
The battlefield faded. Mei Lin's dying scream echoed into silence.
Li Xiuying gasped and found herself back beside the waterfall, her own seventeen-year-old body trembling uncontrollably on the grass. Moonlight still painted the water silver, but everything else had changed. She could feel it immediately, spiritual energy flowing through meridians that had been blocked for three years.
[CYCLE OF SAMSARA SYSTEM - FIRST TRIAL COMPLETE]
[SOUL INTEGRATION SUCCESSFUL]
Golden characters blazed across her vision, displaying information that made her heart race:
[━━━ HOST STATUS ━━━]
[Name: Li Xiuying]
[Age: 17]
[Realm: Qi Refinement 2nd Stage]
[Dao Affinity: Reincarnation (FORBIDDEN)]
[Cycle Count: 1/∞]
[Soul Integrity: 94%]
[━━━ INHERITED FRAGMENTS ━━━]
[Fragment 1: General Mei Lin (Crimson Dynasty)]
• Sword Mastery I
• Commanding Presence I
• Battle Tactics I
• Memory Resonance: 23%
[━━━ SYSTEM FUNCTIONS ━━━]
[Unlocked: Life-Death Trial Interface]
[Locked: Fragment Synthesis (Req: Foundation Establishment)]
[Locked: Soul Archive (Req: Core Formation)]
[Locked: ??? (Req: ???)]
Li Xiuying stared at the display in awe and growing unease. She had broken through. After three years of failure, she had finally advanced to Qi Refinement 2nd Stage. But the cost...
Soul Integrity: 94%. Memory Resonance: 23%.
Nearly a quarter of her consciousness now belonged to a dead woman. And according to the system, this was only the beginning.
She stood slowly, marvelling at how her body moved with newfound grace. Mei Lin's sword techniques were buried in her muscle memory, waiting to be unlocked. The general's iron will had become part of her own consciousness. For the first time in her life, Li Xiuying felt genuinely powerful.
But as she replayed Mei Lin's final moments, a cold realization settled in her stomach. The system had warned her that twelve thousand candidates had tried this path before her. All had failed. And now she understood why—how many deaths could a person experience before they forgot who they had originally been?
What happens when Memory Resonance reaches 100%? she wondered with growing dread. What happens when Soul Integrity hits zero?
The system provided no answers, only a new notification that made her blood freeze:
[ADVANCEMENT DETECTED]
[NEXT TRIAL ELIGIBILITY: ACHIEVED]
[AUTOMATIC INITIATION IN: 23 HOURS, 47 MINUTES]
[FRAGMENT PREVIEW: MASTER CHEN WULONG - POISON ALCHEMIST]
[DEATH TYPE: ASSASSINATION BY TRUSTED DISCIPLE]
Li Xiuying's hands began to shake as the implications hit her. The system wasn't going to give her time to process what had happened, to come to terms with Mei Lin's memories. In less than twenty-four hours, she would be dragged into another life, another death, another fragment of foreign consciousness that would further erode her sense of self.
But first, she had to survive her meeting with Elder Wu. She had to convince him that her sudden advancement was natural, not the result of practicing forbidden cultivation techniques. If the sect discovered what she'd become...
Li Xiuying looked up at the stars, no longer the same girl who had knelt by this waterfall an hour ago. She was stronger now, but she was also carrying the weight of another person's entire existence in her mind. Mei Lin's voice whispered in her thoughts, offering tactical advice and warrior's wisdom.
I wanted power, she thought as she began the walk back to the sect. I just didn't realize it would come with so many ghosts.
The Azure Phoenix Sect slept peacefully below, unaware that their weakest disciple had just taken her first step down a path that would either elevate her to unimaginable heights or destroy her completely.
In twenty-three hours and forty-six minutes, she would discover which fate awaited her.