Lin Qianxue sat in the imperial carriage, hands folded in her lap to hide their trembling.
Her blood felt like ice water in her veins. Every word Shen Jingye had spoken echoed in her mind, impossible and terrifying.
I've lived through this timeline forty-six times before.
That technique won't be invented for four hundred years.
You keep killing everyone you love.
How? How could he possibly know?
Across from her in the carriage, the Prince sat perfectly still, watching her with those ancient, calculating eyes. The early morning light filtering through the silk curtains cast shadows across his face, making him look even less human. Less like a twenty-four-year-old military commander and more like something that had been wearing a human face for far too long.
Xiao Lan huddled in the corner, terrified into silence. The servants had packed Lin Qianxue's belongings in a frantic rush, and now they rode through the still-sleeping city toward the imperial palace.
Lin Qianxue needed information. Needed to understand what she was dealing with.
"Your Highness," she said carefully, keeping her voice steady. "You must be mistaken about what you saw. I used only basic defensive techniques any noblewoman might learn from—"
"Don't." His voice was soft but carried an edge sharp enough to cut. "We both know what I saw. The question is whether you'll continue pretending, or whether we can have an honest conversation."
"I don't know what you mean."
Shen Jingye leaned forward slightly. "Then let me be more direct. When did you arrive?"
"Arrive?"
"In this body. In this timeline. When did Lin Yue's consciousness overwrite Lin Qianxue's?" He said it casually, as if discussing the weather. "Three days ago? When the original tried to kill herself? That's usually when it happens—the moment between death and not-quite-death. That's when souls can slip into empty vessels."
Lin Qianxue's breath stopped. He knew. He actually knew everything.
"I don't—"
"You died on your twenty-eighth birthday," he continued, still in that conversational tone. "Poisoned by your fiancé and best friend on a rooftop in Shanghai. Zhang Wei and Xu Mei. They'd been embezzling from your company—sixty-three million yuan, to be precise. You died swearing revenge, and something answered that prayer." His eyes never left hers. "Am I close?"
She couldn't speak. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't do anything but stare at him in absolute horror.
"How..." The word came out as barely a whisper.
"Because I've watched it happen forty-six times." He leaned back, expression neutral. "Different variations, different details, but always the same pattern. You arrive. You recognize your enemies. You try to fight back. And every single time, you lose yourself in the process. The revenge consumes you. You become worse than they ever were."
"That's not—" Lin Qianxue found her voice. "That's impossible. How could you remember multiple timelines? That's not how reincarnation works!"
"Who said anything about reincarnation?" A slight, cold smile. "Tell me, Miss Lin, do you believe in second chances?"
The question hung in the air between them.
Lin Qianxue studied his face, searching for any sign of deception. But all she saw was weariness. The kind of exhaustion that came from living too long, seeing too much, failing too many times.
"Second chances," she repeated slowly. "You mean... you're not reincarnated. You're still the same person. You've just lived this same time period over and over."
"Now you're beginning to understand." He gestured vaguely at the world outside the carriage. "This isn't my first time being Prince Shen Jingye in 1625. This is my forty-seventh. Same life, same events, same players. With small variations depending on what I change."
"But why? Why are you trapped in a time loop?"
"Because of you." His voice held no accusation, just statement of fact. "Or rather, because of what you and Lin Huiyin become. Every timeline ends in catastrophe. War, plague, supernatural disaster—the specifics vary, but the result is always the same. The world burns. So the universe—or heaven, or whatever you want to call it—resets. Gives me another chance to stop it."
Lin Qianxue felt dizzy. "And you think I'm the cause?"
"I know you are. You and your cousin. Two souls from the future, carrying knowledge that shouldn't exist, making choices that ripple forward in devastating ways." He tilted his head slightly. "The question is whether you're willing to help me break the cycle. Or whether you'll repeat the same mistakes you've made forty-six times before."
"I don't remember making any mistakes."
"Not yet. You won't remember until it's too late. That's how the loop works—you arrive fresh each time, while I remember everything." Something dark flickered in his eyes. "I've tried everything. Killing you immediately—that makes it worse. Protecting you—you still fall. Keeping you and Huiyin apart—you both spiral separately. Nothing works."
"Then why bring me to the palace?" Lin Qianxue demanded. "If I'm destined to destroy everything, why not just kill me now?"
"Because this time, I'm trying something different." He met her eyes directly. "This time, I'm telling you the truth from the beginning. Giving you a chance to choose differently while you still have a choice. Before the revenge, the power, and the knowledge corrupt you into something I'll have to put down like a rabid dog."
The carriage slowed. Through the curtains, Lin Qianxue could see the massive gates of the imperial palace looming ahead.
"We're here," Shen Jingye said, straightening his robes. "The banquet is tonight. You'll have chambers in the western wing. Xiao Lan will attend you." He paused, hand on the carriage door. "One more thing."
"What?"
His eyes were cold, ancient, and utterly serious. "Tonight, at the banquet, seven people will try to kill you. Some will be obvious—poison in your drink, blades in the dark. Others will be more subtle. Political maneuvers. Social destruction. All orchestrated by those who know you're a threat."
"How do you know—"
"Because it happens every time. The same seven. Same methods. Same outcome." He opened the door, and palace servants rushed forward to assist. "Stay close to me, and I can save you. Strike out on your own, and you'll be dead by midnight."
He stepped out of the carriage, then turned back, his voice dropping to barely a whisper.
"Or don't stay close to me. Make different choices than you have before. I'm curious which path you'll choose—survival at the cost of your pride, or death with your independence intact."
Then he walked away, leaving Lin Qianxue sitting in the carriage with her mind reeling.
Seven assassination attempts.
Tonight.
And the Prince had just given her a choice: accept his protection and prove she was the same as every other version of herself he'd seen...
Or risk death trying to be different.
Xiao Lan touched her arm nervously. "Miss? Should we follow him?"
Lin Qianxue looked at the Prince's retreating back, then at the massive palace stretching before her. Somewhere in there, seven people were preparing to kill her. And somehow, she had to survive long enough to figure out how to break a cycle that had repeated forty-six times.
"Yes," she said quietly. "But on our own terms."
She stepped out of the carriage and into the most dangerous game she'd ever played.
And this time, the stakes weren't just her life.
They were every life in every timeline to come.