The winter wind cut through the valley like a blade. Lin Qiuyang lay in the cradle of his reborn body, small hands clenched over the thin linen blanket. The rough ceiling above him, the smell of damp wood and smoke—everything was ordinary, fragile, human.
And yet, he remembered.
He remembered blood staining the battlefield, fire consuming cities, and the cold indifference of Heaven itself. He remembered the moment he had ascended as a Heaven General, commanding armies, bending mortals and immortals alike. And he remembered the quiet decay that followed all his victories, the inevitable betrayal of time, the slow rot of all things deemed sacred.
Now he was a child again. Born into obscurity. Born to a life that had nothing to offer.
A bitter, quiet laugh escaped him. *No one will write my fate this time. Not Heaven. Not men. Not even time itself.*
Lin Qiuyang rose slowly, feeling the unfamiliar weight of mortality pressing against him. His mind stretched across hundreds of years of memories: strategies, laws, battlefield tactics, bureaucratic hierarchies, celestial mechanisms. Knowledge no child should bear, yet he carried it all as naturally as breathing.
Outside, snow drifted past the window. The village slept, oblivious to the child who remembered more than anyone should.
He sat by the fire, hands pressed together, observing the world. Fragile. Flawed. Waiting to break.
> "Memory is a currency no man can spend twice.
> I keep mine,
> and let the world unravel quietly."
By midday, Lin Qiuyang had mapped the village in his mind: the granaries, hidden storehouses, trade routes, weak points in authority. Every detail. Every flaw.
Even as the snow fell harder, even as the wind howled, he smiled quietly. This life, unlike the last, would be written by no one but him.
And Heaven… if it noticed him, it would find him already unafraid.
The first fracture had begun, invisible to all. In silence, Lin Qiuyang would start bending the world to his will, and centuries later, Heaven itself would tremble.