Reborn (1)

The trees in the forest looked dense and towering as its crowns shielded the forest from the moonlight, covering everything in a thick veil of darkness.

The sound of flustered footsteps and heavy breathing resounded throughout the eerie quiet of the late hours of the night.

A haggard looking girl was dragging her exhausted starving body in an attempt to find a way out of the forest.

Shuliyan's leg suddenly fell on empty ground and the next thing she knew was her whole body rolling down the steep cliff.

As she reached the end of the cliff, she lay there motionlessly unable to even lift a finger. A fishy liquid was spilling out of her head which stained the pendant she wore around her neck. She gradually felt her body growing colder by the minute. She couldn't help wondering how things came to be this way.

Shulian grew up in what can be considered to be an upstart Nouveau Riche family in N city. The Feng family have all experienced a giant leap in status and wealth due to her grandfather Feng Luosheng's success in starting up a chain food products company.

Her father was the eldest among his siblings and was supposed to be the one inheriting the family head position. Unfortunetaly he had died on his way back from a business trip in a plane crash when she was barely five years old.

Ever since then, she moved with her mother and big sister to the main residence where her grandpa and third uncle's family lived. Her mother was severely depressed and she rarely interacted with her, so she was mainly raised by her grandpa. In fact, she was too young back then and only felt that no one mistrated her there at all, she was spoiled and doted on a lot by her grandfather. Although her older sister Qingqing was indifferent and cold towards her, she never harmed her either.

Due to this she had a somewhat carefree and naive temperament compared to her older sister who had to shoulder much more responsabilties.

So everytime there was conflict in her family, she would be confused and attempt to mediate thinking that nothing can't be solved with good communication and that they simply misunderstood each other.

She had never once considered them to be fighting over inheritance like the rest of wealthy families do, she felt that her family was special.. Shuliyan laughed self-deprecatingly at this thought. She was simply in denial. And her tendency towards peace making as well as avoiding all conflict like the plague is clearly an attempt at maintaining this illusion. It's not like she never doubted her seemingly perfect family image deep down but she refused to believe that she won't be able to live "carefreely" as long as she stepped down, she didn't fight for anything, and no one deemed her a threat.

Unfortunately she was being too naive. They will never let her go. She finally realized that now as she's breathing her last. Two lines of tears silently streamed down Shuliyan's pale face and wet her chapless lips.. As she tasted the salty tears, she felt a heavy grief and sorrow gripping at her heart as realization dawned upon her.

No matter how "easygoing" she made herself to be, no matter how accomodating she has been, no matter how many concessions she made or dreams she gave up, even giving up her own shares and moving to live abroad, they have not let her go. They would have never just overlooked her existence and let her live as she wishfully thought.

Now at merely 21 years old of age, she was kidnapped here to an abandonned woodshed deep in the forest by her own uncle, ruthlessly using her to threaten her sister to give up her shares..

As she mulled over her life events like this, Shuliyan gradually felt a sense of calm and enlightment dawn upon her. If she ever has a next life, she will not live her life in this way. She will not compromise. She will not back down in face of challenges. She will own up her life and firmly grasp it into her own two hands !