The World Fell Apart from the Start, So I Gave Up

[Single female lead, no official couple, reborn] Some angst, with a male-male pairing

After my mother died, I wanted to kill myself, but somehow gained the ability to be reborn. My brother, whom I had barely ever met, suddenly returned from abroad. I helped him reclaim the inheritance that belonged to our mother and investigate the secrets behind rebirth.

“When I was little, I used to compare my heart to a tall building. Back then, it was full of people: Mom, Chen Yi, my uncle, my classmates, the butler, the nanny, and many others. They all lived in that building. Whenever someone moved in, we added another floor. The more people I met, the more moved in, and the taller the building grew. Every day, I would walk from the first floor to the top, then come back down from the top the next day. I ate with the people in the building every day, and in my haughty voice, I would use my affection for them to make them tell me stories.

“Gradually, people started leaving. They moved out of the building, but they didn’t want it torn down. Someone told me they had only gone away for a while, and I thought that when they came back, they could live here again. But the ones who left never returned, while others kept leaving. In the end, Mom left too. She was the building’s very first resident. I couldn’t bear to tear down the places where they had once lived. With everyone gone, the empty building set off a chain reaction. Cracks appeared in the old, neglected structure, or perhaps it had been shoddily built from the start.

“It was already hard enough to build a new home on top of that crumbling old building. Chen Yi was the first resident to return. I’m so glad you came back, I whispered.”

[The specific plot doesn’t have much to do with the work’s tags. The protagonist has no official couple, so ship whoever you like. It’s fairly angsty, and please forgive the writing.]