After Dying for the 17Th Time, I Came Back to Collect My Debt

She is Shen Jin, courtesy name Yuwen. The night the Shen family was wiped out, she was turned into a “human medicine”: unable to feel pain, quick to heal, and possessed of blood that could beguile others. Over fifteen years, she has died in someone else's place seventeen times. After climbing out of the river for the seventeenth time, she found a blind Vice Minister of Justice waiting on the bank. “You smell like a corpse,” he said, “but your heartbeat is steady. You're not dead.” She couldn't smile or feel pain. All she knew was revenge. He taught her that candied hawthorn could make the corners of her mouth lift, and that “when it hurts, you should cry out.” Later, their blood mingled, and they shared their sight: He let her see the flash of blades, while she let him feel pain. From “Shadow Guard No. 17” to “Master of the Protectorate Pavilion,” from “the seventeenth death” to “the 170,000th heartbeat,” this time, she would live long enough to collect her debt.