I Woke Up as Zhao Ji, and the System Told Me to Run

The day Lin Xi became Zhao Ji, she had just given birth to Ying Zheng.

The System said, "Take him out of Zhao within three years, and I'll send you home."

She gathered the wrinkled newborn in her arms. Snow fell over Handan all night. She changed his swaddling clothes seven times and fed him five times. By dawn, the baby had fallen asleep clutching one of her fingers. She looked down at him for a long time. "Don't be afraid, Zheng'er. Mother is here."

Later, she taught him to read, shielded him from hidden arrows, and carried him as they fled through a war zone. The child leaned on her shoulder, clutching her clothes as he asked, "Mother, are we going to die?" She kept walking. "No. Mother is here."

On the night Ying Zheng ascended the throne at thirteen, the Xianyang Palace blazed with light. With the imperial crown on his head, he looked past the rows of court officials toward her behind the curtain and reached out his hand. "Mother, I did it."

Lin Xi smiled. She closed her eyes and said to the System, "Mission complete. Send me home."

Then she vanished before his eyes, like smoke, like snow, leaving nothing behind.

Ying Zheng knelt in the empty palace hall, his crown tilted, pearls and jade scattered across the floor. He stared at the place where she had disappeared, and the last light in his eyes shattered into madness.

The next day, the King of Qin issued an edict: Dowager Zhao Ji had died of illness and would be buried at Mount Li. The tomb was empty. Yet every year, he went there alone, with a jug of wine, for the entire night.

Two thousand years later, college student Lin Xi opened Records of the Grand Historian in a library. When she saw the words "Zhao Ji," her chest suddenly tightened until she could barely breathe.

She didn't know...

The young emperor she had raised had searched for her for two thousand years.

He called her Mother.