Reborn: My Former Husband Seized Me by Force

My head is splitting with pain, as if someone were striking my skull over and over with a blunt chisel.

I struggle to open my eyes. Above me is a vermilion gauze canopy embroidered with gold, its familiar lotus pattern glaring in the bleak daylight filtering through the window.

The incense burner hanging from each corner of the canopy has long since gone out, but the air still holds the cloying, nauseating scent of last night, mixed with a faint trace of blood.

I move my fingers. The bedding feels cool and slick, made of fine Hangzhou silk, but it cannot warm the chill seeping from my limbs.

This is not the damp, freezing side courtyard in the Pei residence, where sunlight never reaches.

This is my maiden bedroom, Shenyu Studio, in the Duke of Zhenguo's residence, where I, Shen Ning, the eldest legitimate daughter, once lived.

My memories break through like an icy river bursting its banks, sharp shards of ice crashing into my mind.

Pei Yan, the husband I had used every trick in the book to steal from my half-sister Shen Yue, would one day become the powerful Commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, a man whose name could make children stop crying.

On our wedding night, he lifted my veil and looked at me without the slightest warmth, as if inspecting a piece of merchandise. For the years that followed, we treated each other with icy courtesy.

I managed his household, cultivated relationships with the wives of influential men, and used every resource and connection of the Shen family to help him rise through the ranks at court.

But how did he repay me?

When word came that my father had been framed for colluding with the enemy, that the century-old house of the Duke of Zhenguo had fallen in a single night, and that its men were to be exiled while its women were sent to the government singing house, he stood beneath the withered crabapple tree in my courtyard and said calmly, "Madam, stay put and don't worry."

For countless days and nights under house arrest, I listened as his wolfish subordinates slowly emptied and sealed the once-glorious residence. Even a sob from my personal maid brought a beating.

In the end, even this side courtyard was no longer safe. I was moved to an even more remote, colder corner. The windows were nailed shut, and guards stood at the door day and night.

On a snowy winter night, with the brazier long cold, I curled up under a thin quilt and listened to the distant sounds of music celebrating his promotion to Grand Secretary. The pain in my chest grew more and more intense, and the blood I coughed up stained the last of my underclothes.

Before I lost consciousness, I had only one thought: If there is a next life...

Theme: The one I love lies beyond mountains and seas, and those mountains and seas cannot be crossed.