Reincarnator: Li Tui Wealth: Ding Mid (+) | Penniless Fortune: Bing Mid (+) | Occasional small strokes of luck Constitution: Ding Mid (+) | Defective spiritual roots Spirit: Bing Upper (+) | Mind still clear Wisdom: Yi Mid (+) | Excellent aptitude
Li Tui stared at the panel before him, finding it absurd. He was eighty, barely clinging to life, and this thing had only just appeared?
What kind of joke was this?
Just then, voices slipped in through the window:
"The key... it must be on him..."
"What's the hurry? We can go in once he's breathed his last."
Yes, what was the hurry? Li Tui thought. They were eager for him to die so they could divide up his "penniless" household.
Exhausted, Li Tui closed his eyes.
"Creak."
The door swung open.
The footsteps were light, deliberately hushed. Li Tui knew who it was without opening his eyes: his "filial" nephew and nephew's wife.
"Uncle? Are... are you still awake?"
His nephew's voice was thick with feigned grief, but Li Tui heard him clearly as he edged toward the wooden chest beside the bed.
It was the only thing in his life that could pass for an "inheritance." Inside were a few old clothes and nothing else.
But they didn't believe it.
"The key must be in the chest," his nephew's wife whispered. "That old bastard's been hiding it his whole life..."
The chest was pried open. They rummaged through it, then spat in disappointment.
"There's nothing!"
"How could that be..." His nephew's voice suddenly turned dark. "It has to be on him."
The footsteps drew closer.
Li Tui kept his eyes closed, his breath so faint it could barely be heard.
A rough hand groped inside his robes, moving roughly.
When it failed to find the key it expected, the hand paused, then abruptly clamped around his throat.
"You old bastard... where did you hide it?" His nephew's voice was right beside his ear, hot and foul-smelling. "Tell me, and I'll make it quick."
Li Tui slowly opened his eyes.
His nephew's greedy, twisted face was right in front of him.
"I'm going to die," Li Tui rasped. "You... won't be far behind."
His nephew froze, then sneered. "You're still talking tough with death at your door—"
Before he could finish, Li Tui's right hand shot up. He drove two fingers hard into the hollow of his nephew's wrist.
"Gah?!"
His nephew felt his whole arm go numb, its strength vanishing in an instant.
Seizing the chance, Li Tui pulled a bamboo sliver from inside his robes. He had secretly sharpened it three days earlier, after learning his time was almost up.
Summoning the last breath keeping him alive, he plunged the sliver beneath his nephew's ribs.
Straight into a vital spot.
His nephew's wife saw the bloody scene and shrieked. Then she turned and fled.
Silence settled over the room once more.
Li Tui collapsed back into his wicker chair, gasping for breath. His vision slowly began to blur.
Suddenly, he remembered an afternoon many years ago, when he had lain on a hillside after his first failed attempt to draw qi into his body, watching a lone wild goose cross the sky.
Back then, he had thought that one day, he would fly.
How foolish.
Li Tui tugged at the corner of his mouth, wanting to laugh, but all that came from his throat was a breathy sound.
Darkness began spreading from the edges of his vision, like ink dropped into clear water, slowly and inexorably bleeding outward.
The last speck of light shrank to a tiny point.
Then it went out.
Nothingness.
Absolute nothingness.
Li Tui's "consciousness" floated in a stretch of darkness. He had no body, no sensations, only pure "existence."
The next moment, several iron laws were carved directly into his soul:
"Reincarnate for a hundred lifetimes; memories shall never fade."
"At the end of each lifetime, fate shall be tallied."
"Fate can be spent to add points, change one's talents, and defy one's destiny."
A panel suddenly appeared before Li Tui.
[Samsara Mirror begins tallying] "First awakening of memories from a past life: Fate +1" "First natural death at the end of one's lifespan: Fate +1" "First time leaving behind descendants: Fate +1" [Fate tally complete] [Verdict for this lifetime: An ant in the immortal path, clinging to life] [Distributable Fate: 3] [Remaining reincarnations: 99]
Li Tui's consciousness swept over the information on the panel.
Clinging to life... That's not far off.
He had already decided how to distribute his Fate.
Why had he struggled for eighty years in this lifetime, only for his path to immortality to end in failure? Wasn't the root of it all those words: "defective spiritual roots"?
If he wanted to defy his fate, this was the first gate he had to break through.
Li Tui focused all his attention on the plus sign beside Constitution.
This one.
At a thought from Li Tui, the panel began to change.
[Spent 1 Fate, Constitution: Ding Mid → Ding Upper, remaining distributable Fate: 2] [Spent 2 Fate, Constitution: Ding Upper → Bing Lower, remaining distributable Fate: 0]
A warm yet irresistible force surged from the depths of nothingness, washing over his ethereal soul.
The sense of deficiency that had clung to him like a bone-deep parasite for all eighty years of his previous life was, at this moment, made whole.
It seemed to prove that fate could indeed be defied.
Ninety-nine lifetimes.
He still had ninety-nine lifetimes.
Not ninety-nine chances, but ninety-nine attempts. Each attempt might fail, end in an earlier death, or yield nothing at all.
But that was enough.
There was only one thing he needed to do next: survive, accumulate Fate, then spend it on upgrades.
Once, again, and again. Like pushing a boulder up a mountain. If it rolled back down, he would push it again. He would push it a ninety-ninth time, or until the boulder shattered, or until... he shoveled the mountain flat.
As the panel's glow faded, it transformed into an ancient bronze mirror and fell into his palm.
Immediately afterward, Li Tui's consciousness sank into chaos once more.
Before his consciousness was cast into the chaos of his next lifetime, the last thing Li Tui "thought" was a thought simple to the extreme:
"In this lifetime, I accept my fate."
"In the next, I'll change it."
"If I can't, I'll change it again in another lifetime."
"One lifetime will do it. I'll change it... until fate bows to me."
Darkness swallowed his consciousness completely.
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