The wind was warm.
There was no cold sea breeze carrying the stench of dead fish and rotten shrimp like he'd expected, nor the dockworkers' rough shouts as they hauled cargo.
Su Li felt something poking into his backside, as if he were sleeping in the old wicker chair he'd spent decades in—or perhaps somewhere even earlier.
He opened his eyes.
Instead of Grey Gull Port's coast, he saw a huge tree canopy that blotted out the sky.
Sparse moonlight slipped through the leaves, casting mottled shadows across his face.
The surroundings were quiet, broken only by a few unknown insects rasping loudly in the grass.
Su Li froze.
He knew this place too well. So well he could find the ant nests beneath this tree with his eyes closed.
Wading Village. The Old Locust Tree at the village entrance.
"System?" Su Li called out in his mind. "Did you glitch or something? Wasn't the rebirth anchor supposed to be the earliest state at a major point in my life? Shouldn't I have returned to the newbie village at Grey Gull Port?"
According to the rules, the rebirth anchor should have been where he'd first arrived in this world.
In other words, the place where he'd been shivering on the dock from the cold.
He'd already braced himself, ready to use his newly acquired [Sword Spirit Root] cheat to dominate Grey Gull Port. Thirty years east of the river, thirty years west—never look down on a poor young man.
And this was it?
It had sent him straight back to the beginning of his second life?
Before the system could respond, a hurried series of footsteps interrupted his thoughts.
Here she came.
According to the script, the next person to appear should be Saina, the silly girl with a face full of freckles, a kind heart, and a bit of a crush on him.
She'd hide behind a haystack and sneak a look at him, then get caught. In the end, she'd bring him two black bread rolls as hard as stones.
Su Li had even thought up his lines.
The footsteps stopped.
By the moonlight, Su Li saw a petite figure standing not far away.
It was a familiar face.
She had freckles, her skin wasn't fair, and her hair was a tangled mess like a bird's nest.
But those eyes—those eyes that always shone with light and fire whenever she looked at him—were ones Su Li would never mistake.
Saina in her youth.
Sixteen-year-old Saina.
"Hey, miss." Su Li cleared his throat, ready to begin his performance. "Could you—"
He didn't get to finish. Su Li choked on his words.
Because the girl across from him wasn't reacting the way she should.
In his previous life, Saina should have been mooning over him by now, then blushing and fumbling as she stammered out a question about who he was.
But there was no shyness or bewilderment in her eyes now. Instead, they brimmed with overwhelming joy—and the shock of finding something she'd thought lost.
"Su Li!"
A scream ripped through the quiet night in Wading Village.
Then the petite figure charged straight at Su Li like a cannonball.
"Holy shit!"
Su Li managed one curse before the sudden onslaught of affection bowled him into the hollow beneath the tree.
Soft.
The girl was so skinny she was practically a bundle of kindling, and she jabbed him painfully. But the heat washing over him and that familiar scent were real.
Saina clung tightly to his neck, hanging off him with both legs wrapped around his waist like an octopus.
She was so strong that she nearly choked the life out of him.
"Su Li! Su Li! Is it really you?"
Saina buried her face in the crook of his neck, wiping her tears and snot all over his ragged linen shirt as she bawled like a two-hundred-pound child.
"I knew it! I knew Heaven wouldn't separate us!"
"This is Heaven, right? We're both dead, aren't we?"
"Waaah... You scared me so much! I woke up and saw my hands had gotten smaller and my face was all freckled. I thought I'd gone to Hell and turned into an ugly monster!"
"Good thing you're here! If you're here, I'll take Hell!"
Su Li lay at the bottom of the hollow, letting the madwoman roll around on top of him.
He stared up at the excessively round moon, his head buzzing.
This wasn't how the script went!
Director! Someone changed the scene!
"System, explain yourself," Su Li ground out in his mind. "What's with this silly woman? Did they water down the Reincarnation Soup?"
A pale blue screen popped up before his eyes, lines of explanation appearing on it with an air of utter matter-of-factness.
[Special bond detected: Saina.] [Bond level: Unforgettable (You spent an entire lifetime together, sharing birth and death. Such affection leaves a mark upon the river of time.)] [Hidden mechanism triggered: rebirth anchor correction.] [Explanation: When the host forms an unbreakable bond with a native, the rebirth anchor will automatically shift toward the point at which that bond was formed. The river of time can wash away the years, but it cannot completely erase those deep-seated destinies.] [Which rules, destiny or time?] [Current status: Saina has retained all her memories from her previous life as the host's wife.]
Su Li read the lines, the corners of his mouth twitching twice.
This was actually a thing?
So reincarnation came with save-file carryover?
"If I find a wife in every life from now on, won't the whole world be full of my ex-wives who remember me?" A chill ran down Su Li's back. "A love-war wouldn't even begin to describe it. It'd be a world war!"
[Please rest assured, host. The system still has standards.] [Only the memories from the life in which the bond was formed will be retained. If the bond you form with her in this life cannot withstand the river of time, she will not retain her memories of this life.] [Reminder: Memories from a life that has already formed a profound destiny will not disappear.]
Su Li let out a breath of relief.
Thank goodness. Thank goodness.
If the memories from every life piled up, he wouldn't be able to live like that.
"Su Li? Why aren't you saying anything?"
When Saina heard no reply, she lifted her head.
Tears covered her freckled face, and her eyes were red. She looked both ridiculous and heartbreaking.
She reached out, her hand rough and thin, dirt still under her fingernails, and shakily touched Su Li's face.
"Your face..." Saina paused. "How come you're even better-looking than before?"
Su Li's skin now looked like the finest white jade, faintly luminous.
There was an indescribable, almost immortal air about his features, making anyone who looked at him want to kneel and bow.
This was the true effect of the [Sword Spirit Root] removing the concealment of [Introvert].
His charm was on full display.
Saina stared, dazed. She swallowed instinctively, and a "gulp" came from her throat.
"Is this a perk of Heaven too?" Saina asked foolishly. "Do they give you a handsome husband?"
Su Li sighed.
He reached out and pinched her freckled cheek.
It didn't feel great; it was even a little rough on his hand. But the touch was real, and warm.
"Silly woman." Su Li spoke, his voice a little hoarse. "If this is Heaven, the accommodations are terrible. Look at my stomach. I'm practically starving."
"Grrr—"
Right on cue, his stomach let out a loud growl.
Saina froze.
She blinked twice, pinched her own arm, then reached beneath her clothes and gave her not-so-fleshy chest a hard pinch.
"Ow!"
Before you continue