A Second Life

Moonlight streamed into the room through the window lattice.

Ju Zi leaned against the window, her slender hands folded atop the sill.

Her gaze was far too profound for a ten-year-old girl.

For some reason, she felt that tonight's moonlight resembled the night before her death in her previous life.

Her previous life.

A hundred years after Huo Yuhao became a god.

It was some unknown year in the Douluo calendar.

The Tang Sect had long since risen completely across the Douluo Continent, becoming an unshakable behemoth.

The three great empires were like indestructible cockroaches. Though barely clinging to life, they remained locked in a bitter standoff with the Sun Moon Empire.

At the time, Ju Zi lived alone in the cold, gloomy depths of the imperial palace.

She had long ago handed power over to her son, Xu Yunhan.

Whenever she thought of that son, the sharpness and weariness in Ju Zi's eyes softened unconsciously.

Xu Yunhan was a great ruler of his generation.

Under his leadership, the Sun Moon Empire had swept forward with unstoppable force, eliminating every reactionary and evil force within its borders.

Every usable resource of the nation had been highly consolidated.

The empire's strength flourished day by day.

Commoners lived and worked in peace, and the entire nation brimmed with vigorous vitality.

Xu Yunhan was a good emperor. He had achieved everything she had once wanted to accomplish.

But.

The three great empires were that stubborn bone that remained lodged in the Sun Moon Empire's throat.

It could neither spit them out nor swallow them down.

With Shrek Academy and the Tang Sect leading the charge, those people were like sticky plasters. No matter how hard they were beaten, they always managed to catch their breath again.

In truth, in terms of raw strength, the Sun Moon Empire could have crushed them head-on.

Yet whenever matters reached a critical point, those so-called gods of the upper realm would secretly interfere.

That invisible pressure was enough to drive one into despair.

It forced the Sun Moon Empire to hold back at every turn. They did not even dare to directly activate the Tier 9 Fixed Soul Guidance Cannon to level the battlefield.

It was a blade hanging over everyone's heads.

Just when Ju Zi believed that she would never see the Sun Moon Empire unify the Douluo Continent in her lifetime, and could only close her eyes alone in the depths of this palace—

She died.

Then.

When she opened her eyes.

She had somehow returned to the eve of her Martial Soul awakening at the age of six.

The room was quiet.

Ju Zi extended a fair, delicate finger and lightly tapped the wooden windowsill, producing a rhythmic sound.

She had been reborn.

During the first few days, she had been utterly dazed.

Every day, she watched her mother, Gan Tian, use her Apple Martial Soul to peel fruit in the courtyard, while her father, Gan Ju, grinned foolishly beside her.

The joy of regaining what she had lost had nearly made her cry herself blind.

In her previous life.

Her father had died during those years, in that absurd war along the border.

From then on, her world had contained nothing but bone-deep hatred, pushing her step by step toward the abyss.

In this life, no matter what, she would not allow that to happen again.

Relying on the advantage of foresight.

On the eve of the battle that would have certainly claimed her father's life.

Ju Zi directly produced a regional core blueprint for an improved Fixed Soul Guidance Cannon.

Using that blueprint, she obtained a special approval from the upper ranks of the military and forcibly transferred her father to the safest rear-echelon logistics department.

The gears of fate had been bent by her own hands.

And that was not all.

Having lived for so long in her past life, even if her Soul Power was insufficient, her mind was filled with the core theories behind Tier 9 Soul Tools.

Restricted by her current Soul Power level of barely over ten, she could not create any heaven-defying equipment.

But that did not prevent her from overwhelming everyone with knowledge from a higher level.

From the moment her Martial Soul awakened at six years old, she had revealed just a little of the theories and blueprints that were centuries ahead of the era.

Naturally.

She became the Sun Moon Empire's renowned Soul Tool prodigy.

In an empire where everything revolved around Soul Tools, that talent was the greatest protection against death.

It was not merely status.

The precociousness and composure she deliberately displayed, coupled with the secret intelligence and hidden truths from her past-life memories.

In only a few short years.

She had secretly gathered a large group of utterly loyal followers.

Like Shao Xing, who stood guard outside.

A six-ring Soul Emperor was an absolute weapon of war in a place like the borderlands.

Yet now, he willingly lowered his head before a ten-year-old girl and called her Miss.

Because Ju Zi had not merely saved his life.

She had also completely won him over with those higher-dimensional theoretical insights.

Ju Zi withdrew her gaze from the window.

She turned her head and glanced toward the neighboring room.

Huo Yuhao was there.

At the thought of that name, the smile at Ju Zi's lips widened uncontrollably, and her tightly wound nerves finally relaxed.

In her previous life, that man had burst into her battered world like a ray of light.

Unfortunately, they had missed too much between them.

She could only watch as he walked step by step toward someone else, eventually ascending to godhood.

But.

In this life.

She had chosen to physically tear apart the plot.

The White Tiger Duke's Estate, that difficult monster-grinding-and-leveling path—screw all of it.

She had simply sent people to bag him up and carry him back to her side.

And.

She was not some foolish woman who only knew how to pursue romance.

Aside from Huo Yuhao.

Ye Guyi, whom she had brought back today, was also one of the most crucial parts of her plan.

A future level-ninety-seven Super Douluo of the Tang Sect.

A top-tier combatant possessing the Holy Angel Martial Soul.

At this point in time, Evil Soul Masters were still a malignant tumor lurking in the shadows, but Ju Zi had personally witnessed the destructive power of those lunatics from the Holy Spirit Cult.

And Ye Guyi was the sharpest blade in the world against them.

As long as she held that blade in her hand.

Those disobedient Evil Soul Masters within the empire could only stretch out their necks and await execution.

It was not only Ye Guyi.

A deep, unfathomable glint flashed through Ju Zi's eyes.

Hidden in her mind was a long list of names.

In her previous life, quite a few of the Tang Sect's astonishing top geniuses had originally been true-born citizens of the Sun Moon Empire.

Yet every one of them had been talked into working for the three great empires by that brat Huo Yuhao.

That was simply unforgivable aid to the enemy.

In this life.

Since Huo Yuhao, the source of it all, had already been firmly held in her arms.

Those geniuses would naturally all be intercepted and brought under her command, not a single one left behind.

Good water should not flow into other people's fields.

She would poach all the talent and seize all the cheats.

She wanted to see.

After this move of cutting the firewood from beneath the cauldron, what would Shrek and the Tang Sect use to fight her Sun Moon Empire in the future?

Fight with their heads?

Unifying the entire Douluo Continent and completely sweeping away those half-dead old powers.

That was her ultimate goal in this life.

At that thought, Ju Zi drew a soft breath, turned around, and looked at herself in the mirror.

She had only the youthful face of a ten-year-old.

But.

The curve of the lips on that reflected face gradually became extraordinarily gentle.

Her eyes even overflowed with boundless maternal affection.

She thought of her son, Xu Yunhan, again.

In her previous life, because he had been conceived through borrowed seed, it had become an unspoken scandal known to all.

Her son's throne had, in truth, been obtained by somewhat improper means.

It lacked legitimacy.

Although she later used her iron-fisted methods, along with Xu Yunhan's own exceptional ability, to forcibly stamp out every opposing voice.

The stain that remained was still difficult to erase completely.

Those self-righteous old nobles had no idea how much disgusting gossip they had spread behind his back.

"Yunhan..."

For some reason, Ju Zi silently recited that name in her heart.

A flicker of maternal warmth softened her entire being.

She looked forward to the days ahead more than anything.

Reborn into a new life.

Since she had already torn the script to pieces.

Then in this life, she would not only build a complete and unified empire.

She would also give her son a rightful, legitimate throne, one without the slightest blemish.

More importantly.

She would give him a... complete family.

His biological father and biological mother.

Both would remain safely by his side.

Unbidden, Ju Zi recalled Huo Yuhao's obedient appearance at dinner, acting all honest and earnest as he desperately tried to win over her parents by living off them.

Before that timid-looking face, her grand ambition to rule for a thousand autumns suddenly lost some of its grandeur.

Ju Zi laughed.

"You're not getting away."