1 I'm back
Thunderclaps resounded through the sky as the rain poured down heavily.
In a shabby looking apartment, a teenage girl lay sleeping on her coarse sheeted bed.
Her face appeared a bit rough while her long silk black hair was in a tattered braid reaching above her naval. One could see that her hands had calluses formed due to the constant heavy work she does everyday. The eyelashes of the girl was long and caused a light shadow to appear on the lining of her eyes.
Her delicate beauty was rugged under her coarse conditions and her malnourished body lessened her appeal.
As the rain started growing heavier, the girl finally opened her eyes with much difficulty. She looked at the ceiling above in a daze and finally asked in a light tone, "Am I back?"
Under normal circumstances, no one would reply to her however, this wasn't a normal circumstance to begin with.
[Yes, you're back.]
A robotic tone replied to the girl as she slowly sat up and leaned on the wall while sitting upright on the bed.
"Finally, it feels good to be back..."
A small smile adorned her chapped red lips. The tug of her lips appearing to form a demonic feel to it as the girl's beautiful dark grey eyes flashed with joy and deviousness.
[Congratulations Ru Shi. You have passed the system trail and obtained a chance to be reborn. Currently, the system level is at 1. Please work hard to upgrade the system so as it has more functions so as to help you in your new journey.]
Ru Shi nodded. She had been killed in her last life and fortunately obtained a chance to become the "Rebirth System's" host. However, she needed to pass a trail to obtain that chance.
She had to live in the void, a space with only blankness and white surroundings with no communication what so ever for thousands of years. She could create any non-living object in the void like books, utensils and sort but even with these, normal humans would have gone bonkers with just white and white and white and white... And books.
Yet, Ru Shi was not perturbed.
She stayed in that void for innumerable years and without wasting any time, she studied hard like her entire life depended on it... And it did actually depend on it.
Finally, she passed and now, she was reborn.
The girl closed her eyes as the memories of the betrayal rushed through her mind along with the lonely image of a man in a wheel chair. He sat atop a cliff with rushing waves beneath. He looked at the setting sun with a desolate expression on his face and finally, he wheeled the chair down the cliff while holding onto a book: The Shady Tree.
Ru Shi abruptly opened her eyes as tears trickled down her cheeks.
After dying under her best friend's hands who was actually also her step sister, Ru Shi turned into a lingering ghost out of resentment hoping for the heavens to bestow justice for her sake yet, they did not do so.
Until a full month later, the best friend/step sister became crippled, her face disfigured and she died out of madness. Her so-called family that she did not even know lost their business, were robbed by gangsters and later sold to a crazy scientist for research on human bodies and died brutally under his torture after three months.
She had felt such peace yet, she could not leave the world. At first, Ru Shi was unsure why she couldn't ascend to heaven until that autumn day....
She was sitting on her gravestone which had been lazily erected by her fake family while looking at the beautiful yellow butterfly which was flying around.
She heard the screeching of a car and turned back to see a sleek black car parked in front of the cemetery gate. The front seat opened to reveal a man wearing a dark brown suit. He hurriedly opened the back seat and that's when she saw him...
An ethereal being possibly not real. He slowly alighted the car and sat on the wheel chair that the man, probably his assistant had brought out.
'He's crippled...'
Ru Shi thought as she waited curiously to see the man's further actions.
The white full sleeve loose shirt he wore fluttered slightly as he was slowly pushed by the assistant near Ru Shi's grave. His hands had a book in hand along with a single white peony.
She did not expect this man to be here for her...
"Leave."
The assistant hesitantly left and stood near the car worriedly.
The man on the wheel chair placed the peony on the grave and his bony fingers traced the book's tattered covering.
"I had finally found you. Why.... Why was I so late?"
Ru Shi never expected the man's eyes to water as he looked at the book. Pure sadness and despair on his face. "You told me you'd wait for me to return the book to you... How could you not wait?"
Slowly, memories pieced back together as Ru Shi finally understood who the man was.
Her ghost self couldn't cry yet her non existent heart shuddered with gratitude and ecstatic emotions as she smiled while looking at the man.
With the most sincere and softest voice, Ru Shi said to him:
"Thank you, Qing."
The man abruptly looked at her as if he heard her and maybe he probably did. Ru Shi followed the man around until the day he stopped by the cliff and committed suicide because he no longer had a reason to live nor the will to persevere.
And that's when she was freed and contracted with the system who chose her due to her abnormally high mental prowess.
"System, thanks for giving me this life."
[....]
The system remained quite as it let the girl collect herself and then finally spoke:
[You earned the chance yourself so no need to thank me. For now, I'll narrate the information or your current situation.
You're back to your seventeen year old self. There are two months left before you college examinations. In your previous life, you died at the age of 21. ]
Her system helped refresh the memory in case she had forgotten but it didn't have to worry about that.
How could she forget the most painful say of her life? Adding to the fact that she could nurture spirit power now, she could easily memorize anything she skims through once.
"Let's have a lot of fun, system..."
The beautiful smile on her face caused the system to shiver. At first he hadn't expected much from the girl other than to pass with difficulty yet she actually had such talent.
Just remembering the inhumane things she did in the void made the system light an incense for her enemies.
[May you all die soaked in blood and writhing in pain.]
