Rebirth: After Becoming the Villainess-Chapter 302: You Say You Are Princess Qing?
After finishing the latest Chapter of *The Evil Woman*, Song Lianhe had a very long dream that night.
In the dream, she had a car crash, cancer, rebirth... and when she woke up, she had become the Villainess who shared her name, Song Lianhe.
Until she woke up with a start.
The dream was so bizarre, yet its familiarity was unsettling. Song Lianhe the top insurance salesperson, Song Lianhe the legitimate daughter of a General in the Da Cheng Dynasty—time and space seemed to have warped, and she could no longer tell who she was or where she was supposed to be.
Sitting dumbfounded on her bed, she stared blankly at her rented apartment, her gaze falling on the phone beside her.
The phone’s screen was somehow still on, open to the latest Chapter of the novel.
Zhou Cangyan... Zhou Cangyan...
The entire screen of text had been replaced by that name.
Her head throbbed. She curled up in pain on the bed. ’It feels like I’ve forgotten something important!’
Her current life seemed normal on the surface, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. It made her feel like she shouldn’t be here, that this wasn’t how things were supposed to be! But she had no idea what was out of place.
Song Lianhe suddenly snatched her phone in a rage and hurled it against the wall!
It all came down to this. Ever since she started reading this novel, she hadn’t been normal. It was all the novel’s fault!
Just then, the sound of tapping on the window came again.
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK—it was rhythmic, neither hurried nor slow.
Song Lianhe was in a terrible mood. With dark circles under her eyes, she got out of bed barefoot, yanked open the curtains, and sure enough, it was that strange bird. It was tilting its head, looking at her.
Song Lianhe knew that, given her current mental state, what she was seeing might well be a hallucination.
She’d always heard her seniors say that the insurance business was a high-pressure field that required immense mental fortitude. The stress a top salesperson had to endure was beyond imagination.
So...
’Fine, I’m crazy. I admit it.’
Song Lianhe decided to just leave the window open and went inside to make coffee, pretending the bird didn’t exist.
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK—
Again, the sound of pecking at the window, unhurried.
She clenched her fists and took a deep breath. ’I’ve had enough of this!’
Turning around, she put her hands on her hips and strode over. "What in the world do you want? You..."
She saw something in the strange bird’s beak. It looked like a piece of... jade.
As if summoned by some mysterious force, she slowly walked closer and hesitantly held out her hand.
The strange bird looked at her, then opened its beak, and the jade fell into her pale palm.
The moment the jade landed, a warm current seemed to flow from her palm straight to her heart. It had the warmth of blood, and it miraculously soothed her agitated emotions in an instant.
She picked up the jade. It was as red as blood.
The morning light shone through the window onto the jade. There seemed to be characters inside it, only visible when struck by sunlight.
Song Lianhe slowly angled the jade into the sunlight, and the name Biwu faintly appeared.
She froze.
Biwu...
Zhou Cangyan, courtesy name Biwu.
Touching the jade and reading the name on it, the hand that had been stirring trouble in her heart began to struggle again, threatening to rip open her chest. The pain made it hard to breathe.
She collapsed to the floor, clutching the front of her clothes. A sudden feeling of suffocation grew more and more intense. At the same time, countless fragments of memory surged forth, a torrential flood of images weighing down on her mind.
Just as she was about to be overwhelmed, her gaze froze. In that instant, she suddenly remembered everything...
She finally understood. She understood why she had always felt something was off while reading the novel, why she had felt so upset seeing the female lead, Song Xilan, together with the villain...
Because it seemed everything had returned to the original plot.
The strange bird was still outside the window, tilting its head to look at her from time to time. But as she struggled to call out the name "Chun Hua," it flapped its wings and flew away.
"Don’t... Don’t go..."
Song Lianhe reached out a hand in a futile attempt to stop it.
She had finally recognized it. It was Chun Hua.
Her face was pale, her consciousness fading, and tears streamed from the corners of her eyes.
Vivid figures appeared in her mind: Xuan Mei, Shadow, Da Xi, Cao Ying, and...
Him.
At that moment, she no longer saw them as just characters in a book. They were flesh and blood, just like her. They could cry and laugh, they had pasts and hopes for the future. Nothing could be more real than them.
’And who was to say that the world she lived in wasn’t just an illusion, too?’
Her raised hand slowly fell. Her eyelids grew heavier and heavier. In the end, she couldn’t hold on any longer and slowly closed her eyes.
—
’So painful. My whole body hurts.’
Song Lianhe’s brow was tightly furrowed as she opened her eyes...
The first thing she saw was a blue sky and white clouds. The intense sunlight stung her eyes, and she quickly shut them again.
But when she tried to move, she heard a sharp SNAP.
It sounded like something had broken.
A bad feeling welled up inside her. She took a deep breath and gently opened her eyes again...
She was in a dense forest. As her gaze shifted downwards, she saw her own dangling feet and the ground dozens of feet below...
She was hanging from a tree.
Song Lianhe had no idea how any of this had happened. One second she was in her rented apartment, suffocating and on the verge of death, and the next, she opens her eyes to find herself up a tree?
’So, this is...’
CLIP-CLOP CLIP-CLOP—
The sound of a group of horses’ hooves came from the distance.
’Horses?’
In that moment, all the blood rushed to her head!
’If there are horses, does that mean...’
Almost as soon as she felt a thrill of excitement at this realization, a dozen or so horses appeared in her line of sight.
The riders were all dressed in tight-fitting black attire, with swords at their waists, and their mounts were all fine steeds.
Seeing them, Song Lianhe was on the verge of tears.
’This is great! I’m back!!’
She immediately shouted to the people below, "Help! Kind sirs, save me!"
Hearing her voice, the group reined in their horses. They looked up and froze, never expecting to find a person hanging from a tree!
Perhaps she was too excited, because Song Lianhe couldn’t help but wave her hands wildly. "I’m up here!"
CRACK—
The branch broke.
"Aaaah—"
Song Lianhe screamed as she fell.
The man directly below her reacted without thinking, instinctively reaching out his arms.
The action surprised even himself, but he did it anyway.
Song Lianhe squeezed her eyes shut in terror. Only when she realized she had fallen into someone’s arms did she let out a breath of relief. "Kind sir, thank—"
Her eyes flew open in disbelief.
Zhou Junlin?!
’What... What kind of crazy fate is this?’
Zhou Junlin was also looking at her, his brows tightly knitted.
"Thanks. You can let go now."
The speed at which her expression changed immediately displeased the man.
As she wished, he immediately let go, dropping her to the ground.
"Oof!"
Song Lianhe rubbed her backside in pain. "Zhou Junlin! You did that on purpose!"
Unexpectedly, upon hearing her say his name, the man’s expression changed instantly. He glanced behind him, and one of his men immediately dismounted without a word, pressing a short sword to her throat. "Speak! Who sent you?"
"I..."
Song Lianhe blinked, then pinched the blade between two fingers and slowly pushed it aside. "Gu Ha, I know you are Prince Ling’s Attendant, but I am, after all, Princess Qing. Wouldn’t you say this counts as insubordination?"
Hearing her not only call out his name but also claim to be Princess Qing, Gu Ha was completely bewildered.
He immediately looked to his master. Zhou Junlin also showed a flicker of surprise, but it vanished in an instant, and his expression returned to normal.
"You say you are... Princess Qing?"
His question made Song Lianhe laugh. "Zhou Junlin, this act of yours, pretending this is the first time we’ve met, is really..."
Her words came to an abrupt halt.
The smile on her face slowly froze.
And Zhou Junlin, mounted on his tall, handsome horse, continued to study her with the wary gaze of a stranger.
