All Chapters of Reborn son-in-law: I Died at your Hands Once : Chapter 1
- Chapter 9
9 chapters
The Last Breath, The First Morning
The truck’s headlights blinded me.Then came Lin Yue’s smile.Across the street, she stood arm in arm with Chen Hao—her first love. The man she swore meant nothing. Her lips moved before the impact. Finally.Then nothing.Then everything.I gasped and bolted upright. My heart pounded like it wanted out. My body drenched in sweat. Where I sat didn't look like a hospital nor the morgue. This room was too small. Almost too familiar.Our old apartment.I looked at my hands—no scars, no burns, no broken finger. They looked young and whole.My phone buzzed. It was an old model with cracked screen.June 8th, 2015. 6:47 AM.I froze. My wedding day.A laugh ripped out of me, harsh and raw. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”The woman who killed me. The man who ruined me. The family that broke me.And I was back.The door creaked.“Feng?” Lin Yue’s soft voice floated in. She stepped in wearing that white dress. No designer brands yet—just simple, innocent, yet so deadly.“You’re awake early,” she
The Courthouse Ambush
The courthouse looked exactly like I remembered—gray stone, cracked steps, crooked railing. Ten years ago, I’d held that rail with trembling hands, excited, naive, blind.Now I gripped it again, cold and steady.Lin Yue walked beside me, quiet since the taxi ride. She kept sneaking glances like she was trying to figure me out.“Why are you so calm?” she asked.“I’m not,” I said. “Just focused.”“There’s my mother,” she murmured.Tang Mei stood at the top of the stairs, pearls gleaming, posture perfect, face full of fake warmth. A lawyer waited beside her, and leaning against a black Mercedes was him—Chen Hao.My stomach twisted. The man who’d ruined everything looked younger but already poisonous.“Mom,” Lin Yue said carefully as we climbed. “I thought it’d just be us today.”“Don’t be silly, dear.” Tang Mei smiled like a witch. “This is an important day. I brought Lawyer Wang for a small formality. You know how your father is about... complications.” Her gaze slid to me. “I’m sure yo
The First Move
“We’re really married aren't we?” “Yes, my love, we are.” “And I just got disowned right?” “Yes, you did. Your mom is a bitch.” “My mother is going to make our lives hell.” “I won't let that happen. I would always protect you even if it's the last thing I do.” “How can you be so calm?” Lin Yue stared at the laminated certificate like it might explode. “Li Feng, we have nothing. My trust fund is gone. My position at the company is gone. This apartment—my mother owns the building. She’ll evict us by the end of the week.” “Then we’ll move,” I said. “We’ll find work. We’ll eat cheap noodles.” “You don’t—” Her laugh cracked. “You don’t understand. In the original—” She stopped, swallowed. “Everything fell apart. She evicted us in three days. I sank. You took three jobs. I—” She choked on the memory. “I remember,” I said. “I remember exactly.” “You’re being weird,” she accused, eyes bright with tears. “You’re calmer than anyone has a right to be.” “Check your phone.” “What?” “
Eviction and Opportunity
The eviction notice was taped to our door at dawn.“Seventy-two hours?” Lin Yue’s voice cracked as she read. “She’s giving us three days to move or she’ll have us thrown out.”“She can’t legally do that,” I said, yanking the paper off. “She doesn’t even own this building.”“She owns the management company. Same thing.” Her eyes were dull from lack of sleep. We’d spent all day yesterday searching for a new place—every landlord mysteriously “just rented out.” Tang Mei’s reach was everywhere.“We’ll find somewhere outside her network,” I said.Lin Yue laughed without humor. “That doesn’t exist. My mother knows everyone.”My phone buzzed.[Mission Update: Find shelter outside Tang Mei’s sphere of influence. Hint: Old connections remember loyalty. Check your parents’ legacy.]I froze. My parents’ legacy. Of course, how could I have forgotten?“Old Zhang,” I muttered.Lin Yue frowned. “Who’s that?”“Zhang Wei. My dad’s old friend from the factory. My parents helped his family when his son g
The Lawyer and the Trap
Liu Xia’s law office sat above a tea shop—cramped, dusty, and nothing like the corporate glass towers Lin Yue grew up in. Files stacked to the ceiling. A single assistant typing furiously at a desk that barely fit a laptop.“So this is what getting blacklisted looks like,” Lin Yue muttered as we climbed the narrow stairs.Liu Xia stood when we entered. Mid-twenties, sharp eyes behind wire frames, hair pulled tight. The kind of woman who’d bite if cornered.“You finally did it,” she said, hugging Lin Yue fiercely. “Told that dragon lady to go to hell.”Lin Yue laughed, half a sob. “Took me long enough.”“Better late than never.” Liu Xia turned to me, hand out. “You must be the husband. The guy who convinced Tang Mei’s perfect daughter to give up billions.”“Li Feng,” I said, shaking it. “And she made her own choice.”Her grin was quick. “Good answer. Sit. Start talking.”We did—prenup, disownment, land auction. She listened without a word, scribbling notes fast.“So you’re after Easter
The Auction
The land bureau reeked of old files and stale coffee. Gray concrete walls closed in around us as Lin Yue, Liu Xia, and I stepped inside, documents clutched in my sweaty hands. My chest thumped so loud I was sure the deputy director could hear it from across the floor.“Deputy Director Wang Min’s office is on the third floor,” Liu Xia muttered as we climbed the narrow stairs. “We go through her. Avoid Chen Guowei entirely.”“Will that actually work?” Lin Yue’s voice trembled just a little.“It has to,” I said, keeping my tone steadier than I felt. “Wang Min handles eastern district. Chen Guowei? Central and western. Protocol's on our side. Technically.”We got to the third floor as Wang Min’s office door appeared. The door opened to reveal a middle-aged woman, with reading glasses, buried under mountains of paperwork. Her face had no emotion, just neutral expression. My heart sank. One wrong move and this auction—our chance—was over before it started.“Deputy Director Wang?” Liu Xia’s
Waiting for the Announcement
The first week after the auction was unbearable. Ten thousand yuan. A deed to Plot 47A tucked in the cheapest bank’s safety deposit box. Nothing else.“We need jobs,” Lin Yue said that morning, circling want ads in the newspaper with a red pen. Her hair was tied back tight, eyes sharp. “My savings are gone. Your savings are in the land. We have enough for maybe two weeks of food and rent.”I nodded. She was right. Every job application she submitted came back rejected. Tang Mei’s blacklist was everywhere. My options were limited—construction, delivery, janitorial jobs—the brutal cycle of exhaustion from the original timeline stared me in the face.“What about freelance work?” I asked. “Something she can’t block.”Lin Yue snorted. “Like what? I have a business degree from a top university, three years at Tang Corporation. Overqualified for entry-level work, blacklisted for everything else.”My phone buzzed.[Side Mission: Survive the waiting period.]Just then a light bulb flickered ab
The Mother's Final Play
Three days before the announcement, there was a knock at the door.I opened it and Tang Mei was standing there, impossibly composed in a designer suit and pearls. A bodyguard lingered behind her, expressionless.“Mrs. Tang,” I said carefully.“I’m here to see my daughter,” her voice cut like ice. “Alone.”“No,” I said immediately.“I wasn’t asking for your permission.” Her eyes narrowed on Lin Yue. “Yue? Are you hiding behind your husband, or are you going to face me like an adult?”Lin Yue stepped to my side, pale but steady. “Whatever you have to say, you can say it in front of Li Feng.”Tang Mei’s eyes flicked to me once, then back to her daughter. “Fine.” She stepped forward. The bodyguard stayed behind. “I’m here to make you an offer. One final offer. After this, I wash my hands completely.”“I’m listening,” Lin Yue said.Tang Mei pulled a document from her bag. “Come back. Sign this revised agreement. It’s generous—much more than the prenup. You keep your trust fund, your positi
The Longest Three Days
We survived the first day on instant noodles and tap water. Lin Yue didn’t speak much. She just sat by the window, staring at nothing, phone clutched in her hand. Twice I caught her starting to dial her father’s number before stopping herself.“You can call him,” I said quietly. “Just to talk. You don’t have to go back to do that.”“My mother monitors his calls,” she whispered. “If I reach out, she’ll see it as weakness. She’ll push harder. You told me to wait, that’s what you promised. Three days until we know if this was worth it.”I swallowed. In the original timeline, my failures had only destroyed me. Now I was dragging Lin Yue with me. If I was wrong about the announcement, if the timeline had shifted too far, if the tech park didn’t happen—My phone buzzed.[Day 1/3 until announcement. Timeline integrity: 52%. Warning: You are experiencing doubt. Doubt leads to mistakes. Trust your knowledge. Stay strong.]Easy for a system to say. It didn’t have a grieving wife, a dying father