Death was supposed to be the end for Jiang Xun. In her first life, it certainly looked that way. She grew up and survived in a world that had already collapsed—cities swallowed by ruins, zombies roaming freely, and danger baked into everyday life. By the time she died, she wasn’t some helpless survivor anymore. She was the captain of a zombie-clearing squad, someone used to making hard calls. When their mission went wrong and escape became impossible, Jiang Xun didn’t hesitate. She stayed behind and triggered the explosives herself, buying her teammates enough time to get out alive.
That should’ve been it.
Instead of darkness, she woke up to silence. A soft bed. A dull ache in her head. Bandages wrapped tight around her skull. Nothing about her surroundings made sense. Before she could sit up, a calm, emotionless voice appeared in her mind and introduced itself as the Merit System. It explained, almost casually, that her sacrifice in the apocalypse had earned her Merit Points—enough to qualify for rebirth.
The world she woke up in wasn’t connected to the old one. This wasn’t a rewind or a continuation. It was something completely new. And she wasn’t herself anymore—not exactly.
She had taken over the body of another Jiang Xun, an eighteen-year-old girl whose life had been miserable from start to finish. Her mother died early. Her father left her behind. She was sent to live with relatives who never treated her like family. Her aunt bullied her openly, her cousin mocked and pushed her around, and no one ever stepped in to stop it. Eventually, she was shoved down a flight of stairs and died quietly, without anyone caring much at all.
That was the life Jiang Xun inherited.
The Merit System didn’t sugarcoat things. It laid out the future plainly: return to the Jiang family before the college entrance exams, endure more humiliation, and meet an early end by the age of twenty. That was the “original route.” Whether Jiang Xun followed it or not was up to her.
She’d already died once saving people. She wasn’t about to accept dying again just because a script said so.
Compared to clearing buildings full of zombies, dealing with toxic relatives barely registered as a threat.
She stopped playing the obedient role immediately. When her uncle tried to scold her and her cousin acted superior, Jiang Xun pushed back without hesitation. She demanded apologies, not quietly either. What surprised her wasn’t their reactions—it was the system rewarding her. Genuine apologies translated directly into Merit Points. Those points could be exchanged for healing, physical improvement, and other practical benefits.
This body was weak, though. She could feel it. No combat instincts backed by enhanced strength anymore. So she started from scratch, training carefully and rebuilding herself step by step while keeping her head down.
When she was finally brought back into the Jiang family’s social circle, the atmosphere was exactly what she expected. At gatherings, people whispered about her background. Some openly questioned why someone raised in a village was even allowed to attend. Her father warned her not to talk too much. Her stepmother reminded her that Qin Mufeng, the respected head of the Qin family, was far beyond her reach and not someone she should ever think about.
Jiang Xun didn’t bother correcting them. Marriage, status, approval—none of it mattered to her. She wanted freedom, control, and a quiet life on her own terms.
What caught her off guard was Qin Mufeng himself, who started appearing far more often than coincidence could explain.
With one life behind her and another unfolding in front of her, Jiang Xun moves forward calmly, determined to break away from the role she was handed and carve out something better—whether anyone approves or not.
