Reborn as the True Heiress: My Ruthless Revenge

The moon was sinking in the west when Xu Yinyin suddenly felt as if a mountain had crashed down upon her.

Her chest tore with sharp, burning pain. Gasping for air like a fish cast ashore on dry sand, she forced her mouth open and drew a ragged breath. Her eyes snapped wide.

Filling her vision was a savage, coarse face contorted in vicious greed.

It was Ding Chengyong!

Terror jolted through her. The scene was sickeningly familiar.

How could this be?

Before she could piece her thoughts together, Li Xiuniang’s shrill, grating voice pierced the silence from outside. “Have your fun, but do not go killing her on me!”

It was Li Xiuniang, her adoptive mother!

Rage turned Xu Yinyin’s vision red, her entire body trembling violently.

She had been reborn. She was back thirteen years in the past!

Right to the very day she learned she was the true eldest young miss of the Marquis of Yongping Manor in the capital.

Representatives from the Marquisate had already come to investigate and confirmed her identity, promising that a carriage would be sent to bring her back.

Yet disaster had struck that very night!

Li Xiuniang had locked her in the woodshed and brought in Ding Chengyong. In her previous life, she had fought tooth and nail to keep him from defiling her, only for Li Xiuniang to drag a crowd of villagers to catch them in bed the following morning.

When the woodshed doors were thrown open, her body had been covered in bruises and lacerations, with not an inch of unblemished skin left to see.

And Ding Chengyong was right there beside her.

No explanation had mattered.

When the escorts from the Marquisate arrived, Ding Chengyong had even set off firecrackers at the courtyard gate, loudly proclaiming that he was now the Marquis of Yongping’s son-in-law and that it called for a celebration.

He had thoroughly humiliated the escorts.

Though they still brought her back to the capital, the entire household treated her with nothing but contempt.

Her biological parents believed she had grown up in the countryside devoid of virtue or shame, loose and depraved.

Her siblings refused to acknowledge her as one of their own.

Even then, Li Xiuniang had refused to let her be. She repeatedly egged Ding Chengyong on to make scenes at the Marquis’s estate, until the family had simply cast Yinyin out into the street.

Meanwhile, Li Xiuniang’s biological daughter, Qi Jin, who had stolen Yinyin’s rightful place, looked down on her from on high, watching with cold indifference as servants broke Yinyin’s legs and left her to crawl through the mud of the streets like a stray dog!

And all of that misery had begun tonight, with Ding Chengyong climbing into her bed.

That beast!

Impatient and feral, Ding Chengyong was already clawing at her clothes.

“Yinyin, you do not know the taste of a real man yet. Big brother will teach you what ecstasy feels like.”

Without a second thought, she snapped her knee upward with all the force she could muster, ramming it directly into his groin.

The sneer on Ding Chengyong’s face shattered into agonizing shock. His meaty face contorted as he collapsed to the floor, rolling and howling in torment.

Seizing the opening, Yinyin scrambled to her feet and adjusted her robe, which had been pushed down to her waist.

Turning her eyes back toward the thrashing man, her gaze brimmed with cold, lethal intent.

Ding Chengyong clutched his crotch, writhing in agony as venomous curses spilled from his mouth. “You little whore! I’ll butcher you!”

He lunged toward her like a maddened dog.

The sight of his bloated face made Yinyin’s stomach turn. She leaned aside as if to dodge, but her left hand silently tightened around the wooden hairpin she had just slipped from her hair.

As Ding Chengyong closed in, her hand struck like a viper, driving the sharpened wooden pin straight into his eye.

A blood-curdling, inhuman shriek tore from his throat.

Yinyin hooked her foot behind his ankle, sending his pig-like bulk crashing heavily to the earth.

Moving with practiced precision, she grabbed a battered wooden stool nearby and brought it crashing down onto his head with everything she had.

Again, and again, and again.

She showed not a shred of mercy.

The brutal blows soon smashed his skull to a bloody pulp. Ding Chengyong’s screams choked into ragged gurgles, fading until nothing but silence remained.

The room had no light. Under the pale, sickly glow of the moon, Yinyin stared at Ding Chengyong’s mangled head.

A cold smile tugged at the corner of her lips. She methodically wiped the blood from her hands.

The surroundings were familiar: a dilapidated wooden bed, a few weathered bamboo chairs against the wall, and nothing else.

She stepped swiftly to the bedside, reached into a dark corner beneath the frame, and pulled out a small cloth bundle. Opening it, she checked the contents and let out a quiet breath of relief.

Pausing for a moment, she walked back to the bed, picked up an article of clothing, and stuffed it into Ding Chengyong’s bloodied chest.

Then she slipped out the window, swift and silent as a shadow.

Having spent her childhood chopping firewood and catching fish across the estate under Li Xiuniang’s harsh orders, she moved with the stealth of an alley cat.

The moment her feet touched the dirt outside, she noticed the main house was still aglow with lamplight.

That was the bedroom of Li Xiuniang and Butcher Xu.

After a heartbeat of hesitation, she crept along the base of the wall until she reached the window, where voices drifted out from inside.

Butcher Xu had an arm wrapped around Li Xiuniang, cooing affectionately, “You really are brilliant, Xiuniang. Back then, you had the guts to swap the babies, and now you have the nerve to let that Ding bastard ruin her. With this, our daughter won’t have to live in fear of losing her place at the Marquis’s estate ever again!”

Li Xiuniang hissed at him in exasperation, “Shut your reckless mouth! When are you ever going to learn to keep your tongue still? Our daughter has done us proud; you cannot drag her down!”

Outside the window, Yinyin’s eyes flared scarlet, veins bulging across her temples.

As expected, all that talk about a careless mistake was an outright lie!

They swapped their identities to pave a golden path for Qi Jin, and then planned to ruin Yinyin’s virtue the moment the truth was uncovered.

Because of this venomous scheme, the Marquis household in her previous life had never acknowledged her publicly. Qi Jin remained the unchallenged eldest young miss of the estate, later entering the imperial palace to become the Crown Princess.

And Butcher Xu and Li Xiuniang had later ‘coincidentally’ saved the Crown Princess’s life, earning an earldom and rising above the common masses!

That whole family had climbed to the heights of nobility by trampling on her blood and bones!

What a virtuous mother’s heart!

Unfortunately for them, I have returned. Li Xiuniang’s schemes end tonight!

Flushed with fury, Yinyin sealed her resolve.

She would make Butcher Xu and Li Xiuniang pay in blood!

Inside, Butcher Xu mumbled an acknowledgment, then cocked his ear toward the adjoining room. “Seems quiet next door.”

Li Xiuniang chimed in, “They must have worn themselves out. I will head out and gather the crowd. Keep an eye on things here.”

They needed to catch her in the act and make a huge scene so that when the escorts from the Marquisate arrived tomorrow morning, they would receive a nasty ‘surprise.’

Crouched in the shadow of the wall, Yinyin watched Li Xiuniang hurry out of the courtyard. Glancing toward the room where Butcher Xu remained, she suddenly let out a piercing shriek, then sprinted back into her own quarters.

Inside the room, Ding Chengyong’s corpse lay sprawled across the floor.

She felt not the slightest tremble of fear. Having lived through a lifetime of misery, she understood full well that what was terrifying in this world was not ghosts, but the hearts of men.

Barely moments after she slipped back inside, the door creaked softly open. Butcher Xu called out in a hesitant whisper, “Yinyin?”

In the darkness, Yinyin curled her lips into a sneer. She had known he would come.

Over the past few years, the way Butcher Xu looked at her had grown increasingly foul. He was always trying to touch her, and had even peeked at her while she bathed.

When she had tried telling Li Xiuniang, the woman had merely slapped her and branded her a vixen trying to sow discord.

“Father,” Yinyin whispered softly.

“Hey!” Butcher Xu grinned greedily, his lecherous heart pounding.

She was not his flesh and blood anyway. If Ding Chengyong had already had his way with her, what harm was there in him taking a little taste as well?

Swallowing hard, he slipped through the doorway and fumbled toward the bed in the faint moonlight.

He had taken only two steps when his foot caught on something, sending him sprawling.

“Ow!” he grunted, bracing his palms against the ground to push himself up, only for his hands to sink into something warm and sticky.

Is this... blood?!

Under the moonlight, Butcher Xu caught sight of Ding Chengyong lying motionless before him.

It was definitely Ding Chengyongthe frame and clothing matchedbut his head had been battered into the dirt, crushed beyond recognition!

“Aah!” Butcher Xu shrieked, terror shattering his wits as he scrambled backward to flee.

Yet as he spun around, he found Yinyin standing in the silver light, a chilling smile on her lips. “Father, since you answered my call, allow me to send you on your way.”

Before Butcher Xu could retreat, Yinyin lunged like a pouncing hawk. The wooden hairpin in her hand struck with lethal accuracy, burying itself deep into Butcher Xu’s throat.

Butcher Xu clutched desperately at his neck, but it was useless. Blood surged out between his fingers like a broken dam.

He could not utter a single word, staring at Yinyin with eyes stretched in primal horror.

He could not fathom how this docile, rabbit-like daughter had transformed into a vengeful fiend straight from the depths of hell.

Yinyin gave him no time for idle thoughts. Seizing his legs, she dragged him over to Ding Chengyong’s corpse and rolled him onto his back.

The hairpin remained lodged in his throat, and his twitching limbs gradually stilled into death.

There was no time to rest. Li Xiuniang would return with the villagers soon. Before that vile woman arrived, Yinyin had to seal the fate of these two corpses beyond dispute.

Pushing the door open, she dashed straight toward the home of the estate bailiff.