I Woke Up in My Own Funeral
I woke up because someone was crying.
Not soft crying. Not pretty crying. It was the ugly kind—the kind that tore out of a body in broken, choking gasps.
For one dizzy second, I thought it was me.
Then I realized I was lying flat on something hard.
Cold silk brushed my fingers. My whole body felt weightless and wrong, like I’d been poured back into my bones too fast.
My eyelids dragged open.
White flowers.
Candles.
A framed portrait of me smiling in a navy office blouse I hated.
And directly above me, my own dead face reflected in the polished lid of a coffin.
My scream ripped out before I could stop it.
The crying stopped.
A vase shattered.
Somebody shouted, “Ghost!”
I jerked upright so fast my head slammed into the half-open coffin lid, pain exploding through my skull. The room spun. Rows of funeral wreaths blurred together. Incense choked the air. Three old ladies in black almost collapsed over one another trying to run.
At the front, kneeling beside a pile of paper offerings, my stepmother went sheet-white.
“No,” she whispered.
Her hand was still pressed dramatically to her chest, but the tears on her cheeks had already dried.
Of course.
Even at my funeral, she couldn’t cry for real.
I knew that face.
Liu Mei. My father’s second wife. The woman who called me daughter in public and parasite in private.
Behind her stood her precious children—my stepbrother Jian, my stepsister Lili, and the youngest, Anya—all staring at me like I had clawed out of hell specifically to ruin their day.
I probably had.
The last thing I remembered was rain.
The blare of a horn.
My cheap heels slipping off the curb as I ran after leaving yet another late shift. My stepmother had texted me thirty-seven times in one night asking where my salary transfer was. Jian needed money for a “business opportunity.” Lili needed cosmetic procedures. Anya wanted a designer bag because all her friends had one.
I had been thirty-two years old and still living like a servant.
Every month I worked. Every month I handed them nearly everything.
Because after my father died, Liu Mei took the house, the accounts, the company shares—everything. She told me Dad had left debts. She said if I did not support the family, the bank would seize the house and we would all be on the street.
She called it filial duty.
What it really was, was a leash.
I remembered the truck headlights.
The violent impact.
My ribs cracking like dry branches.
Then darkness.
And now—
Alive.
Or not alive. Not fully. Something stranger.
A blue screen flickered in front of my eyes.
[System Activated.]
My breath caught.
The screen was translucent, suspended in the air like light on glass.
[Host has met reincarnation conditions.]
[Resentment Level: Critical.]
[Survival Desire: Extreme.]
[Wealth Starvation Index: Off the charts.]
A pause.
Then:
[Congratulations.]
[You have obtained beginner skill: Value Detection.]
[You may now perceive the estimated market value, authenticity, hidden defects, and latent profit potential of selected objects.]
I stared at it.
Then at the room.
Then back at the floating words.
I had gone insane.
That would honestly have been less shocking than waking up at my own funeral.
“Y-you—” Lili pointed at me with a trembling red nail. “You were dead!”
“I was,” I said hoarsely.
My throat burned. My voice sounded wrong to my own ears—rougher, colder.
I looked down at myself.
I was wearing the cream dress Liu Mei had once called “too decent to waste on me.” My hands were pale and slim, but scraped at the knuckles. My pulse hammered under my skin.
This was my body.
My old body.
My dead body.
A priest in the corner crossed himself so fast he nearly smacked himself in the face.
Then Liu Mei recovered first, because snakes always did.
Her eyes flashed, calculating.
If I was alive, then there would be no insurance payout. No sympathy donations. No chance to sell my death to her friends as tragic widowhood by association.
She stood carefully, smoothing her black silk skirt.
“Xinyi,” she said, forcing her voice sweet. “Thank heaven. You frightened us all. You must have fainted, that’s all. Come down now. Don’t create a scene in front of the guests.”
Create a scene.
I almost laughed.
I climbed out of the coffin barefoot, knees shaking. Everyone backed away from me. The floor was cold marble. My toes curled against it.
The screen blinked again.
[Beginner Tutorial Task Available.]
[Touch an object to detect value.]
**Reward: 10 EXP, 1 Skill Point, 500 RMB starter grant.
I swallowed.
If I was hallucinating, I might as well commit.
The nearest object was the jade pendant hanging at Liu Mei’s throat—the one she used to boast was an heirloom my father bought for her in Hong Kong.
I reached out.
She slapped my hand away instantly. “What are you doing?”
But it was enough.
A sharp hum vibrated behind my eyes.
Words poured into my vision beside the pendant.
[Low-grade nephrite jade pendant.]
Estimated value: 480 RMB.]
Authenticity: Real jade, poor quality.]
Purchase story claimed by owner: “A rare heirloom worth over 300,000.”]
Truth rating: False.]
Profit potential: None.]
I stared at her.
My laugh came out before I could stop it.
A small, broken sound. Dangerous.
“What?” Liu Mei snapped.
“That pendant,” I said, voice shaking with something darker than fear. “It’s worth less than five hundred.”
The room went silent.
Liu Mei froze.
Lili scoffed. “Have you lost your mind?”
I stepped closer, because now that I had started, I couldn’t stop. “And it’s not an heirloom. Dad didn’t buy it in Hong Kong. You bought it yourself from a mall counter on discount and lied about it for ten years.”
Her face drained.
Around us, the guests murmured.
“How do you know that?” Jian barked.
I looked at him.
Same expensive watch. Same slicked hair. Same face that used to sneer while taking the salary card from my hand.
I touched the watch on his wrist before he could stop me.
[Replica luxury watch.]
Estimated value: 1,300 RMB.]
Claimed value by wearer: 210,000 RMB.]
Authenticity: Fake.]
Hidden note: Purchased with money transferred from host salary account 14 months ago.]
My lungs locked.
My salary.
The overtime I worked through fever. The weekends I gave up. The meals I skipped.
He bought a fake watch with my blood.
“It’s counterfeit,” I said softly.
Jian’s expression cracked. “Shut up.”
“And you bought it with my money.”
His hand twitched like he wanted to hit me.
For the first time in my life, I didn’t flinch.
Maybe because I had already died once.
Maybe because some part of me was still lying under headlights in the rain.
Or maybe because I finally understood that fear was all they had ever fed on.
Liu Mei forced a laugh. “She’s disoriented. Xinyi, stop embarrassing yourself.”
Embarrassing.
That word again. Always used on me. Never on them.
I looked past her, at the funeral table.
My photograph.
The incense.
The fake sympathy gifts.
Then I saw it—a lacquered wooden box sitting near the offerings, probably brought by one of the distant relatives. Ordinary. Dusty. Easy to miss.
But in my eyes, it flashed gold.
I blinked hard.
The system highlighted it.
[Detected: Potentially undervalued object.]
My heart slammed.
Without asking, I strode forward and grabbed the box.
“Put that down!” some auntie shrieked.
I opened it.
Inside lay a clumsy-looking old seal, dark with age, wrapped in faded cloth.
Immediately, a brighter panel burst across my vision.
[Detected Item: Huanghuali wood scholar’s seal, late Qing period.]
Estimated market value: 2,800,000 RMB.]
Authenticity: High.]
Condition: Good.]
Optimal sale channels locked until Level 3.]
Historical note: Original owner linked to provincial magistrate family.]
I stopped breathing.
Two point eight million.
My hands trembled.
That amount was more money than I had seen in years. More than I had ever been allowed to keep. More than enough to escape.
The relative who brought it—a stooped old grandaunt in thick glasses—blinked at me. “Ah? That thing? I found it in your father’s storage room. I thought it was junk and brought it as a keepsake.”
My father’s storage room.
A chill went through me.
Because Liu Mei had told me my father left nothing.
Nothing but debts. Nothing but burdens. Nothing but reasons for me to obey.
But if something like this had been left behind—
What else had she hidden?
Liu Mei saw my face and lunged. “Give it here.”
I turned away from her hand.
“Don’t touch me,” I said.
She stopped.
So did everyone else.
Because of my voice.
I had never spoken to her like that before.
Not once.
My whole life, I had apologized. Bent. Endured.
Now something cold and fierce uncoiled inside me.
I lifted my gaze and met hers.
“You told me Father died bankrupt,” I said quietly. “You told me there was nothing left. You said I had to hand over my salary because we were drowning.”
Her mouth opened.
No sound came out.
The room had become still in that terrifying way a forest goes still before a storm.
“Xinyi—” she began.
“No,” I said. “You talk so much every other day. Today, you listen.”
Jian took a step forward. “Enough of this.”
I smiled at him.
It made him stop dead.
Because it wasn’t my old smile.
It was the kind you give before a blade goes in.
“I was dead ten minutes ago,” I said. “Do you really want to test my patience now?”
Even the priest made a startled noise.
The blue screen chimed.
[Tutorial Completed.]
[EXP +10.]
[Skill Point +1.]
[Starter Grant Unlocked: 500 RMB.]
[Level Up: Lv. 1 → Lv. 2.]
Another line appeared.
[New Passive Feature Unlocked: Micro-Insight.]
[You may now receive occasional key information related to nearby people, transactions, and opportunities.]
Then, beneath Liu Mei’s stunned face, red text shimmered.
[Key Information: Subject Liu Mei transferred hidden funds from deceased father’s business account into third-party names over 9 years.]
[Primary witness still alive.]
My blood turned to ice.
Witness?
Alive?
All these years—
I looked at Liu Mei, really looked at her, and for the first time I saw not a cruel stepmother, not a woman who despised me, but a thief standing on a grave.
My father had not simply died and left me helpless.
He had been robbed first.
And suddenly, sharply, a memory split open in my mind—
My father on the phone two weeks before his death, voice strained.
“If anything happens to me, don’t trust—”
The memory cut off there, drowned by years of exhaustion and fear.
My knees nearly buckled.
I had forgotten.
Or forced myself to forget.
Liu Mei saw the change in my face and knew, somehow, that something had shifted beyond repair.
Her expression hardened.
Not grief. Not relief. Panic.
Which meant I was right.
My father hadn’t just been deceived.
There was more.
A lot more.
I slowly closed my fingers around the scholar’s seal.
Around me, the funeral guests whispered like dry leaves.
Someone said, “Call the police.”
Someone else muttered, “I always thought that woman was strange.”
Lili’s lips curled. “You think waking up once makes you special?”
I turned and looked at her.
The system flashed over her face too.
[Key Information: Subject Lili currently negotiating marriage to wealthy fiancé under false identity and hidden debt.]
Interesting.
Very interesting.
My pulse settled into something frighteningly calm.
I had died poor, obedient, and unloved.
I had woken inside my own coffin.
And now the world was full of prices, lies, secrets, and doors.
For the first time in my life, I could see them.
Not just the value of objects.
The value of people. Their weak points. Their masks. Their desperation.
I stepped down from the funeral platform and slid my father’s hidden treasure into my bag.
No one dared stop me.
When I reached the door, I paused without turning back.
“You all should have treated me better,” I said.
My voice carried through the incense-thick hall.
Quiet. Deadly.
“Because this is the last day any of you will ever stand above me.”
Then I walked out of my own funeral and into my second life.
Behind me, Liu Mei finally screamed my name.
But by then, I was already smiling.
Because somewhere in this city, my father’s truth was still alive.
And I was done dying for people who deserved to lose everything.
