The Truth Before Death
2367 Words
Lin Wan didn't move.
She stood in front of the mirror, staring at the woman reflected inside it.
Twenty-two years old.
Alive.
Her hands slowly rose to touch her face.
Smooth skin.
No scars.
No exhaustion carved beneath her eyes.
No pale lips.
No blood.
She pressed her fingers against her chest.
Her heartbeat was strong.
Fast.
Real.
For several seconds, she could only hear the pounding inside her own body.
Then she whispered,
“I'm alive.”
The words sounded ridiculous.
She almost laughed.
She had watched herself die.
She remembered the bullet.
She remembered the blood soaking through her clothes.
She remembered Gu Yanshen's arms around her.
She remembered the panic in his eyes.
And most of all—
She remembered his voice.
Because I failed you once.
Lin Wan closed her eyes.
The memory was so clear that it felt like it had happened only seconds ago.
Then she opened them again.
The room was still there.
The morning sunlight was still shining through the curtains.
Nothing had changed.
Except her.
A soft knock came from the door.
“Miss Lin?”
Lin Wan turned.
The woman standing outside was holding a tray of breakfast.
The moment Lin Wan saw her, her breath caught.
“Mrs. Chen?”
The woman smiled.
“Yes. Did you sleep badly again?”
Lin Wan stared at her.
Mrs. Chen.
She had worked for the Lin family since Lin Wan was a child.
In her first life, Mrs. Chen had died three years later.
A sudden stroke.
At least, that was what everyone had told her.
Lin Wan remembered sitting at the hospital beside her bed.
She remembered crying.
She remembered thinking that the world kept taking people away from her.
But now—
Mrs. Chen was standing in front of her.
Alive.
Young.
Unhurt.
Lin Wan's eyes suddenly burned.
“Miss Lin?”
Mrs. Chen put down the tray.
“What's wrong?”
Lin Wan shook her head.
“Nothing.”
Her voice was hoarse.
“I'm just happy to see you.”
Mrs. Chen looked confused.
“Happy to see me?”
Lin Wan smiled.
“Yes.”
She walked toward the woman and hugged her.
Mrs. Chen froze.
“Miss Lin?”
Lin Wan closed her eyes.
For ten years, she had dreamed of being able to hold the people she had lost one more time.
She never thought she would actually get the chance.
“Let me stay like this for a moment.”
Mrs. Chen didn't understand.
But she gently patted Lin Wan's back.
“Of course.”
Lin Wan breathed in slowly.
The familiar scent of laundry detergent.
The warmth of a living person.
The ordinary sound of morning traffic outside the window.
Everything felt painfully precious.
After a long moment, she finally let go.
“I need to ask you something.”
“What is it?”
“What day is it?”
Mrs. Chen laughed.
“Miss Lin, are you asking because you forgot?”
Lin Wan didn't answer.
Mrs. Chen glanced at the calendar.
“It's June eighteenth.”
Lin Wan's heart stopped.
June eighteenth.
She remembered this day.
She remembered it because, in her first life, it had been the beginning of everything.
Ten years ago.
She had been twenty-two.
Three days from now, her father would announce a major expansion project.
Two weeks later, she would meet Lu Minghao again.
Three months later, she would receive her first marriage proposal.
And exactly three years after this day—
Her father would die.
Lin Wan's fingers tightened.
June eighteenth.
She was really back.
Ten years.
She had been given ten years.
“Miss Lin?”
Mrs. Chen looked worried.
Lin Wan forced herself to smile.
“I'm fine.”
“You look pale.”
“I just had a strange dream.”
“What kind of dream?”
Lin Wan looked toward the window.
“A very long one.”
She didn't explain.
How could she?
How could she tell anyone that she had lived another life?
That she had watched her family collapse?
That she had married a man who betrayed her?
That she had died in a warehouse?
That the man she had hated for ten years had held her while she bled to death?
No one would believe her.
And even if someone did—
She couldn't risk it.
Not yet.
Lin Wan walked to the desk.
Her old laptop was sitting there.
She opened it.
The machine took several seconds to start.
She almost smiled.
In her first life, she had hated this old laptop.
Now it looked like a time capsule.
She checked the date.
June 18.
Then she opened her email.
Hundreds of unread messages.
She ignored them.
Instead, she opened the financial folder on her desktop.
Her father's company.
Lin Group.
Her eyes narrowed.
This was the company that would eventually become hers.
But at this moment, she wasn't the chairman.
She wasn't even part of senior management.
She was simply the daughter of Lin Group's founder.
And that was exactly why nobody was watching her yet.
That was her advantage.
Lin Wan began scrolling through the old files.
She remembered them.
Most of them.
The projects.
The investments.
The suppliers.
The contracts.
The people.
Her memory from her first life was not perfect.
But ten years of experience had left behind something more valuable than memory.
Patterns.
She knew which companies would rise.
Which would collapse.
Which executives would betray their partners.
Which industries would explode.
And which seemingly insignificant decisions would eventually become disasters.
She stopped scrolling.
One file caught her attention.
Phoenix Technology — Acquisition Proposal.
Lin Wan stared at the name.
Her expression changed.
She remembered Phoenix.
In her first life, everyone had laughed at the company.
The technology was considered immature.
Its valuation was absurd.
Lin Group had discussed investing in it.
Her father had wanted to.
She had opposed him.
She had insisted the company was too risky.
The investment never happened.
Three years later, Phoenix Technology was worth billions.
Lin Wan leaned back.
Her first mistake.
She had spent years thinking her greatest failures came from betrayal.
Maybe that wasn't true.
Some of them had started with her own decisions.
She had been too young.
Too proud.
Too willing to trust people who sounded confident.
This time, she would trust evidence.
Not people.
She opened another file.
Then another.
Her eyes moved rapidly across the documents.
There it was.
A list of shareholders.
One name made her stop.
Gu Yanshen.
Her breathing slowed.
Of course.
She remembered him.
Gu Yanshen had invested in Phoenix before anyone else believed in it.
That had been one of the reasons she had hated him.
He always seemed to see opportunities before she did.
Back then, she had called him arrogant.
Now she wondered if she had simply been blind.
Lin Wan stared at his name.
Gu Yanshen.
The man she had sworn to destroy.
The man who had apparently spent ten years trying to protect her.
The man she had seen only hours before her death.
She closed the file.
She needed answers.
But she couldn't simply walk into the Gu family's headquarters and ask him what had happened.
Not yet.
First, she needed to know what he was doing now.
She picked up her phone.
The model was old.
She unlocked it.
Her contacts appeared.
Names she had forgotten.
Some were still alive.
Some were dead.
Some had betrayed her.
Some had disappeared.
And one name immediately caught her attention.
Lu Minghao.
Lin Wan stared at it for several seconds.
Her thumb hovered over the screen.
In her first life, this man had become her husband.
The man she had loved.
The man who had drugged her.
The man who had stolen her company.
The man who had told her that her father had been murdered.
The man who had said:
I'm sorry.
Then he had watched her be taken away.
Lin Wan deleted the contact.
Her finger stopped.
She almost laughed.
That wasn't enough.
Deleting a phone number didn't erase a person.
But she didn't need to destroy Lu Minghao today.
Not yet.
Revenge was not about anger.
It was about timing.
If she acted too early, she would expose herself.
If she acted too late, people would die again.
She needed a plan.
A long one.
A very careful one.
Lin Wan opened a blank document.
At the top, she typed three words.
Things I Remember.
Then she began writing.
One.
Her father's death.
June 18, three years from now.
Official cause: cardiac arrest.
Actual cause: murder.
Unknown killer.
Possible connection to Blackstone.
Lin Wan stopped.
Blackstone.
The name made her fingers freeze.
She remembered the documents from the night she died.
Blackstone Holdings.
The company that had acquired her controlling interest.
But in her first life, she had barely heard of it until everything was already over.
That meant something.
If Blackstone was involved from the beginning, then the conspiracy had existed long before she realized it.
She wrote:
Blackstone existed before my father's death. Find its first connection to Lin Group.
Then—
Two.
Lu Minghao.
First met: July 2.
Relationship develops rapidly.
Marriage proposal: approximately three months later.
Marriage: one year later.
Betrayal begins much earlier than I realized.
Possible connection to Blackstone.
Lin Wan stared at the words.
She added another sentence.
Do not fall in love with him.
She looked at it.
Then deleted it.
She replaced it with:
Never trust him.
Better.
Then—
Three.
Gu Yanshen.
She stopped.
Her fingers remained above the keyboard.
What exactly did she know about him?
Almost nothing.
That was the frightening part.
For ten years, she had believed she knew him.
She had believed he was ruthless.
Cold.
Ambitious.
Dangerous.
She had believed he wanted the Lin family destroyed.
But at the end—
He had held her.
He had tried to save her.
He had looked afraid.
Why?
Lin Wan slowly typed:
Gu Yanshen — investigate.
Then she added:
Do not assume he is the enemy.
She stared at that sentence for a long time.
It felt strange.
Almost wrong.
Then she saved the document.
A knock came again.
This time, it was louder.
“Wan Wan.”
Lin Wan's body stiffened.
That voice.
Her mother.
She turned toward the door.
Her mother walked in wearing a pale blue dress.
The moment Lin Wan saw her, her heart hurt.
In her first life, her mother had become distant after her father's death.
Then she had disappeared.
Lin Wan had spent years believing her mother had abandoned her.
But now—
She remembered something from the final year of her first life.
A letter.
A letter her mother had tried to send her.
She had never received it.
Because Lu Minghao had intercepted it.
Lin Wan's eyes narrowed.
“Mom.”
Her mother smiled.
“You're finally awake.”
“Yes.”
“Your father is waiting downstairs.”
Lin Wan froze.
“My father?”
“Yes.”
“He's downstairs?”
Her mother nodded.
“He wants to have breakfast with you before going to the office.”
Lin Wan looked away.
For a moment, she couldn't speak.
Her father.
Alive.
She hadn't heard his voice in seven years.
She had forgotten how it sounded.
She suddenly stood.
“I'll go.”
Her mother looked surprised.
“You don't need to get ready?”
Lin Wan shook her head.
“No.”
She walked toward the door.
Then stopped.
She turned around.
“Mom.”
“Yes?”
“Did Dad sleep well last night?”
Her mother smiled.
“He worked late again.”
Lin Wan's throat tightened.
That ordinary answer nearly broke her heart.
She had thought she would have years to make up for everything.
She had thought there would always be another day.
Until one day there wasn't.
This time—
She wouldn't waste a single one.
The dining room was exactly as she remembered.
The long wooden table.
The crystal glasses.
The newspaper beside her father's coffee.
And her father.
Lin Wan stopped at the entrance.
He looked up.
For a second, neither spoke.
Then he smiled.
“Why are you standing there?”
Lin Wan's eyes immediately filled with tears.
She quickly lowered her head.
“Nothing.”
She walked over.
Her father frowned.
“Did you cry?”
“No.”
“You're my daughter. Do you think I can't tell?”
Lin Wan laughed softly.
Then she sat beside him.
Her father looked at her suspiciously.
“You're acting strange today.”
“I had a dream.”
“What dream?”
Lin Wan looked at him.
“A dream where I lost everything.”
Her father's expression softened.
“It's only a dream.”
Lin Wan stared at him.
“No.”
Her voice was quiet.
“Sometimes dreams are warnings.”
Her father smiled.
“You're only twenty-two. Don't talk like an old woman.”
Lin Wan smiled too.
But inside, something had already changed.
Her father was alive.
Her mother was alive.
Mrs. Chen was alive.
And somewhere in this city—
Gu Yanshen was alive.
The future was no longer fixed.
She had already changed one thing simply by waking up.
Now she had to change everything else.
Her father picked up the newspaper.
“Oh, by the way.”
He casually said,
“I'm meeting the Gu family this afternoon.”
Lin Wan's hand stopped.
The spoon slipped from her fingers.
It hit the table with a sharp sound.
Her father looked at her.
“What happened?”
Lin Wan slowly raised her eyes.
“The Gu family?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Her father smiled.
“Business.”
Lin Wan's heart began to pound.
She already knew who would be there.
She knew the man she had spent ten years hating.
The man who had held her as she died.
The man whose truth she had never known.
Gu Yanshen.
Her second life had barely begun.
And fate had already placed him in front of her.
This time—
She wouldn't look away.
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