After Rebirth, I Discovered the Whole World Wants to Harm Me [GL] - Chapter 1

Rain poured down from the sky, pitter-pattering and rattling the unstable windows of the rented room. The sound mixed with the local news playing on an old television inside:

“Reporting local news: Multiple rounds of acquisition negotiations between the famous Gaosheng Group and the Xiao Group have failed. The Xiao Group has returned in defeat, and Gaosheng Group officially declared bankruptcy at 5:30 PM today. As a well-known local large-scale mechanical industrial processing group, Gaosheng Group has, since the 1980s…”

The flickering screen of the TV was so distorted that the host’s face wasn’t even visible; only the voice echoed clearly throughout the room. The only person who would have listened to the news was already lying cold on the floor, surrounded by scattered leftovers, eyes wide open—dying with regrets.

Her gaze was exactly the same as that of the semi-transparent, identical figure standing in the corner of the room watching the TV.

Without blinking, she just stared—mechanical and deathly still.

Gaosheng Group… declared bankruptcy…

Bankrupt?

Dad’s company?

The semi-transparent figure watched the TV until the camera suddenly cut from the host to the field reporter.

She could no longer hear clearly what was being said, but her eyes caught a familiar person on the screen. Subconsciously, she reached out to grab them—to grab this acquaintance and ask what on earth was happening.

How did I end up dead?

How did my family suddenly fall apart like this?

The semi-transparent figure drifted in front of the television. She reached out, but her hand passed right through the LCD screen and sank into the snow-white wall behind it.

She flailed her arms and opened her mouth to scream the person’s name, but not a single sound came out.

She exhausted all her strength until her vision blurred and the entire world plunged into darkness.

“—XIAO SHIXIN!!!”

A earth-shattering roar erupted from the side. A young man who was munching on potato chips while playing games suddenly clenched his teeth, so startled that both hands flew off his keyboard. On the computer screen, his character—having just dodged a fatal shot—suddenly twitched and stood frozen on the spot, allowing the opponent to take his head.

Seemingly surprised by this sudden performance, a teammate laughed and cursed through the headset:

“Young Master Yu, that move was pretty smooth. You literally jittered like you had Parkinson’s.”

“Get lost, get lost, get lost!” Tang Xiaoyu ripped off his headset and muted the voice chat. He flicked the potato chip crumbs off his lap into the nearby trash can before looking with uncertainty at his sister, who had just bolted upright from her nap like a reanimated corpse.

“…Tang Xiaoran, your nap was a bit world-shaking, wasn’t it?” Despite his words, seeing the sweat suddenly breaking out on her forehead, he pulled a tissue from the box on the table and handed it to her.

A few strands of hair were plastered to the girl’s cheek by sweat, and the jacket she had been draped in slid off her shoulders. She stared at his familiar face, eyeing the tuft of highlighted red and yellow hair on his head, her gaze completely vacant.

Being stared at with such a “possessed” look made the hair on Tang Xiaoyu’s arms stand up. He waved a hand in front of her and couldn’t help but speak again:

“What did Sister Xin do to you in your dream? That’s a fierce look in your eyes.”

Tang Xiaoran remembered that his hair was done at a salon by his friends on his eighteenth birthday. The colors made their father so angry every time he saw them that within half a month, Xiaoyu had pitifully dyed it back to black.

Why is it still as vivid as a chicken’s butt feathers right now?

After this strange question circled her empty mind a few times, her previous memories suddenly surged forth like a bursting dam, leaving her body shivering with a delayed chill.

It was as if a rebooted computer had restored its backup data.

Wait… wasn’t I dead?!

She had eaten a takeout meal and died in that empty, shabby rented room.

She abruptly shifted her gaze away from Tang Xiaoyu to scan her surroundings.

Chiffon curtains were tied back on either side of the wide floor-to-ceiling windows, swaying gently in the breeze. A crystal chandelier hung from the living room ceiling, its teardrop pendants shimmering dimly… Whether it was the pattern of the carpet beneath her feet or the winding curve of the handrail at the end of the hallway, everything reminded her: this luxurious and warm decor was her home.

The home she had dreamed of returning to hundreds and thousands of times afterward.

A glass of water was placed on the coffee table. Uncle Zhao, the butler, had walked up beside her at some point. His slightly weathered voice held a hint of a smile as he spoke gently:

“Xiaoran, did you have a nightmare? Would you like some warm water?”

The girl stared at him blankly, thinking: I can actually see Uncle Zhao now? Unbelievable, have I started missing even the family butler?

The door to the second-floor study had been open all day. Tang Xiaoran’s roar had successfully reached the ears of the man working inside. At this moment, a man in a grayish-blue suit stood behind the hallway railing, his silent gaze full of concern for the girl who had been startled awake on the sofa.

Upon hearing Uncle Zhao and Tang Xiaoyu’s voices and realizing it was just a nightmare, he turned to head back into the study.

However, the girl who caught a glimpse of his silhouette cried out in disbelief:

“…Big Brother?”

The name on the death certificate in her memory had suddenly come back to life right before her eyes.

Like a lavish dream.

Her elder brother’s death had been the hand that pushed the Tang family toward its end.

Afterward, her father’s high blood pressure landed him in the hospital, Tang Xiaoyu disappeared to god-knows-where, and she was suddenly notified by a real estate agent that the villa was already being sold and she had to move out.

Following that, she found no help anywhere she turned, and finally, she had inexplicably lost her life, leaving only a soul to watch the news officially inform her:

Student Tang Xiaoran, your “wealthy second-generation” status has been revoked.

As if remembering something, she grabbed the phone from the coffee table, pressed the home button, and saw the date:

September 3, 2016.

…September 3, 2016.

One month before her big brother’s death.

It was a time when nothing had happened yet. She was still idling her days away, living aimlessly, dreaming of spending her entire life loafing on the mountain of gold earned by her father and brother.

Hearing her call, the man stopped, turned back to look at her, and seemed somewhat surprised by her tone.

When he turned around, even from that distance, he could clearly see two crystal-clear lines falling down her face.

Everyone was shocked. Uncle Zhao let out a worried sigh. Tang Xiaoyu instinctively tried to wipe her face with the tissue, but looking at her makeup, he didn’t know where to start without making a mess. He awkwardly raised his hand a few times before putting it down.

Finally, he stiffened his neck and shouted at the man coming down the stairs:

“Tang Xiaozhang, you’re already the Group CEO! What’s wrong with buying her a car?!”

After all, before Tang Xiaoran fell asleep on the sofa, she had been rejected by Tang Xiaozhang for that very request and had been scolded by their father!

Xiaoyu, who was a coward in front of their father, was quite fierce toward his brother Tang Xiaozhang.

Big Brother Tang knit his brows. His unsmiling face made this expression seem even more cold and detached; anyone else would have been scared into sucking their tears back in.

Only the fleeting look of helplessness in his starry eyes betrayed his true emotions.

Before the sentence at the tip of his tongue could come out—You’re still in school, Dad thinks it’s not appropriate for you to drive a Lamborghini right now; how about you borrow a car from my garage for a few days—he was suddenly tackled in a hug by Tang Xiaoran.

Tang Xiaozhang, who had never experienced such enthusiasm from his younger siblings, instinctively caught her and then stood there, frozen solid.

Uncle Zhao, Tang Xiaozhang, and Tang Xiaoyu—the three men looked at each other in bewilderment.

They had no idea what was wrong with the little princess of the house.

At that moment, the doorbell rang. Uncle Zhao had no choice but to head toward the video intercom.

Tang Xiaoran, still feeling like she was in a dream, wiped a mess of tears and snot onto her brother’s suit. She looked up, stared at his face, and seeing that her big brother was indeed handsome and talented, she decided to immerse herself in this “true or false” world for a bit longer. She took the opportunity to act spoiled:

“Brother, the weather is getting cold. Let’s make the Xiao family go bankrupt.”

Xiao Shixin, who had just walked in the door following her father: “…”

The Author has something to say:

Little Theater:

Xiao Shixin: “…How exactly did our Xiao family offend you?”

Tang Xiaoran: “You probably offended me in my past life.” [Rests chin on hand]