Atop a high-rise building, a man in a black windbreaker looked through his scope with quiet confidence. "One shot from this range, and even a god would drop dead."

As a sniper for the Black Crystal Earl family, he had every reason to be sure of himself. His marksmanship was beyond question, and the target wasn't even that far away. One clean shot, and it would be over.

Standing beside him was a young woman of unremarkable looks. Her face bore the unmistakable air of someone who believed the world existed for her. "Good riddance, a piece of trash like that doesn't even qualify to be my partner. Better to just put him down."

She was Wang Wei, an ordinary office worker. In the original timeline, she was driven to desperation after losing her job, eventually working as a nanny for a wealthy family. Unable to stand the cries of the infant, she would drug and abuse the child repeatedly, until a careless moment left the baby dead.

Thus, she was arrested and thrown in prison. Just as her life was steadily heading toward a bleak and ugly end, fate decided to play a trick on her. The world reset, and she found herself ten years in the past.

After going back in time, she became convinced that she was the chosen one. Armed with the knowledge of what was to come, she didn't rush to forge alliances with the Seven Martial Star families. Instead, she sought out a local power base first—the Black Crystal Earl family. Winning their trust with her memories of the past decade wasn’t difficult.

She also knew there was another rebooter in Tianyue City. Since they were both from the same place, she had plenty of information on him. She knew he was going to die in a year's time, which meant he likely had no memories of a reset at all. Selfish by nature, she had decided to become Tianyue City’s sole chosen one.

Other than that, Qi Yuan's existence simply irritated her. People like that were better off kept to a minimum. Since he was a useless man destined to die within a year, Wang Wei felt nothing but contempt for him.

She told the sniper, "Stick with me, and your family's future will be somewhere among the Seven Martial Stars."

Just then, the sniper's expression shifted. "Something's wrong, he's not dead."

Through his scope, he watched Qi Yuan step out of the car, utterly nonchalant. Impossible! He had watched the shot punch clean through the window. Even with a bulletproof vest, the man should have been finished!

Wang Wei blinked, then let a smile curl across her lips. "Looks like he got lucky."

An unexpected complication was nothing she couldn't handle. She had prepared several contingencies for dealing with Qi Yuan. He was about to find out exactly how unlucky he was.

Down on the road below, a heavy Dayun truck suddenly floored it, hurtling toward Qi Yuan with a shriek of the tires. [1]Like a madman, the driver accelerated without any sign of slowing. The impact of something that size could crush a car flat, let alone a lone person on foot.

The truck driver’s eyes were wild, a strange, pitying smile on his face as he bore down on his target.

In a nearby car, a male driver stamped his brakes and stared in horror. "No!"

He squeezed his eyes shut. Yet when he opened them again, what he had expected to see simply wasn't there. The truck had been hurled backward as if it had struck an invisible wall, flipping through the air before crashing down on its side. There was no trace of the young man standing in its path.

"What the...?"

"Someone call the police!"

Without hesitation, the male driver grabbed his phone and dialled. Then, he threw open his door to see what had actually happened.

Not far away, Kang Huan stared at the overturned truck, his eyes wide. "That man is a human tank..."

He hadn't seen exactly how Qi Yuan had moved, but a fully loaded truck flipping at speed and landing in place defied physics. If Qi Yuan was responsible, that meant he could single-handedly wipe out an elite gene soldier squad at the border. Assuming, of course, no advanced weaponry was brought to bear.

Up on the rooftop, Wang Wei's smile had frozen solid. "What happened? The truck flipped?"

The distance was too great for her to see the details. She tried reaching the driver via a communication device, but there was only silence on the other end.

A flicker of unease crossed her face. "Did he push it over? Has he taken a high-grade gene serum?"

The sniper said, "No way, high-grade gene serums are tightly regulated. He wouldn't have access. It must have been a mechanical failure. Maybe the truck lost control." 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

That explanation settled Wang Wei's nerves. She also took a moment to check herself. As the world's chosen one, she ought to have nerves of steel. Even if mountains crumbled before her, her expression wouldn’t change.

She raised her binoculars and swept the scene around the overturned truck. "Where is he now?"

Qi Yuan was nowhere to be found.

"He must have slipped away in the chaos. It doesn't matter, I'll report upward. He won't get far in Tianyue City."

The sniper reached for his communication device to tell the rest of the Black Crystal Earl family.

Wang Wei kept her eyes on the truck, a small smile playing at the corner of her mouth. "Lucky him."

Still, a quiet suspicion nagged at the back of her mind. The world probably also favored a rebooter like him, making him difficult to kill. The thought left her briefly feeling both smug and vaguely troubled.

Soon, her confidence came rushing back. He's only half a rebooter at best. How could he possibly slip out of my grasp?

A few moments passed.

Then, the sniper grew faintly displeased. "Miss Wang Wei, Zhao Shiqi is ordering us back immediately. He wants answers."

The Black Crystal Earl family was not a monolith. Not everyone there was on board with the alliance with Wang Wei. Zhao Shiqi led the skeptical faction, and he had never trusted her. This assassination attempt had been carried out behind his back. Now that it had begun, he'd noticed, and was currently shouting at the sniper over the communication device.

A cold glint flashed in her eyes. "The old man's lost his mind, ignore him. He's not the one running the Black Crystal Earl family anymore."

She had long grown impatient with Zhao Shiqi. The plan was to use the family's resources to reach her goals, and then deal with him after the fact.

The sniper gave a curt nod. "I'll arrange for the police to bring Qi Yuan in for questioning."

Law was a tool of those in power. Those who upheld order were, in the end, just lackeys of the nobility. The world hadn't grown more equal as it grew more advanced. If anything, its hierarchies had only grown more rigid.

Wang Wei savoured the feeling. Once upon a time, she had trembled before nobles and their guards. Now, they were simply pieces on her board. The sensation of holding other people's fates in her hands was intoxicating.

"All right. Time to head back and..." she trailed off.

Directly ahead of her, a familiar figure had appeared.

1. 大运牌 (Dayun) is a real Chinese truck brand. 大运 literally means "great luck" or "big fortune" in Chinese, so when Wang Wei's assassin sends a Dayun-brand truck to run Qi Yuan over, and Qi Yuan survives, the narration jokes that he "撞大运", meaning he "got lucky" or "struck good fortune." The pun is that he was literally struck by a Dayun (Great Luck) truck and walked away unscathed. ☜