Shen Wei awoke groggily in the morgue and tore the forged death certificate to shreds.
The metal rails of the cold storage drawer screeched like a dying man as a heavy drawer was wrenched open with brute force. The chaotic darkness was violently ripped apart, and stark white light, like icy blades, stabbed directly into Shen Wei's eyes.
Thick, palpable cold, carrying the nauseatingly sweet, cloying stench of preservatives and disinfectant, instantly flooded her mouth and nose, choking her lungs. Every breath felt like swallowing shards of ice, piercing all the way to the depths of her chest.
"Hah…" A broken gasp caught in her throat as Shen Wei's eyes snapped open.
Blurred whiteness filled her vision; ceiling lights emitted a frigid glow. Her consciousness felt like a frozen lake, riddled with cracks beneath which dark currents surged—sharp, icy shards of memory not her own, laden with terror and humiliation, crashing against her mind like a tidal wave.
For fifteen years, she had lived as the "fake heiress" of the wealthy Shen family, basking in luxury. But when the true heiress, Shen Nian, returned, Shen Wei was plunged into an abyss of ostracism and framed. Finally, a meticulously orchestrated "theft" scandal destroyed her. Stripped of her finery and discarded like trash, she had walked towards death amidst endless humiliation and despair… No, she had walked towards this icy morgue drawer!
Yet another memory, stubborn as bedrock, surfaced—world-weary yet sharp, honed by seeing through human nature. Shen Wei, a top crisis management consultant, had collapsed onto her document-strewn desk from cardiac arrest after pulling an all-nighter handling a scandal that could have toppled a multinational corporation.
Two utterly different lives, two tearing agonies, collided and fused violently within her cold shell. Shen Wei curled up violently, retching dryly. Her stomach was empty; only the bitter burn of bile scorched her throat.
"Hurry the hell up!" A gruff, deliberately lowered male voice sounded nearby, thick with impatience. "This damn place gives me the creeps! Get it done, and you'll get your money."
"What's the rush?" Another voice, slick and oily, replied slowly. "Afraid of a corpse jumping out? The deputy director's taken care of, the death certificate's set. Soon as we're done, straight into the furnace. Burned to ashes, that's the end of it. Miss Shen insisted on seeing it turn to dust."
*Shen Nian!*
The name pierced Shen Wei's fractured consciousness like a poison-tipped ice needle. *Shen Nian!* That seemingly pure and innocent true heiress, actually vicious and ruthless! *She* put me in this morgue drawer! *She* wants me reduced to ashes!
Instinctive survival roared to life, overwhelming all confusion and weakness. Shen Wei bit her lower lip hard, the taste of iron flooding her mouth. Summoning every last ounce of strength, her stiff fingers scrabbled at the cold metal edge of the drawer, nails scraping the rails with a faint, grating sound. She *had* to get out! Now! Immediately!
The whispering outside stopped abruptly.
"What was that?" the gruff voice asked sharply.
"Probably rats. This dump…" The oily voice sounded dismissive, but footsteps approached Shen Wei's drawer.
No more waiting!
Shen Wei sucked in a lungful of icy air, marshaling every fiber of her being. Her hands clamped onto the drawer's edge, and she executed a desperate, graceless roll!
*Thud!*
Her body, wrapped in cheap white shroud cloth, slammed onto the morgue's cold, hard, damp tiles. Bone-chilling cold instantly penetrated the thin fabric.
"Ah—!" The owner of the oily voice shrieked in terror, stumbling backward and crashing into a nearby trolley, sending metal instruments clattering.
The burly man with the gruff voice also blanched, pupils contracting violently as if seeing a ghost. His hand instinctively went to a bulge at his waist. Beside him, a short, pudgy man with a mean face looked ready to collapse, legs buckling.
Shen Wei struggled fiercely against the shroud binding her, the movements of a cornered animal. Icy air hit her lungs again, triggering violent, bone-rattling coughs. Gasping, she braced herself against the equally cold stainless-steel autopsy table, pushing her exhausted body upright. Wet black hair clung to her pale temples and cheeks; water droplets fell, *plink… plink…* shattering the morgue's deathly silence.
She slowly lifted her head, her gaze sweeping over the two stunned men. Her eyes were like frozen obsidian, utterly devoid of warmth, holding only fathomless darkness and a hint of near-cruel mockery.
"Well?" Her voice was a sandpaper rasp, yet cuttingly clear in the suffocating quiet. "Did Shen Nian send you… to confirm I'm dead? Or," her lips twisted into an icy smile, "to ensure the 'corpse' makes it smoothly into the furnace?"
The burly man snapped out of his shock first. His face muscles twitched, brutality rapidly replacing fear. "Damn bitch! Tough as nails, huh? Not dead yet? I'll finish you off now!" He yanked a gleaming dagger from his waistband. Its blade reflected the morgue's harsh light menacingly. He advanced step by step, eyes locked on his prey like a viper.
The pudgy man, recovering, swapped terror for ferocity. He grabbed a heavy wrench from the trolley. Flanking her, trapping her against the autopsy table, they closed in. Waves of murderous intent, sour sweat, and disinfectant hit her.
Shen Wei's back pressed against the cold steel surface, the chill biting through her thin clothes. She didn't retreat or scream. The crisis consultant's icy calm fused perfectly with the discarded heiress's towering hatred. Her mind raced despite the pain and dizziness, scanning like a precision instrument.
The thug's knife grip was clumsy, his stance unstable—no professional killer, just hired muscle. The pudgy man's wrench-wielding arm trembled slightly; his fierce eyes betrayed cowardice.
"Heh." A soft, icy scoff escaped Shen Wei's pale lips, dripping with contempt. "Brandishing illegal weapons for murder in a public hospital morgue? Shen Nian's taste in help is truly… *unique*." Her gaze, like cold probes, swept over them. "One," she looked at the thug, "old shoulder injury. Favors your right side when you exert force. And you," she turned to the pudgy man, "severe wrist tendonitis. Can't hold that wrench steady for more than three minutes, can you? And *you* think you can handle an 'accident'?"
Her voice was low but crystal clear, each word an ice pick to their hearts. The thug's advance faltered, his face flickering with shock at being seen through. The pudgy man involuntarily glanced at his wrist, his jowls trembling.
*Now!*
Shen Wei's eyes flashed. As the thug hesitated, she dropped low—not back, but forward like a coiled predator, lunging not at him, but at the unstable direction of his stance. Her target: the stainless-steel tray of instruments on the autopsy table behind him!
"Stop her!" the thug bellowed, stabbing forward, but Shen Wei's low, angled charge made him miss.
*Crash! Clatter!*
Shen Wei slammed her full weight into the heavy tray. It flipped violently, sending scissors, forceps, needles, and other cold instruments flying like shrapnel towards the men!
"Ah!" The pudgy man, closest, took a heavy bone clamp square on the forehead. Blood gushed as he screamed, clutching his head. The thug, flailing to block the flying tools, stumbled back.
In the chaos, Shen Wei slithered like an eel through the gap their dodging created. Her target: the morgue's control console! The internal phone!
"You bitch! Die!" Enraged, the thug lunged again, ignoring the scattered tools, his dagger slashing faster and fiercer, aimed to dismember.
The cold blade whistled through the air like a streak of frost, aimed straight for Shen Wei's back. Death's aura wrapped around her, suffocating.
Shen Wei felt the hairs on her neck stand, a chill shooting up her spine. But only raw survival screamed within her. In that split second, her mind raced. Using her last reserves of agility, she threw herself forward.
She crashed onto the console's cold, smooth metal surface like a wounded animal. The impact blurred her vision; the metallic tang of blood rose in her throat. Yet, in falling, her flailing right hand swept across the console.
*Thump.* A hard plastic folder hit the floor, papers scattering like snow. One sheet, stamped with a bright red seal, landed before her eyes.
> **Stellar City Central Hospital - Body Disposition Authorization Form**
> **Deceased:** Shen Wei
> **Time of Death:** July 10, 2025, 03:17
> **Disposition:** Cremation Approved
> **Next of Kin / Authorized Signatory:** Shen Nian
Below was Shen Nian's signature, elegant as ever, the one Shen Wei had seen and even copied countless times. Now, it looked like a viper's tongue, dripping venom.
The sight ignited the icy fury Shen Wei had suppressed. Fifteen years of the Shen family's false benevolence, the humiliation of being framed and cast out, the bone-deep hatred of being discarded like trash into this morgue drawer—it erupted. Compressed and ignited, it became a cold, violent inferno.
"Ha…" A short, rasping, utterly humorless laugh scraped from her throat, laced with scorn.
She snapped her head up, eyes blazing with vengeful fire, ignoring the dagger closing in and the thug's snarling face. Her grimy, sweat-slicked finger stabbed the console's bright red emergency button with desperate, unwavering speed.
Instantly, a piercing siren shattered the morgue's eerie silence. Red warning lights spun wildly, painting the room in bloody hues.
"Here's your 'accident'!" Shen Wei's voice sliced through the siren, cold and clear, each word a venomous ice spike. "Article 3 of Stellar City's Special Funeral Regulations explicitly states: *Any costs incurred for mandatory cremation due to management negligence causing body storage overruns—including fines, losses from operational suspension, and additional compensation for damage to the deceased's reputation—shall be borne entirely by the responsible party!*"
She whirled around, silhouetted against the strobing red alarm. Like an avenger from hell, her deathly pale face and deep, icy eyes pinned the thug and the pudgy man, frozen mid-lunge by the siren, their faces sheet-white. Her lips curled into an arctic, mocking smile as she hammered each word home:
"Did Shen Nian send you to destroy the evidence… to save the Shen family some coffin money? Or…" Her gaze, sharp as a scalpel, swept the scattered forged documents. Her voice rose, piercing: "…to let all of Stellar City know that the Shen family, to kill an adopted daughter, stoops to forging death certificates and hiring thugs to destroy a body?!"
"Coffin money." The phrase was a curse, a scalpel flaying the Shen family's gilded facade, exposing the rotten, bloody calculations beneath.
The thug and the pudgy man were stunned by the siren, Shen Wei's glacial stare, and her lethal words. Hiring thugs? Forging documents? If proven… They stared at the flashing red light behind her, hearing approaching shouts and running footsteps. The last color drained from their faces. Fear gripped them; they were just hired hands, not willing to sink with the Shens!
"Fucking lunatic!" The thug spat, abandoning the mission. He yanked the bleeding, terrified pudgy man, and they bolted like beaten dogs, crashing through the morgue doors into the dark corridor beyond, desperate to escape.
"Morgue! Alarm in the morgue! Move!" Security shouts echoed, beams of flashlight dancing down the hall.
The siren wailed on. Strobing red and blue light cut across the morgue's sterile white walls and floor like a macabre light show. Shen Wei leaned against the cold console, body trembling with exhaustion and pain. Sweat plastered her thin clothes to her skin. Every breath felt like a dull knife twisting in her chest – the legacy of her previous death and the fresh trauma.
Slowly, painfully, she raised her right hand. On the inside of her wrist, near the pulse point, a coin-sized mark pulsed faintly in the red light—not a rose, but cold, cryptic symbols: **1987 - Ω**. Its edges were unnaturally distorted, like forcibly erased code.
Her fingertip brushed the raised mark. It felt rough, cold. A profound chill, soul-deep, seeped into her. This wasn't a tattoo. It was a brand. Did it belong to the original owner? Or was it the mark of her, the "intruder"?
Fragmented memories surged again: cold rooms smelling of rust, blinding surgical lights, searing skin, blurred figures, low voices… "Project 1987… Maternal Adaptation… Omega Sequence…" Broken phrases gnawed at her nerves. This brand, this "Project 1987," the timing of the original owner's adoption, Shen Nian's return, the frame-up, the abandonment, the "death"… Was any of this coincidence?
The heavy morgue door slammed open. Blinding flashlight beams stabbed into the room.
"Freeze! Hands up!" Security guards barked, voices tight with tension. Their wary eyes scanned the chaotic scene – overturned trolley, scattered tools, blood spatter, drifting forged documents, and the woman leaning against the console, soaked, ghostly pale, with eyes cold and sharp as shattered glass.
The light made Shen Wei squint. She didn't raise her hands. Slowly, laboriously, she lifted her branded wrist, pointing at the papers on the floor. Her voice, though hoarse, cut through the siren with undeniable force:
"Forged death certificate… Hired killers for body disposal…" She gasped, her icy gaze first sweeping the guards, then locking onto the Deputy Director who had rushed in, white coat askew, face ashen and sweating. "Call the police. And notify the Stellar City Police Precinct and the *Stellar Daily* reporters. Tell them… the Shen family has prepared a headline guaranteed to rock the city."
At the mention of "Shen family," the Deputy Director seemed to deflate, legs wobbling. His lips trembled soundlessly. He knew: if this reached the press, implicating the Shens, his career was over, maybe his freedom too.
Shen Wei watched his terror with cold contempt. She scanned the scene: the flashing lights, the blaring siren like a death knell, the scattered evidence, the blood – a silent indictment of the Shen family's vileness.
Physically wrecked, Shen Wei's resolve was ironclad. Waking in this morgue had ignited a path of vengeance with no retreat. This was merely the first gust of the coming storm.
Security guards exchanged uncertain glances, looking from Shen Wei to the stricken Deputy Director. More commotion echoed from the corridor.
Shen Wei drew a painful breath, forcing her spine straight. She knew the battle ahead would be fiercer. But she was unafraid. The fire of vengeance burned too fiercely within her now to be extinguished.
The Shen family thought they could erase her silently. Instead, they had awakened a force. And they would pay. Dearly. Shen Wei vowed silently: every one of them would answer for their crimes. Their arrogance and cruelty would cost them. The battle for the Shen legacy had just begun. And Shen Wei was ready.