Title: The Cannon Fodder is Reborn: My System and I Will Crush the White Lotus!
CHAPTER 1: The Betrayal
The smell of burning flesh is something you never forget. Especially when it’s your own.
The searing, absolute agony stripped away every thought, every memory, until there was nothing left but a screaming, blinding white heat. The flames licked up the heavy wooden execution pillar, catching the hem of my once-glorious silk robes.
"Sister, why did you do it? Why did you try to poison my spiritual veins?"
The voice was sweet, trembling, laced with an artificial, sickening innocence that made my stomach heave even as the smoke filled my lungs. Through the roaring, crackling curtain of the True Fire, I forced my eyes open.
I stared at Lin Wan.
She was dressed in pristine white silk, looking like an untouched fairy descending from the heavens. Her delicate, pale hands clutched the lapels of the man holding her, and she buried her tear-stained face into his broad chest, her shoulders shaking with perfectly choreographed sobs.
That man was Xiao Chen. The Crown Prince of the Great Yan Empire.
My fiancé. The man I had loved, supported, and bled for over the last five years.
"Luoyan, you have disappointed me for the last time," Xiao Chen’s voice thundered, cutting through the roar of the fire and the jeering of the massive crowd gathered in the imperial square. His handsome face, a face I had once traced with loving fingers, was twisted in absolute, visceral disgust. "Wan'er only ever showed you kindness! She was a pure, spiritual healer who only wanted a place in your family, and you are nothing but a jealous, venomous snake! You deserve to be purged by the True Fire."
"I didn't poison her!" I screamed, my throat tearing, tasting the copper tang of my own blood. The heavy iron chains burned into my wrists, searing my skin down to the bone. "Xiao Chen, you blind fool! She’s the one who planted the Nightshade in my chambers! She’s the one who ordered the assassins that crippled my brother! Look at her! Look at the monster you are holding!"
"Silence, you vicious slut!" Xiao Chen roared, his spiritual pressure exploding outward, suffocating the breath from my lungs. "Do not dare to slander her with your dying breath. I will not listen to your poison anymore."
He drew his ceremonial sword, the Dragon's Fang. The blade glowed with a blinding, righteous spiritual energy. Without a second of hesitation, he raised his arm and threw it.
The blade pierced my chest, right through my heart, pinning me deeper into the burning pillar.
The pain was absolute. It shattered my mind, turning the world into a kaleidoscope of red and black. I coughed, a thick geyser of dark blood spilling from my lips. My vision began to swim as the coldness of death battled the heat of the flames.
But even through the agonizing, dying haze, I saw it.
As Xiao Chen turned away, raising a hand to comfort the weeping crowd and shield his precious "victim," Lin Wan looked over his shoulder.
She wasn't crying anymore.
Her tears vanished instantly, replaced by a cold, victorious smirk. Her dark eyes gleamed with a cruel, mocking amusement that sent a chill far colder than the sword in my chest straight to my soul. She tilted her head, her lips moving to mouth a sequence of words silently.
“Thanks for the plot armor, Cannon Fodder.”
Cannon Fodder? Plot armor?
Before my dying brain could even begin to process those bizarre, alien phrases, the flames surged upward, consuming my vision. I died with my eyes wide open, staring at the ash-filled sky. My heart screamed a final, soundless curse to the heavens. If there was a next life, I would tear off Lin Wan’s fake mask of purity. I would make Xiao Chen swallow his own sword. I would drag them both down to the deepest, darkest pits of hell!
Then, the world shattered into a million pieces of glass.
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