The air smelled of coal smoke and damp earth, a sharp contrast to the imperial incense and sandalwood of his previous life. Somewhere nearby, a baby wailed—loud, persistent, and undeniably alive. The sound clawed its way through the heavy fog of his mind, pulling him out of a deep, endless darkness.
Zaifeng opened his eyes—or at least, he thought he did. But all he could see was a blur of shapes and light, colors bleeding into each other like ink spilled on parchment. His limbs felt heavy, uncoordinated, alien.
"Where am I?"
The last thing he remembered was the bitter chill of a Beijing winter night, the weight of regret pressing down on his chest, and the ticking of that relentless clock. Death had come quietly, slipping in like a thief in the night, stealing his breath, his voice, and his pain.
But he was still here. Somehow.
The wailing voice grew louder, filling the tiny space around him. And then, as if summoned, a warm hand touched his tiny cheek.
"Chengxian… hush, little one. Mama's here."
The voice was soft, trembling with exhaustion, and undeniably loving.
"Chengxian?"
His thoughts were fragmented, slipping away like sand through his fingers. He could no longer speak, no longer command, no longer even understand the reality around him. All he could do was exist—small, vulnerable, and utterly helpless.
Zaifeng, once the Regent of the Great Qing Empire, was now Li Chengxian, a newborn child in a modest Beijing home in the year 1951.
Li Chengxian's first memories of his second life were blurry and warm—sunlight streaming through paper windows, the scent of rice porridge in the morning, and the rhythmic hum of his mother singing lullabies as she worked her sewing machine.
His mother, Li Meiyun, was a seamstress—her fingers always busy with needles and thread, her back bent over fabric in a small corner of their single-room home. She was soft-spoken, her voice rarely rising above a murmur, but her presence was like an anchor—steady, constant, and full of love.
His father, Li Haoran, was a teacher at a nearby primary school. He was a stern man with a deep, gravelly voice, but his rare smiles were warm and genuine. In the evenings, he would sit by a small wooden table, grading papers under the dim glow of an old kerosene lamp, occasionally muttering about students who still couldn't grasp multiplication tables.
Chengxian grew up in poverty, but not in misery. His family was not wealthy, but they were kind, and kindness often felt like a luxury in the uncertain tides of post-revolution China.
The house was small—a single-story structure with cracked walls and a leaky roof during the rainy season. A worn-out poster of Chairman Mao adorned one wall, while an old bookshelf sagged under the weight of textbooks, dictionaries, and a few faded novels.
It was a humble life, but it was a life nonetheless.
And yet, deep within his growing mind, something lingered—a faint echo, a shadow of a memory he could not fully grasp.
As a toddler, Chengxian would often wake in the middle of the night, gasping for breath, his tiny body drenched in sweat. His mother would rush to his side, cradling him in her arms and murmuring soft reassurances.
"It's just a bad dream, little one. Mama's here."
But the dreams weren't ordinary nightmares.
He would see vast golden halls stretching endlessly into the horizon, their polished floors reflecting the pale light of a dying sun. Faces would loom in the shadows—stern ministers in heavy robes, a small child wearing an oversized dragon crown, and a woman with piercing eyes who seemed to command the very air around her.
Sometimes, he would hear faint whispers: "You will act as Regent… Protect the boy… Sign the treaty…"
Other times, he would feel the weight of a pen in his trembling hand, ink bleeding across fragile paper as treaties and declarations were signed in a language he barely understood.
He couldn't make sense of it. How could a child—barely old enough to count his fingers—have such vivid and haunting dreams?
But with every passing year, the dreams faded. Like ink washed away by rain, they became faint smudges on the edges of his memory.
And as Li Chengxian grew, those fleeting echoes became little more than fragments—unspoken, forgotten, buried deep in the subconscious of a growing child.
Chengxian was an unusually quiet child. While other boys his age would run wild through the narrow alleys of their neighborhood, he would sit quietly on a wooden stool, watching his mother sew or his father grade papers.
At five years old, he began to read—not just children's stories, but real books. His father would often catch him leafing through history textbooks, his tiny brows furrowed in concentration.
"Chengxian," his father said one evening, looking at him over the rim of his glasses. "Why do you always read these books? Shouldn't you play outside with the other children?"
Chengxian looked up, his large eyes reflecting the dim lamplight. "I like learning about the past, Baba. It feels… important."
Li Haoran chuckled softly. "Important, hmm? Perhaps you'll become a historian one day."
The boy nodded solemnly, clutching the heavy book to his chest. "Yes, Baba. I think I will."
And from that moment on, his father began bringing home more history books from the school library—dog-eared volumes on ancient dynasties, illustrated tomes about emperors and battles long forgotten.
To Chengxian, these books weren't just stories. They felt familiar, like distant echoes of a song he had once known by heart but could no longer sing.
One summer afternoon, as Chengxian sat under the shade of a gnarled tree reading about the Qing Dynasty, he stumbled across a name that sent a strange shiver down his spine.
"Prince Chun."
The name leapt off the page, sharp and vivid. His breath caught, and his small fingers froze on the yellowed paper.
He read on—about a prince who had served as regent, about an abdicated emperor-child, about a dynasty that had faded into obscurity under the weight of treaties and foreign pressure.
His chest tightened as something stirred deep within him—something ancient, something painful.
But when his mother called him in for dinner, the feeling faded, slipping away into the warm scent of rice and vegetables.
He didn't speak of it. How could he? How could a child explain the crushing weight of a name written in an old history book?
Years passed, and Chengxian continued to grow—bright, studious, and quiet. He spent hours in the corner of their small home, pouring over history books while other children played soccer in the dusty alleys.
His father often shook his head in fond exasperation. "You'll grow up to be a scholar, Chengxian. Mark my words."
But deep in Chengxian's chest, there was a flicker of something more—a feeling he couldn't name, a question he couldn't ask.
"Who was I before this? Why do I remember things I shouldn't?"
But the answers would not come—not yet.
For now, he was Li Chengxian, son of a seamstress and a teacher, growing up in a world rebuilding itself from the ashes of revolution.
And the shadows of his past life waited, patient and still, at the edges of his mind.