THE BLOODY INSURANCE POLICY: A REBIRTH FOR VENGEANCE

The scent of incense usually brings peace, but for me, it was the smell of a cold, watery grave. I remember the sensation of the icy river swallowing my lungs, the jagged rocks tearing my flesh as my motorcycle plummeted off the cliff. Most of all, I remember the face of the man behind the wheel of the truck—the man who shared my DNA, the son I had nurtured for twenty years.

In my past life, Sun Xiaojie was my ruin. Obsessed with a nightclub girl named La Diantian, he saw me not as a mother, but as a hurdle—and eventually, as a payout. He had tried to blind me for insurance money; when that failed, he orchestrated my “accidental” death. As my soul lingered, I saw them: my son and my husband, Sun Ming, dividing the 3 million yuan from my life insurance. My husband used his share to marry the neighbor, Zhong Ying, while my son squandered the rest on a woman who traded love for luxury.

Then, the darkness broke.

“Mom! Mom, stop being so stubborn! I’m marrying Diantian whether you like it or not!”

The harsh, impatient voice of Sun Xiaojie snapped me back to reality. I was sitting in my old kitchen, the sunlight streaming through the window, the calendar showing a date from months before my death. I looked at his face—the youthful arrogance, the hidden malice. I realized with a jolt: I had been reborn.

In my previous life, I would have cried and pleaded. This time, I took a deep breath and suppressed the murderous rage boiling in my veins.

“Son,” I said, my voice trembling with a fake vulnerability. “It’s not that I don’t want you to be happy. I’ll support whoever you marry. But… it’s your father.”

Xiaojie paused, confused. “Dad?”

“He’s the one who says La Diantian is a woman of ill repute. He says half the men in the district have been with her. He’s told me he won’t let a ‘worthless brat’ like you bring a woman like that into his house. He even hates your friend, Brother Yang, saying he’s the reason you’re a lazy failure.”

I watched as a flicker of pure hatred crossed Xiaojie’s eyes. “That old man? Who does he think he is? He never cared before, now he wants to play the moral authority?”

Then, he leaned in, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “Mom, what about your accident insurance? The money from that car scrap last year—has it arrived? If you give it to me, I can marry Diantian and we can leave.”

The trap was set. I looked down, feigning dejection. “The money is gone, Xiaojie. Your father took it all. You know how stingy he is. He told me if you ever asked, I should lie and say it’s with me. But look—” I pulled out my phone, showing him my bank apps. “Balances of 50 yuan, 100 yuan. I don’t have a cent.”

Xiaojie’s face darkened to a bruise-like purple. “That old hypocrite… he’s hoarding your blood money?”

“I’m terrified of him, son,” I whispered. “He keeps it all for himself.”

As Xiaojie stormed out to find Brother Yang, I collapsed into a chair, drenched in cold sweat. I knew what came next. In my first life, this was the point where they tried to blind me with a rusted nail during a staged “accident.” But now, the poison I had dripped into Xiaojie’s ear had a new destination: his father.

I didn’t wait for them to act. I contacted the insurance company and moved my payout destination to my mother’s account, ensuring that even if I died again, these monsters would get nothing. Then, I turned my attention to Sun Ming.

My husband had been having an affair with our neighbor, Zhong Ying, for years. One afternoon, I caught her husband, Ha Tianqiang, before he left for work out of town. I showed him a bruise on my arm—one I had received from a fall—and whispered, “Tianqiang, are you really leaving? Don’t you know why Sun Ming eats lunch at your house every day? I questioned him about your wife, and he beat me for it.”

The seed of suspicion took root. Three days later, the neighborhood erupted in scandal. Tianqiang had returned early to find Sun Ming and Zhong Ying together. He stripped them naked, tied them together, and whipped them in the street for all to see. Sun Ming’s reputation was destroyed, his body battered.

But the real danger was still Xiaojie.

A few nights later, Xiaojie returned with a fake smile. “Mom, let’s go to the city. I found a better girl for you to meet. Let’s go eat a big dinner.”

I saw his hand twitching in his pocket, fingering a rusted nail. He was sticking to the original plan. I tried to refuse, but he forced me onto the motorcycle. As we sped toward the “accident” spot—a sharp turn by the rice fields—I saw Brother Yang’s car waiting in the shadows with its lights off.

As the car surged forward to clip us, I didn’t scream. I braced myself. At the last microsecond, I shoved off Xiaojie’s back and leaped into the soft mud of the rice paddy.

CRASH.

The car hit the motorcycle with far more force than in my previous life. Xiaojie was thrown into the dirt, screaming. A rusted nail, intended for my eye, had been driven deep into his own thigh during the impact.

“Why did you jump?!” he hissed as he lay bleeding, refusing to let me call the police because he knew Brother Yang was the driver.

“I was scared, son,” I cried, hiding my smile. “I just reacted.”

Xiaojie was desperate now. He was in debt to Brother Yang, and his father was hoarding (in his mind) the insurance millions. He decided to eliminate the “obstacle” once and for all.

One midnight, my phone rang. Xiaojie was sobbing. “Mom, I’m at the hospital… I’m dying. Bring the money now or you’ll be collecting my corpse.”

The exact same script.

I woke Sun Ming. “The boy is in trouble! He’s at the hospital! Take the motorcycle and go, I need to go borrow money from the neighbors!”

In his groggy, panicked state, Sun Ming took the keys and sped into the night—straight into the trap his “beloved” son had set for me.

I didn’t go to the hospital. I went to a friend’s house and made a scene, crying about being unable to reach my husband and son. I made sure the whole village knew I was looking for them. By dawn, the search party reached Yang Mountain.

The guardrail was smashed. Deep in the ravine, the motorcycle was a twisted skeleton.

Days later, they found Sun Ming’s body in the river. He was bloated, unrecognizable—exactly as I had been.

The police investigation was swift. Without me as the victim, the “accident” looked suspicious. They found the chat logs between Xiaojie and Brother Yang. They found the truck. They found the motive.

Xiaojie was arrested for the murder of his father.

Six months later, I visited him in prison, a week before his execution. He looked at me with eyes full of a demonic, ancient hatred.

“You knew,” he rasped against the glass. “You let him die in your place. You’re reborn too, aren’t you, Liu Wanxiu?”

I leaned in close, my voice a mere breath. “If you’re looking for someone to blame, Xiaojie, blame the fact that you were reborn too late.”

He lunged at the glass, screaming profanities, promising to haunt me in the next life. I simply stood up and walked into the sunlight.

The 3 million yuan insurance payout eventually arrived, along with 300,000 yuan in compensation from Brother Yang’s family. I bought a house in the city for my parents and brother, the only people who ever truly loved me.

The nightmares of the cold river have finally stopped. I have money, I have peace, and most importantly, I have a life that belongs only to me. The ghosts are gone; the fire of my vengeance has burned them to ash.