“Li Dao, Count of Anyuan, you have committed the crime of insubordination. Your crime is unforgivable.”
“If it weren’t for Her Highness the Princess speaking on your behalf, you would have been executed today without question.”
“Li Dao, don’t blame me. Her Highness the Princess spared your life, but His Majesty would not relent. Let the Death Row Camp be your final resting place.”
“9527—from now on, that is your number. You no longer have an identity in this world. You are merely a man waiting for death.”
…
In a daze, countless fragments of memory surged through Li Dao’s mind.
“Huff…”
With rapid, panicked breathing, Li Dao suddenly sat up from the ground, cold sweat soaking his forehead.
He swept his gaze around—dim lighting, damp surroundings, wooden prison bars, and an overwhelming stench of blood and rot filled the air.
Looking down at himself, he saw his hair was disheveled, his entire body battered and bruised, with multiple scratches across his skin. All he wore was a tattered white robe.
On the front of the robe was the character “囚” (prisoner). If one looked at his back, they would see the character “死” (death). That was his current identity.
A death row prisoner.
And the place he now found himself in—was the infamous Death Row Camp, where human life was worth less than grass.
Through the dim light, he glanced toward the darker corners of the cell and could faintly make out several other figures. Dressed like him, they too were prisoners awaiting death.
At that moment, Li Dao muttered to himself, “It’s been a month… looks like I really was reborn.”
He didn’t want to accept this reality, but facts were facts—his feelings didn’t matter now.
As for how he ended up like this, it could all be summed up in one sentence: drunken folly and lust led to disaster.
A month ago, the royal family of Great Qian held a banquet in the palace.
Li Dao, in this life, was a third-rank count and had naturally been invited.
During the banquet, he suddenly suffered a headache. The emperor was giving a speech, and not daring to leave without permission, Li Dao decided to drink wine to numb the pain.
But when the feast truly began, the headache hadn’t eased. Instead, he grew tipsy. He rose from his seat to try and sober up.
Staggering around, he accidentally entered a palace chamber.
What greeted him stunned him completely.
A vision of snow-white skin entered his sight—a breathtakingly beautiful girl, with an extraordinarily graceful figure, stood before him.
In that moment, his headache vanished, and memories from his previous life came rushing back.
The combination of drunkenness and the mental chaos from his resurging memories shattered his self-control.
In a moment of impulse, he defiled that girl’s purity.
When he regained his senses, he had already been seized by the palace guards and brought before the Emperor of Great Qian.
It was then he learned the identity of the girl he had violated—
Princess Mingyue.
The most noble woman in the Great Qian Dynasty after the Empress. The Emperor’s most beloved eldest daughter.
He could still vaguely remember the wrath on the Emperor’s face upon learning that a disgraced third-rank count had destroyed his cherished daughter’s chastity. The Emperor had wanted to execute not just Li Dao, but exterminate his entire family line by the most brutal of deaths.
But to his shock, it was the very Princess whose purity he had ruined—Princess Mingyue—who pleaded for his life.
Even so, the Emperor’s fury did not subside. Without contradicting his own imperial decree, the sentence was altered.
Instead of being locked away in the imperial prison for life, Li Dao was thrown into the Death Row Camp, left there to die.
To make sure he died as soon as possible from an “accident,”
Li Dao was deliberately transferred from the imperial capital all the way to the Death Row Camp on the eastern border of the Great Qian Dynasty.
This place bordered the lands of the Northern Barbarians, where conflicts were frequent. Recently, medium-scale skirmishes had broken out, and the air was thick with the tension of impending war.
Under such circumstances, even regular soldiers lived every day in fear for their lives—let alone a condemned prisoner locked inside a death camp.
So, being thrown in here was practically a death sentence.
Wait to die?
But what if he didn’t want to die?
It wasn’t easy being reincarnated!
“Meal time, meal time!”
Just as Li Dao was lost in thought, a loud voice came from the cell gate.
Moments later, the previously silent prison erupted into chaos.
“Give me food! I’m starving! Just a bite!”
“Move it! Don’t block the way!”
“Get lost, all of you! Or I’ll kill you!”
“Kill me? We’re all death row inmates—who’s afraid of who?”
“…”
Soon after, several prison guards in military garb entered, carrying wooden buckets.
“All of you shut up and get in line! One at a time! Anyone who acts out or keeps shouting gets nothing!”
Seeing dark, grimy hands reaching out from between the prison bars, one of the guards banged hard on the door with a ladle in irritation.
In an instant, the prisoners fell silent.
Because they knew—this wasn’t a bluff.
In ancient times, death row prisoners were no different than the criminals in Li Dao’s previous life who had been stripped of all civil rights. They had no human rights whatsoever.
Going hungry for a few days? That was nothing. Even being beaten to death wouldn’t get a second glance. The guard responsible might, at most, spend a night in solitary.
That was about the same level of punishment as public urination—that’s how worthless a death row inmate’s life was here.
Seeing the food being served, Li Dao picked up the small bowl in front of him and went to queue up.
If he didn’t want to die, he had to eat. Only if he was full could he have a chance to live.
How long he could live? He could only take it one step at a time. But either way, a miserable life was still better than a dignified death.
The line moved slowly, and soon it was Li Dao’s turn.
One ladle of clear water and a palm-sized, grayish-yellow flatbread.
That was the daily meal for a death row inmate.
After a month of this, Li Dao was used to it. He took the food and sat down in a random corner.
The flatbread was as hard as a rock. He tested its texture—it felt like it could break his teeth. As usual, he dipped it in the water to soften it before eating.
The guards soon finished distributing the food and left.
As Li Dao waited for the bread to soak, preparing to eat—
A large shadow suddenly loomed over him.
“Kid, give me your food.”
Li Dao looked up and saw a towering brute, at least 1.9 meters tall, standing in front of him.
The man had a long scar across his face, making him look especially savage.
His eyes were bloodshot, locked greedily on the soaked flatbread in Li Dao’s bowl.
To a man like him, that tiny flatbread wasn’t even enough to fill the gap between his teeth. It certainly wouldn’t satisfy his hunger.
And if one meal wasn’t enough?
Then take someone else’s.
And Li Dao had become his target.
In the brute’s eyes, this scrawny, delicate-looking guy was an easy mark—surely too afraid to resist.
And just as the brute expected, Li Dao didn’t fight back. He lowered his head and remained silent.
“Haha, smart kid.”
The brute grinned, crouched down, and reached for the bowl.
Around the cell, many inmates saw what was happening—but none of them stepped in. Their faces showed a mix of expressions: amusement, indifference, mockery…
Not a single one of them felt pity for Li Dao.
Because this was the law of the Death Row Camp. This was reality.
Survival of the fittest. Kill or be killed.
That rule was followed to the letter here.
They didn’t feel sorry for Li Dao. They only envied the brute for being the first to act. If they had moved first, that flatbread would have been theirs.
While picking up the bowl, the brute added with a sneer,
“Don’t say I’m bullying you, kid. Since you’re so obedient, from now on I’ll take care of you in this cell. But from today on, you’ll hand over half your food, got it?”
Seeing Li Dao still silent, the brute felt annoyed. He raised his hand, ready to slap him—
Suddenly, a cold chill surged through his body.
At that exact moment, Li Dao raised his head.
In his right hand, he held something—no one knew what it was—but he thrust it toward the brute’s face.
Pssshk!
A sickening sound of flesh being pierced echoed out.
A moment of silence—
Then a piercing scream echoed through the prison cell.
When the prisoners snapped back to their senses, they saw the brute had already thrown the bowl to the ground. His hands trembled in the air as he howled in pain.
A sharp wooden skewer was now embedded in his left eye, bleeding profusely down his face in a horrifying scene.
But it wasn’t over yet.
After disabling the brute’s eye, Li Dao quickly wrapped the iron chain around the man’s neck and yanked it backward with all his strength, causing the brute to fall hard to the ground.
Li Dao then stepped onto the brute’s shoulders with both feet and pulled the chain again with all his might.
At this point, the brute completely forgot the pain in his eye and began clawing desperately at the chain choking his neck.
Losing an eye was one thing—being strangled meant death.
But no matter how hard the brute struggled, it was useless. Above him, the frail-looking young man was using every ounce of strength he had, his arms bulging with tension as he pulled the chain tighter and tighter.
“Spare me… I… urgh…”
Sensing death, the brute tried to beg for mercy.
But Li Dao’s face remained expressionless. He kept pulling the chain, numb and determined. His entire body trembled from exertion, but he gave the brute no chance.
Because he knew—if this man survived today, he would be the one to die next time.
He didn’t want to die.
So the brute had to.
No one knew how much time passed, but eventually, the brute’s struggling grew weaker. His face turned red, then purple.
At last, he stopped moving. He had died with overwhelming unwillingness in his heart.
He never imagined he would be killed by a scrawny youth.
Meanwhile, Li Dao didn’t release the chain even when the brute went still. He held it tight for another thirty seconds, only letting go when he was sure the man was well and truly dead.
“Whew…”
Li Dao let out a long breath, collapsed on the ground, and muttered to himself as he stared at the dark ceiling:
“Didn’t expect killing someone to be this exhausting.”
As for the guilt or nausea people often associate with murder—he didn’t feel it.
As an adult, Li Dao had heard about places like this, seen similar stories in the news in his previous life. He had long known how vicious death row inmates could be. And he’d always believed in preparing for the worst in people.
So before coming to the death row camp, he’d already steeled himself for everything—including being forced to kill.
And after a month here, his experience confirmed that he had been right to do so.
He wasn’t the first one targeted for his food.
In the past month, he’d personally seen seven or eight inmates starve to death after their meals were repeatedly taken. Some grew too weak and simply died.
He had just been lucky to last a whole month before becoming someone’s prey.
That was why, the moment the brute came for his food, he was already prepared to fight for his life.
And now it looked like he had won. He kept his food—and his life.
Li Dao glanced at the brute’s corpse and removed the chain from around the man’s thick neck.
The chain had left a deep, purple bruise across the flesh—evidence of how tightly it had been pulled.
He stood up and walked over to where the bowl had fallen.
The bowl was shattered, the water had seeped into the ground, and the once-soaked flatbread now lay on the dusty floor.
Li Dao didn’t mind. He picked it up, glanced around, and silently walked to a corner.
The moment he sat down, the surrounding prisoners shrank back like they’d seen a ghost.
Killing wasn’t uncommon here. Most death row inmates had blood on their hands—some had killed more than once. After all, no one landed in this place without committing capital crimes.
But what truly terrified people… was someone who could kill so easily, so silently.
A killer who said nothing. Who showed no hesitation.
You never knew when someone like that would strike again.
Li Dao noticed their reactions—and was perfectly fine with it.
At the very least, no one would dare mess with him again anytime soon.
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