Choose Me This Time - Chapter 1

When I died between a wolf’s jaws, Pei Lang watched from a distance, his expression cold to the extreme.

The moment my graceful half sister approached, his face softened with tender affection. Obediently, he nuzzled his cheek against Cheng Yang’s palm.

Only then did I understand. Pei Lang had never loved me.

He loved Cheng Yang—the woman who had dismissed him back then as useless for anything but fox enchantment.

Cheng Yang cast me a careless glance and gave an order. Her black wolf bit straight through my throat.

…

When I opened my eyes again, noise pressed in from every direction: human chatter tangled with the roars of beastkin.

Someone nudged my arm. “Cheng Yi, what are you daydreaming about?”

I jolted awake and stared at the underage beastkin in the cage before me.

I had been reborn!

Today was the very day Father had brought us to the black market to choose our beastkin.

Our family had always followed an unwritten rule: upon coming of age, every young man and woman had to personally select a beastkin to raise as their future mate. They could neither betray nor abandon them.

Beastkin matured faster than humans. To prevent a grown beastkin from nursing a grudge and turning on its owner, all the ones offered for selection were juveniles who looked no older than eleven or twelve.

I had never understood it. Beastkin and humans did not hold equal status. Here, for instance, they could only sit locked in cages, passively waiting to be chosen.

So why did the Cheng family have such a rule?

Were they not afraid the beastkin might turn on us?

Pei Lang’s cold eyes from my previous life flashed through my mind, and I pressed a hand to the ache in my chest.

More than twenty beastkin were packed inside the enormous cage.

They were combative by nature, and unsurprisingly, every one of them was covered in wounds.

I spotted Pei Lang at once, huddled in a corner. His arm had been bitten, and he could no longer hide his fox ears or tail.

The instant our eyes met, his lit up. He actually walked toward me.

“Cheng Yi, which one do you like?”

Cheng Yang came up behind me, smiling gently.

She was Father’s daughter by his first wife, who had died in childbirth. Father later married my mother and had my older brother and me.

All these years, Cheng Yang had maintained a flawless facade. Outside the family, she was courteous, elegant, and magnanimous. At home, she played the loving, considerate older sister.

In truth, she was mad with jealousy toward my brother and me. She believed we had stolen Father’s attention and would eventually steal the inheritance that rightfully belonged to her.

That was why she had delayed choosing a beastkin mate until I came of age: so she could set a trap for me.

Looking at Cheng Yang now, as elegant as a lotus, I understood. Pei Lang must have fallen for her by this point.

Cheng Yang noticed him too. “You’ve always liked beautiful things. That fox is quite pretty. He suits you.”

I gave a soft laugh. “Tsk. Pretty, and utterly useless otherwise.”

Pei Lang’s face went abruptly white.

In my previous life, Cheng Yang had been the one to say those words, and tears had immediately welled in his eyes.

This time was no different.

He stared at me in pale-faced disbelief, stirring a thread of suspicion in my heart.

Cheng Yang smiled but did not linger. She went off to select the beastkin she wanted.

Just as in my last life, she chose the powerful black wolf.

Now I was the only one who had yet to make a choice.

Few beastkin remained in the cage. When I swept my gaze across them, Pei Lang watched me with naked expectation.

My eyes settled on the beastkin behind him, the one with a human torso and a snake’s tail.

If I remembered correctly, no one had chosen him in my previous life.

Yet later, a beastkin named Bai Chuan had emerged in the city, terrifying everyone who heard his name.

Single-handedly, he had overthrown the entire black market, escaped with countless beastkin, and several years later represented his kind in negotiations with humanity, winning equal rights for the beastkin who had once stood beneath humans.

I had been fortunate enough to see Bai Chuan once. That white snake tail looked very familiar.

At present, however, Bai Chuan could no longer maintain human form. His tail drooped listlessly, and he looked impossibly frail.

Father pressed me. “Have you decided?”

I nodded. “Yes.”

Pei Lang stared at me in excitement, his hands already gripping the bars of the cage.

I raised my hand. Under his expectant gaze, I pointed at Bai Chuan behind him.

“I want him.”

Pei Lang’s expression froze. He looked back at the frail Bai Chuan in disbelief.

“Why?”

“You don’t want me anymore?”