Jiang Liuli’s eyes snapped open. Her scarlet wedding dress swirled in the torrent like a blood-red lotus.
The thunderous roar of a waterfall filled her ears as her weightless body was swept away by the rapids, plummeting toward an abyss.
Water rushed up her nose and into her lungs, and an icy sense of suffocation instantly gripped her heart.
The moment before she was about to crash into a dark boulder, her consciousness finally cleared. With a single thought, she appeared on the riverbank.
“Cough, cough, cough…”
Jiang Liuli bent over, coughing her lungs out.
Once the coughing subsided, she raised a hand to wipe the water from her lips, only then noticing she was wearing a red wedding dress. There was a purplish-blue ligature mark on her wrist.
Before she could think further, she saw a figure plummeting from above, clothes fluttering like a withered leaf torn by a gale.
“Not good!”
Her body moved faster than her thoughts. With a tremble of her fingertips, the space around her suddenly warped.
In the next instant, she had leaped into the air, her soaked wedding dress streaking a scarlet afterimage through the sky.
She caught the falling woman securely. The impact sent a numbing jolt through her arm, but in a flash, they had both landed safely back on the bank.
Jiang Liuli knelt on one knee and quickly checked the woman’s breathing—it was faint, but still there.
She immediately laid the woman flat on the grass, crossed her hands, and pressed firmly on her abdomen.
“Cough—!”
The woman arched her back violently, spewing out a large gush of murky river water. Then, like a puppet with its strings cut, she went limp again.
Jiang Liuli held her breath and lightly touched her fingertips to the side of the woman’s neck—the pulse was weak, but steady.
She finally let out a sigh of relief, the tension in her back easing slightly. Only then did she take a careful look at the woman before her.
The woman was shockingly thin. Her linen clothes were covered in patch after patch, and the cuffs and hem were frayed, yet they had been washed clean.
Her knuckles were large and swollen with an unnatural redness, and her palms were covered in thick calluses—the marks of years of hard labor, etched by time and hardship.
【What’s going on? Didn’t I die in the apocalypse after a hard-won battle against the mutant beast king, only to be stabbed by Li Ziyue?】
【How did I end up here?】
【Who is this woman? Why did I instinctively want to save her?】
【And what’s the deal with this red wedding dress?】
As Jiang Liuli was pondering, a flood of memories that didn’t belong to her rushed into her mind…
The original owner of this body was named Jiang Dani, sixteen years old, and the daughter of the second branch of the Jiang family in Stone Village.
Because of a palm-sized, blue-black birthmark on her right cheek, she had been subjected to scorn and bullying since childhood.
The old Jiang family residence had three sons and one daughter.
The eldest son, Jiang Jinbao, was an escort at the largest security bureau in the county, earning five taels of silver a month. He was the family’s main source of income and naturally held the highest status.
The third son, Jiang Tongbao, was a scholar. Although he had only passed the county-level examination and was far from becoming a scholar-official, in the eyes of farmers, he was already an incredibly learned man, and the whole family had high hopes for him.
The fourth child, Jiang Yinzhu, was the youngest daughter. She had married Zhang Yuawai from the town as a concubine and lived a rather comfortable life.
Only the second son, Jiang Yinbao—the original body’s father—had been left with a limp after breaking his leg as a child and having no money for treatment. He became a crippled farmer.
Unable to do heavy labor, he had the lowest status in the Jiang family.
The old Jiang couple had never been fond of this son, and by extension, they were extremely harsh to his wife and daughter.
Most despicably, Jiang Qianshi, her own grandmother, had cruelly sold her granddaughter to the village to be a “River God bride” for a mere ten taels of silver.
It was called a marriage, but in reality, it was a living human sacrifice to be drowned in the river!
“What a man-eating world.”
“But it’s much better than the apocalypse, overrun with mutant beasts and zombies!”
Jiang Liuli murmured to herself, her fingertips unconsciously stroking the birthmark on her right cheek. She glanced at the still-unconscious Zhao Shi, and with a thought, her entire person vanished from the spot.
Jiang Liuli entered her space and saw that the once boundless spiritual spring space had now shrunk to a single bamboo house and a small plot of land about ten square meters in size.
In the center of the field was a small pond with a spring eye in the middle, which was currently bubbling with clear spring water from underground.
Strangely, although the spring water flowed continuously, the water level in the pond always remained a shallow layer, neither overflowing nor decreasing.
“The space has actually degraded to level one. It seems it will take some time to get rid of the birthmark…”
Jiang Liuli squatted down, somewhat disappointed, and saw a face reflected in the water—one half angelic, the other half demonic.
To her surprise, the half of the face that was as enchanting as a fairy’s was identical to her own in her previous life.
“Could this woman be my past life? How can she look so much like me?”
Jiang Liuli stared at the reflection, her fingertips lightly touching the birthmark on her right cheek.
“This birthmark is truly disgusting to look at. But, it doesn’t matter. The spiritual spring has skin-beautifying effects. A small birthmark like this should be gone in a month or so!”
As Jiang Liuli spoke, with a thought, a volcanic mud whitening mask appeared in her hand. She soaked the mask in the spiritual spring, and once it was saturated, she applied it to her face.
After doing this, Jiang Liuli walked toward the bamboo house.
The structure of the bamboo house hadn’t changed. The first floor was piled with various supplies, such as rice, flour, grain, oil, all kinds of seasonings, snacks, and medicines—everything was there.
This was just a small portion. In the apocalypse, not far from the bamboo house, there had been a large warehouse containing even more supplies.
Some of it she had collected from major supermarkets in the early days of the apocalypse.
The other part was loot from a base that had tried to rob her after learning of her abundant supplies. She had counter-killed everyone in that base and taken their resources.
This included firearms, ammunition, and other modern weapons…
It was a pity the space had been downgraded now. Otherwise, in this backward ancient era, she could have become an empress without any problem.
【In the apocalypse, upgrading the space required mutant beast and zombie crystal cores. In this era, without those things, my space might be stuck at level one forever!】
Jiang Liuli shook her head helplessly and went to the second floor.
The second floor was also unchanged from before the apocalypse. The simple bamboo living room had a leather sofa with a coffee table in front of it, on which were various fruits and dried nuts.
Besides that, there were books. Several large bookshelves lined the living room walls, filled with all sorts of books.
In addition to the living room, the second floor also had a bedroom, a game room, and a kitchen.
The bedroom had a large, soft bed and a walk-in closet.
The game room was filled with various gaming consoles, audio-visual equipment, computers, and tablets collected before the apocalypse…
The electricity in the space was supplied by a silent generator of the type used in modern hotels. The space stored a large amount of diesel fuel, enough for her to use electricity freely.
Jiang Liuli walked into the kitchen. The rice in the electric cooker was still on the keep-warm setting, and the free-range chicken in the iron pot on the gas stove was already cooked.
This was the meal she had prepared in her past life. Unfortunately, just as she was about to eat, her squad was attacked by a horde of mutant beasts.
After a hard fight to kill all the mutant beasts and the beast king, just as she was about to enter her space to enjoy her meal, she was stabbed in the back by Li Ziyue and then transmigrated to this world.
Fortunately, before she died, she chose to self-destruct, dragging the one who harmed her, Li Ziyue, down to hell with her.
No, that’s not right. Li Ziyue went to hell, while she, compared to the apocalypse, had ascended to heaven!
Jiang Liuli dished out some food and placed it on the coffee table, then went to the game room to get a tablet.
Although there was no internet, it had many movies and TV shows downloaded. She ate while watching a show, feeling quite content.
After eating and drinking her fill, Jiang Liuli removed the mask and looked in a mirror. She noticed the birthmark on her face had faded slightly. Only then did she reluctantly leave the space.
If it weren’t for the fact that she could only enter her space for two hours each day, she wouldn’t want to have any involvement with the original body’s family at all.
Not a single person in that family was competent; they were simply a group of burdens.
Unfortunately, if she wanted to live well in ancient times, a legitimate identity was indispensable.