Shen Qiao woke up with a pounding headache. A wave of memories that did not belong to her surged into her mind, nearly causing her to black out again. She closed her eyes tightly and rested for a good while before fully processing the original owner’s memories.
She was currently in the Da Gan Dynasty, an era that did not exist in history. The original owner was also named Shen Qiao, sharing the exact same name. A few years ago, her family had fled a famine from elsewhere and settled in Qingshan Village. Three years ago, her father had slipped while hunting up in the mountains and fell to his death, leaving no body behind. Her mother, who had been chronically ill and bedridden for years, was so heartbroken by her husband’s death that she passed away less than a month later, leaving the original owner all alone in the world.
At that time, the original owner was only thirteen years old—frail, thin, and left with no relatives or support in an unfamiliar village. Seeing how helpless the little girl was, the village head arranged for people to help settle her parents’ funeral affairs, but rumors also began to spread throughout the village that she carried a curse that brought ruin to her family.
It was precisely because of her reputation for bringing bad luck, combined with her young age and chronic malnutrition—which made her look no better than a little beggar—that she never drew much attention from anyone.
And so, the original owner scraped by for three years by digging for wild herbs and relying on her family’s meager savings. By now, every last bit of savings had been wiped out. To keep herself from starving to death, she had no choice but to grit her teeth and wade into the village river to catch fish for food.
The river water in early summer was still chilly. Coupled with days of gnawing hunger, the original owner was frail and weak; she slipped on the riverbed and fell heavily into the water. The swift current swept her away instantly. As she struggled wildly, her head struck a rock, and she drifted further and further downstream. As her consciousness gradually faded, Lu Zheng from the village dove in and pulled her out with all his might.
Lu Zheng was the second son of the Lu family in the village. He had an older brother, a younger brother, and a younger sister. Both his older and younger brothers were already married. Lu Zheng had just returned at the end of last year after completing his military service. Now twenty-three, he possessed a tall, imposing build and a stern, cold face. Usually quiet and reticent, his family had long assumed he died on the battlefield, never expecting him to return alive.
After the original owner was carried back to her dilapidated home, her fragile body—already soaked in cold river water and severely traumatized—could not bear the overwhelming despair of being utterly alone and unable to even secure a full meal. In the end, she failed to pull through and breathed her last breath, allowing the modern-day Shen Qiao, who had died of overwork, to transmigrate into this body.
When Shen Qiao opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was a low, shabby thatched hut leaking wind from all sides. The room was cramped, claustrophobic, and stripped bare down to the walls, containing nothing more than a broken wooden plank bed and an old, peeling wardrobe—a scene of terrifying poverty. She snapped her eyes shut, clinging to one final shred of hope in her heart. Lord Yama had explicitly promised her an effortless life of luxury and bliss; surely, she must have opened her eyes the wrong way just now.
Yet, when she closed her eyes and opened them once more, what met her vision was still that very same dilapidated thatched hut. There were no grand mansions, no fine clothes, and no luxurious meals—only an overwhelming sight of poverty and desolation.
Shen Qiao instantly blew her top. Irritated, she raised a hand to rub her forehead, her mind on the verge of a total breakdown. What kind of effortless winning life was this?! In a desperate situation like this, she would struggle just to survive, let alone win at life effortlessly! The more she thought about it, the angrier and more aggrieved she felt, planning to give Lord Yama a piece of her mind. But right at that moment, a voice suddenly chimed in her head:
“Ding-dong! The Exchange System has been successfully bound.”
Shen Qiao froze, instinctively looking down at the black jade pendant tightly clutched in her hand. Only then did she abruptly recall that while the original owner was struggling in the water, she had cut her forehead on a stone. When she raised her hand to touch her forehead just now, her fresh blood happened to smear onto the jade pendant, binding it to her via blood ownership and unexpectedly linking her to an Exchange System.
Shen Qiao let out a massive sigh of relief. I knew it! How could a grand figure like Lord Yama fool a little ghost like me? The thought of having her very own cheat ability filled her with pure delight.
In all those novels, characters with cheat abilities always managed to thrive and rise to the top. Thinking back, she felt a twinge of shame for having wrongfully accused Lord Yama earlier—he was pretty reliable after all!
She completely brushed aside the fact that she had forcibly snatched the jade pendant herself.
Overjoyed, she immediately closed her eyes to inspect the Exchange System in her mind.
When she spotted the large characters on the blue floating screen reading, “Congratulations on binding this system!” with a button labeled “Profile” in the bottom right corner, Shen Qiao reached out with a trembling, excited hand to tap on it.
That single glance nearly sent her straight back to the Underworld. The screen displayed:
Combat Power: 0 | Luck: 0 | Storage: 0 | Points: 0
Refusing to give up, she desperately searched every inch of the screen for a long time, but failed to find a single other word.
Staring at that long string of zeros, Shen Qiao was so enraged that she felt dizzy.
“That’s IT?!” Shen Qiao went completely ballistic. She felt thoroughly scammed by Lord Yama! The promised effortless life and abundant resources were nowhere to be found, and this system was nothing more than a useless piece of decoration. Standing in the middle of the empty room, she shouted at the jade pendant, “Lord Yama! Lord Yama, get out here right now! You big fat liar! Sob sob sob… How can you bully people like this! Lord Yama, I know you can hear me, don’t even try to play dumb!”
Meanwhile, down in the Underworld, Lord Yama was buried under mountains of official paperwork. Constantly disturbed by Shen Qiao’s endless noise and wailing, he furrowed his brows in deep annoyance. Unable to endure the racket any longer, he projected a sliver of his divine consciousness into Shen Qiao’s mind, his tone laced with impatience: “Stop crying, you’re driving me crazy.”
The moment Shen Qiao saw Lord Yama appear, she instantly cut off her tears and spoke up with righteous indignation: “Lord Yama, you clearly cheated me! You promised me an effortless, winning life, but you gave me this piece-of-junk system instead! How am I supposed to win effortlessly with this? No way, you have to swap it out for a new one!”
Hearing her demand, Lord Yama’s expression remained indifferent, though he calmly explained, “It cannot be swapped. This is a newly launched rebirth initiative in the Underworld, and its initial run encountered a few system glitches. It was not my intention to deceive you.”
Shen Qiao looked at Lord Yama with eyes full of expectation. “Then can’t you convert my real-estate property from my past life into usable silver coins for me now?”
Lord Yama brows furrowed slightly as he said in a deep voice, “Converting it into silver is out of the question. How about this: I will grant you a bit of storage capacity as extra compensation. How does that sound?”
Shen Qiao mulled it over for a moment. Living alone in ancient times, having a portable storage feature didn’t sound like a bad deal at all. She nodded in agreement: “Deal! I’ll take it!”
Seeing her consent, Lord Yama gave a subtle wave of his sleeve. The jade pendant flashed briefly before dimming once more. He then spoke coldly, “Do not disturb me with your noise ever again, or beware for your tiny life.”
Shen Qiao was startled by the subtle chill in Lord Yama’s eyes. Knowing when to quit while she was ahead, she hurriedly nodded obediently: “Understood! I promise I won’t bother you ever again, Lord Yama!”
In a flash, Lord Yama’s consciousness vanished, completely severing the connection with the jade pendant. The heavy, chilly pressure of the Underworld lingering in the air dissolved without a trace.
Shen Qiao stood frozen on the spot for a long while. It wasn’t until the cold sweat on her back pressed chillily against her clothes that she snapped back to her senses. Instinctively clutching her chest, her heart was still thumping wildly. That icy glare from Lord Yama just now had truly terrified her to her core as a former modern office worker, leaving her without the slightest courage to throw another tantrum.