A chilly autumn wind blew past, sending withered yellow leaves back to the earth as the cold gradually deepened.
The slanting rays of the setting sun pierced through the empty holes, dancing with swirling dust.
A scrawny spider busied itself mending its tattered web, while the gloomy haunted house gained a rare touch of warmth and light.
“Sigh… forget it… forget it… Since I’m here, I might as well make the best of it.”
After sighing 888 times, Ziyu endured her weakness and hunger, struggling to rise from the pile of tangled weeds and leaning against the damp, crumbling wall.
Opposite her lay two corpses wrapped in straw mats, one with a foot exposed, covered in dried blood and emitting waves of foul decay.
In the corner of the room stood a simple stove made of stones, holding a half-broken pot that smoked faintly. A small child, with his little bottom sticking out, was blowing hard at the fire.
The overgrown, dilapidated courtyard had a newly trampled path, and the outer wall had collapsed, leaving the place eerily silent without a trace of human sound.
“Sigh~”
To think that she, a top-tier bodyguard who had sacrificed her life for her country, would end up in this strange and unknown era after her death.
Baiyun Kingdom, Tianqing 28th Year—Yun Capital. What kind of godforsaken place was this?
A dynasty that had never appeared in official or unofficial histories—could it truly exist in another dimension?
Right from the start, her father had been wrongfully executed, her mother had died of grief, and the family’s assets had been seized by the powerful and noble. To make matters worse, she was left with a two-year-old brother crying for food.
The siblings, driven out of the Mei family’s ancestral home, were penniless and had nowhere to turn for help. Those who had once been familiar with them now avoided them like the plague.
The original owner had no choice but to drag her parents’ bodies wrapped in straw mats and take shelter in a dilapidated haunted house near the North Gate.
With no rice to cook, the thirteen-year-old original owner went out to help others dispose of slop. By chance, she overheard that her father’s death had been orchestrated by the second wife of the Marquis of Anguo’s Mansion.
It was all because her father, while invited to the mansion for a medical consultation, had inadvertently uncovered the second wife’s secret. Yet he was falsely accused of negligence and became the scapegoat.
Truly, in the face of the powerful, human life was as worthless as grass, without even a chance to defend oneself.
Upon learning the truth, Mei Ziyu returned to the haunted house, her heart heavy with sorrow. Once the respected eldest daughter of Jimin Pharmacy, she had now fallen to become a pitiable orphan who had lost both parents. Under this double blow, she fell gravely ill.
When she opened her eyes again, her soul had been replaced—by Ziyu, a top-tier bodyguard from the 23rd century who had sacrificed her life for her country at the age of 28.
Understanding her current circumstances, Ziyu felt an overwhelming headache. What kind of cursed luck was this?
Given a chance to live again, why did it have to start with such a miserable situation? Hadn’t she endured enough as an orphan in her previous life?
Heaven was truly toying with her!
To think that she had served the organization since the age of ten, only to end up with not even a trace of her remains left!
She had come into this world with nothing, only to depart as dust, leaving behind a fortune earned through life-and-death struggles without a single heir.
She had planned to retire at thirty, find a picturesque place to live out her days in peace, and perhaps even keep a pure-hearted young man for amusement. Yet all of it had vanished into thin air.
What a pity—the 180 million she had saved would now benefit some national bank, everything reduced to fleeting smoke.
Ziyu raised a slender middle finger toward the sky—damned heavens!
“Boom~ rumble~ rumble~”
A sudden clap of thunder erupted from the clear sky, startling Ziyu into retracting her hand.
“You old scoundrel, can’t even let me curse you!”
Ziyu muttered under her breath, cautiously peering outside the courtyard. Only when she saw no movement did she finally relax.
…
Ziyu closed her eyes to sense her dantian. The original owner had practiced some rudimentary martial arts, making her physique stronger than that of an ordinary sheltered young lady.
The soul replacement had occurred because the original owner lacked the courage to face reality, leaving not even a trace of her lingering spirit behind. The memories Ziyu now possessed were barely a fraction of what had happened after the tragedy.
What a headache!
Yun Capital was now a completely unfamiliar place to Ziyu, and the more pressing matter at hand was filling her stomach.
At the thought, a burning pain seared through her stomach.
Hah, how long had it been since she last experienced the feeling of hunger? Damn, it really was unbearable!
Her innate dimensional space was still there, but the once fertile land had turned into a barren desert.
All that remained were a ten-acre fishpond gaping with dryness, two intelligent multifunctional agricultural machines, two sets of three-story heavy-light steel villas each covering nine hundred square meters, and an eight-hundred-square-meter steel-cast basement.
The villas and basement had once been filled with specialties, antiques, precious jade, and gold bars collected from various countries over eighteen years—wealth a hundred times greater than her digital bank. Not even a single speck remained.
Fortunately, the refrigeration zone and freezing zone separated in the basement were still functioning normally. Thank heavens for that!
She was now utterly penniless, a destitute pauper without even a scrap of toilet paper!
…
“Sister, drink some water!”
Mei Ziluo, her little face smudged black with soot, held out a small half-bowl of warm water.
The murky warm water in the chipped, coarse bowl floated with black dust, and the toddling child focused all her attention on the bowl.
Stumbling underfoot, the bowl nearly flew out of her hands. Ziyu, leaning against the wall, moved slightly.
With one hand, she caught the slipping bowl; with the other, she lifted the little one by the collar. Such a simple action left her panting heavily.
“Whew~, Xiao Luo, sit down!”
The little one nestled dependently into Ziyu’s arms, her small hands supporting the bottom of the bowl as she urged,
“Sister, drink the water. Drinking it will make your illness go away.”
Messy hair covered half her small face, her large, moist eyes filled with fear and timidity. One grimy little hand clutched tightly at the hem of Ziyu’s clothes.
“Alright, sister will drink!” Ziyu drank half the bowl of water without changing her expression.
The taste of smoke… the smell of earth… the odor of stagnant water…
“Sister, you won’t get sick again, will you?” Mei Ziluo looked at the empty bowl and revealed her first smile since leaving home.
“Gurgle… gurgle, gurgle…”
Mei Ziluo shyly covered her little belly, lowering her head, too embarrassed to look at her sister.
“Sister is already fully recovered. Xiao Luo, sleep for a while. When sister calls you, there will be food, okay?”
Ziyu felt a pang of compassion. In her own youth, how she had wished for a shoulder to rely on, even if it meant going hungry.
Raising a child wasn’t too difficult for her, even though she was now starving, her stomach burning with hunger.
“Okay, sister must call me!”
Mei Ziluo obediently closed her eyes, covering them with her grimy little hands, not daring to disobey her sister in the slightest.
At such a young age, she had already come to understand that her sister was her only family.
Ziyu held the lightweight child, listening to her even breathing, her heart aching with bitterness.
In the blink of an eye, both she and the pile of scattered straw vanished from the haunted house.
In the second-floor bedroom, Ziyu gently placed the sleeping Xiao Luo on a pile of straw in the corner, covered her with the removed mourning clothes, and patted her lightly to help her drift back to sleep.
The bright, spacious bedroom was now just an empty shell; the rosewood flooring from the past was long gone.
Ziyu, preparing to go out, couldn’t bear to leave Xiao Luo alone in the haunted house, so she brought her into the dimensional space. Without Ziyu’s guidance, Xiao Luo wouldn’t be able to leave the villa.
Ziyu walked away slowly, her plain blue dress noticeably wrinkled. With slender hands moving deftly, the down-and-out young lady from a wealthy family transformed in an instant into a poor village girl.
…
At dusk, on the ancient street where lanterns hung high, the passersby wore clothing reminiscent of ancient Han attire.
Ziyu caught the scent wafting from the tavern, her mouth watering instantly.
Her dark eyes flickered slightly, a bitter smile appearing on her delicate face hidden behind strands of hair. Her slender figure melted into the shadows.
A single coin could stump even a hero!
From the shadows, Ziyu gazed at the two-story wooden tavern across the way—the largest she had encountered on her journey.
The clamor of voices and the rich aroma of food only intensified the burning ache in her stomach.
This is the one!