“You can’t take Yueyue away! She’s my sister!”
A sharp, hoarse female voice burst from Su Wanxing’s throat. She looked down and saw herself wearing a coarse cotton jacket patched in many places. Her frostbitten, swollen wrists were tightly gripping a thin little girl. The girl was only four years old, crying with tears covering her face. She was Su Wanxing’s younger sister—Su Wanyue.
In front of them was a dilapidated earthen courtyard. Half of the mud wall had collapsed. Seven or eight people stood in the yard. At the front was an elderly couple with wrinkled faces. The old man squatted on the doorstep smoking a dry tobacco pipe, while the old woman stood with her hands on her hips, her triangular eyes wide and fierce. Beside them stood the families of the eldest and second uncles, each with unfriendly expressions.
The eldest uncle was grabbing the arm of a seven- or eight-year-old boy. The boy was Su Wanxing’s younger brother, Su Wanfeng. His face twisted in pain, yet he clenched his teeth and refused to cry.
“What are you crying for! You jinx!” Grandma spat and kicked toward Su Wanxing’s feet. “Your parents died early and left behind you three debt collectors. You eat and drink from this family. Now we’ve found a good household for your sister. Exchanging her for a bride price to help the family finances is already giving you face!”
Half a year ago, their parents had fallen off a cliff while gathering medicinal herbs in the mountains. They left behind the three siblings. Su Wanxing had thought they could live off the small property their parents left behind. But she hadn’t expected their grandparents and uncles to covet it.
Their grandparents favored the eldest and second uncles. Not only did they seize their parents’ inheritance, but they constantly planned to sell the younger siblings for money. This time they had even brought a broker to take the youngest, Wanyue, away.
“That money was left by my parents! It was meant for us siblings to survive!” Su Wanxing’s eyes reddened as she shielded Wanyue behind her and roared at her grandparents and uncles. “My sister is only four! How can you bear to sell her? If you want to sell someone, sell me! I can work and earn money!”
“You?” The eldest uncle sneered. He stepped forward and grabbed Su Wanxing’s arm. His grip was like iron pliers, almost crushing her bones. “You’re a fierce girl. You won’t fetch a good price. Wanyue has fair skin and looks pretty. She can be sold for a good price so my son can get a wife!”
The second uncle’s wife chimed in from the side, her voice shrill. “Exactly! As the eldest sister, you should think about your younger siblings! If Wanyue can be exchanged for money, that’s her good fortune! If you keep blocking us, we’ll throw you out to freeze to death as well!”
As she spoke, she reached out to grab Wanyue from behind Su Wanxing.
“Don’t touch her!” Su Wanxing struggled with all her strength, but the eldest uncle shoved her hard to the ground. The back of her head slammed against a stone in the yard, and darkness instantly filled her vision.
Through the blur, she watched helplessly as the second uncle’s wife grabbed Wanyue’s arm. Wanyue cried so hard she could barely breathe. Her younger brother Wanfeng stomped anxiously, but the second uncle held him down tightly. He could only let out desperate cries.
Grandma impatiently urged, “Stop wasting time! The broker is waiting at the village entrance! Hurry up and take the girl away!”
The eldest aunt had already brought a hemp rope and was about to tie it around Wanyue’s wrist.
“No—! Let go of my sister!” Su Wanxing’s eyes were about to split from fury. Her heart felt as if it were being torn apart. Despair and rage burned in her chest like flames. She desperately tried to crawl up, but she couldn’t move at all. She could only watch helplessly as the rope wrapped toward Wanyue’s slender wrist.
At that critical moment, a cold mechanical voice suddenly sounded in her mind:
【Host’s strong survival instinct and protective will detected. Conditions for binding met. Intelligent Myriad Space officially activated!】
“Space?”
Before Su Wanxing could react, a violent headache struck. She suddenly woke up—
She was lying on the large bed in her home. Outside the window was the familiar night view of the city, and the computer screen still displayed the unfinished manuscript of her novel. The heart-wrenching feeling from the dream seemed incredibly real, as if the person in the dream and her present self were the same person.
“Haa…”
Su Wanxing let out a long breath and leaned against the headboard, rubbing her temples. The bedroom was quiet except for the faint ticking of the smart wall clock.
How could she have such a realistic dream?
She casually tossed her phone onto the bedside table and looked at the family photo hanging on the opposite wall.
In the photo, the man wore a suit and had gentle eyes. The woman wore an elegant dress with a soft smile. Between them stood a girl with twin ponytails, holding their arms and smiling brightly.
That was her fifteen-year-old self.
Her heart suddenly clenched, and Su Wanxing’s eyes instantly grew hot.
Her parents had died when she was twenty, in a sudden plane crash that didn’t even leave bodies behind. At that time she had just finished her first year of university, studying economic management—a major chosen by her parents. The original plan was for her to intern at the company after graduation and gradually take over the business empire her parents had built.
The Su Wanxing of the past had truly been happy.
Her parents loved each other deeply and doted on her endlessly. Knowing she loved reading and writing, they built her a twenty-square-meter study room. Knowing she was interested in traditional Chinese medicine, they invited a retired old doctor to teach her at home. Afraid she might be unsafe outside as a girl, they hired martial arts, self-defense, and taekwondo coaches for her starting from the age of ten, turning her into a capable “all-rounder” who could fight and endure hardship.
But one plane crash shattered all that happiness.
At the time, she couldn’t support such a huge company. Crying, she went to her father’s most trusted childhood friend—Uncle Qin Bei.
Uncle Qin had watched her grow up and had always been loyal to the Su family. Without hesitation, he took over the company’s management and told her, “Wanxing, just do what you want to do. I’ll take care of the company. Whenever you feel ready to take it back, I’ll return it to you.”
Over the past few years, she had lived comfortably on the massive inheritance her parents left and the company dividends. She spent most of her time writing, occasionally studying ancient medical texts and practicing martial arts to stay in shape. Her life had been peaceful and comfortable.
Thinking of this, Su Wanxing curled her lips in self-mockery.
She must have been too absorbed in writing ancient rural novels recently. What one thinks about during the day appears in dreams at night. That was why she had such an absurd dream—and even something like an “Intelligent Myriad Space.”
She had always been a realist and never believed in anything mystical. The “space” she saw in the dream was probably just the aftereffect of creative inspiration, turning the settings in her mind into something vivid.
Su Wanxing lifted the blanket and got out of bed, stepping barefoot onto the temperature-controlled floor. She walked to the window and pulled open the heavy curtains.
Outside, the 23rd-century metropolis glittered with lights. Floating cars moved in orderly lanes through the airways. In the distance, the walls of towering skyscrapers flashed with dynamic holographic advertisements.
Everything looked familiar and real.
“It was all fake. I’ll forget it after sleeping,” she murmured to herself as she turned toward the bathroom to wash her face and wake up.
But after only a few steps, scenes from the dream suddenly resurfaced in her mind—the tear-streaked face of Su Wanyue, the restrained pain in Su Wanfeng’s eyes as his arm was twisted, the cruel expressions of their grandparents and uncles, and finally the hemp rope wrapping toward Wanyue’s wrist…
Her heart began to ache again.
It was as if she truly felt the pain of losing close family. Could there really be such a space? Did it appear because she pitied them so much? Could it be that the person in the dream had somehow attached that familial bond to her?
Almost as if possessed, Su Wanxing stopped walking.
She closed her eyes and tried to recall the feeling when the “Intelligent Myriad Space” appeared in the dream. Concentrating her thoughts, she silently called out in her heart:
“Space?”
There was no response.
“So it really was just a dream.”
She sighed in relief, though she felt a strange trace of disappointment.
Maybe her concentration wasn’t strong enough.
Frowning, she closed her eyes again. This time she calmed her mind and carefully recalled the sensation of entering that space in the dream—the strange feeling of instantly leaving reality and standing in a pure white world.