“Shen Li! The sun is burning a hole in your backside and you’re still in bed? You’re sleeping later than me now! You truly are a useless waste!”
Madam Cao stood outside the stable, hands clamped on her hips, screeching at the top of her lungs. Her voice was as grating as a cracked bronze gong.
So noisy.
Shen Li slowly opened her eyes, a cold, dark flicker dancing in the depths of her pupils. She was not a morning person. Back in her old life, a senior colleague had once tried to wake her before her alarm; he ended up spending a month in a hospital bed before he could walk again.
As her vision cleared, the first thing she saw was a set of rotting roof beams. She realized instantly that this wasn’t the dormitory at the Institute.
She reached down to feel her bed. There was only a thin layer of fabric draped over a pile of scratchy straw. It poked painfully into her tailbone.
“Where am I…?” Shen Li murmured, bracing herself as she sat up.
Memories flooded back. The lab. Little Li. That crucial test tube being tossed onto a burning alcohol lamp. The explosion had been massive. Given her proximity to the blast, she should have been vaporized, reduced to nothing but ash and bone.
She cradled her head in her hands, her body swaying slightly as she squinted, trying to force her senses to adapt to the surroundings. Then, a sharp, pungent stench hit her nostrils.
With her keen sense of smell, she identified it immediately: a foul cocktail of human waste and the sour musk of a body that hadn’t seen water in weeks. To make matters worse, the room had no windows—just rotting wooden planks that smelled of decay.
Did the blast throw me into a latrine?
Shen Li didn’t dare take another breath. She clamped her lips shut and scrambled to escape the room. As she stood, the wooden boards beneath her gave a sharp, agonizing creak.
Outside, the sunlight was so blinding she could barely keep her eyes open. Before she could find her bearings, a searing pain blossomed across her cheek. The sharp crack of a slap echoed through the yard.
“You finally decided to get up?! Who do you think you are? Do you actually believe you’re some pampered young lady of a wealthy house?!”
Madam Cao was a mask of fury, her finger jabbing inches from Shen Li’s nose as she spat insults.
That slap cleared the cobwebs from Shen Li’s mind instantly. She stared at the livid woman before her, an icy fire rising in her chest. Before the woman could blink, Shen Li’s hand shot out. She grabbed the pointing finger and jerked it backward with a brutal snap.
“AHHH!” Madam Cao let out a piercing shriek, sounding like a pig being led to the slaughter. The sound ripped through the quiet courtyard, enough to make one’s skin crawl.
Shen Li watched the woman’s agony with a mask of indifference. Her lips curled into a faint, almost imperceptible smile.
“I hate it when people point at me,” she said, her voice dropping to a chill.
She took a moment to scan her surroundings. She was in a modest, rustic farmyard. A few houses made of blue brick and tile stood in a neat row, their low walls draped with various farming tools. This family clearly lived off the land.
The place she had just emerged from was nothing more than a crude, dilapidated shack attached to the stable.
“Let… let go of me! You wretched brat! Let go!” Madam Cao hissed, struggling to pull away.
Shen Li watched the woman’s desperate resistance, a flicker of confusion crossing her mind. She slowly released her grip, her gaze tracking Madam Cao like a hawk.
“Where is this?” Shen Li asked calmly.
Madam Cao rubbed her swollen, reddening finger, her eyes burning with resentment. Her voice turned shrill with indignation.
“What kind of act are you putting on? Look what you did to me! You uneducated, wild brat!” She raised her hand again, swinging for another slap. “You’ve lost your mind, haven’t you? Daring to lay a hand on your elder!”
Shen Li sighed. Some people were simply determined to seek their own ruin. She caught the woman’s swinging wrist, spun her around, and forced the arm high up against her back in one fluid motion.
Madam Cao was pinned, paralyzed by a strength she couldn’t comprehend.
“Oh, mercy! She’s killing me!” the woman screamed, feeling as though her arm might pop from the socket.
The pig-like squealing returned, vibrating painfully in Shen Li’s ears.
“Hiss! Stop screaming!” Shen Li barked, covering one ear with her free hand. “I ask, you answer. Otherwise, you won’t like the consequences.”
She had always craved silence; she had no patience for noisy people. With a sharp shove, she sent Madam Cao stumbling forward.
When the woman scrambled back to her feet, she no longer dared to scream. She huddled there, nursing her arm, looking at the girl with newfound dread. How did this brat become so fierce? Wasn’t she terrified of me just yesterday?
“Where is this?” Shen Li repeated.
“Huai… Huai Tree Village,” Madam Cao muttered, keeping her head down, only daring to steal side-eyed glances.
“And how did I get here?”
Out of the corner of her eye, Shen Li noticed a small crowd of curious neighbors gathering outside the low courtyard wall. They were dressed in coarse hemp clothing—the men with their hair bound up, the women in traditional buns.
A film set? Shen Li wondered, but the more she looked, the more the theory crumbled. The sallow, malnourished faces, the genuine weariness in their expressions, the dull light in their eyes…
That wasn’t acting.
She lunged toward a water vat in the yard and ripped the lid off. Staring back at her from the water’s surface was a completely foreign face. Even for a woman known as the “Cold-Faced Doctor,” Shen Li couldn’t help but gasp.
She had transmigrated.
She turned her gaze back to Madam Cao. Seeing Shen Li standing there dazed, the older woman assumed the girl’s fear had returned. Her bravado surged back.
“Remembered now? If you’ve remembered, then get to work! You lazy woman! I don’t even know why I bothered to buy you!”
Madam Cao pointed toward the shack. “Go! That cripple soiled himself again. Go wash the sheets! It’s disgusting!”
Shen Li arched an eyebrow. Someone else was in that shack? Impossible. She had been completely alone when she woke up.