The sky above the ruined city was the color of a bruised corpse, heavy with ash and sour rain.
Xie Rulan crouched behind a collapsed concrete pillar, her breath coming in shallow, ragged hitches.
Her hands—caked in dried mud, blood, and machine grease—clutched a rusted crowbar.
Beside her, three figures pressed against the shattered wall, their breathing just as labored.
Ten years.
They had survived together in this hellish wasteland for ten long years, scavenged every scrap of food, fought off rabid mutates, and shared every drop of stale, metallic water.
“Found it, Captain,” one of them rasped, his voice barely a breath.
He held up a small, sealed tin with a faded label.
Preserved meat.
A tiny, miraculous prize.
For a brief, absurd second, a spark of genuine joy flared in Rulan’s chest.
A real meal.
No boiled roots.
No tree bark.
No leather steeped in salt water to trick their stomachs into thinking they were eating.
Then the concrete beneath their boots vibrated.
“Move!” Rulan barked, her survival instincts instantly overriding the hunger gnawing at her ribs.
A shadow fell over them as the screech of twisted metal split the air.
A mutated beast—a grotesquely enlarged hunter with elongated limbs and razor-sharp mandibles—crashed down through the collapsed ceiling.
“Get out! Go!” Rulan shoved her teammate backward, throwing her body into the line of fire.
She swung the crowbar with every ounce of strength left in her starved frame, catching the creature across its jaw.
Bone cracked, but the force of the blow threw her off balance.
A jagged piece of rebar cut through her chest.
Pain flared, sharp and icy, followed by a sudden, sickening coldness that spread from her core outward.
The world blurred.
She could hear her team shouting her name, distant and panicked, but the sound was already drowning beneath a heavy, roaring silence.
She fell back against the debris, her blood pooling around her on the cold ash.
‘Damn it’, she thought bitterly, her vision fading to total darkness.
‘I really wanted one proper meal before I died…’
The first thing that returned was not her sight, but her sense of touch.
It was wrong.
Completely, utterly wrong.
There was no biting cold.
No damp, mildewed concrete pressing into her spine.
No smell of sulfur, blood, or burning rubber.
Instead, she felt an almost suffocating softness cradling her back.
Beneath her fingertips was a smooth, cool fabric that felt like woven water.
Rulan opened her eyes.
Above her was not a sky of ash, but a vaulted wooden ceiling intricately carved with gilded lotus patterns.
Soft, pale sunlight streamed through lattice windows, warming her skin.
The air smelled rich and floral, tinged with the subtle scent of burning sandalwood.
Rulan lay motionless, every muscle tense.
‘Did a hostile faction capture us?
Is this a drug-induced hallucination?
Am I dying in an underground vault?’
She tried to bolt upright into a defensive stance, but her body betrayed her.
Her limbs felt impossibly heavy, sluggish, and thick, as if she were submerged in molasses.
“Your Highness! You’re awake!”
A high-pitched, terrified gasp cut through the silence.
Rulan’s head snapped toward the sound.
A girl in a high-collared pink robe was cowering near the foot of the bed, clutching a silver basin.
Her knees were trembling so violently that the water inside the basin sloshed over the rim.
Rulan blinked, her brow furrowing.
“Where am I?”
The maid’s face drained of color.
She dropped to her knees with a loud thud, pressing her forehead directly against the wooden floorboards.
“Please spare me, Your Highness! Servant did not mean to disturb your slumber! This servant merits ten thousand deaths!”
“What are you talking about?” Rulan asked, her voice raspy.
She pushed herself up onto her elbows, sweating from the sheer effort.
“Who are you? What is this place?”
“T-This is your bedchamber, Your Highness!” the maid quavered, not daring to look up.
“The residence of the Fourth Princess of Great Liang!”
Rulan stared at her.
Great Liang?
Fourth Princess?
She scoffed internally.
‘Right.
I’ve finally lost my mind.
My dying brain is cooking up some absurd, elaborate fantasy.’
“Bring me a mirror,” Rulan ordered flatly.
The maid scrambled to her feet so fast she nearly tripped over her own hems.
She rushed to a nearby vanity and retrieved an ornate bronze mirror, presenting it with hands that shook like autumn leaves.
Rulan snatched the handle and raised the polished metal to her face.
The reflection staring back made her freeze.
It was not the lean, battle-scarred face of a wasteland survivor.
The woman in the mirror had a round, bloated face, her skin dull and uneven, marred by angry red breakouts around her cheeks and jawline.
Her chin was soft and double, her frame sprawling under layers of heavy silk.
She looked uncomfortably swollen, unhealthy, and deeply bitter.
Rulan stared at the reflection for a long, quiet moment.
She reached up, pressing a heavy finger against her cheek.
The flesh gave way, soft and sluggish.
She pinched her arm.
Pain.
Sharp, distinct pain.
‘…What happened to me?’
She wasn’t horrified by the appearance itself.
In the wasteland, looks meant less than nothing; muscles and quick reflexes kept you alive, not a clear complexion.
What shocked her was the sheer impossibility of it.
She touched her throat, then her chest.
No gaping wound from a rebar.
No dried blood.
‘This is a hallucination’, she concluded firmly.
‘A very vivid, very weird death-bed dream.’
Suddenly, a drift of air carried a smell into the room.
Rulan’s nose twitched.
Her head turned toward the outer chamber like a compass finding north.
It was the smell of food.
Real, rich, mouth-watering food.
The survival instincts carved into her soul over ten years immediately took control.
Rulan swung her heavy legs over the side of the bed, her feet sinking into a plush carpet.
“What is that?”
“B-Breakfast, Your Highness,” the maid stuttered, watching Rulan’s every move as if expecting an explosive tirade.
“The imperial kitchen delivered it moments ago…”
Rulan didn’t wait for her to finish.
She pushed herself up—nearly losing her balance under the sudden weight of this unaccustomed body—and marched into the adjoining room.
On a large round table sat a feast fit for an empire.
Steaming bowls of pearl-white rice.
Golden, pan-fried dumplings dripping with oil.
Braised pork belly glistening in a sweet, dark sauce.
Fragrant chicken soup with goji berries.
Fresh green vegetables—real, un-mutated, vibrant green vegetables—and a pot of steaming, fragrant tea.
Rulan stood frozen in front of the table, her eyes wide.
In the wasteland, a single one of those dumplings would have started a bloody gang war.
People had killed for a handful of moldy oats.
And here, laid out casually on porcelain plates, was enough food to feed her entire squad for a week.
Her shock dissolved into a sudden, reckless decision.
‘Dream or no dream’, Rulan thought, pulling out a heavy rosewood chair and sitting down, ‘if my brain is giving me a hallucination before I cross over into the void, I am going to eat every single bite.’
She grabbed a pair of silver chopsticks and picked up a piece of braised pork.
She shoved it into her mouth.
The flavor exploded across her tongue—rich, savory, tender, perfectly salted.
A wave of pure, unadulterated bliss hit her so hard she almost closed her eyes and wept.
She took a bowl of rice and began shoveling it in, swallowing rapidly, followed by three dumplings in quick succession.
The maids lined up along the wall exchanged terrified, baffled glances.
Normally, the Fourth Princess would scream that the food was too cold, throw the porcelain plates at their heads, and demand the head chef be flogged.
Instead, the princess was eating with terrifying speed, her eyes burning with an intensity that suggested she would tear anyone who approached her limb from limb.
“Mmmph,” Rulan muttered around a mouth full of steamed bread.
She looked up at the head maid.
“Hey. What did you say my name was again?”
The head maid bowed instantly.
“Your Highness is Princess Xie Rulan, Fourth Princess of Great Liang.”
“Right. Xie Rulan.” Rulan swallowed and reached for a chicken drumstick.
“And why are you all shaking like you’re about to be executed?”
The maid swallowed hard.
“Servant… servant would not dare! It is just that… after yesterday’s incident at the Imperial Garden… we feared Your Highness was still displeased with the Noble Consort’s family…”
Rulan paused, her chopsticks suspended over the braised pork.
“Incident?”
“The… the moment when Your Highness pushed Lady Gu into the lotus pond for wearing the same shade of silk,” the maid whispered, her voice dropping to a trembling murmur.
“And when Minister Zhang tried to intervene, Your Highness threatened to have his family’s estates audited by the imperial guards…”
Rulan blinked.
She took another bite of chicken, chewing slowly as she digested the information.
So, the original owner of this body—this Xie Rulan—wasn’t just fat and unhealthy.
She was an arrogant, spoiled, reckless tyrant who went around ruining people’s lives over dress colors and threatening high-ranking government officials.
She had amassed a mountain of enemies across the imperial court.
Rulan wiped her mouth with a silk napkin, letting out a small, dry laugh.
‘I died fighting monsters in an apocalypse, and I somehow woke up inheriting someone else’s hit list?’
She shook her head.
It was too absurd.
It had to be a dream.
A very detailed, strangely delicious dream.
“Whatever,” Rulan muttered, reaching for a cup of warm tea.
“As long as the food keeps coming, she can push as many ladies into ponds as she wants.”
She took a long sip of the tea, letting the warmth spread through her chest, fully prepared to spend the rest of her hallucination finishing off the braised pork.
CRACK.
The heavy wooden doors of the bedchamber were thrown open with a sharp bang.
A high-ranking palace eunuch stepped across the threshold, dressed in formal navy robes, holding a golden scroll.
His posture was stiff, his expression icy and unreadable, though a faint glint of disdain shone in his eyes as he looked at Rulan sitting amidst the half-emptied plates.
Behind him, every single maid in the room instantly dropped to their knees, bowing their heads to the floor in total silence.
“By Imperial Order!” the eunuch announced, his voice sharp and carrying across the grand room.
“His Imperial Majesty commands the presence of the Fourth Princess, Xie Rulan, in the Imperial Study immediately.”
Rulan froze, the teacup halfway to her lips.
The air in the room suddenly grew suffocatingly dense.
She looked at the kneeling maids—the genuine, visceral terror radiating from their posture, the cold sweat dripping down their necks, the way the eunuch’s eyes tracked her every movement with sharp calculation.
This wasn’t the hazy, illogical flow of a dream.
The heat of the tea in her hand was real.
The heavy ache in her sluggish muscles was real.
The cold, dangerous weight of the eunuch’s gaze was entirely real.
Rulan slowly set the teacup back down on the table.
‘Oh, shit’, she thought, her instincts locking into high alert.
‘This isn’t a dream at all’.