Rulan woke up to the warm, golden glow of morning light filtering through the silk-draped lattice windows.
She had slept on a feather-soft mattress.
She had worn silk sleepwear.
She had gone to bed with a stomach full of rich, savory pork belly and tender steamed buns.
By all rights, she should have woken up feeling like a queen.
Instead, she felt like she had been hit by a freight train.
Rulan sat up slowly, her limbs heavy as lead.
A dull, throbbing ache pounded behind her temples.
Her mouth felt bone-dry, her tongue heavy, and a strange, dizzying sluggishness clouded her thoughts.
She pressed her knuckles into her forehead, her brow furrowing deeply.
‘This makes no sense.’
In the wasteland, Rulan had learned to read her body with absolute precision.
If you were exhausted, it was because you hadn’t slept in thirty-six hours.
If your stomach cramped, it was because the water source was contaminated.
If your muscles burned, it was because you had run five miles dodging mutates.
Every physical sensation had a clear, identifiable cause.
She wasn’t stupid.
She knew she was carrying extra weight in this new body, but being heavy didn’t explain this.
This wasn’t simple out-of-shape lethargy; it was a systemic, creeping weakness.
It felt as though her blood was moving like cold molasses through her veins.
A quiet knock sounded at the door before Lian’er, the young head maid, crept into the bedchamber followed by three servants carrying silver breakfast trays.
“Your Highness,” Lian’er bowed nervously, keeping her eyes fixed on the floor.
“Breakfast has arrived.”
The moment the aroma of spiced chicken broth, steamed pork dumplings, and freshly baked sesame cakes filled the air, Rulan’s stomach let out a loud, hollow growl.
Her eyes lit up despite her headache.
Food was food, and her brain was still wired to eat whenever resources were available.
She moved to the table and immediately began eating, shoveling the warm dumplings into her mouth.
Yet, three bowls of rice and half a plate of chicken later, a strange sensation hit her.
Her stomach was physically full, almost uncomfortably so, but a lingering, ravenous hunger still gnawed at her core.
Worse, a wave of subtle, greasy nausea began to roll through her lower chest.
Rulan set her chopsticks down, staring at the empty porcelain bowls.
Overeating makes you full, she reasoned, wiping her lips.
It doesn’t make you feel ravenous and nauseous at the exact same time.
How long had the original Fourth Princess lived like this?
Had she truly just been a spoiled, gluttonous tyrant who ate herself into a stupor every day?
Or had she been trapped inside a body that was constantly screaming conflicting signals?
“Your Highness,” Lian’er whispered timidly.
“Imperial Physician Zhao has arrived for your morning examination, as ordered by His Majesty.”
Rulan wiped her hands on a silk cloth, smoothing her features into a expression of bored indifference.
“Let him in.”
An elderly man with a silver beard and pristine white robes stepped into the room, carrying a dark wooden medicine chest.
He bowed deeply, his movements practiced and respectful.
“Servant Zhao pays respects to the Fourth Princess,” he murmured.
“Rise,” Rulan said, leaning back into her plush rosewood chair.
Physician Zhao took a seat on a low stool beside her, placing a small velvet cushion beneath Rulan’s wrist to take her pulse.
He closed his eyes, his fingers pressing into her skin for a long, silent moment.
Rulan watched him like a hawk.
She didn’t say a word, tracking the tiny twitches in his expression, the way his breath held steady, the quiet calculation in his posture.
“How is it?” Rulan asked flatly when he finally pulled his hand back.
Physician Zhao bowed his head.
“Your Highness’s constitution remains unstable. The internal heat in your liver is excessive, causing sluggishness of the spirit and dampness in the spleen. It is… as before. A result of your delicate nature, combined with rich foods and a lack of physical exertion.”
It was the exact, textbook answer everyone expected.
A polite way of saying: You are lazy, you eat too much, and you don’t move.
Rulan didn’t flare up in anger.
She didn’t throw a tea bowl at his head as the original princess might have done.
Instead, she rested her chin on her hand, her gaze calm.
“I see. And the medicine I’ve been taking?”
“The same formula as before, Your Highness,” Zhao replied smoothly, opening his wooden chest to retrieve a small stoneware jar filled with thick, dark liquid.
“It is designed to clear the heat and soothe your internal organs.”
“What’s in it?” she asked casually.
Physician Zhao paused for a fraction of a second—so brief a normal person would have missed it entirely.
“A standard restorative tonic, Your Highness. Aged ginseng, sweet licorice, dried lotus seed, and rhubarb root.”
Rulan sniffed the air as he unstoppered the jar.
Her mind flipped through her past life’s rudimentary field-medic training—knowledge scraped together from old textbooks and wasteland herbalists.
Rhubarb cleared internal heat, yes, but in continuous, high doses, it caused severe digestive irritation, fluid retention, and chronic fatigue.
Combined with rich foods, it would make a person feel perpetually hungry, weak, and bloated.
None of these ingredients were inherently lethal.
Taken once or twice, it was harmless medicine.
Taken daily for months?
It would slowly break down a person’s metabolism, wreck their digestion, cause unnatural weight gain, and leave them permanently exhausted.
‘It isn’t a sharp blade:, Rulan realized, her inner alarm bells ringing silently.
‘It’s a slow leak.
Someone isn’t trying to drop me dead in the middle of the palace; they’re making sure I stay weak, sick, and grotesque.’
“I’ve been feeling a bit nauseous lately,” Rulan said, her tone light and conversational.
“Perhaps I should stop taking the tonic for a few days. Just to see if my stomach settles.”
Physician Zhao’s head snapped up.
“Absurd, Your Highness!” he blurted out, his voice rising slightly before he quickly caught himself and bowed lower.
“Pardon this servant’s rudeness! But… but Your Highness’s constitution is extremely delicate! Stopping the medicine suddenly will cause the internal heat to surge, which could lead to severe heart palpitations or even sudden collapse! His Majesty specifically commanded that Your Highness take every drop!”
Rulan stared at the top of his bowed head.
‘Fascinating’, she thought.
‘He reacted way too fast.’
If a patient wanted to pause a simple herbal tea, a normal doctor would explain the risks calmly or adjust the recipe.
He wouldn’t panic, and he certainly wouldn’t immediately drop the Emperor’s name to force her compliance.
“Is that so?” Rulan let out a low, amused breath, leaning back.
“Well, if my imperial brother commanded it, I certainly wouldn’t want to disobey. Leave the medicine.”
Physician Zhao visibly relaxed, his shoulders dropping.
“Your Highness is wise. Servant will take his leave.”
As the physician packed his chest and scurried out of the room, Rulan’s smile faded into a cold, hard line.
‘Rule #3 of the Apocalypse: Rulan reminded herself.
People reveal everything when they think you’re too stupid to notice.’
Once the room was clear and she had sent Lian’er to fetch more tea, Rulan began a quiet, methodical search of her quarters.
She didn’t tear the place apart like a bandit.
She moved efficiently, checking side drawers, carved wooden cabinets, and the small apothecary chests kept in her dressing room.
She found what she was looking for in a lacquer box hidden beneath layers of scented silk scarves: several dozen empty medicine jars, tied with official paper seals, alongside a stack of written prescriptions signed by the Imperial Medical Bureau dating back over a year.
Rulan sat down on the floor, spreading the papers out before her.
She read through the date stamps and medical notes.
The handwriting was neat, detailing the Fourth Princess’s ongoing treatments for “excessive phlegm,” “sluggish blood,” and “uncontrollable appetite.”
As she flipped through the parchment, her eyes landed on an entry from eight months ago.
It was a small note written in the margins by a junior court physician, detailing a complaint made by the princess herself: Fourth Princess reports persistent dizziness, swelling in the limbs, and severe abdominal cramping after taking the evening draft.
Advises altering the formula.
Below it, written in bold, authoritative ink by Imperial Physician Zhao, was a single response: The princess is merely throwing a tantrum due to the bitterness of the herbs.
Maintain current dosage as ordered.
Rulan stared at the entry.
A strange, cold feeling settled in her chest.
The original Xie Rulan hadn’t been completely oblivious.
Eight months ago, she had felt her body failing.
She had complained.
She had told the doctors that something was wrong.
And she had been dismissed as a spoiled, throw-a-tantrum princess who just didn’t like bitter tea.
Rulan rested her back against the side of the wooden cabinet, looking around the cavernous, empty luxury of her bedchamber.
In the wasteland, if one of her squad members fell ill, the whole team rallied.
They shared their meager rations, took turns standing watch, searched ruined pharmacies for antibiotics, and fought off mutates to keep the sick person safe.
They cared whether each other lived or died.
Here, in this sprawling gold palace surrounded by hundreds of bowing servants, the Fourth Princess had been slowly poisoned in broad daylight, and not a single person had cared enough to double-check her medicine.
Rulan closed her eyes.
For the first time since arriving in this world, a quiet, dangerous anger flickered in her chest.
‘They thought she was just a fat, useless tyrant’, Rulan thought, her jaw tightening.
‘So they let her rot from the inside out.’
She opened her eyes and stood up, her movements deliberate despite the heavy ache in her joints.
She walked over to the side table where the fresh jar of Physician Zhao’s tonic sat cooling.
She picked it up, walked over to a large potted ficus plant near the window, and poured the entire dark liquid into the soil.
She wasn’t a master toxicologist.
She didn’t know every court scheme, and she didn’t know who was pulling Physician Zhao’s strings.
But she knew one thing: she wasn’t going to let them kill this body twice.
Rulan set the empty jar back on the silver tray, wiping her hands together with a dry, sharp smirk.
“If you want me dead,” she whispered to the quiet room, “you’re going to have to try a lot harder than bitter tea.”