In 2023, a ten-day international diplomatic conference came to an end.
Twenty-nine-year-old interpreter Ning Wanwan was widely regarded as the face of Huaguo’s diplomatic corps. Her simultaneous interpretation had helped Huaguo shine at the conference.
After the conference ended, Ning Wanwan waited until the leaders of the various countries had gradually departed before leaving with her assistant.
“Let’s go.”
Only then did a trace of exhaustion appear on her beautiful face.
“Sister Ning, you must get some proper rest during this vacation.” Her assistant was her junior from university and had been working with her for three years.
“That’s right. I can finally take a vacation.”
Ning Wanwan had spent an entire year preparing for this conference.
The two women got into the official car provided for her by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The driver was Uncle Chen, who had worked with her for two years and had more than twenty years of driving experience.
Ning Wanwan settled into the back seat. Since the journey was long, she closed her eyes to rest.
Ten minutes later, Uncle Chen’s trembling voice broke the silence.
“Miss Ning, there’s something wrong with the car.”
She opened her eyes. If Uncle Chen was saying this, it meant someone had tampered with the vehicle.
“How bad is it?”
Her voice remained calm.
From the very first day she had entered this profession, she had known that one day she might have to face death directly.
“It will explode in twenty minutes. The doors are already locked.”
What Uncle Chen meant was that they had no chance of jumping out of the car either.
“I remember there was a river along the road when we came here. Can we reach it within twenty minutes?”
Even though they were currently in the suburbs, there were still residents living nearby. She could not allow innocent people to suffer because of them.
“Yes.” Uncle Chen tightened his grip on the steering wheel.
“Sister Ning.”
Her assistant, who was sitting in the front passenger seat, turned to look at her. She was terrified.
“From the very first day we started this work, we knew we might have to face a day like this, didn’t we?” Ning Wanwan gave her a brilliant smile.
“There are still some work matters I need to hand over. Use this time to say your goodbyes to your loved ones.”
Ning Wanwan raised the partition between the front and back seats, took out her phone, and dialed a number she had never called before but had engraved deep in her memory.
“Minister, I have nineteen minutes left…” Ning Wanwan glanced at her phone.
Nineteen minutes later, a black Mercedes-Benz van sped toward the great river on the outskirts of Jing City.
Before it could even plunge into the river, the vehicle exploded.
When her consciousness returned, Ning Wanwan clutched her head. Her temples throbbed with pain, and she could not open her eyes at all.
What was happening?
She had just been involved in a deliberately orchestrated car accident. There was no way she could have survived.
It took more than ten minutes for the pain to subside enough for her to regain her composure.
When she opened her eyes again, she found herself in a room that seemed to belong to another era.
Before she had time to examine the room’s layout, memories that did not belong to her flooded into her mind.
So the headache had been caused by the transfer of memories.
She had transmigrated into a book!
More specifically, she had transmigrated into the body of the male lead’s short-lived stepmother, who was also his aunt, in a historical novel set in a bygone era. It was the very novel her junior had recommended to her.
Ning Wanwan had not read much of it. After all, as an interpreter, she barely had time to read novels.
She only knew that a minor character who shared her exact name had died three days after marrying the male lead’s father, who was actually his maternal uncle.
As for the timing of her transmigration, it was indeed the very day the original Ning Wanwan had died in the story.
Why had she died?
Ning Wanwan could only say that when an author wanted a character dead by three in the morning, even the King of Hell would not let that character live until five.
Judging by the original character’s background and personality, there was absolutely no way she would have died of heartbreak simply because her husband had not appeared for three days after their marriage.
After absorbing the original owner’s memories, Ning Wanwan learned that it was now 1980. The original owner was also named Ning Wanwan, had grown up in a military compound, and was twenty-one years old.
Her parents had died in a battle eight years ago. She also had an older brother who was eight years her senior, but he had died in action a year earlier.
The original owner was a second-year student at the College of Foreign Affairs. After losing her only remaining family member, she had chosen to take a leave of absence from school and return to her father’s hometown to live.
But why had she ended up back in the military compound in Jing City?
The male lead’s nominal father, Ji Yunting, had been a close friend of her older brother, Ning Guoqiang, for many years.
Ji Yunting had been on the mission with Ning Guoqiang when the latter was killed.
Before his death, Ning Guoqiang had entrusted his younger sister to his good friend, and Ji Yunting had promised to take care of her.
However, there needed to be a proper arrangement for him to look after her. Since they were an unmarried man and woman, marriage was the only solution he could think of.
After asking the original owner, he received her agreement.
However, the original owner had requested to spend a year living in her father’s hometown, so they had agreed to marry a year later.
When the agreed-upon time arrived, Ji Yunting submitted the marriage application. He even had his orderly handle the marriage registration for them.
They did not hold a wedding ceremony either. Ji Yunting simply sent someone to bring the original owner back from her hometown before rushing off on another mission.
As for Ji Yunting, he had grown up in the military compound himself. He was thirty years old and had already risen to the position of deputy division commander at such a young age.
He also held another position: commander of a special operations unit. Otherwise, there would have been no reason for someone of his rank to keep going on missions himself.
Ji Yunting had an eleven-year-old son, Ji Jingxuan, who was the male lead of that historical novel.
However, the boy was actually his nephew.
Twelve years earlier, Ji Yunting’s older sister had unexpectedly become pregnant, but no matter what, she had refused to reveal the father’s identity.
The family only knew that the man was a scumbag. Ji Yunting’s sister had subsequently died from complications during childbirth while giving birth to Ji Jingxuan.
At the time, Ji Yunting had been only nineteen years old. He had declared that from then on, Ji Jingxuan would be his son and would be registered under his household.
Ning Wanwan pressed a hand to her forehead.
Just how straightforward could Ji Yunting be? Whenever he encountered a problem, his solutions were either to marry someone or to take a child as his own.
After sorting through the original owner’s memories, Ning Wanwan finally had time to look around the room.
They were living in the military compound. The original owner’s family home had been reclaimed after her parents and brother died one after another.
Ji Yunting’s house was a two-story red-brick building with a small courtyard outside.
The room she was in was their marital bedroom, which Ji Yunting had arranged for someone to prepare. She was quite satisfied with it.
There was a large bed measuring 1.8 meters wide, a spacious wardrobe, and a dressing table. Most importantly, there was a particularly large mirror that she loved.
Ning Wanwan slipped on her slippers and walked over to the mirror.
The original owner had exactly the same appearance as she did.
She gently brushed her hair aside. Her features were already alluring, and now, with a smile on her lips, her beautiful, peach-blossom eyes sparkled with a delicate light.
In her previous life, as a government employee, she had often been underestimated because of her appearance during the early stages of her career.
Later, she had devoted a great deal of time to honing her skills and improving her professional knowledge.
Through one flawless performance after another, she had eventually made people throughout the country and around the world recognize that Ning Wanwan was the finest interpreter.
It was precisely because of this that, at twenty-nine, she had never been in a relationship.
Ning Wanwan took a small locked box from the bottom of the wardrobe. It contained all the original owner’s personal belongings.
She unlocked it with a key and first took out the bankbook buried at the very bottom. That was where most of her wealth was kept.
Her parents’ compensation payments had totaled nine thousand yuan, while her older brother’s compensation had amounted to five thousand yuan. Their previous savings, together with the allowances her brother had received over the years, totaled another twelve thousand yuan. There were also two thousand yuan in betrothal gifts that Ji Yunting had given her a year earlier.
Altogether, the bankbook contained twenty-eight thousand yuan.
In the 1980s, that made her a bona fide household with over ten thousand yuan in savings.
The small box also contained eight bundles of large-denomination ten-yuan notes. Each bundle held ten notes, making each bundle worth one hundred yuan.
This money consisted of the original owner’s pocket money and the monthly subsidies she had saved after her parents passed away.
In addition, there were numerous ration coupons and foreign exchange certificates. The military had issued them to her parents and brother over the years. The original owner had saved the long-term coupons she had not used and exchanged short-term coupons for long-term ones whenever possible.
No wonder the original owner was mentioned in the novel when the male lead took money out to help the female lead start a business. Some of that money had actually belonged to her.
So the original owner did not even qualify as a supporting character. At best, she had merely been a convenient plot device.