A wave of intense pain suddenly struck.
It felt as if countless steel needles were stabbing into her temples, and at the same time as though her entire body had been plunged into an icy cellar.
Liu Xiaoman’s consciousness drifted in boundless darkness.
In her ears, two completely different roars intertwined—the piercing alarm of an out-of-control pressure valve in a modern laboratory, and the fragmented murmurs of a feverish ancient girl.
In the end, a gust of icy wind poured in through a hole in the wall and abruptly woke her.
She struggled to open her eyes; it took a long while before her vision finally focused.
Above her was a soot-blackened beam.
Sparse thatch failed to block the night sky, and a few pale stars blinked down at her.
Beneath her was a hard wooden board covered with a thin layer of rotten straw, pressing painfully against her bones.
“Whoosh—”
Another cold wind swept through, carrying the stench of decaying earth. The cracks in the western wall of the hut let out a ghostly wail.
Liu Xiaoman turned her stiff neck and looked out through a large hole—
Under the night, scattered lonely graves stretched across the land, with faint green ghostly flames flickering above them.
A mass grave.
Her body burned with fever, while her throat was dry as smoke.
Every breath carried a searing pain.
She tried to push herself up, only to be horrified to discover that this body was weak to the extreme. Even the mere thought of moving a finger drained all her strength.
At that moment, countless memories that didn’t belong to her surged into her mind like a tide.
The original owner was also named Liu Xiaoman, fifteen years old, thin as a bean sprout.
That very afternoon, her own grandmother, Old Madam Tian, had pointed at her nose and cursed her as a “jinx who killed her own father.” Just because her father, Liu Shitou, had joined the army three years ago and had not been heard from since—most likely dead.
Using that as an excuse, Old Madam Tian had driven their entire second branch out of the Liu family estate—Liu Xiaoman, burning with fever; her useless, tearful mother Li Xiuxiu; and her foolish younger brother Liu Congming—and dumped them in this broken hut by the mass grave to fend for themselves.
A small, frail figure fumbled his way to her side, carrying a sour, rancid smell.
It was her ten-year-old brother, Liu Congming. Starved for years, he was nothing but skin and bones, with empty, unfocused eyes.
He cautiously touched Liu Xiaoman’s burning forehead, then withdrew his hand and repeated the only words he knew: “Sis… hungry.”
Nearby, her mother Li Xiuxiu knelt in the corner, scraping the bottom of an empty jar with the chipped edge of a broken bowl.
Inside the jar had been the half-bag of rice bran that Old Madam Tian had “kindly” thrown to them. Now even that was gone.
After scraping for a long time, Li Xiuxiu managed to gather only half a bowl of gray powder.
She lowered her head as tears fell silently into the bowl—pat, pat.
Fragments of memory continued to churn.
Her sharp-tongued aunt Wang Jinhua, pinching her nose in disgust as she directed others to throw their belongings out, her eyes full of contempt.
Her greedy and cowardly uncle Liu Dashan, hiding behind Old Madam Tian, silently allowing everything to happen just to seize the second branch’s two mu of poor farmland and their modest tile-roofed house.
And her spoiled cousin Liu Dabao, gloating as he spat at them.
Liu Xiaoman let out a long sigh in her heart—mourning their misfortune, yet angry at their weakness.
“Good grief… did I just collect the full set of nightmare relatives to summon a dragon?” she complained inwardly. “I’m a modern agricultural scientist who just escaped the grind of academia, and now I’m thrown into a hardcore ancient family drama? With a hell-mode start?”
She wanted to comfort her pitiful brother. Mustering all her strength, she parted her cracked lips and forced out a few hoarse syllables:
“Congming… don’t be afraid… your sister’s here.”
Her voice was so faint it was like the buzz of a mosquito, instantly swallowed by the howling wind.
As soon as she spoke, a violent itch rose from deep in her throat.
“Cough… cough—cough cough cough!”
She couldn’t stop coughing violently. Each spasm tugged at her entire body, as if she were about to cough out her organs.
Curled in the straw, she coughed until her chest felt torn apart, her vision going dark.
A strong metallic taste surged up her throat. The saliva she coughed up was streaked with alarming dark red.
The high fever was rapidly consuming what little strength she had left. Her vision blurred, everything around her doubling.
By a scientist’s instinct, she quickly diagnosed herself: severe bacterial lung infection, accompanied by high fever and hemoptysis. In an era without antibiotics, if she didn’t receive effective treatment soon, she would die within half a day.
The fear of death, like the chill of the mass grave, enveloped her once again.
“Damn heavens, are you messing with me?” she thought unwillingly. “You went through all the trouble to let me be reborn, just to give me a 24-hour fast-track death card?”
Why? She hadn’t yet sought justice for this pitiful girl. She hadn’t even managed to let her weak mother and foolish brother eat a full meal. She didn’t want to die like this—pathetic and helpless.
A fierce will to survive roared in her heart like a trapped beast.
Just as her consciousness was about to be completely swallowed by darkness, a cold, emotionless mechanical voice suddenly rang out in her mind.
【Ding! Detecting strong survival instinct in host. Binding the Myriad Worlds Medical Inheritance and Species Preservation System…】
【10%… 30%… 50%…】
Liu Xiaoman’s muddled mind cleared for a brief instant.
A system?
【70%… 90%… 100%! Binding complete!】
【Welcome to the Myriad Worlds Medical Inheritance and Species Preservation System. Novice Village Chief Liu Xiaoman, at your service!】
As the binding notification faded, the harsh face of Old Madam Tian flashed through her mind.
Throwing down that half-bag of pig-feed-like rice bran, she had spat and cursed sharply: “Take it and get out! Even if you die outside, don’t come back and dirty our Liu family land!”
That resentment and hatred seemed carved into her bones.
But before Liu Xiaoman could examine this sudden golden finger—this miraculous cheat—a massive wave of mental exhaustion struck her, as if all her strength had been drained.
Her eyelids grew unbearably heavy, and she fell completely unconscious.
“Xiaoman! Xiaoman! Don’t scare your mother!”
“Sis… sis…”
Li Xiuxiu and Liu Congming’s terrified cries rang in her ears, but she could no longer respond.
In the final moment before her consciousness sank into darkness, Liu Xiaoman used every ounce of willpower to fix her gaze on the translucent virtual panel that had just appeared in her mind.
It was her only chance at survival.
On the panel, two gray buttons—[Recycle] and [Exchange]—flickered faintly.