Chapter 1: The Frail Heiress of the Xu Family
“Xiao Jiu, how are you feeling right now… any discomfort anywhere?”
In the unfamiliar hospital room, a young woman dressed in elegant and luxurious attire gazed worriedly at the girl on the bed, speaking words full of concern.
Yet faced with this scene, a trace of confusion and bewilderment flickered in the girl’s poignant eyes, along with an instinctive wariness toward her surroundings.
“Xiao Jiu… can you hear Mommy speaking?”
‘Xiao Jiu… such a strange name. Is she talking to me?’
The girl lifted her head slightly, meeting the woman’s eyes brimming with anxiety.
Her name was Xia Yu. Before this, she had died unexpectedly in a work accident. She never imagined she would now seemingly be reborn into some girl’s body, catching her completely off guard.
The unfamiliar environment, the unfamiliar people—it all left her unsure how to respond for the moment.
“Could it be a side effect of the surgery…”
“Xiao Jiu, lie still and don’t move around. Mommy’s going to get the doctor now.”
Her prolonged silence seemed to heighten the other’s worry, so the woman turned and left to fetch the so-called doctor.
Thanks to this, she gained some understanding of her current situation and a chance to study the time and place she now occupied.
‘Where have I transmigrated to… Why am I in a hospital… And why am I a girl…’
She looked down at her body. Beneath the pure white hospital gown, her figure was curvaceous—especially the swell at her chest, neither too large nor too small, just right to fit in one hand.
And the feel of it was unprecedentedly good.
??
“This… is me…?”
She was utterly stunned, and her random touching brought a strange sensation to her body—one she had never experienced as a man.
A twinge of guilt rose in her heart, forcing her to stop exploring her new body. What was done was done; no matter how much she resisted, she couldn’t change the fact that she was no longer herself.
Die again? She couldn’t gamble on that.
At that moment, the woman who had left earlier returned to the room with several doctors in tow. From their appearances, they all seemed to be foreigners.
“Xiao Jiu, why are you up?! Lie down quickly—you just had surgery yesterday, remember?”
The woman who saw her appeared anxious and hurried to the bedside to help her back onto the pillow.
In response, Xia Yu could only watch in silence, unsure how to react.
“Mommy knows you want to do things on your own, but baby, you just had surgery. There’s no rush, right? Once you’re recovered as the doctors say, Mommy definitely won’t stop you.”
“Mommy…?”
“Hm? What’s wrong?”
“…”
“Xiao Jiu, if something’s bothering you, you must say it. Don’t hide it—Daddy and I will worry so much.”
The woman gripped her hand tightly. Hearing her speak after so long seemed to finally ease her mind.
‘Not only reborn, but with two unfamiliar parents… Where on earth have I ended up…’
Her head ached. As a breeze lifted the curtain, she inadvertently glimpsed the view outside the window.
Airliners occasionally took off in the sky. Below stood skyscrapers adorned with English-lettered advertisements, bustling streets, and the intermittent wail of sirens—all telling her she was in a country across the ocean.
She had actually come here?
She tried moving her body, only to feel waves of bone-gnawing pain deep inside, as if a heavy stone were tied to her heart. Even breathing felt laborious.
Just that slight movement left her drenched in sweat.
‘So uncomfortable… Why does my body feel like this… ugh…’
The woman claiming to be her mother gently wiped her sweat at the bedside, her eyes filled with heartache and pity, though she seemed accustomed to the sight.
“Don’t keep pushing yourself, baby. The doctors said you need time to recover. Sigh…”
The woman tucked her in, and the accompanying doctors proceeded to examine her.
The cold instruments gliding over her skin—Xia Yu realized she had never feared these things so much in her life.
It felt like her fate was in someone else’s hands. She had no choice; the earlier experience had left her too terrified.
“If the recovery goes well this time, Mommy can take you home. So baby, you must cooperate fully and follow the doctors’ instructions. No more fooling around on your own, okay?”
Xia Yu glanced lightly at the woman and nodded helplessly inside.
Seeing this, the woman smiled gently and stroked her head.
“Mommy knew it—my baby is the most obedient.”
Xia Yu sighed inwardly. For some reason, she felt this rebirth might have been better left undone. Reborn into such a suffering body—it was truly like experiencing the bitterness of the world.
In the days that followed, while undergoing treatment, she also pieced together her situation through subtle inquiries with those around her. In short, this body was born with a rare heart condition, making her far weaker than others. Even slight intense activity or stimulation could land her in the ICU.
For this reason, her parents had sought every possible treatment, even traveling from their home country abroad, all to give her difficult life a sliver of hope.
It was only because her family was well-off that she had survived this long. Otherwise, Xia Yu couldn’t imagine such a thing happening to an ordinary family—how despairing it would be.
So, was this a bit of luck amid her misfortune…?
That said, she should now call herself Xu Jiu, for the old her had long vanished from the world.
“The world after my death… No, why is the time here ten years ago?”
She hadn’t noticed at first, until she saw the news on TV. It not only felt familiar, but the timeline seemed too perfectly aligned.
Logically, if one died and was reborn, it should be in a later era—unless she had arrived in a world with a history entirely different from her past. Everything here matched her old world, except… she was no longer him…
“How could this be… Does that mean I’ve returned to the past…”
In her shock, she grew slightly agitated, only to feel her heart ache unbearably. Panicked, she quickly followed the doctors’ taught methods to calm herself.
She had forgotten she was now a patient. This was something she needed to remember from now on.