Chapter 1: Lately, Strange Things Have Been Happening

“Yu Zhou, can you not leave? Mianmian is still so little. She can’t live without her dad.”

“You already signed the divorce papers this morning. I’m no longer your man—let go.”

“Daddy, don’t leave Mianmian.” A little girl, around five or six years old, clung tightly to the man’s pants leg.

The man firmly pushed her away. “Let go. Starting today, I’m not your dad anymore. Go find yourself a new one.”

Feng Mian jolted awake from the nightmare, her mind buzzing.

Lately, strange things had been happening.

It started when she bought a new phone. The seller sent the wrong item and flatly refused to admit the mistake.

Reluctantly, she accepted the incorrect phone—and that’s when the weirdness began.

Orders placed on a certain e-commerce platform were instantly delivered. There was no need to go to the community pick-up point, no delivery person ringing the bell. All she had to do was tap a glowing icon of a package at the “delivery” spot on the phone, and whatever she bought would immediately appear out of thin air in a small ten-square-meter room. Then, with just a thought, she could retrieve the items.

It didn’t matter where or when—even if she forgot toilet paper in the bathroom, she could place an order on the spot. It was faster than someone handing it to her.

Even creepier, she couldn’t find a charging port on the phone. There was nowhere to insert a SIM card, and she had no idea where the network signal was coming from.

She strongly suspected that this wrongly delivered phone was connected to the underworld.

The second strange thing was that she’d been sleeping a lot lately—and dreaming even more.

The moment she closed her eyes, she started dreaming.

Dreaming wasn’t unusual in itself. What was strange was that she kept dreaming of the same place, the same group of people.

And the strangest part was that she dreamt as if she were one of them.

That girl in the dream was thin and small, sharing the same name as her—Feng Mian.

Like her, she had no parents.

But in her own life, Feng Mian was the child of wealthy second-generation parents who died in an accident, leaving her with a fortune and no worries about food or shelter.

The girl in the dream had a very different life. Her father had been a sent-down youth in the ’50s and ’60s. When she was five, he got a chance to return to the city and left her and her mother without hesitation.

Back then, it was nearly impossible for a woman with a child to survive on her own. A few years later, her mother passed away.

As an orphan, the girl was taken in by her maternal grandparents.

But after her grandfather broke his leg and became a burden, the elderly couple slowly lost their authority in the household. Life became harder for her, too.

Later, when her cousin was getting married and needed space, there was no room left for her. Not wanting to make things difficult for her grandparents, she moved out to live alone in a small mud-brick hut.

She was fifteen then. She had been supporting herself for three years now—she was eighteen this year.

But because she was a girl, a young orphan at that, no matter how hard she worked, the production team never gave her full credit.

An adult man earned ten work points a day, a woman eight. She could only get five or six.

She was constantly hungry, her face sallow and body emaciated.

After dreaming this same life for half a month, Feng Mian’s mind started to blur.

She was beginning to lose track of whether she was the modern-day Feng Mian or the one from that famine-stricken era.

Every time she woke up and checked the clock, she noticed that her waking hours were getting shorter, and her dream time was getting longer.

She slowly came to the terrifying realization: if this kept up, she might never wake up—she would be stuck in that other world forever.

Sitting cross-legged on her bed for a long time, she made a decision.

She would liquidate all her assets and pour everything into this underworld phone’s underworld shopping app.

No hesitation.

She immediately called the high-priced professional CEO she had hired and told him to sell the company as soon as possible.

The other party thought she had lost her mind.

“The company is making money right now—why on earth do you suddenly want to sell it?”

She spent a long time convincing the professional CEO she had hired.

In addition to the company, she also owned a pile of properties.

Next, she contacted several real estate agents and put all her properties up for quick sale—every single one priced below market value.

“So many properties at cut-rate prices—are you sure there’s nothing wrong with them?”

Feng Mian casually made up an excuse. “There’s an issue with the company. I need to liquidate some cash.”

Selling at a loss wasn’t ideal, but she felt like time was running out.

At home, Feng Mian also had a collection of luxury handbags, clothes, jewelry, celebrity calligraphy and paintings, porcelain vases, rosewood furniture, and so on. Whatever could go on secondhand apps went there; what couldn’t, she pawned.

Even her beloved succulents were given away to fellow plant lovers in her social circle.

These days, she was either asleep or busy—so busy she barely had time to think.

One month later, Feng Mian had successfully liquidated all her assets. Over 200 million yuan in total—all of it poured into the underworld shopping app on the underworld phone.

That night, she closed her eyes—and never woke up in that body again.

When she opened her eyes next, she was that thin eighteen-year-old girl again—Feng Mian.

…

“Mianmian? Mianmian, are you awake?”

Feng Mian opened her eyes to the sound of knocking outside.

“Sister Lan? What is it?”

“The brigade leader says there’s a phone call for you—come answer it quickly.”

She was in Fengjia Village, a large rural brigade not far from the county town. A few years ago, the higher-ups had approved a public telephone for the village to help the educated youth stay in touch with their families.

Unfortunately, not long after, the wave of educated youth returning to the cities began. Just last October, the last one left. Since then, there hadn’t been a single educated youth in the village.

Feng Mian got dressed and went out, puzzled.

The original Feng Mian hadn’t liked the educated youth because of her scumbag father, who had been one. She’d never made friends with them—so who would be calling her?

When she arrived at the brigade office, the phone rang again.

Brigade Leader Feng Sige quickly told her to answer.

“Hello?”

The person on the other end paused for a moment after hearing her voice, then asked hesitantly, “Are you… Mianmian?”

It was the voice of a middle-aged man.

Feng Mian replied calmly, “This is Feng Mian. Who’s speaking?”

The man on the other end seemed a little emotional. “Mianmian! Mianmian, it’s me—your dad.”

Feng Mian’s mind buzzed—the scumbag father from the original’s past?

Click. She hung up the phone.

The original Feng Mian had hated him with a passion—she would’ve wished him dead.

As for herself, Feng Mian had no interest in reconnecting with a man who had abandoned his wife and child.

In that nightmare, his departure had been ruthless. On the day he left, both mother and daughter cried their hearts out. He didn’t even look back. He’d even told little Feng Mian to go find someone else to call “Dad.”

If someone like that was calling her now, it was definitely not for anything good.

Feng Sige asked, “Why’d you hang up? The guy on the other end said he’s your father—Yu Zhou.”

Feng Mian took a deep breath. “Fourth Grandpa, could you please keep this to yourself? Don’t let my grandma find out, or it’ll upset her badly. That man is not my father. If he calls again, just hang up. No need to fetch me.”

Feng Sige knew Yu Zhou was scum and agreed right away.

Still, he was a bit curious—he’d abandoned his daughter over ten years ago, so why was he suddenly calling now?

Just after Feng Mian left, the phone rang again.

Feng Sige picked it up. “Are you Yu Zhou?”