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Qiao Nian was dead.
Stomach cancer, terminal stage.
She died in the small Courtyard where she had lived her whole life with her grandmother.
Her grandmother had only passed away a year ago, and now she had followed.
She was just twenty-two that year, a young woman in her prime—full of energy and vitality.
What a pity…
Qiao Nian sat idly in the Courtyard, bored out of her mind. With a casual lift, her soul floated up to the roof of the main house. Gazing at the unusually bright and large moon tonight, she let out a gentle sigh.
She didn’t know if it was her deep resentment over dying so young or some other reason, but after her death, her soul never dispersed. It remained trapped within this tiny Courtyard, drifting aimlessly back and forth.
One year, two years, three years…
By now, seven full years had passed!
Qiao Nian tilted her head slightly, gazing up at the enormous moon overhead. She couldn’t hold back any longer and once again launched into her Nth round of “friendly and heartfelt” conversation with the heavens—laced with colorful curses.
After a good half-hour of her usual grumbling, Qiao Nian prepared to float back into the house to continue her sleep.
But just as she turned her head, a sudden beam of light shot down from the sky, enveloping her entire “body.”
In the blink of an eye, the blinding white light made it impossible for her to see anything clearly. She instinctively raised her hand to shield her eyes.
In that instant, her body—numb and sensationless for the past seven years—was suddenly overcome by a wave of dizziness.
The world spun, the earth shook, and everything felt like it was tilting and trembling. Before long, she completely lost consciousness…
Beishun Dynasty, Huaizhou Prefecture.
In a dim, cramped earthen hut, an old woman dressed in coarse, patched-up linen sat weeping quietly as she stared at a girl lying on the bed. The girl’s eyes were tightly shut, her face ashen and waxy.
She didn’t notice the girl’s fingers tremble slightly.
Just then, a set of hurried footsteps sounded from outside, drawing closer and closer.
In the next instant, accompanied by the creak of the wooden door, a boy of about eight or nine appeared at the doorway. He first glanced at the girl still lying on the bed with her eyes closed, then softly asked,
“Granny, has A-Jie still not woken up?”
The old woman quickly wiped away her tears with her sleeve and gently tucked the blanket around the girl on the bed.
“Let your sister sleep a while longer. Come outside with Granny for now.”
The two of them tiptoed out of the room and carefully closed the door behind them.
“You found wild vegetables at noon?”
“Mm. Shuanzi and I found a hidden spot—there were still quite a lot of wild greens there. Granny, let’s cook some wild vegetable porridge. When A-Jie wakes up, she can have some to eat.”
As the voices of the elderly woman and the young boy gradually faded outside, the girl lying on the bed finally broke free from the darkness and suddenly opened her eyes.
She gasped for air in large breaths, trying to calm the wild pounding of her heart.
Then, with a sudden motion, she sat upright. With her pair of slender, dark hands, she touched her face, her lips, her head… and the hard wooden bed beneath her, along with the stiff, clumped quilt.
Even that wasn’t enough. To be certain, she pinched her bony arm hard. The sharp pain that followed finally convinced her—it was all real.
Qiao Nian couldn’t contain the surge of joy in her heart.
She was alive again.
Or rather, she had transmigrated, or perhaps her soul had returned through another’s body… In any case, Qiao Nian—who had drifted as a spirit for seven years after dying in the 21st century—was alive once more.
She was human again. She could truly live again…
She took several deep, deliberate breaths before the waves of exhilaration in her chest finally began to settle.
Only then did she begin to take stock of her surroundings.
The walls were made of uneven packed earth, and in the corner behind her to the right, a long crack ran down from the ceiling. The roof was made of thatched straw, but tightly woven—at least no light leaked through.
Though the floor was uneven, it had been trodden firm and smooth, and was swept clean.
Inside the room, aside from the wooden plank bed beneath her and a square wooden chest at the foot of the bed—with a blue-and-white porcelain bowl resting on top—there wasn’t a single other piece of furniture.
“So this is the ancient version of ‘bare walls and nothing else’?”
Qiao Nian muttered just once, then quickly forced down the brief flicker of resentment that had risen in her heart. To be alive again—who would still want to be a ghost?
The helplessness after her grandmother’s death, and the lonely, hollow seven years spent as a wandering spirit, had all taught her one thing: as long as she was alive, any hardship was only temporary.
In her sleep earlier, she had already “seen” the original host’s short life. The memories had flashed before her eyes as though she had lived them herself. Scene by scene, they had seeped into her soul until she had fully accepted everything that had belonged to the former Qiao Nian.
The original host was also named Qiao Nian, and had just turned fourteen this year. She was the eldest daughter of the main branch of the Qiao family, residing in Huaishu Village, Lin’an Town, Huaizhou Prefecture.
Her father, Qiao Shan, was considered half a hunter in the village. During the busy farming seasons, he worked the fields; during the off-season, he would go into the mountains to hunt small game to help make ends meet.
A month ago, Qiao Shan had gone into the mountains as usual. But that time, he encountered a black bear foraging for food. He fought with all his strength to escape, and though he managed to stumble back to the doorstep of his home, his injuries were too severe—he collapsed and never rose again.
At that moment, Qiao Mother, who was five months pregnant, had been chatting with the second aunt in the Courtyard. Upon seeing her husband, covered in blood and collapsing at the gate, she rushed forward without hesitation. But her foot caught on something, and she lost her balance, falling heavily to the ground.
By the time Grandmother Hua Guixiang returned with the siblings from gathering firewood, all she found were the cold, lifeless bodies of Qiao Father and Qiao Mother…
The original Qiao Nian had numbly followed the others in arranging her parents’ funerals. If not for her grandmother and younger brother still needing her, the young girl might have chosen to follow her parents into death.
After the funeral, the household remained in deep mourning for quite some time. Hua Guixiang, having endured the heartbreak of burying her own child, fell ill on and off for over half a month. Only in the past few days had she started to improve. Now, the three of them comforted one another and resolved to start anew. After all, life had to go on.
Who would have thought that early this very morning, the original host’s fiancé’s family would suddenly show up to break off the engagement?
Not only did they call off the betrothal, they also announced their intention to propose marriage to her cousin, Qiao Jiaojiao. They had even chosen the auspicious date—one month from now.
The original Qiao Nian could not bear the blow. Crushed by despair, her heart sank into hopelessness, and she fainted on the spot.
At that very moment, the wandering soul of Qiao Nian from the 21st century was swept into this body by an unseen force. In her sleep, she absorbed the body’s memories and past.
Qiao Nian took a moment to sort through everything. In the end, she could only let out a long, helpless sigh. In this oppressive era, simply being born a woman was already a sin.
The original host could not withstand the sudden death of her parents, the annulment of her engagement, the gossip and judgment from others, or the fact that the fiancé she had been promised to since childhood would now become her cousin’s husband. Unable to accept it all, she silently faded from the world.
But now, this body belonged to her, Qiao Nian.
She would live well—live fully—enough for both this life and the one she had lost.
Just then, a sharp bang echoed from the Courtyard, abruptly pulling Qiao Nian from her thoughts. Immediately after came the sound of a noisy commotion.
Qiao Nian quickly gathered her thoughts and stepped out of the room…