“The ferry capsized—they say there were children of PLA soldiers on board. The troops are searching, but with such a raging current, they might not even recover the bodies.”

“Let’s keep looking. Four kids and a woman. I heard the woman was a refugee searching for her husband, only to find out he’d already remarried into another family here. Now he’s putting on a show of grief—what’s the point?” 

At this moment, Jiang Zhen was inside her personal space underwater—along with four children. Two were the kids of the woman whose identity she had taken over, both surnamed **Jiang** like their mother.  

The other two were fellow passengers from the ferry—a pair of twins named **Gu Pan** and **Gu Hui**, children from the military family quarters at the garrison. They had coincidentally been on the same boat. Earlier, one of them had even remarked, “Why isn’t it the same boatman as yesterday?” That had immediately put Jiang Zhen on alert.  

When the ferry reached the middle of the river, the boatman suddenly overturned the small wooden vessel and tried to escape underwater. Jiang Zhen couldn’t swim, but she had her space. In that split second, she grabbed the boatman and **absorbed his memories**.  

Her memory-reading ability came with a cost—the target **died instantly** after use. From the boatman’s memories, she saw the face of the woman who had hired him. The way she ordered the hit was as emotionless as telling someone to slaughter a chicken.  

The boatman had even asked, “What if there are other passengers on the ferry?”

“Then they’re just unlucky to be on the same boat as Jiang Zhen.”

The moment she extracted his memories, the boatman died. Meanwhile, she had to save the two children tied to her assumed identity—but the other two kids were innocent too. Jiang Zhen dragged all four into her space.  

……  

“Auntie Jiang, your secret little space is amazing! Can I come in tomorrow too? I want to raise my two baby chicks here!”  

Gu Pan, ever the curious one, explored every corner of the space. In truth, it wasn’t very big—a 60-square-meter wooden cabin, with about 100 square meters of open land outside, plus a well and a small pond. Jiang Zhen hadn’t expected her space to follow her into this world.  

But children were terrible at keeping secrets. Jiang Zhen took out four “Secret-Keeping Beans” and made them eat one each: “These are called ‘Sealed Lips Beans.’ Once you eat them, you can’t reveal the secret of this space.” 

Gu Hui, the more obedient twin, swallowed his immediately.  

Gu Pan covered her mouth. “Auntie Jiang, I won’t tell anyone! I don’t want to eat it.”

Jiang Zhen almost laughed. The children in this world were so naive—was it because their environment was too peaceful? Did they think they could negotiate?  

“Fine, don’t eat it. I’ll just erase this memory from your mind. You’ll only be a tiny bit dumber—no big deal.”

Gu Pan immediately gulped down the bean. She didn’t want to lose such a precious memory—if she forgot, Auntie Jiang would never let her play here again!  

Jiang Zhao, her “son,” looked worried. “Mom… how do you have a space like this?”

Kids were simple—they’d believe anything. Jiang Zhen replied, “After we escaped the bandits, I suddenly had this space. On the ferry, it was an emergency—I had to use it to save you four. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have revealed it.”

Jiang Zhao nodded seriously, feeding a bean to his little sister before eating one himself.  

The space had a **time limit**—they couldn’t stay inside indefinitely. Jiang Zhen let the space drift downstream a bit, soaked the children’s clothes, and led them along the riverbank until they ran into the PLA search team.  

“Over here! We found them—all five are alive!”

……  

“Jiang Zhen! Emergency room’s packed—we need help!”

“Coming!” Jiang Zhen rushed out from the pediatric IV ward and followed the team to the ER. Over a dozen wounded soldiers had been brought in, and she was assigned to stitch up their injuries.  

Her movements were calm and precise, and within moments, seven or eight soldiers had their wounds disinfected, sutured, and bandaged.  

Gu Jiaoxia, the head nurse, glanced at the neat stitches and couldn’t help but nod in approval.  

That day, the bandit-suppression unit had rescued a group of refugees—but the last ferry had capsized. Thankfully, Jiang Zhen, the only adult on board, had saved her elder brother’s two children.  

To repay her, Gu Jiaoxia had arranged for Jiang Zhen—now homeless—to work temporarily at the hospital.  

No one questioned Jiang Zhen’s employment or the small dormitory provided for her and the two kids. Not when she had skills like these.