Before she could even change the subject, the air in front of her shimmered. The temperature seemed to drop, and the faint scent of iron reached her nose.
A chubby figure materialized. Her cheeks sagged, her eyes were sunken, and her skin was mottled with bruises and scratches. Bloodstains streaked across a worn blouse, clinging to her round frame as though the fabric itself had absorbed years of neglect and pain.
She smiled, a brittle, weary smile that held no joy.
"I'll give you all my soul energy. My only wish… is to live a happy life this time."
System 419's voice rang out, light and unbothered.
"Host, this is your first mission! Do you accept?"
Well that was quick.
Jia Li studied the girl's plain face, the broad nose, the thick fingers roughened by fieldwork, the air of a small-town life written into every part of her. Something in those eyes, tired but yearning, made Jia Li's decision simple.
"I accept."
"Binding in progress… Target world synchronization complete! Host, entering mission in three… two… one…"
The white void collapsed.
The first thing Jia Li felt was pain. A sharp yank at her scalp, the sting of hair tearing from her head. Her body was pressed against a cracked sink, the porcelain digging into her lower back.
The second thing was the voices."Look at you, Zhang Rui," Chen Xiaomei sneered, fist tangled in her short, damp hair. "Still acting all loyal to Lin Xue like she even cares about you. Country pig."
Li Fang, tall and sharp-faced, slammed her palm into Jia Li's shoulder, forcing her harder against the sink. "Your rich friend's too busy playing queen bee to save you now. Guess that means you're all ours."
The third, Huang Qian, stepped forward with a bucket of filthy mop water, her lips curling into a nasty grin. "Time for a wash."
The reek hit Jia Li's nose a second before the icy water crashed over her face, plastering Zhang Rui's too-tight blouse to her soft, heavy frame. She gasped, not from shock, but from the simmering rage rising in her chest.
A boot connected with her shin. Something in her snapped.
Jia Li moved before her attackers could react. Her right fist shot up in a tight arc, connecting with Chen Xiaomei's jaw. Crack. The girl stumbled back, eyes wide, before collapsing to the tile, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth.
Li Fang lunged, but Jia Li twisted, hooking Zhang Rui's thick leg behind the bully's knee. The taller girl's balance broke. She hit the ground hard, her head smacking against the floor with a dull thud.
Only Huang Qian was left, frozen in place, mop bucket clattering beside her. Jia Li turned on her slowly, wiping a smear of blood from her lip.
"You next?"
The tremor in Huang Qian's hands betrayed her. She grabbed Li Fang under the arms, dragging her toward the door. "L-let's go!"
Within seconds, the bathroom was empty except for the unconscious Chen Xiaomei, the stench of mop water, and the sound of dripping from the cracked faucet.
Jia Li leaned against the sink, chest heaving. Her breath rattled, each inhale a struggle as sweat rolled down her flushed cheeks. The mirror showed a round face slick with perspiration, lips pale, eyes ringed with exhaustion. Her arms trembled under her own weight, and her legs felt like they might give out at any moment. This body was soft, sluggish, and frighteningly unfit, a shell that made even standing still feel like climbing a mountain.
Jia Li stood in front of the cracked mirror, water and blood dripping down her face. Zhang Rui's face. She pressed her palms to the edge of the sink, breathing hard. The unfamiliar weight of the body, the softness around the middle, the broadness of the shoulders, all of it felt strange. This wasn't her, yet it was her now.
"System," she muttered under her breath. "Give me her memories. All of them."
A chime echoed faintly in her mind.
"Acknowledged, Host. Integrating original body's memory data… three… two… one."
Her vision blurred as the memories came flooding in.
From the foreign memories in her head, Zhang Rui had always been the "big girl" in the village, the kind built with wide shoulders, heavy hips, and hands made for gripping a hoe rather than a teacup. Her face was broad, her cheekbones blunt, and her nose spread flat across weather-darkened skin. The sun had baked her from birth, turning her complexion the warm brown of roasted chestnuts, and the north wind in winter had cracked her cheeks until they stung red. Her hair was thick but coarse, usually tied back in a lopsided knot that shed strands into her face when she worked.
Her mother liked to joke she'd been "built sturdy for field work", a girl who could carry a full bucket from the well without spilling a drop. But in the city, "sturdy" became "big-boned". Then "fat". Then "country pig". And finally, for some, simply "rustic".
Her saving grace, the one thing that softened the laughter, was Lin Xue.
Lin Xue was everything Zhang Rui was not, a willow branch beside a tree stump. Slim, straight-backed, with a swan's neck and delicate wrists. Her skin was pale as steamed tofu, untouched by wind, and her lips naturally carried the blush of hawthorn fruit. Even in faded hand-me-down dresses, she moved with a grace that made strangers turn to look.
The two had been inseparable since before they could speak, chasing each other barefoot under mango trees, roasting sweet potatoes in winter, and trudging the same dust road to school each day.
When both were admitted to Jiangcheng No. 1 Experimental High School, the pride of the province, a palace of polished stone benches, marble-floored halls, and a library bigger than both their houses combined, Zhang Rui thought nothing would change.
But Lin Xue had changed.
She was sharper now, more assured. Her grades soared, her manner refined, and she moved among the children of tycoons as though she belonged there. Zhang Rui told herself not to mind. She wasn't jealous. She was just… proud.
So when the city kids mocked her rough hands, shoved her into lockers, or slapped her books from her arms, she took it in silence. If Lin Xue was nearby, she'd step between her and trouble, shielding her without thought.
Sometimes, Zhang Rui thought Lin Xue's eyes had changed.
Not in color, but in something deeper, a sharpness that didn't belong to the girl she remembered from their childhood. The warmth was thinner now, stretched like a smile that never reached the eyes. But she told herself she was imagining it. Lin Xue had always been kind to her… hadn't she?
Yet the kindness felt different these days. Colder. Measured.
Sometimes, Lin Xue would stand back until Zhang Rui was humiliated beyond repair, then step in with a gentle, almost pitying voice."She's from the countryside. Don't be too hard on her."
And the worst part? People listened to Lin Xue. They always listened.
The story shifted without Zhang Rui realizing it. Whispers spread, that Zhang Rui was a bad influence. That she clung to Lin Xue for attention. That she was jealous of her. That she was using their friendship to "social climb" even though Lin Xue had never given her anything in return.
Male classmates, especially those enamored with Lin Xue, despised her. In their eyes, she was the ugly, shameless hanger-on, the toad wanting to eat swan meat.
The bullying escalated. Physical, ugly, relentless. The worst of it happened in empty hallways, behind the gym, or in bathrooms where teachers wouldn't step in. And Lin Xue? She never saw, or pretended she didn't.
By Zhang Rui's second year, the cruelty had spread beyond school walls. Parents of the richer students began calling her "a bad seed". A few even approached her own mother at the small grocery store where she worked, warning her to "control her daughter" or else.
It got worse.
One day, a rumor, fabricated and vicious, claimed Zhang Rui had stolen from a classmate's purse. The classmate's parents threatened legal action. Her mother's small store was vandalized. Supplies slashed. Customers stopped coming. Debts began piling up.
And through it all, Lin Xue's only response was a sad gaze and a soft,"I told them not to blame you… but you know how people are."
The words were gentle. The eyes were not.
But the truth Zhang Rui never knew was that the real Lin Xue had died the night before the school term began.
That night, Lin Xue slipped in the dormitory bathroom, her temple smashing against the wet tile with a sharp, sickening crack. The world tilted. Pain exploded behind her eyes. Warm blood spread beneath her head, sticky and thick. Her body twitched once… and then went still.
Her breathing stopped. Her heartbeat slowed. Her consciousness dimmed into a blank, endless void.
And into that void… something came.
It was another soul.
Du Miaomiao.
In another time and place, she had been dying too, trapped in the twisted frame of a wrecked car, the metallic stench of blood filling her lungs. When her last breath left her body, darkness swallowed her whole. Then, like a stone sinking through water, she fell into a different body.
This body.
Lin Xue's fading soul barely had the strength to register the intrusion. Her thoughts were scattered, her will weak."Who…?"
Mine, came the answer, cold and absolute.
There was no fight. The moment Du Miaomiao's soul touched hers, Lin Xue's presence was smothered, dissolved like dust on the wind. And just like that… she was gone.
The body jerked. A shuddering breath returned to its lungs. The heartbeat steadied.
Du Miaomiao opened her new eyes.They were Lin Xue's eyes, dark and clear, framed by long lashes, but the soul behind them was no longer the same.
Her gaze swept over the blood pooling on the tiles. Her lips curved, slow and deliberate.Alive again. Young again. And in a body with a face that could open any door she wanted.
The real Lin Xue was gone forever. And no one would ever know.
Du Miaomiao had no interest in Zhang Rui's loyalty or their shared past. In her eyes, Zhang Rui was nothing more than a loud, uncultured, rural embarrassment with clumsy manners and no value beyond taking blows meant for her.
And Zhang Rui, ever the shield, did just that, standing between Du Miaomiao and trouble time after time, while Miaomiao perfected her role as the elegant victim, collecting a gallery of admirers.
Armed with knowledge of the future, Du Miaomiao moved like she was playing a script no one else had read. She courted the school's male leads, the aloof top student, the young heir to a sprawling conglomerate, the charming student council president, even the notorious "bad boy" sports captain. Each was drawn in by her calculated grace, each one tightening the harem-like ring around her.
All the while, she let Zhang Rui's name curdle into poison. She let the bullies hone their cruelty on her back, feeding the narrative that Zhang Rui was unworthy, ungrateful, and beyond saving. And when the relentless torment finally drove Zhang Rui to the old bridge, to the cold black water, Du Miaomiao didn't shed a tear.
In her mind, the dead girl had simply stepped aside.
Without Zhang Rui "holding her back", her ascent was meteoric. The school wept for the beautiful, selfless heroine who had "tried to save her troubled friend, but tragically failed". Teachers adored her. Parents wanted her for their sons. Her every sigh became gospel, her every smile, a gift.
By the time she graduated, Du Miaomiao had reached a height so ridiculous it was almost comical. Every one of the school's so-called male circled her like planets caught in her gravity.
Rivals whispered that such a thing was impossible. Men like them wouldn't share. But somehow, Du Miaomiao made them believe they were all her most special. She spun a web of charm, and calculated affection so intricate that none of them ever left, and worse, they accepted each other's presence.
It was obscene. It was miraculous. It was the pinnacle of a life she had stolen, a glittering empire built on Zhang Rui's bones, where even love itself bowed to her will.
The memories crashed into Jia Li all at once.
She staggered, clutching the sink, as Zhang Rui's life replayed in her mind, not like watching a film, but like living it. Every slap of cruel words, every shove into lockers, the sting of mop water in her eyes, the quiet humiliation of standing there while Lin Xue's soft voice "defended" her only after the damage was done.
Her stomach twisted when the truth slid into view.Lin Xue… was dead.
The person wearing her face now… was Du Miaomiao, some woman from the future who had stepped into this life without a second of hesitation.
The knowledge was like ice water down her spine.
Jia Li's chest felt tight, her throat prickling with something between grief and disbelief. She leaned over the sink, breathing hard, as the rest of Zhang Rui's story played out, the constant bullying, the rumors, her mother's shop vandalized, the betrayal that wasn't even betrayal, because the friend she was defending wasn't even her friend anymore.
By the time she saw the last memory, the still, grey water swallowing Zhang Rui whole, Jia Li's vision blurred. She pressed the heel of her hand to her eyes, but it didn't stop the wetness there.
"System…" Her voice shook. "She died thinking her best friend abandoned her."
419's tone was unusually quiet.
"Yes, Host."
Jia Li swallowed, her mouth dry. "And the one in her place just… let it happen."
Her voice cracked on the last word. She gripped the sink until her arms trembled, not from rage, but from the weight of everything she had just inherited. This wasn't her pain, but now it sat heavy in her chest, impossible to ignore.
"I just want to live a happy life this time."
Jia Li took a shaky breath. "Alright… then I'll try."
Her voice wasn't steady. Her heart wasn't sure. But it was all she had.