Warmth pressed gently against Qinglian's cheek, but her body felt too heavy to respond. Her eyelashes fluttered, and the first sensation that reached her was not clarity but suffocation. Her breath hitched; everything felt wrong. The pillow beneath her was too soft, too cool, too unlike anything she remembered. Her heart lurched into a frantic rhythm, and she jerked upright with a startled gasp.
The sudden movement sent a wave of dizziness crashing over her. The room swayed. Her own breathing grew shallow and fast, each inhale trembling. She clutched at the thin blanket tangled around her legs and looked around wildly. The lacquered screens, the delicate wooden beams, the faint fragrance of medicinal herbs clinging to the air—none of it belonged to the life she remembered living only moments ago. Her breath grew uneven. The walls felt too close. Her throat tightened with panic she couldn't swallow down.
Her vision blurred as tears she didn't understand welled in her eyes. She tried to steady her breath, but her chest felt too small, her body too weak, as though she had shrunken into something fragile and unfamiliar. Her heart hammered painfully. She pressed a hand against her chest, shaking, unable to grasp how she had gone from her office desk to this alien room. A small cry slipped through her lips.
That sound—the fragile, trembling voice—snapped something inside her. It didn't sound like her. It didn't even sound like an adult. It sounded like a child.
She squeezed her eyes shut, hugging her knees and struggling to anchor herself. It took several breaths for the panic to ease, turning from an overwhelming wave into a manageable tremor. Slowly, carefully, she forced herself to sit still. The dizziness faded little by little. Her breathing steadied. She swallowed, wiped her damp lashes with her sleeve, and forced herself to focus.
She needed to understand what had happened.
The last thing she remembered was the cold, unforgiving glare of fluorescent lights above her office desk. She had been finishing one final report, one final approval, one final task before going home. The fatigue had been numbing, and her head had ached badly. She remembered reaching for her bag, eager to leave, eager for rest.
Then there had been a sharp, crushing pain in her chest. Her knees buckled. The ground rushed toward her. She had tried to call out but no sound came. After that, only darkness.
She exhaled slowly. The memory felt distant yet clear, and the contrast between that sterile office and this serene room was too sharp to ignore. She opened her eyes again, letting them adjust to the gentle light streaming through the window lattice. The furniture looked hand-carved. The silk bedding was embroidered with delicate lotus patterns. The soft sound of faint footsteps came from beyond the room.
None of this was modern.
Her brows knitted, confusion returning—this time slower, more controlled. Her body felt smaller, but she hadn't dared to look closely yet. Her breathing steadied enough that she slowly lowered her gaze to her hands resting on the blanket.
They were tiny.
Small, soft, childish hands. Five-year-old hands.
Her heart gave another painful beat, but she didn't panic. Not again. She inhaled deeply, held it, then released it through parted lips. She repeated the motion until her heart no longer thundered in her chest. Only after her thoughts regained some order did she begin piecing things together.
Her name now was… Qinglian.
The moment that name surfaced in her mind, something clicked faintly, like the beginning of a forgotten memory stirring beneath layers of dust. Qinglian… why did that sound familiar? She whispered it under her breath. The unfamiliar childlike voice made her chest tighten again, but she pushed through the feeling.
Qinglian.
She had heard that name somewhere. Not in her life. Not at work. Somewhere else.
It nagged at her as if it belonged to someone she had once known, someone whose story she had seen or read. She searched the corners of her mind, recalling faint impressions from quiet evenings she had once spent curled on her couch. Had it been a book? A novel? Something she'd read long ago just to escape her daily stress?
A girl named Qinglian…
A girl with a temper… arrogance… tragedy…
Shadows of the memory sharpened slowly, forming into clearer shapes. A story about a noble family. A general. A girl who was adored as a child but ruined everything when she grew older. She could almost remember the way the narrative flowed and how frustrated she had been reading it.
A villainess.
Her breath caught. Her pulse fluttered like a startled bird.
She forced herself to stay still, her fingers tightening in the blanket. She tried to pull the memory closer. She remembered disliking the character. She remembered that the girl caused trouble for everyone around her, and eventually, all her misdeeds and schemes brought ruin upon her. But the details were hazy. She couldn't remember the heroine clearly, nor every event of the story. But she remembered enough.
Qinglian had not lived a long life.
In the story, her arrogance began when she was very young. She insulted servants, pushed blame on others, and caused friction with noble families. Her behavior grew worse with age until she finally provoked the powerful families she should never have offended. Her engagement was broken, her reputation destroyed, and her final ending had been pitiful.
Fever.
Collapse.
Death.
Realizing this made Qinglian's body tense, her small hands curling into fists. She wasn't just in a child's body. She was in the body of the villainess from that story. The one doomed to fall. The one everyone eventually despised.
The one whose death had been brushed off as a cautionary tale.
She stared at her hands. They trembled slightly despite her efforts to steady them. Everything inside her felt too heavy, too real. She swallowed, her throat tight.
The original Qinglian had begun her downfall at this age. Five years old. It was when the first bad impressions had been made. It was when her temper became unmanageable and her arrogance became visible.
Now that she understood this, she felt the weight of the future press against her chest. A future filled with isolation, hatred, humiliation, and early death. That story, which had once been a simple narrative on a screen, now felt like a warning flashing before her eyes.
Her lips parted, but no sound came out. She lowered her head, her lashes trembling. She wasn't ready. The realization was too sudden, too heavy, too overwhelming. She hadn't even accepted that she was five years old again, let alone decided how to face a fate she barely understood. Even knowing she was the villainess felt unreal. She couldn't summon the resolve to change anything. Not yet. She needed time. She needed to breathe.
But the world didn't wait for her to gather herself.
Soft footsteps approached the door to her room. Through the haze of her thoughts, she heard the quiet rustle of silk robes and anxious whispers. The door slid open, and warm lantern light spilled inside.
"Lian'er? Are you awake, my dear?"
Her mother's voice, gentle and trembling with worry, drifted into the room. Qinglian looked up slowly.
Standing at the entrance was Madam Yuan, her mother in this life. Her face was delicately shaped, framed by dark hair pinned with jade. Her eyes glistened with relief the moment they fell upon Qinglian.
Madam Yuan crossed the room in hurried, graceful steps and kneeled by the edge of the small bed. She cupped Qinglian's pale cheek with both hands.
"You frightened us so much," she whispered, her voice thick. "Your fever was burning all night. The physician said you must have been terrified from the dreams you kept muttering about."
Qinglian blinked. She felt warmth bloom in her chest, unfamiliar yet comforting. Someone was worried about her this deeply. She wasn't alone. She wasn't collapsing on a cold office floor with no one noticing.
She swallowed.
Behind her mother, another pair of footsteps entered, heavier and more controlled. Her father—the general—stood at the doorway, his expression stern but his eyes betraying his fear. He scanned her from head to toe, his jaw tight.
"Does she seem better?" he asked quietly.
Madam Yuan nodded. "Her fever has broken."
The general exhaled softly and approached the bedside. He was tall, broad-shouldered, with the presence of someone accustomed to commanding armies, yet he knelt beside the bed without hesitation.
"Lian'er," he said, voice low, "tell Father if anything hurts."
She opened her mouth, but only a small sound emerged. Her throat felt too tight, her mind too full. She shook her head slowly.
Her father let out a breath and brushed a loose strand of hair from her forehead. "Good. Rest today. No one will disturb you."
A third figure peeked timidly from behind the general's leg. Her older brother—Yuan Shun. He was around ten, bright-eyed and gentle-faced. When he saw her awake, his shoulders relaxed visibly.
"Sister," he whispered, "you scared me."
Qinglian met his eyes and felt another pang in her chest. This family… loved her. In the story, they loved the original Qinglian too, until her arrogance pushed them away one by one. Until the girl she had been ruined even the affection of her own kin.
The thought made her chest tighten painfully.
She didn't want to lose this. She didn't want to become the girl who destroyed everything.
But she wasn't ready to act yet.
She bowed her head. Her breathing trembled, but she hid it behind her lashes.
Her parents exchanged relieved glances, then quietly ushered her brother out to give her space. When the room fell silent again, Qinglian released a breath she didn't realize she had been holding.
She lay back slowly, staring up at the ceiling lattice. Her mind replayed her mother's trembling voice, her father's controlled fear, her brother's hesitant worry. She had been cherished in this family. Even the original Qinglian had been loved.
But she also remembered, faintly, how the story described their disappointment later on. How their cherished daughter became an irritation, then a burden, then a source of shame. A tragedy shaped by arrogance and unrestrained temper.
Her throat tightened again. That was the path laid before her.
And the story she half-remembered now felt like a warning flashing before her.
She wasn't ready to make any decisions yet. She didn't know what to change, what to avoid, or how to escape a fate she barely remembered. The fear still felt too large, swallowing everything else.
For now, she just held onto the warmth her family had shown. She needed time. She needed to breathe. She needed to settle into this body and this life before she dared to choose a path different from the one she knew was doomed.
For today, she simply closed her eyes and willed the panic to settle, letting the faint traces of memory swirl quietly in her mind, waiting for the moment she would finally gather the resolve to face them.