"So she's still alive?" A woman's voice sounded nearby, dissatisfied, almost irritated. The tone was cold and confident, as if the woman were talking not about her sister, but about some annoying misunderstanding. "And for this they pulled me away from my work?"
"Unfortunately, your sister's husband is currently unavailable, and she has no other emergency contacts," the man explained calmly. Judging by his voice, he was a doctor, accustomed to dissatisfied relatives and to his words often being taken with hostility.
There was a short pause, filled with the faint smell of antiseptic and the quiet beeping of machines.
"What happened?" the woman finally asked, not out of concern, but rather because she felt it was her duty.
"Mrs. Lian was hit by a car," the doctor replied in the same even tone. "Luckily, she got off relatively lightly: a few bruises and scratches. She lost consciousness due to the blow to her head, but her condition is stable. She is expected to wake up in about an hour."
"So what?" the woman interrupted, not letting him finish. "Now I have to sit with her, feed her, change her clothes, and take her to the bathroom?"
Her words betrayed obvious irritation, as if she had been asked to do difficult and humiliating work, rather than simply wait for the next of kin.
"That won't be necessary," the doctor said patiently. "As soon as your sister regains consciousness, you can take her home."
"Great..." she hissed through clenched teeth, and her tone made it immediately clear that she didn't see anything great about the situation.
The doctor did not react. His footsteps sounded heavy and slow at first, then faded into the distance, leaving behind a dull, muffled echo. A moment later, they were joined by the quick, confident clicks of a woman's heels, abruptly breaking the silence.
Then the door behind them closed with a soft click.
Lian Ai, who had been pretending to be unconscious all this time, listened intently to every sound and every word. Her eyes remained closed, her breathing even and calm. Strangely, she did not want anyone to realize that she had already regained consciousness.
When she was certain that the room had become completely silent, the girl slowly opened her eyes. The first thing she saw was a bright white ceiling and a strange lamp hanging from it.
She slowly looked around, trying to determine where she was. With every passing second, her anxiety only grew.
Everything around her seemed unfamiliar: strange furniture, incomprehensible objects, and noise behind the half-open door, where silhouettes of people in unusual clothes and hairstyles unlike anything she had ever seen before flashed by.
What was this place? How did she get here?
Lian Ai closed her eyes again, feeling her heart pounding heavily in her chest, as if trying to break free.
But she was dead... Definitely dead.
Empress Lian Ai, the ruler's lawful wife, was ambushed during a walk. One of her rivals, the emperor's favorite, the first concubine, Ying Zhi, a woman who could smile even when she ordered someone to be killed, had set her up. She ordered her maid to push Lian Ai, as if by accident, right into the lake. Everything was done so skillfully that outsiders might not have noticed.
Even if someone had seen... who cared about the empress, deprived of family support and long since becoming a figure caught between palace intrigues?
Despite her title, Lian Ai lived alone. Her relatives sought only to strengthen their position by giving their daughter to the palace as if she were a precious commodity. The emperor himself looked at her through the fog of state affairs and the multitude of women who filled the harem. And the concubines — countless and cruel — had long been mired in conspiracies and power games, seeing her as a convenient target.
Life had lost its meaning for Lian Ai even earlier — at the moment when, upon entering the palace, she was secretly poisoned with a drug that made women infertile. She never found out who did it or why. The doctor merely remarked indifferently that she should be glad: the dose was small, otherwise everything could have ended much worse.
All these events broke Lian Ai so much that at that fateful moment she did not even try to defend herself. She simply allowed the inevitable to happen, quietly hoping that fate would be kinder to her in the next life.
Taking a deep breath, the girl opened her eyes again.
Was this really the next life? This place did not resemble the imperial palace at all. And it certainly did not resemble the underworld. Whatever it was, she certainly could not imagine it to be like this. And the people passing by the room looked like ordinary living people.
Lian Ai looked down at her body and froze in shock.
Born into the noble and influential Lian family, Lian Ai had lived under the watchful eye of tutors, advisors, and doctors since childhood. As the future empress, she was raised to be disciplined, refined, steadfast — perfect.
But perfection came at a price.
From an early age, her body had become accustomed to the strict rules of the palace: morning workouts, exhausting dances, stretching, daily etiquette lessons, where she had to stand or sit in uncomfortable positions for hours. Food was also part of the regime — small portions, carefully selected to ensure that her figure remained "befitting of the future wife of the emperor."
That is why she had always been thin and light, like a porcelain figurine — precise and refined, but fragile.
However, now...
Her body had changed beyond recognition.
Why had she become so... big?
Plump breasts that barely fit into the buttons of her strange pajamas. A soft fold appearing on her stomach. Full arms, thick wrists. Fingers — short, slightly swollen. Nails bitten down, dirt underneath them.
Who was this girl?
It definitely wasn't her. Not Empress Lian Ai.
The girl slapped herself hard on the cheek and immediately gasped — the pain was sharp and real.
It seemed that this was not a dream at all, but reality.
This thought pierced her head like a flash of lightning, and everything inside her grew cold.
She wasn't just reborn.
She... woke up in someone else's body.
A body whose former owner, apparently, had already left this world.