Chapter 2: Let Them Come to Collect the Bodies

It seemed impossible to see clearly; only indistinct patches of color appeared before her eyes. She stepped a bit closer, pushed aside her messy black hair, and tried to get a better look. As she moved her hand through her tangled hair, something fell out.

Lian Meng picked it up and realized it was a pair of glasses. The arms were bent out of shape, and one lens was missing. She put them on as best she could, and at last, she could make out the figure reflected in the glass door.

The face was both unfamiliar and strangely familiar—somewhat youthful, with dirt and bruises smeared on the skin of her face and arms, and flecks of blood staining the white T-shirt she wore.

The blood startled Lian Meng at first, but soon her attention shifted to her own face.

At a glance, she didn't look much different from usual, but upon closer inspection, it was as though she were looking at an entirely different person. She also seemed much shorter. Her original height was supposed to be 169 centimeters, but now, judging by her reflection, she barely topped 160.

This body wasn't hers...

How could this be!

Lian Meng felt as if her entire worldview had been shattered and rebuilt. Was this what people called returning to life by inhabiting another's corpse?

Before she could make sense of it, the piercing wail of an ambulance filled the air.

People in white coats rushed toward her, and despite her struggles, they hoisted her onto a stretcher with practiced force.

"Hey?"

What was going on... Lian Meng was utterly bewildered.

Had she just come back to life only to be discovered immediately? Were they going to haul her off to be some kind of research experiment?

Though something felt off, there was nothing she could do now. After all, this life was a windfall—she might as well take things one step at a time.

Soon, the ambulance reached the hospital. Doctors and nurses bustled around her, administering every conceivable test—CT scans, X-rays, ECGs, MRIs—she underwent the full battery as though she were a puppet, helplessly maneuvered by the medical staff.

While Lian Youyou was being examined, a well-dressed, sunglasses-clad middle-aged couple arrived. The woman was chatting animatedly as she walked, her face radiant with satisfaction.

"At last, that jinx is gone. You have no idea how annoyed I felt every time I saw her. She looks just like her dead mother—sometimes I almost think it's Lian Meng herself, come back from the dead, and I lose sleep over it. Now she's finally dead, just like her mother, both of them—"

The woman's incessant prattle was abruptly cut short when she spotted Lian Meng emerging from the CT room. Her lips, painted in bright lipstick, fell open in shock, forming a gaping red maw.

Hadn't she fallen from the sixth floor? Weren't they summoned to collect her remains? Was this some kind of ghost?

Snapping out of her fright, the woman reached out to slap Lian Meng across the face. Lian Meng, still dazed and utterly unaware of the woman's intentions, felt a crisp, stinging slap that jolted her out of her stupor.

The woman raised her hand to strike again, only to be stopped by the middle-aged man behind her.

"Lian Youyou, have you made enough of a scene? Do you know how much time I wasted, rushing here from the set?" The woman, clearly furious, jabbed her finger at Lian Meng's nose and scolded, "Let me tell you, if your dead mother owed you anything, I owe you nothing! All these years I've fed and clothed you, not so you could embarrass me! If you want to die, find somewhere private to do it—throwing yourself from a building in public! Did you even think about what the media would say about your father and me, and how they'd twist the story?"

Lian Youyou?

Had she heard that right? Were they calling her?