The morning sun shone over the land once more, and a gentle breeze drifted past the window bars.

Huo Tong stood by the window, gazing at the slowly rising sun with an even expression.

After a night of coming to terms with her emotions, she’d finally accepted reality and pieced together what had happened.

To sum it up, she’d been hit and killed, then transmigrated into another world and into the body of her other self.

The year in this timeline was 2016.

And her other self in this world had a strange condition called intersex. She was clearly a woman, yet had a little nub resembling a male organ.

Three months ago, “she” had undergone corrective surgery and returned to a life that was truly hers.

But because of what had happened, the original owner had spent the past few months avoiding school and socializing. She’d even thought about ending her own life more than once.

Huo Tong had learned all this from the locked diary. The password was the one she always used, and its pages clearly recorded the original owner’s state of mind after surgery.

After reading it, Huo Tong could think of only two words: bleak and oppressive.

The last entry in the diary had been written three days ago—the day before the original owner fell into a coma.

On that page, the original owner had written just one sentence, in handwriting far sloppier than usual.

“He’s come to take me away.”

After that, the original owner had suddenly fallen into a coma for no apparent reason. Her body was perfectly healthy, but she was unconscious—and then Huo Tong had awakened in this body.

Connecting this to her own car accident gave Huo Tong the creeps the more she thought about it.

It sounded like something out of a myth, but she couldn’t think of a better explanation. Plenty of things couldn’t be explained by science, and forcing them to fit would only make the explanation more far-fetched.

Take transmigration, for example. If she absolutely had to explain it with relativity, then she’d have to say the truck had sent her flying at the speed of light.

But was that even possible? She might as well explain it with the supernatural.

Huo Tong let out a soft sigh, stepped away from the window, and began washing up.

Holding a damp towel in her hands, Huo Tong looked at her long eyelashes in the mirror and couldn’t help feeling wistful.

Why did this face have to be hers…? What a cruel joke.

Shaking her head with a sigh, Huo Tong simply pressed the towel against her face.

After washing up, Huo Tong stared at the bathroom door behind her, caught in an awkward dilemma.

Ever since transmigrating, she hadn’t used the bathroom once. If she didn’t go in, she felt like she was reaching her limit. But if she did, it felt like a violation of human decency.

In the end, Huo Tong gave in and took a deep breath.

…

Two minutes later, she came out of the bathroom chanting the Great Compassion Mantra. She splashed water on her face a few times, trying not to think about the little sister between her legs.

Just then, someone entered the hospital room. She heard the door open.

“Sweetie, I’ve left your porridge here. Your mom said she’ll be here in half an hour, too.”

The young nurse from last night was setting a bowl of plain congee beside her bed. When she saw Huo Tong come out of the washroom, she smiled and reminded her.

“Mm, thank you.” Huo Tong nodded with an ordinary expression, thanked her, and walked over to the bed.

It had been late last night, and Huo Tong’s parents didn’t live in Huadu City. So after letting them know she was safe, she’d asked her mother to come over that morning instead.

After thinking it over, Huo Tong’s mother had agreed. The doctors had told her that her daughter was stable both physically and mentally.

Huo Tong sat on the edge of her bed, picked up the congee, and took a small sip. Then, as the nurse prepared to feed the girl in the opposite bed, she asked casually:

“By the way, do you know the Mu Group?”

She’d wanted to ask about Mu Lishan ever since last night. Lishan had been hit at the same time as her, so she’d probably transmigrated too.

Still, since the world Huo Tong had arrived in was so different from the one she’d left, there was no guarantee Mu Lishan had ended up in this same timeline.

Well, it wasn’t impossible that Mu had been reincarnated in another world as a slime.

“The Mu Group… You mean the one that got its start in the restaurant business?” The nurse frowned thoughtfully as she fed the girl.

“Right, right. Do you know anything about their heir?”

Huo Tong nodded and looked at the nurse with feigned curiosity. Then she added, “Their heir’s called Mu Lishan. She should be sixteen now—a cool, handsome young guy.”

“Mu Lishan… Isn’t that the girl I’m feeding right now?”

The nurse glanced at the patient eating, her eyes full of confusion, then tilted her head and smiled at Huo Tong.

“How could she be a guy? She’s a girl!”

“Cough! Cough!”

At that, Huo Tong nearly choked on her congee. She coughed twice, then pressed, “Her name’s Mu Lishan? Lishan, as in ‘dawn’ and ‘mountain’?”

Huo Tong looked at the handsome girl. A thought flashed through her mind, and to her surprise, she even felt a little gleeful.

Hearing that, the nurse covered her mouth and laughed.

“What are you talking about? What girl has such a masculine name? It’s Lishan—with the ‘li’ from ‘bamboo fence’ and the ‘shan’ from ‘coral.’”

That settled it. Apparently, they were all women in this world… Huo Tong sipped her congee with a complicated expression, never taking her eyes off the girl in the opposite bed.

Judging by how long the girl had been unconscious and who she was, Huo Tong figured there was an eight-in-ten chance that beneath the pretty girl’s looks was the soul of the ice-cold, utterly passionless person she knew all too well.

Huo Tong was pretty happy they’d transmigrated together. At least she wouldn’t feel like such an oddity.

And since they’d both turned into girls, having someone else in the same boat eased a lot of her resentment toward fate.

As a friend, she should’ve been furious on Mu’s behalf. But whenever she imagined Mu Lishan’s reaction upon waking up, she couldn’t help wanting to laugh.

That’s right! There’s no way that poker face, frozen in place for a thousand years, won’t crack this time!

After that, Huo Tong chatted with the nurse for a while longer.

Once she’d learned that the girl had also fallen into a coma within the past couple of days, with no warning and an unusually stable physical condition, Huo Tong felt even more sure of her guess.

Since Mu Lishan was an only child in this world too, the nurse inevitably asked Huo Tong why she’d assumed the Mu heir was a boy.

What could Huo Tong do? She just said she’d gotten the person mixed up.

She brought up the president of the Yao Group, the one she remembered most clearly, and said she’d confused them. That was enough to fob the nurse off.

After the nurse left, Huo Tong even went over to sit beside the other girl’s bed and take a closer look. She found that the girl really did look quite a bit like Mu Lishan.

Mm… Especially that straight, high nose. It looked like it had been made from the exact same mold.

Huo Tong didn’t stay long. She didn’t want to disturb the girl—who might be “Mu Lishan”—too much while she rested, so after two or three minutes she got up to head back.

The bed was near the door. Huo Tong had just reached its foot when the room door opened.

“Xiao Tong?” Huo Tong’s mother, Liu Yiming, walked in. She and her daughter, who was standing there staring at her, looked at each other in confusion. Her mother spoke softly, then her tone grew a little stern.

“Why did you get out of bed and wander around? You only woke up last night. You’re still weak.”