An unknown amount of time has passed before Jennifer opened her eyes slowly, each eyelid weighing a thousand pounds. Pain lanced through her skull with such ferocity that for a moment, she couldn't remember her own name. Her vision blurred, doubled, then slowly coalesced into a dark, churning sky above.
This wasn't right. This wasn't the museum.
She groaned and instinctively rolled to her side. The movement sent agony screaming through her body—ribs grinding against each other where they shouldn't, something in her left leg shifting unnaturally. A deep, burning sensation across her back made her gasp, the pain so intense it momentarily blinded her.
Grass tickled her cheek. Cold, wet grass.
Jennifer blinked, trying to process this information through the fog of pain. Her analytical mind struggled to make connections. She'd been dying under tons of concrete and steel. The building had collapsed. Mrs. Liang had been crying above her.
Now... this.
Cold wind whipped across her exposed skin, raising goosebumps and chilling the sweat on her brow. The dampness of the earth seeped through her clothes—not her museum uniform, she realized, but something heavier, rougher against her skin.
A violent crack of thunder made her flinch, sending fresh waves of pain through her broken body. The storm above raged with unnatural fury, clouds swirling in patterns she'd never seen before. Lightning forked across the sky, illuminating a landscape she didn't recognize—rolling hills, twisted trees bent by wind, no buildings or roads in sight.
"Impossible," she whispered, her voice strange to her own ears.
Another boom shook the ground beneath her, this one less like thunder and more like... footsteps? Jennifer tried to lift her head, fighting against the pain that threatened to drag her back into unconsciousness.
Rain began to fall, fat drops striking her face with stinging force. The storm intensified, as if responding to her wakefulness. Wind howled around her, carrying sounds that might have been voices or merely the tricks of a storm.
Jennifer tried to move again, to find shelter, but her body refused to cooperate. The gash across her back felt like molten metal had been poured along her spine. She bit back a scream as darkness edged her vision once more.
Jennifer forced herself to breathe through the pain, counting each inhale and exhale like she used to do during panic attacks at the orphanage. One, two, three.
She moved around, feeling the pain and tried to guess what type of injury she had.
Multiple broken ribs. Possible internal bleeding. Left leg fractured, perhaps in more than one place. The gash across her back felt deep enough to have severed muscle.
She should be dead. By all logic, she should be dead.
Jennifer gritted her teeth and pressed her palms against the wet earth. The simple act of pushing herself up an inch sent bolts of white-hot agony racing through her nervous system. Her arms trembled violently, muscles threatening to give out. She collapsed back down with a strangled cry.
"Focus," she hissed to herself, tasting copper as blood trickled from the corner of her mouth. "Move or die."
The second attempt was worse than the first. Jennifer managed to drag herself a few inches before her vision swam and nausea threatened to overwhelm her. Rain pelted her face, washing away tears she hadn't realized she'd shed. Her fingernails dug into the mud as she fought to remain conscious.
Something changed in the air around her. The raindrops slowed, then stopped—suspended in mid-air as if time itself had paused. The wind died. The rumbling thunder silenced.
Jennifer's skin prickled with goosebumps that had nothing to do with the cold. The space three feet in front of her face began to... fold. There was no other word for it. Reality creased like paper, bending inward at impossible angles that hurt her eyes to look at.
From this distortion emerged the artifact—the same one she'd glimpsed in her final moments at the museum. It hovered before her, no longer bound by the display case that had once contained it. The object shifted constantly, never settling on a single form.
It pulsed with deep crimson energy that cast Jennifer's broken body in blood-red illumination. The light seemed to beat in rhythm with her own heart, growing stronger with each pulse.
Jennifer stared at the hovering artifact, her analytical mind failing to process what her eyes witnessed. The object defied physics, changing shape continuously—sometimes a perfect sphere, sometimes a jagged crystal, sometimes a form her brain couldn't even comprehend. Her vision blurred with pain and confusion as the crimson light pulsed in perfect synchronization with her heartbeat.
The sky above split open with a deafening crack.
Jennifer's eyes darted upward instinctively. Through the suspended raindrops, she saw it—a massive bolt of lightning, blindingly white and jagged, streaking directly toward her prone form. Her muscles tensed uselessly, body too broken to move. Time seemed to slow as the deadly electricity bore down on her.
This is it, she thought with surprising clarity. Whatever impossible scenario brought me here ends now.
The artifact suddenly flared with intensity, its deep red glow exploding outward in a violent burst. The light collided with the descending lightning in mid-air. For a split second, the two energies battled—white-hot electricity against blood-red power.
The artifact's energy won.
The lightning didn't merely dissipate—it disintegrated, obliterated into nothingness as if it had never existed. The crimson light consumed it completely, leaving nothing but a faint smell of ozone in the air.
Jennifer's eyes widened. The pain of her broken body momentarily forgotten in shock. "What the—"
The artifact moved before she could finish. It drifted closer, hovering inches from her face. The pulsing grew faster, more urgent, matching her now-racing heart. She tried to back away, but her shattered body refused to cooperate.
The artifact shot forward without warning.
It struck her forehead with impossible force, but instead of bouncing off, it melted into her skin. Jennifer's back arched involuntarily as unimaginable pain coursed through every nerve ending. Her mouth opened in a silent scream, vocal cords paralyzed by the agony.
It felt like liquid fire injected directly into her veins, burning through her from the inside out. The crimson light engulfed her entirely, pulsing from within her body now.
Jennifer's consciousness expanded and contracted simultaneously, stretching beyond her broken form while being crushed into a singularity of pure sensation. The artifact's energy raced through her nervous system, rewriting something fundamental in its wake.
Jennifer's scream finally tore from her throat, raw and primal. The sound carried across the empty landscape, swallowed by the raging storm. The artifact's energy pulsed through her in waves of scorching agony, each one more intense than the last. Her mind frantically searched for an escape, for unconsciousness, for anything to end this torment—but release wouldn't come.
A new sensation emerged beneath the pain—movement within her broken bones. The fractured ends of her ribs shifted, grinding against each other. Jennifer felt each jagged edge realign with excruciating precision. Her left femur, shattered in multiple places, cracked loudly as the fragments sought their proper positions.
"Stop," she gasped, fingers clawing at the mud. "Make it stop!"
But the process accelerated. Her spine straightened with a series of sickening pops that sent fresh waves of agony through her nervous system. The deep gash across her back burned as if doused in acid.
When she managed to crane her neck to look, she saw crimson tendrils of energy weaving through the wound like living thread, pulling the severed flesh together.
Jennifer watched in horrified fascination as her own body betrayed every natural law she'd ever known. The glowing red veins spread across her skin like a web, sinking deeper into her tissue. Where they touched, flesh knitted together, muscles reformed, bone fused solid.
Blood that had pooled beneath her skin dissolved, absorbed back into her circulatory system. Internal injuries healed with violent efficiency, organs shifting and repairing themselves. Jennifer felt her punctured lung inflate fully, oxygen rushing into areas that moments ago had been filled with fluid.
Her body arched again as a particularly intense wave of energy pulsed through her core. The remaining injuries closed in rapid succession—cuts sealing themselves, bruises fading from purple to yellow to nothing in seconds. The red glow intensified beneath her skin, illuminating her from within like a macabre lantern.
"What's happening to me?" she whispered, her voice stronger now, the damage to her throat already repaired.
The pain began to subside, replaced by something else—a humming energy that vibrated through every cell. Jennifer flexed her fingers experimentally, finding them responsive, strong. She pressed her palms against the ground and pushed herself up, expecting resistance or pain.
There was none. Her body rose effortlessly, as if she weighed nothing at all.
Jennifer staggered to her feet, the mud squelching beneath unfamiliar boots. The storm continued to rage, but she barely noticed it now. Something felt wrong—fundamentally wrong. Her center of gravity had shifted. Her limbs felt longer, her movements smoother despite the disorientation.
She lifted a trembling hand to her face, expecting to feel the familiar features she'd seen in the museum bathroom mirror just hours ago. Instead, her fingers encountered high cheekbones, a narrower jaw, a smaller nose. This wasn't her face.
"What the hell?" she whispered, her voice melodic and higher-pitched than it should be.
Her fingers traveled upward, tangling in thick, silky hair that cascaded well past her shoulders. She pulled a strand forward, staring in disbelief at its golden color catching the faint light. Jennifer's hair had always been dark brown, cut practically at her shoulders.
She looked down at herself, at clothes she'd never seen before—ornate robes of deep blue and silver, now muddied and torn. Her hands were smaller, the fingers longer and more elegant than her own practical ones had ever been.
A puddle formed by the rain reflected a distorted image when lightning flashed again. Jennifer dropped to her knees, leaning over to see what she could in the rippling water. A stranger's face looked back at her—beautiful, with delicate features and full lips. But what made her recoil in shock were the eyes—irises glowing a deep, unnatural crimson, the same color as the artifact's energy.
"This isn't me," she gasped, touching her—no, not her—face again. "This isn't my body."
A sudden, searing pain shot through her skull, dropping her forward onto her hands. Images flooded her mind—memories that weren't hers crashing through her consciousness like a tidal wave.
A name surfaced first, burning itself into her awareness: Jin Xiyue a 16 year old girl.
Jennifer—or was she Jin Xiyue now?—saw flashes of a life she'd never lived. Loving parents with kind eyes, a father's proud smile as he taught her calligraphy, a mother's gentle hands braiding her hair. A beautiful home with curved roofs and paper lanterns. The smell of jasmine and incense.
Then darker memories: whispers behind her back, pitying glances, cruel laughter. "Blocked meridians," they said. "No cultivation potential." "Such a shame for the Jin family."
The pain intensified as more memories surged forward. A desperate journey into a place called the Cloudy Forest, seeking a legendary spring that might cure her condition. Hope burning bright despite warnings.
Then terror. Ambush. Figures in black moving like shadows between trees. Mysterious men in all black completely covering their faces jumping out of their trees, first taking out her escorts and killing them before attacking her, leaving her bleeding out before they left her there to die
Jennifer clutched her head, gasping as the memories of Jin Xiyue's final moments crashed over her.
Jennifer stood slowly, her new body responding with a grace that felt foreign yet increasingly natural. The rain continued to fall, but she barely noticed it now, too consumed by the flood of memories that weren't hers—yet somehow were.
The Cloudy Forest. She knew its reputation now through Jin Xiyue's memories. A place of deadly beauty, where rare herbs and treasures grew alongside dangers that had claimed countless lives. Miles from any settlement, it was a place only the desperate or foolhardy entered willingly.
Jin Xiyue had been desperate. Jennifer understood that desperation now, felt it as if it were her own. The shame of being born to a prestigious family with "blocked meridians"—unable to cultivate the mystical energy others could. A defect that had defined her entire existence.
Jennifer touched her face again, tracing unfamiliar features with trembling fingers. The rain plastered golden hair against her neck as she processed the truth: Jin Xiyue had died here, ambushed and left bleeding by black-clad assassins. And somehow, impossibly, Jennifer had taken her place.
"I died too," she whispered, the melodic voice still strange to her ears. "The museum collapsed. I should be dead."
The artifact had done this—merged them somehow, healing this broken body with Jennifer's consciousness inside. She flexed her fingers, feeling strength coursing through them. Not just life, but power. The crimson energy still hummed beneath her skin, a constant reminder of the impossible.
Jennifer closed her eyes, letting Jin Xiyue's memories wash over her. The young woman's hopes, dreams, and fears became clearer with each passing moment. The desperation that drove her here. The family waiting for her return. The life she'd never live.
"I won't waste this," Jennifer said firmly, her voice growing stronger. "Whatever this is—whatever chance this is—I won't squander it."
She looked down at her mud-stained robes, at the elegant hands that weren't hers but now were. She was Jin Xiyue now. The orphan Jennifer was gone, crushed under rubble in another world. This body, this life, this second chance belonged to her.
"I'll survive," she promised the storm. "Not just survive—I'll thrive. I'll become what you couldn't."
The rain slowed to a gentle patter as the storm began to fade. Jennifer lay on the forest floor, her new body still feeling like an ill-fitting garment. Droplets slid down the golden strands of hair that weren't hers, yet now were. The pain had subsided, replaced by a hollow emptiness that demanded to be filled.
Above her, dark clouds parted to reveal glimpses of unfamiliar stars—constellations that had never shone over the city she once called home. They seemed to watch her with cold indifference, celestial witnesses to her impossible transformation.
Jennifer's mind raced through Jin Xiyue's memories. The ridicule she had endured. The pitying glances from relatives. The whispers that followed her through courtyards and gardens. "Poor Jin family, such a talented lineage With one of the strongest formation master, yet their only child..."
She felt the sting of those words as if they were her own wounds. In many ways, they resonated with the orphan she had been—always watching from the outside, never belonging.
Her fingers dug into the soft earth beneath her. This world had rules she was only beginning to understand. Cultivation. Meridians. Power that flowed like rivers through the worthy. Jin Xiyue had been born blocked, defective in the eyes of her society.
But Jennifer—Jennifer had never accepted limitations imposed by others.
The crimson energy from the artifact still hummed beneath her skin, warm and alive. She could feel it responding to her emotions, pulsing stronger with her rising determination.
Jennifer pushed herself to her knees, then to her feet. The elegant robes clung to her frame, heavy with rain and mud. She lifted her face to the clearing sky, letting the last drops strike her new features.
"Never again," she whispered, her voice low and fierce. The words carried power, as if the very air listened. "Never again will I let anyone trample on me. I'll forge a path no one dares block."
Something shifted within her at those words—a final surrender of who she had been, an acceptance of who she now was. The orphan who had survived by keeping her head down, by staying invisible, breathed her last.
In her place stood Jin Xiyue, reborn with fire in her veins and determination in her heart.