Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Tagalong

“Waaah… I really must have been out of my mind. With so many decent men to choose from, I ignored them all and picked a damned scoundrel like you. Back then you talked so nicely, saying you earned two taels of silver a month. You said if I married you, my daughter and I would never go hungry. But it’s only been a few days and you went and got into a fight. Now your leg’s crippled…”

Li Tao Hua’s sobbing spilled through the thin door, sweet as syrup and sharp as a knife.

“Just treating that leg has piled up a mountain of debt. Yi Chen needs to study—his tuition costs money every year. Yi Xiao is sickly, drinking medicine like water—he’s a bottomless pit. And me, Li Tao Hua, I’ve been clever most of my life, and yet I still fell into the hands of a bastard like you. I’m done living, waaah…”

Under the eaves, Qin Hui Yin sat with a needle between her fingers, mending a ragged garment that was more patch than cloth. She kept her head down, the way she’d learned to do in this house—quiet, harmless, easy to overlook.

Inside, a man murmured and pleaded in a thick, honest voice, clumsy with comfort. Tang Da Fu always sounded like that: simple, apologetic, willing to swallow anything if it meant keeping peace.

Two months ago, Li Tao Hua—this body’s mother—had married the village widower, Tang Da Fu, and brought Qin Hui Yin along like a shadow.

And Qin Hui Yin… wasn’t truly Qin Hui Yin. Not the original one.

The girl who had lived in this small body had struck her head while moving things. She’d woken to a different soul—a woman from the twenty-first century who’d once lived on cameras and comments and a life that now felt like it belonged to someone else. When the two sets of memories collided, it had been like being split in half. Her head had ached for days. She’d lain in bed for nearly two weeks, clutching her temples and whimpering until the villagers shrugged and said, Well, she did crack her head.

Then the pain eased. The memories settled.

And the world turned familiar in the worst way.

This was the world of a book she’d read. In that story, Qin Hui Yin was cannon fodder—the stepsister of the grassroots male lead, Tang Yi Chen. A vicious mother. A greedy daughter. A house that rotted from the inside out.

She’d told herself she could change it. She’d told herself that being dropped into a story didn’t mean she had to follow its script.

The door creaked.

Li Tao Hua drifted out in brand-new clothes, her waist slim, her steps small and careful on bound feet, yet somehow still swaying like she was walking a stage. Her eyes were wet from crying, but the shine in them was the kind that could soften a man’s spine.

The moment she saw Qin Hui Yin sewing, her expression snapped.

She strode over, snatched the garment right out of Qin Hui Yin’s hands, and flung it aside like it was filth. Then she poked Qin Hui Yin’s forehead, irritation sharp enough to sting.

“Who told you to do this kind of work? Where’s Tang Lu Wu? Those rags are hers, and you’re the one patching them. If you prick your fingers, I’ll tear off her skin!”

Tang Lu Wu was Tang Da Fu’s daughter. Tang Yi Chen’s sister.

The Tang family had three children. Yi Chen was fourteen this year and studied at a private school in town. Lu Wu was 12, all bones and quiet eyes. The youngest, Yi Xiao, was nine—a walking medicine jar with a pale face and a temper that flashed hotter than his body ever could.

Qin Hui Yin was eleven.

Even their names had been polished into something pleasant. Village children were usually called things like Doggy-this and Eggy-that, Little Hua and Little Fang. Yi Chen’s tutor had given him a better name after he began studying, and Yi Chen—proud and stubborn even as a boy—had renamed his younger siblings himself, as if he could carve a cleaner future for them with words.

After Qin Hui Yin’s memories fused, she’d clung to one rule: say less, make fewer mistakes. She played dull and slow, letting her eyes drift, letting people think the head injury had left her a bit foolish. It fit well enough. In the original story, the girl she’d replaced had been quiet at first too—hardworking, honest-looking, trouble-free.

It hadn’t lasted.

Once Li Tao Hua married in and Tang Da Fu broke his leg, the true face of mother and daughter had surfaced. The new husband lay in bed all day, groaning and helpless. The money bled away coin by coin until even the jar felt hollow. Debt piled up like stones on the roof.

And Li Tao Hua’s sweetness curdled.

Like so many stepmothers in cheap tales, she began grinding the children down. Lu Wu was pushed into every chore—cooking, washing, sweeping, hauling water—until her shoulders bowed. Yi Xiao, too sick to do much, still tried to help when he could. When he cried to his father, Tang Da Fu only sighed and soothed Li Tao Hua, bewitched by her tears and her pretty mouth.

As for Yi Chen, he was away in town more than he was home. The road was long, and when he returned it was usually for two days at most. His younger siblings had learned to bring him good news and swallow the rest, so he didn’t know how sharp Li Tao Hua’s hands had become when his back was turned.

Li Tao Hua leaned closer, drawing Qin Hui Yin into the corner like a conspirator. Her voice dropped, quick and low.

“The physician said Tang Da Fu’s leg probably won’t heal.” Her fingers tightened on Qin Hui Yin’s sleeve. “We need to make new plans for ourselves.”

Qin Hui Yin studied her mother’s face with a twist of emotion she didn’t know how to name.

Li Tao Hua was clearly a village woman, yet her skin was soft and pink as if she’d never known sun or wind. Her voice was sweet enough to melt a man’s bones. Her brows and eyes always carried a flirtatious restlessness, as if even standing still was a kind of performance.

Whatever she was now, she had once been a woman who’d fled famine for a thousand miles with a small daughter in her arms—and she hadn’t sold that daughter to survive, not even when others did. That love was real. Qin Hui Yin could feel it in the way Li Tao Hua guarded her, in the way her anger always curved away from Qin Hui Yin’s body.

And Qin Hui Yin—standing in another girl’s skin—had no choice but to live well in her place.

“So you mean…” Qin Hui Yin asked carefully, “we’re leaving the Tang family?”

Li Tao Hua’s mouth twisted. “I already signed a marriage contract with Tang Da Fu. Unless he dies and I remarry as a widow, there’s no leaving.” Her lashes fluttered, wet again. “And me—a widow who marries again and again. Every time I marry, the husband dies or breaks. If Tang Da Fu really dies, they’ll treat me like a walking disaster. Forget it. My life is just like this. How can I force anything? Waaah…”

Qin Hui Yin stared at her, speechless.

A shout rose outside the fence, urgent enough to cut straight through Li Tao Hua’s wailing. It was the neighbor—Granny Zhang, the kind of woman who could smell gossip through walls.

“Da Fu’s wife! Da Fu’s wife—your girl fell into the water! She’s already not breathing!”

Li Tao Hua hurried to the gate and unlatched it, her voice turning soft and offended at once. “Auntie, our Hui Yin is right here, perfectly fine. Why are you cursing my child?”

Granny Zhang craned her neck, saw Qin Hui Yin behind Li Tao Hua, and curled her lip.

“I’m talking about that girl Lu Wu.” Her voice snapped like a twig. “Didn’t you send her to wash clothes? She fell in. When they pulled her out, she wasn’t breathing.”

For a heartbeat, Qin Hui Yin didn’t move.

Then her blood ran cold.

In the book, Lu Wu drowned in an accident just like this. It was the first stone in the avalanche—the moment Yi Chen’s life began to tilt toward hatred. After that, the sickly younger brother died too, and the stepsister enjoyed everything left behind. Later, grown and handsome and brilliant, Yi Chen fled the village with nothing when the stepsister tried to climb into his bed. And when he finally rose high enough to return, his revenge was ruthless.

Wild dogs. Screams. Blood in the dirt.

Even his father—because he was blood—wasn’t killed. But he wasn’t spared either. Yi Chen paid silver to the clan to have Tang Da Fu struck from the family register, his land confiscated, his name erased. A crippled man driven from the village, reduced to begging—atoning, forever, for the children he’d failed.

Qin Hui Yin’s palms went slick. Cold sweat slid down her spine.

And Li Tao Hua stood there as if she’d been told the pot was boiling over.

That was a life. A child’s life.

“Mother,” Qin Hui Yin said, already moving, voice shaking from the effort of keeping it steady, “I’m fast. I’ll go check on Sister first!”