"Is she dead?!"
"Third Brother, that bad female, she... she seems dead."
The crisp child's voice carried a hint of panic.
"Third Brother, did we... did we kill the bad female? I... I just didn't want to be hit, so I pushed her. I didn't expect her to fall over like that... I didn't mean to harm her!"
Si Yan was groggy. She shifted her hand, feeling an unfamiliar softness.
Dizziness washed over her, yet a wry smile touched her lips.
Her last memory was of choking someone, surrounded by flames. She had taken her revenge. So, was she dying now? She even heard hallucinations.
Just then, a soft, sweet child's voice, laced with hatred, sounded beside her ear again. "If this bad female is dead, then good riddance! Big Brother and Second Brother were sold by her. She only kept us to hit and scold us, and to make us do her chores. With her dead, no one will beat us anymore!"
Female? She was a woman, not a 'female'!
A sharp pain stabbed the back of Si Yan's head. She snapped her eyes open. Her blurry vision gradually focused, revealing two children before her—one with white hair, the other with green hair obscuring their face.
Was she still alive? Had she miraculously survived that massive explosion? Could she actually have survived?
Si Yan looked at the two children. "Kids, where are we?"
The moment she asked, the two children recoiled as if terrified. The white-haired one subtly stepped back, while the green-haired one reached out to turn her face. "Still alive! Bei Ji!"
Bei Ji? Si Yan found the name somewhat familiar but couldn't quite place it. Given her current dire situation, she had no energy for anything else. She said, "Kid, the back of my head really hurts. Could you take a look for me?"
The two children immediately stepped back several paces.
Her eyelids twitched, and a few bitter laughs escaped her. Just how wretched must I be to terrify these children so much?
She couldn't count on anyone else; she'd have to check herself.
She struggled to sit up and touched the back of her head. When she brought her hand forward, it was covered in blood. No wonder it hurts so much. With this much blood, I could be dying.
She touched her chest; a sharp pain lanced through it, but there was no blood. How strange. How long was I out? Did the bomb not get me? Did the zombies not eat me? Could my chest wound have healed on its own?
Her round eyes widened, and combined with the copious blood oozing from her head, the sight was truly horrifying.
The two children, dressed in beast-hide skirts, suddenly panicked and stumbled back several more steps, almost pressing themselves against the cave wall.
The green-haired child bared his teeth, his voice menacing. "Don't even think about hitting us! We're not afraid of you! Bad female, if you hit us now, aren't you afraid we'll take revenge when we grow up?!"
Bad female? Bei Ji? A memory suddenly surfaced.
In the apocalypse, to pass the time and relieve stress, she would sometimes read novels written in peaceful times on her phone.
Bei Ji... Wasn't that the tragic villain from "Beast World Seduction," a novel she'd read before?!
Si Yan remembered that in the story, Bei Ji was a colossal white Sen Ran beastman—cold, violent, and monstrously powerful!
It had to be a coincidence.
Such a specific name overlap was rare.
Transmigrating into a book? Surely that couldn't happen to someone as unlucky as her!
Si Yan turned her ghastly, blood-streaked face towards the two children. "Kids... what are your names?"
The green-haired child said coldly, a mocking tone in his voice, "Bad female, what are you playing at? Trying the amnesia trick on us?!"
The white-haired Bei Ji, who seemed a bit more softhearted, answered, "I'm Bei Ji. He's Xi Qing."
"And me?" Si Yan pointed to herself.
The young Bei Ji replied indifferently, "You're Si Yan. A dark, stinky, small, and weak female."
Suddenly, Si Yan's legs gave out, and she flopped back down.
Exactly the same. It's all exactly the same.
"Beast World Seduction" had too many characters for her to remember all their names. However, because the supporting character Si Yan shared her name, that one had stuck with her.
Si Yan was the birth mother of the four cold-blooded Sen Ran beastmen—the villains Dongchi, Nan Mo, Xi Qing, and Bei Ji. Their actual mother.
Such a coincidence? Had she really transmigrated? And into the body of the mother of these villainous children, no less…?
Si Yan smiled bitterly again. Being blown up by a bomb or torn to shreds by zombies would have been one thing. But transmigrating into the role of a tragic villain's mother? That was just too demoralizing.
She recalled that the character Si Yan was only briefly mentioned in the novel, through the villains' recollections. The original Si Yan apparently detested beastmen, so she loathed her four Sen Ran children. She constantly beat and scolded them, and even sold off her eldest and second sons for a couple of beast pelts.
The twisted personalities of all four villains were her doing.
She also remembered Si Yan's fate in the novel. Her legs were broken by the fourth son, her arms twisted by the third, her eyes blinded by the second, and her heart pierced by the eldest. A truly tragic end.
...Truly tragic.
Si Yan's mind reeled. As she began to process her new reality and tried to sit up again, she realized the two serpent children, who moments ago seemed ready to attack her, had vanished.
Whatever. Though technically mother and sons, their relationship was no different from that of enemies. It was expected that the children would ignore her injuries.
As her sense of smell gradually returned, a foul stench assaulted her nostrils, growing more nauseating as she sat up again. This was a cave, presumably the home she shared with her sons. But it was utterly filthy and reeked. Feces littered the ground, and there was no ventilation. Animal carcasses lay rotting, and the only two beast pelts were caked in grime.
Her face felt itchy. She scratched it, and a large clump of black grime came off under her nail.
...Unbearable. This is truly unbearable! Even if she was destitute, she couldn't tolerate living like this!