"She remembered dying before she remembered her name."
There was no wind.
No scent of incense.
No pulse of silk brushing the floor.
Only the low, high-pitched hum of something unnatural and cold.
Then a beeping. Repetitive. Mechanical. Rhythmic, but lifeless.
And air—filtered, strange, too clean to be real.
She opened her eyes.
The ceiling was flat and white, too bright, as if light had no source. A sterile blankness spread across her vision. No carved wood. No hanging scrolls. No windows shaped like moons.
A room without history.
Her breath caught.
She wasn't in the palace.
Her throat constricted.
Where was the scent of plum blossom? The familiar hush of lacquered halls?
She turned her head too fast, and pain lanced through her skull. The room blurred. Strange shapes surrounded her: glowing lines, plastic tubes, blinking lights. A thing near her head hissed softly.
She gasped. Sat up.
And the world exploded.
Her body was foreign. Her limbs were too long. Her skin—it wasn't the same tone. The muscles in her arms felt thinner, more fragile, as if unused.
A shrill beeping sound screamed from a monitor beside her, and then—shouting. Footsteps.
The door burst open.
"Yin Lihua!"
A voice cried out.
A woman ran to her side, breathless and pale. Short brown hair, a thin black cardigan over denim pants, red-rimmed eyes full of disbelief and… joy?
"You're awake—oh my god, you're really awake—don't move yet—doctor! Doctor, she's awake!"
Feiran—or whoever she was now—blinked at her.
The voice was young. Familiar.
But not Yue'er.
And then another person rushed in—a man in a white coat, stethoscope swinging, glasses sliding down the bridge of his nose.
He leaned forward, eyes wide.
"Miss Yin? Yin Lihua, can you hear me? Can you understand me?"
She stared at him.
The words made sense. But everything else—
"What is this place?" she whispered.
He blinked. "You're at Beicheng First General. You were in an accident. Hit-and-run. You've been in a coma for two months."
"What…?"
Her breath stuttered.
"I—no—I was in my room—I drank tea—I…"
She stared at the strange metal pole beside her bed, dripping clear liquid into her veins. The walls. The machines.
A loud beeping began again.
The doctor turned to silence it. She caught a glimpse of herself reflected in the silver lens of his glasses.
And froze.
That was not her face.
She jolted upright, clutching at her blanket. "Give me a mirror."
"What—?"
"Give me a mirror!" she barked, the sharp edge of a command long-buried rising to the surface.
The woman beside her—a stranger and not—rushed to open her purse and pulled out a compact.
Feiran—or Yin Lihua—snatched it.
Her fingers trembled.
She flipped it open.
And looked.
Not Xu Feiran. Not the imperial consort who once wore red and gold.
This face was heart-shaped, not oval. Softer cheekbones. A faint mole beneath one eye. Pale skin without the tone of sun or winter. Eyes—dark, familiar, but different. Larger. Less almond-shaped.
And the lips. Slightly parted.
She did not recognize them.
But she saw something buried in them. A flicker.
A memory trying to crawl back to the surface.
"I…" she whispered, lowering the mirror.
"I'm not…"
"Lihua," the woman said again, grasping her hand, "I'm here, okay? I'm here. You're safe."
She looked up. The woman was younger than her by a few years. Worn down from grief and exhaustion. But beautiful, in a practical, modern way.
"You know me?" Lihua rasped.
"Of course," the woman said, smiling tearfully. "It's me. Yue Shanshan. Shanshan. I've been with you for five years—your assistant, your friend. We've been together since you launched the journal. I—I've been here every single day, Lihua."
She squeezed her hand again.
"They told me you might not wake up. I never believed them."
Lihua tried to breathe.
"Yue…?"
Shanshan blinked. "Yes?"
She stared at her. So close. So warm. The face wasn't Yue'er's. Not from the palace. But…
She whispered, "Where's Yue'er?"
Shanshan tilted her head.
"…Who?"
"Yue'er," Lihua said again, chest tightening. "She's—she should be here—she always is."
Shanshan blinked again, and her brows drew together.
"There's no one named Yue'er. Just me."
Lihua stared past her.
The room was cold again.
No gods. No incense.
No Yue'er.
The doctor stepped closer, carefully now.
"Miss Yin," he said gently, "can I speak to you for a moment?"
She didn't answer.
He exchanged a glance with Shanshan.
"We believe you may be experiencing some degree of post-traumatic amnesia," he said softly. "It's not uncommon for patients in long comas. Memory confusion, time loss, names blending together. Even dreams that feel vivid or real. Your brain may be trying to reconcile trauma with fragments of identity."
"I don't understand," she murmured.
"You were in a serious accident," he said. "Your body survived. But the mind—memory is delicate. You may feel… disoriented for some time. But with therapy, rest, and familiar people around you—things will return. One memory at a time."
She looked at her hands.
They weren't her hands.
But they moved when she told them to.
She curled them slowly.
She didn't cry.
Not yet.
Shanshan brought her food later—warm porridge with pickled vegetables, wrapped buns with purple yam paste, soft ginger tea.
Lihua didn't eat.
She listened.
Shanshan told her everything.
"You were walking home from an event," she said, her voice low. "It was raining. You'd refused a car again—I don't know why. Maybe to think. You were always like that when you were working on a new piece."
Lihua said nothing.
"They said it was a delivery van. No license plate. They never caught the driver."
She paused. Her jaw tightened.
"I saw you on the street that night. I was ten steps behind."
Her voice broke.
"There was blood."
When Shanshan stepped out to get fresh water, Lihua turned her head to the window.
And let the silence close in.
The ceiling light buzzed faintly overhead.
Outside, she could hear the faint sound of cars—honks, metal, voices. The city never slept.
This world was too sharp. Too fast. Too loud.
She touched her chest. The hospital gown rustled against her skin.
Then she closed her eyes.
And searched.
And slowly—she remembered.
The teacup.
The folded note.
The warmth.
The final breath.
The darkness that rushed in from the edges like a curtain falling.
Xu Feiran had died.
There had been no warning. No second chances. Just the sharp, metallic sweetness of betrayal.
And now she was here.
Alive.
In another woman's skin.
She whispered aloud—soft, broken:
"I died."
The words didn't echo.
But they hung there.
She reached toward the compact again. Opened it. Stared at the stranger staring back.
"You died," she whispered again. "But you're not done yet."