Chapter 1

More than a dozen race cars shot across the Formula One Championship track like arrows released from their bows.

Amid the crowd’s astonished cries, a female driver appeared on the track—the only woman racing for Team Eternity.

In the stands, a group of spectators held the team’s flags high and shouted at the tops of their lungs, “Eternity! Deer! Eternity! Deer!”

With the crowd roaring her name, Deer’s car hurtled toward the finish line at breakneck speed.

Everyone held their breath, their eyes fixed unwaveringly on the track.

Just as the car was about to cross the finish line, it suddenly skidded and slammed violently into another car coming up behind it. Because they had been moving so fast, the entire car flipped over several times before finally coming to a stop.

The cheering abruptly ceased. A group of staff members immediately rushed forward, but the driver had already lost consciousness and was completely unresponsive.

Deer could vaguely hear the wail of an ambulance siren, followed by the beeping of a heart monitor.

She had no idea how much time had passed before the heart monitor suddenly emitted a long, continuous tone.

The hospital room instantly filled with the sound of weeping.

Shangguan Xuan felt as though her body had been suspended in a constant state of weightlessness. With great difficulty, she opened her eyes, only to see rings of blinding light. She had no choice but to close them again.

Only after the sensation of weightlessness faded and the crying around her disappeared did she slowly open her eyes once more. What came into view, however, was a completely unfamiliar place.

——————

This was a luxuriously furnished villa. Two women stood beside the dining table, apparently arguing about something.

Shangguan Xuan was standing nearby, very close to them, yet, strangely, she could not hear a single sound. The scene before her was completely silent.

She then saw the woman on the left suddenly seize the other woman by the chin, pick up a glass of water that had already been prepared on the table, and forcibly pour it into her mouth.

Shangguan Xuan stared at the scene in shock. What surprised her was not what the women were doing, but the woman who currently had the upper hand. She had a face identical to Shangguan Xuan’s own.

At the same time, a powerful force pulled her toward them. Her body seemed to be bound by an invisible hand and gradually began to twist and distort. Another beam of blinding light appeared above her head. When the light faded, what appeared before her was a pale, frail little face and a pair of eyes that, for no apparent reason, made her heart clench.

The woman beneath her glared at her with bitter hatred. Her brows were tightly drawn together, her teeth clenched, and her gaze was icy. Yet none of that could conceal the cold, stunning beauty that seemed to emanate from her very bones. She gripped Shangguan Xuan’s wrist with all her strength, her entire body trembling uncontrollably.

Shangguan Xuan was momentarily dazed, and her grip on the woman’s chin loosened. Seizing the opportunity, the woman forcefully pulled her hand away and slapped the glass out of her grasp. It crashed to the floor, scattering shards of glass everywhere.

Two sets of light footsteps approached from behind. Before Shangguan Xuan could turn to look, a sharp smack rang out, and a slap struck her across the face, knocking her head slightly to one side.

Shangguan Xuan covered her burning cheek and stared at the woman in disbelief. “Why did you hit me?”

The woman’s eyes shimmered with tears and an inexhaustible hatred. “You can kill me, but you can’t humiliate me like this!”

When Shangguan Xuan’s bodyguard, A-Cheng, saw his employer being struck, he stormed over in just a few strides and drew back his iron fist to punch the woman.

The woman instinctively turned her head away and closed her eyes, but Shangguan Xuan raised a hand and stopped A-Cheng.

“What are you doing?” a voice came from behind them.

Shangguan Xuan turned toward the newcomer and tentatively called out, “Ye Shen?”

Ye Shen gave her an indifferent glance before shifting his gaze to the woman behind her. Feigning confusion, he asked, “What happened?”

Shangguan Xuan did not answer. Her gaze swept back and forth over the people before her as memories suddenly flooded her mind like a surging tide.

He was Ye Shen, and the woman beside her was Lin Fei—but why did Shangguan Xuan know their names? She was certain she had never met either of them before, yet the memories in her mind…

Wait. Hadn’t she died? Hadn’t she been killed in a car accident?

Shangguan Xuan raised a hand and touched her face. It was perfectly fine, and nothing seemed wrong with the rest of her body either.

Her thoughts were in turmoil. When Ye Shen received no answer from her for a long while, he impatiently repeated, “Xiao Xuan?”

Shangguan Xuan still did not answer. Her eyes suddenly lifted. She understood now. This was another parallel world. She—she had transmigrated!

She had read about situations like this in novels before. She must have transmigrated into a novel and taken the place of one of its characters.

And judging from the current situation, weren’t Ye Shen and Lin Fei the names of the male and female leads from a Mary Sue novel she had read several years ago?

She remembered that she had never finished the book, only reading the beginning and the ending, because it was simply too ridiculous. The female lead alone had four or five backup suitors, and the second male lead was no ordinary man either.

The second male lead had been utterly devoted to her. Even after the female lead became pregnant with the male lead’s child, he still refused to give up on her and was even capable of saying that getting one free with the other was quite a bargain.

The second female lead was insidiously vicious. On the surface, she pretended to befriend the female lead, but behind her back, she stole the female lead’s identity. Despite the two of them having grown up together in the same orphanage, she had always looked down on the female lead from the bottom of her heart.

In the end, she not only stole the male lead but also caused the death of the child in the female lead’s womb. After suffering a miscarriage, the female lead ran out of the hospital, covered in blood, and went to find the male lead. Yet he claimed that her child was some other man’s bastard and refused to believe her no matter what she said.

Heartbroken and utterly disillusioned, the female lead left with the second male lead. When she returned five years later to take revenge, she not only found a way to send the second female lead to prison but also arranged for someone inside to kill her.

However, the second female lead ended up being rescued by a mysterious man. He had no good intentions either—he had saved her in order to treat his younger sister’s illness.

His sister suffered from a strange disease, a rare skin condition that required her skin to be replaced frequently. The pitiful second female lead became a source of replacement skin for his sister. Once she was no longer of any use, his sister stabbed her to death. She died in an utterly gruesome state.

Shangguan Xuan suddenly shuddered. Merely recalling all of this made her scalp tingle. The thought that everything might very well happen to her in the future made her tremble all over, her heart pounding with fear.

Shangguan Xuan lowered her head and looked at the shards of glass by her feet. The water in that glass had been drugged.

According to the original character’s plan in the novel, she had intended to take advantage of the male lead’s absence and secretly drug the female lead’s drink so that the female lead would have sex with someone else. She would then bring the male lead over to catch them in the act. Unexpectedly, the female lead had discovered the scheme beforehand, leading to the argument between them.

Shangguan Xuan glanced at Lin Fei. Several deep red finger marks had appeared along the side of her face.

Feeling somewhat guilty, Shangguan Xuan instinctively softened her voice. “Are you all right?”

Lin Fei froze slightly but quickly regained her composure. She glared viciously at Shangguan Xuan as though she wanted nothing more than to tear her apart and devour her alive.

Still frightened, Shangguan Xuan shrank back and tucked in her neck.

So fierce.

At that moment, Lin Fei suddenly rushed toward Shangguan Xuan. Startled, Shangguan Xuan sprang out of the way and hid behind A-Cheng. “What… what are you trying to do?”

Lin Fei merely swept past her and strode upstairs.

Shangguan Xuan: “…”

Shangguan Xuan watched Lin Fei’s retreating figure from a distance, then turned to look at Ye Shen. According to the memories in her mind, this was the point in [bailiantales.com]the story when the male lead threatened the female lead with the safety of her best friend’s entire family, forcing her to sleep with him.

Before long, Ye Shen would send Lin Fei the room number of a certain hotel. As for the exact date and time, Shangguan Xuan could no longer remember.

Shangguan Xuan silently complained to herself. The male lead was so despicable and shameless, yet the female lead eventually fell so deeply in love with him that she could barely live without him.

There had to be something wrong with Lin Fei’s head.

No, she could not let Ye Shen succeed. If the female lead became pregnant, Shangguan Xuan’s own death would not be far behind.

Ignoring Ye Shen beside her, Shangguan Xuan hurried upstairs in her slippers, taking the steps two or three at a time as she rushed to her room on the second floor. She needed to find somewhere to calm down and carefully sort through everything that would happen next.

Relying on the original character’s memories, she easily found one of the rooms on the villa’s second floor. Just as her hand touched the door handle, she heard quiet sobbing coming from a room behind her.

The image of a pale face immediately flashed through Shangguan Xuan’s mind. She unconsciously furrowed her brows, then turned around and quietly pushed open the door.

The door had been left slightly ajar. Shangguan Xuan did not see Lin Fei when she first entered. After searching around, she finally found her on the balcony beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows.

Lin Fei sat before the windows with her knees drawn to her chest, sobbing softly. Her quiet cries reached Shangguan Xuan’s ears, making her heart tighten faintly before she even realized it.

She tiptoed over to Lin Fei and bent down until they were at eye level.

Hearing the movement, Lin Fei raised her head. Through her tear-blurred stolen content vision, she saw a figure crouching in front of her.

Her eyes were red and still brimming with tears, while her nose had also turned red from crying. She looked delicate and pitiable, yet the gaze she directed at Shangguan Xuan was icy cold. “What else do you want?”