Chapter 1
Gu Sijiu was jolted awake by a wave of nausea. She coughed dryly, and the raw ache from dehydration drew a whimper from her throat. As her vision cleared, she was met with a vast expanse of white. At first she thought something was covering her eyes, but when she tried to wave it away she realized that the glaring whiteness was simply the wall in front of her. She blinked, bewildered, then noticed she was lying in a hospital bed.
The hospital looked lavish. The bed was soft and spacious, and the furnishings held a touch of opulence. She frowned slightly, the stabbing pain in her head was sharper now. She touched her forehead and felt the rough texture of bandages, just as expected. Clutching her head in confusion, she had no idea what had happened or why she was here.
She remembered ending a business dinner last night and getting a designated driver to take her home. Her memory cut off right there, freezing at the moment she got into the car. After that? Had she been in a car accident that landed her in the hospital? Gu Sijiu's recollection of the previous night was hazy; she could not piece together anything after she got drunk, only scattered fragments.
She whimpered and tried to push herself up. At that moment the door opened, and a nurse, spotting her, activated a silvery gray device in her hand. Soon a group of people walked in. At the head was a very tall female doctor. Despite her East Asian features, she had to be at least 190 centimeters tall. Several nurses followed behind her, and at the rear of the group was a woman with a slightly cold expression.
Before Gu Sijiu could size her up, the doctor pressed her back onto the bed, saying she had a mild concussion and should not move around carelessly. The doctor asked her a few questions, and after Gu Sijiu answered them all, the doctor left, reassured. Only the woman remained in the room. Now Gu Sijiu finally had the chance to study her properly.
The woman was tall. Stripping away those high heels, she looked to be about 172 centimeters barefoot, two centimeters taller than Gu Sijiu herself. Part of her long, straight coffee brown hair fell over her right shoulder, while the rest draped loosely down her back. Looking at her face, Gu Sijiu realized that the person before her was not anyone she knew. They were absolute strangers. Because with those looks and that bearing, if she had ever met her before, she would definitely remember.
The woman had a tall, slender figure and wore a white waist cinching dress; a delicate lilac sash precisely defined her waist. Her legs were long, her body proportioned to perfection. White was a color that supposedly made you look plump and exposed every flaw, yet she carried it effortlessly. By Gu Sijiu's estimation, her chest was at least a C cup, just as large as her own. Gu Sijiu pondered the woman's purpose here and gave her a smile she considered both beautiful and politely appropriate. After she smiled, the woman's expression turned even icier, and she regarded her with a look verging on resentment.
That look was absolutely genuine, and certainly not the result of some minor quarrel. The woman was staring at her as though Gu Sijiu were her father's murderer, someone she longed to be rid of as quickly as possible. Gu Sijiu saw her own reflection in those dark eyes, eyes as black and glossy as obsidian, but she was in no mood to appreciate them. Anyone would feel somewhat alarmed if a stranger stood by their sickbed glaring at them with murderous intent.
"Miss, can I help you?" Gu Sijiu was displeased at being glowered at by a complete stranger with such hostility. She spoke, puzzled, and then watched the woman take a slight step backward. Even more baffled, she wondered what was going on. Could she have offended this woman while she was drunk? But she had never seen her before. As Gu Sijiu mulled this over, she noticed something off.
She glanced at the hair hanging down and saw that her color was no longer the misty blue she had dyed it. It was a shade that was neither deep red nor very pale, somewhere between light crimson and cherry. Gu Sijiu did not think that after a car accident anyone would perform surgery on her and also dye her hair on the side. At this point, she finally sensed something was wrong.
Gu Sijiu stared blankly at her own hair, then touched her chest, which felt considerably lighter. As soon as she groped there, the familiar fullness and overflowing grip were gone, replaced by a small mound like contour. No need for a tape measure to know that it was barely an A cup. Gu Sijiu froze in shock. She looked up at the woman by the bed and saw that the disgust on her face had deepened. Only then did Gu Sijiu notice that the woman's neck was also wrapped in gauze, and both her wrists were bandaged as well.
"Since you're not dead, I'll take my leave." The woman spoke, her voice somewhat at odds with the impression she gave. From the moment she entered the hospital, she had kept a cold face, and her gaze upon Gu Sijiu had held nothing but loathing and impatience. Several times Gu Sijiu noticed her hands trembling, the kind of tremor that came from overwhelming fury barely held in check. If murder were legal, Gu Sijiu felt certain she would have been finished off in that hospital bed right then and there.
But now the woman had spoken, and though her voice was hoarse and laced with resentment, it could not conceal its underlying softness. Gu Sijiu watched her turn and leave, her silhouette a little too thin. Outside the ward, the woman fell into step beside another woman. Gu Sijiu remained silent, contemplating. What kind of place was this? Why was she here? Who did this body belong to? And what was its connection to that woman just now?
All these questions offered her no starting point. Soon, someone claiming to be her adjutant arrived, and Gu Sijiu finally got satisfactory answers. This was not the world she knew, nor was it Earth, nor any place she was familiar with anymore. This was a planet called Xing, and within Xing existed only a single empire: Lanniswei.
The empire's populace was diverse and complex, and their genders were something Gu Sijiu had never heard of. Here, people were not categorized as men and women, but as Alphas, Omegas, and Betas. She could understand the literal meanings of those English words, but she had no idea why they were used to distinguish people's genders here.
From her adjutant, Gu Sijiu further learned that Alphas were equivalent to men in her original world, except Alphas included both females and males. Female Alphas possessed a male like reproductive organ, developed from the clitoris, called the first sexual organ. Alphas had powerful physiques and excelled in all physical aspects; they were the main strength of the empire, existences of tremendous power. They could mark multiple Omegas and could impregnate both Omegas and Betas.
Omegas, in turn, were equivalent to women, and they also included males. They were few in number, physically delicate, and possessed the ability to bear children. They could only be marked by a single Alpha, and once marked, their bodies would forever be loyal to that Alpha. They would only feel psychological and physiological needs, namely dependence and sexual desire, toward that Alpha.
Betas were the most numerous. They could neither mark Omegas nor be marked by Alphas, and both their conception and pregnancy rates were very low. Their pheromones were mostly mild, without strong aggressiveness or allure, and they could be found in every profession.
After chatting with the adjutant for a while, Gu Sijiu gradually understood how this world worked. She asked the other to bring a mirror, and when she saw the familiar face reflected there, she let out a small sigh of relief. This person was indeed herself. Though her hair color and a few small details differed, it was unmistakably the face she had looked at for twenty eight years. Apart from the hair color and the downgrade from a C cup to an A cup, the other differences were not significant for now.
"Major General, we have already notified the General and Madam about your car accident. They will be cutting their trip short and returning to see you shortly. Also, here are some recent work reports. They are urgent, so I must ask you to review them now." Although the adjutant did not understand why the Major General was asking so many random questions today, she had answered everything one by one. Gu Sijiu took the reports from her hands, but when she looked at them, she was completely lost. She had no grasp of those technical terms, energy, heavy mecha. Each character she read she recognized, but strung together they became gibberish.
To avoid exposing the abnormality, Gu Sijiu hummed lightly, pressed one hand to her head, supported herself at the waist with the other, and lay down, claiming she was tired and needed rest. She hurriedly flopped onto the bed. The adjutant watched her movements, slightly taken aback. She had a vague feeling that ever since the Major General woke from the car accident, she had inexplicably become... more alluring? Perhaps using such an adjective for an Alpha was inappropriate, but the adjutant simply felt that the Major General resembled those languid Omega noblewomen. That reclining posture just now, in particular, was positively exuding sensuality. The adjutant thought it terribly disrespectful to even think that and quickly shook her head to dispel the notion.
Once peace was restored, Gu Sijiu discovered that some memories that did not belong to her were surfacing in her mind. She surmised that these memories came from the Original Host of this body. There were not many, and they were fragmented. The person who appeared most frequently in them was the woman with the hostile expression from earlier in the hospital.
Her name was Song Jinzhi, and she was this body's...
Fiancee???
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