Chapter 1: I Died Cracking My Neck!
"Don’t even think about leaving the office today if you haven’t finished this report!"
The chief manager leaned to her ear and whispered, "You know... if I report you to the higher ups, you will end up losing this job."
The chief manager glared at Wang Gege as though she had an upper hand.
Honestly, she wasn’t a pushover and wasn’t easily intimidated, but ever since the chief manager saw her with the new CEO three days ago, she had been targeting her relentlessly.
And this CEO who had her in this deep shit was suddenly away for a business trip that exact day.
Worried about their relationship being exposed and her job being ruined, Wang Gege simply played along.
And now, this was her third day camping in the office. Her eyes no longer seemed capable of feeling anything and her brain felt completely short-circuited.
The numbers on the screen blurred together. The words in the report looked more and more like an alien language she had never learned before.
She blinked slowly, then blinked again, still gibberish.
At this point, if someone told her that two plus two equaled five, she would probably nod and agree. After all, arguing requires brain cells.
The office had long since emptied out. Only the sound of keyboards and the occasional hum of the air conditioner remained.
Wang Gege stretched her stiff shoulders and glanced at the clock in the corner of her monitor.
"Ah... two in the morning already? I should be out enjoying my Friday night at this hour..."
She sighed and tilted her head, cracking her neck as she usually did to ease the stiffness.
But this time, something felt wrong.
A sharp pain exploded through the back of her head and her vision instantly blurred.
The monitor in front of her tilted sideways or maybe not, perhaps she was the one falling.
"Wang Gege!"
At that moment, she could hear someone shouting her name but the voice sounded distant as if it were coming from the other end of a long tunnel.
And at that right second, darkness swallowed everything.
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The first thing Wang Gege heard when her brain finally functioned again, was the sound of people crying.
The second thing she noticed was the overwhelming smell of medicine.
Although she tried hard to open her eyes, her eyelids felt unusually heavy. When she finally forced them open, an unfamiliar canopy filled her vision.
The carved wooden beams above her were nothing like the ceiling of her apartment. Nor were they part of the office.
For a moment, she simply stared blankly at those ceilings above her.
Had she been sent to a hospital?
But those canopies certainly didn’t look like any hospital she had ever seen.
An afterlife, perhaps?
But then a maid’s terrified scream suddenly pierced the room.
"The Second Miss has awakened!"
Before Wang Gege could recover from the maid’s scream, a series of hurried footsteps echoed from outside.
One after another, they rushed toward the room.
The previously quiet atmosphere instantly turned chaotic.
"The Second Miss is awake!"
"Quick! Inform Madam!"
"Call the physician!"
The voices overlapped with one another.
Wang Gege slowly turned her head weakly toward the source of the commotion. The simple movement nearly exhausted her.
A group of people dressed in ancient clothing rushed into the room.
The woman in front looked to be in her forties. The moment she saw Wang Gege looking at her, her eyes immediately reddened.
"Taotao!"
The woman hurried to the bedside and grabbed her hand, "You finally woke up."
"Taotao?" She mouthed the name because her throat was too dry to make a sound.
Even before Wang Gege could react, several more people crowded around the bed.
Most of them looked relieved to see her awake, while a few seemed shocked.
But Wang Gege’s attention was quickly drawn to a young woman standing among them.
The woman’s face had turned deathly pale, and the way she was staring at Wang Gege... It was almost as if she couldn’t believe Wang Gege was still alive.
"H-how?"
Wang Gege could clearly read that word from the woman’s trembling lips.
The hand holding hers suddenly tightened. The woman sitting beside the bed looked as though she might burst into tears again at any moment.
"Physician!" she called out anxiously. "Quickly, come and check on Taotao."
The crowd immediately parted.
An elderly physician carrying a medicine box hurried forward.
"Please make way."
He sat beside the bed and gently placed two fingers on Wang Gege’s wrist.
The room gradually fell silent. Everyone watched nervously.
Even the pale-faced woman lowered her head and twisted her handkerchief tightly between her fingers.
After what felt like an eternity, the physician finally withdrew his hand.
"How is she?" the woman beside the bed asked immediately.
The physician stroked his beard.
"The Second Miss’s pulse is still weak, but it has stabilized considerably. Since she has awakened, her life is no longer in danger."
The woman visibly relaxed.
The tension in the room instantly disappeared as several people let out relieved sighs.
"Then..." She tightened her grip around Wang Gege’s hand. "Can she still complete the marriage rites today?"
The physician glanced at Wang Gege before nodding, "With assistance, she should be able to."
The woman finally let out the breath she had been holding, "Good."
Wang Gege blinked, ’Marriage rites?’
"You two..." The woman turned toward the maids waiting nearby. "Get Taotao ready at once."
"Yes, Madam."
The two maids immediately stepped forward.
By the time Wang Gege realized what was happening, they had already slipped their arms beneath hers and carefully helped her sit up.
A wave of dizziness hit her instantly and the room spun for a moment before finally settling.
"Slowly, Second Miss."
"Be careful."
The maids fussed around her while adjusting the blankets that had fallen from her shoulders.
Meanwhile, Wang Gege sat there blinking like a confused owl. Her gaze slowly swept across the room.
The carved wooden furniture, the embroidered curtains, the women dressed in flowing ancient robes, and the physician carrying his medicine box.
The maids called her "Second Miss."
But she couldn’t care less.
Because at this moment, everything around her felt strangely familiar and a strange feeling started to creep into her heart.
This... This felt exactly like one of those historical short dramas she had binge-watched a week ago.
The kind where the female lead woke up in ancient times, got dragged into a marriage she knew nothing about, and spent the next eighty episodes slapping villains in the face.
Then a sharp voice suddenly rang through the room.
"Mother! No—I won’t marry that blind Xie Rong!"