The news that the Yan Family’s Sixth Miss had returned from the dead spread swiftly throughout Shun Cheng and for a hundred li beyond.

Everyone said the Yan Family’s Sixth Miss had lost her footing, fallen into the lake, and drowned. Her body had been laid in a coffin for an entire day.

Yet before the lid of the coffin could be sealed, she suddenly sat upright, coughed out a mouthful of water from her stomach, and miraculously came back to life.

The young maidservant keeping vigil that night had been so terrified that she knocked over all the offerings. The girl was still dazed and confused even now.

Before long, however, someone in the know let it be known that the Yan Family’s Sixth Miss had merely had a mouthful of lake water lodged in her throat, temporarily cutting off her breathing. Once that water was expelled, she had simply come back to life.

This informant spoke with such certainty that it sounded like something witnessed firsthand.

But only Yan Qing herself knew the truth: there are no miracles of resurrection in this world. Once the airway is blocked, it takes only around ten minutes from the cessation of breathing to the stopping of the heart. This body had been lying in a coffin for an entire day after falling into the water and ceasing to breathe — it had been thoroughly, completely dead.

She was not the Yan Family’s Sixth Miss Yan Qing. She was simply a forensic examiner named Yan Qing who had happened to transmigrate here from another world.

“Miss, the Master has sent over so many tonics again. Even if you ate them every day, it would take years to finish them all.” The speaker was her personal maidservant, Jing Zhi — a short girl with a fair and delicate complexion, whose eyes always sparkled brightly.

Yan Qing was not without memories. Since she had awakened, two days had already passed, and in the quiet stillness as she lay there, she had carefully sorted through this body’s memories from beginning to end.

This place was neither ancient times nor the modern era — it was something resembling the Republican period of her own time, except that here, the nation was called Xin Guo.

The current year was Xin Guo 203, and the realm was divided among four powers.

Nan Di, Bei Di, Xi Nan, and Dong Nan were each controlled by their respective regional warlords. The city of Shun Cheng, where she now resided, was the economic and political center of the northern warlord faction — a faction whose supreme commander bore the surname Shi, the illustrious Shi Family.

By a curious coincidence, the body she had transmigrated into also bore the name Yan Qing, and the two of them even shared the same face.

“This bird’s nest was sent from Si Yitai’s quarters, this shortbread is from Er Yitai, and even Madam herself sent over two boxes of snow jelly…”

Jing Zhi was a chatterbox who kept talking on and on without pause.

At the mention of snow jelly, Yan Qing couldn’t help but feel a flicker of amusement. Everyone knew snow jelly was a nutritious tonic, but few knew it was simply the fallopian tubes of the Chinese forest frog. Thinking in ways others didn’t was probably just an occupational quirk of being a doctor.

Seeing that she seemed interested, Jing Zhi brought one of the boxes over and placed it in her hands.

Yan Qing understood perfectly well that the tonics sent from the various households weren’t out of any genuine concern for her wellbeing. That show of courtesy was entirely on account of the Yan Family’s patriarch.

Her mother, Wen Wan, had been the third concubine of the Yan Family patriarch — and the only woman he had ever truly loved. But fate had been cruel to such beauty: she had hanged herself when Yan Qing was still an infant in swaddling clothes.

Devastated by the loss of his beloved, the patriarch had transferred all his love and guilt onto Yan Qing.

And so, even though the Yan Family’s Sixth Miss was merely a concubine’s daughter born outside of the legitimate line, her standing within the Yan household far exceeded that of the daughters born to the principal wife.

But where there is someone who dotes on you, there will naturally be someone who resents you — such as the eldest daughter by the principal wife, Fifth Miss Yan Qin, who now walked straight in without even knocking.

“Well, look at that — you fake your death once and come away with all these fine things.” Yan Qin was dressed in a knee-length georgette dress the color of cream, her hair styled in the fashionable bubble-curl without a fringe. Her looks bore five or six parts resemblance to her mother, Madam Yan, and her almond-shaped eyes were particularly captivating.

She fixed her gaze on the snow jelly in Yan Qing’s hands and snatched it away in one swift motion. “My mother’s good things — do you think you deserve these?”

Jing Zhi couldn’t bear to watch. She was just about to speak up when Yan Qin shot her a glare that sent her stumbling back several steps in fright.

Yan Qin then swept up six or seven more items and had the maidservant at her side carry them away. After casting a glance around and finding nothing else to interest her, she left in a huff.

“Fifth Miss has gone too far — what’s the difference between her and a bandit? We really should tell the Master.” Jing Zhi tidied up the overturned vase, her face flushed red with indignation. But these words were nothing more than a few grievances she could only mutter to herself — there was nothing she could actually do about it.

No matter how outrageous Fifth Miss behaved, their own young miss was always meek and submissive, allowing herself to be bullied without ever daring to talk back, let alone go complain to the Master.

Not that one could entirely blame Sixth Miss for it. After all, she had lost her mother at such a young age, and besides, she was also…

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