Chapter 1 - There Is No Better, Only Worse (1)

When her new Mother stood by the door of the house, Sheng Jiaoyang felt her heart crumble.

Once the grey door was pushed open, the inside of the house was so simple and crude that she could never have imagined it. In a corner of the room, there stood a bed that was less than 1.5 meters long, with a dull wardrobe beside the bed head. In the opposite corner, there was a wooden table with two plastic stools. Further inside, there was a narrow hallway which lead to the kitchen and a toilet.

In fact, from the beginning, she had accepted that she"d now changed into another person and had pushed aside her pride to ask about the rough circ.u.mstances of this new ident.i.ty.

As a single parent family, all expenses at home relied on Xu Qing"s meagre wages.

Xu Qing was her new Mother, while her name was now Xu Jiaojiao.

While she"d been aware that this family was poor, when she saw it for the first time, she realised that this family was more unfortunate than she"d thought. In fact, they were so impoverished that she found it hard to accept!

She was in a trance for a long time until she heard the sound of a door closing, leaving only herself in the room. It wasn"t until then that Sheng Jiaoyang returned to her senses.

While her mind had been wandering, her new Mother had already done a series of things like cooking, laundry, and mopping the floors. She had also arranged two bowls of untouched dishes and a pair of chopsticks on the table. And at this moment, Xu Qing was already on her way to work.

"Jiaojiao, Mother has to go to work, so sleep after you finish your meal," she vaguely remembered as the words Xu Qing had said before she left.

Sheng Jiaoyang propped her chin on her hand, and lowering her eyes, she looked down at the two measly bowls of food and sighed.

The day when she finally dies, it"ll absolutely be because of starvation!

With a bitter expression on her face, Sheng Jiaoyang put down her chopsticks and made her way to the bed. Grabbing the backpack that she"d brought back with her from the hospital, she flipped it upside-down to empty its contents. Landing on the bed with a thud was a cell phone, a wallet, keys, and a handful of miscellaneous items.

Picking up the phone, wallet, and keys, she turned around and left the room.

She first had to find a trade office to recharge her phone credit. After she had discovered that she"d become another person, she had attempted to contact the relative she trusted the most; her Grandfather. Unfortunately, after the car accident that evening, her Grandfather had taken her original body abroad to receive medical treatment. If she wanted to contact her Grandfather, she first had to go through his Personal a.s.sistant, Uncle Zeng. Fortunately, she often used to call Uncle Zeng, so she clearly remembered his number. Yet once she called Uncle Zeng, not only did he refuse to pa.s.s the phone to her Grandfather, he also hung up on her! After that, her cell phone appeared to be out of credit and was no longer able to make calls. Therefore, before she did anything else, she needed to have a working phone.

Walking down streets filled with nothing but junk for sale, Sheng Jiaoyang felt like she was living in a nightmare. A few days ago she was still enthusiastically driving her sports car to catch her Younger Sister having an affair, but now she"d become a poor girl living in low-rent housing. She even had to personally go to a post office to recharge her phone credit!

The affairs of the world were unpredictable!

These last few years she"d especially avoided stimulating circ.u.mstances and had been living like an ordinary person. Unfortunately, even though she"d been living so peacefully for so long, she never would"ve guessed that after slamming on the brakes that she would unexpectedly have a heart attack without any warning signs.

What was most unexpected though, was that she"d woken up in another person"s body!

Without noticing when, Sheng Jiaoyang had already arrived in front of the building that the post office was located in. When she"d gone home with Xu Qing, she"d noticed that there was a post office near the bus station where prepaid calls could be made from. Luckily, the place where they lived was only about a five minutes walk up the street from the bus station.

Since it was hot in the afternoon, there weren"t any people walking around on the footpaths, and there was only one female clerk inside the post office who was clearly eating her lunch.

"h.e.l.lo! How do you recharge phone credit?" Sheng Jiaoyang asked as she walked over.

The clerk looked up and replied, "How much do you want to charge it with? Currently, if you fill it with one hundred dollars, you receive a free gift."

Sheng Jiaoyang opened her purse and silently withdrew...ten dollars.

"..." The clerk"s eyes glanced back and forth between the phone held in Sheng Jiaoyang"s left hand, and the banknote gripped in her right hand.

Sheng Jiaoyang bowed her head as she looked at her phone. Truthfully, she"d also felt that it was bizarre. They were immensely poor, yet Xu Jiaojiao could use a cell phone model that was worth several hundred dollars.

Moments later, Sheng Jiaoyang left the post office under the clerk"s strange gaze, holding a now charged cell phone.

The suns.h.i.+ne outside may have been dazzling, but inside, her heart was terribly gloomy.

She"d only noticed a moment ago that the remaining money in her small purse could easily be counted by hand; the largest banknote being the ten dollars that she"d used to charge her cell phone, while the rest were just a few one dollar notes.

Now, these few dollars were all she had left.

What could a few dollars buy?

A wealthy miss, who"d never before lacked money, was now absently wandering the streets; wholly overwhelmed and embarra.s.sed by the change in her ident.i.ty.

Previously, whenever she went out, someone would follow her everywhere and attend to her every need.

Previously, she"d used the best tools to paint and had learnt from a famous master.

Previously, her outfits would be of the highest thread count, her car scented with an expensive perfume, the best wines to drink, and with a wave of her hand, the most exquisite food would appear before her.

Previously, she could do whatever she liked without a care in the world…

And now, she was left holding a few dollars while standing at a traffic intersection, realising that without her original ident.i.ty she couldn"t do anything.