The dull thud against her skull came with a rusty taste flooding her mouth, and Vivian Ashford’s first thought was that a shelf of lab reagents had collapsed.
But there was no familiar smell of disinfectant. What hit her nose instead was cheap face powder mixed with the sickly sweetness of wedding cakes made with brown sugar. In her ear, a shrill, fake sob kept whining, "Sis, how could you be so foolish? If you didn’t want to marry Nathan, you could’ve just said so. Why smash your head against the wall..."
Someone was pressing hard on the back of her neck, vicious enough to grind her skull right into the wall.
The instinct to survive cut through the haze. Almost on reflex, Vivian drove her elbow backward, hard and exact, straight into the ribs of whoever was behind her. The moment the grip loosened from pain, she braced herself on the floor, twisted around, and swept a kick into the person’s shin.
"Ow!"
The cry burst out with the sound of a body hitting the floor. Then came a sharp crash—a red thermos had been knocked over. Scalding water spilled everywhere, mixed with shattered glass, splashing all over that person.
The room went dead quiet.
Vivian steadied herself against the wall and slowly stood up. Blood from her temple slid down along her brow bone, smearing over one eye.
She narrowed her eyes and looked around. A red wooden cabinet with peeling paint. Gaudy red double-happiness paper pasted on the wall. A coarse cloth rug on the floor, worn until it had gone fuzzy. The room was packed with people in synthetic shirts and blue cloth jackets, all staring at her with mouths hanging open like they’d just seen a ghost.
That was when the unfamiliar memories forced their way into her mind, coming in with the pain and piecing themselves together like shards: the 1980s, the Ashford family courtyard, today was the original Vivian’s wedding day. Her stepsister Miranda Ashford had been lusting after her future brother-in-law. Taking advantage of a moment alone, she’d pinned Vivian against the wall and smashed her to death, then planned to tell everyone she had tried to kill herself because she didn’t want to get married.
And she—Vivian Ashford, a special operations researcher from the twenty-first century—had only closed her eyes after staying up late to finish the last batch of data, and somehow fallen into the period novel she’d just finished reading last night. She had become this cannon-fodder original wife who shared her exact name and died on her wedding day.
The person on the floor was being helped up. It was the original owner’s precious little stepsister, the heroine of the book, Miranda Ashford.
Half her skirt was soaked. She held her stomach, face pale as paper. When she saw Vivian standing there steady and upright, her eyes went wide and round, and she forgot to even fake the next sob. "Y-you... how..."
She had clearly used all her strength to force this bitch’s head into the wall. Even she had been rattled by those heavy bangs. So how was this woman not dead? How was she standing there like nothing had happened, after kicking her too?
"What, surprised I’m not dead?" Vivian lifted a hand and wiped the blood from her temple. Her fingertips came away red. She tugged at the corner of her mouth, but her eyes were cold as ice. "Miranda Ashford, your little act hasn’t even properly started, and it’s already fallen apart. That performance was pathetic."
"What nonsense are you talking about!" Miranda’s eyes reddened at once. She shrank back and slipped neatly behind a man in military uniform.
He stood straight as a ramrod, shoulder insignia gleaming. It was Nathan Caldwell, the original owner’s fiancé.
His brows were knotted tight. He first glanced down at the wet hem of Miranda’s skirt, then looked up at Vivian. His voice was full of open reproach. "Vivian Ashford, are you done making a scene? Miranda was only trying to help you up. How could you hit her that hard?"
Vivian almost laughed.
Trying to help her? By holding her head and slamming it into the wall? It was bad enough that this man had his eyes growing on the top of his head—who would’ve thought his heart was crooked too?
She lifted a hand and pointed at the blood still running down her forehead. Her voice wasn’t loud, but every word carried clean across the room. “Comrade Caldwell, all you can see is her wet skirt, but you can’t see the blood on my head running down half my face? You call that helping me? Since when does ‘helping’ mean pinning somebody against a wall and smashing their head into it?”
A few neighbors crowded by the doorway couldn’t hold back their snickers.
Nathan Caldwell’s face darkened. “You were the one who ran into the wall because you couldn’t think straight. Miranda tried to stop you and couldn’t. You’ve always been stubborn. How are you blaming somebody else now?”
“I ran into the wall myself?” Vivian Ashford looked like she’d just heard the biggest joke in the world. She took two steps forward, stopped right in front of Nathan Caldwell, and lifted her chin at him. “Nathan Caldwell, with eyesight like yours, you’ve still got the nerve to show up as the groom? Why don’t you go ask the commune if they’ll rate you visually impaired? Maybe you can draw a monthly allowance while you’re at it.”
“You—” Nathan Caldwell was so angry his chest rose and fell hard. He had never seen Vivian Ashford this sharp-tongued. The old Vivian Ashford had always been dull and quiet, head lowered whenever she saw him. Since when had she dared speak to him like this?
Seeing that, Miranda Ashford immediately pinched her own thigh. Tears started pouring down. She tugged lightly on Nathan Caldwell’s sleeve and gave it a small shake. “Brother Nathan, don’t be mad at my sister. It’s my fault. I didn’t hold on to her... it’s all because of me. If only I’d used a little more strength, my sister wouldn’t have been hurt...”
She sounded so wronged, like she’d suffered some huge injustice.
Nathan Caldwell’s heart softened at once. The more he looked at Vivian Ashford, the more unreasonable she seemed. He pointed at her, his tone turning even harsher. “Vivian Ashford, look at how sensible Miranda is! Not only are you not grateful, you’re slandering her too! I’m telling you, today you will apologize to Miranda, or this marriage—”
“Or this marriage is off?” Vivian Ashford cut in and let out a cold laugh. “That’s convenient. I was just about to say the same thing. A man with bad eyes and an even worse head? I’m not interested in marrying you either.”
Nathan Caldwell choked on that for a second, then his anger surged even higher. He stepped forward and grabbed Vivian Ashford by the wrist, squeezing so hard it felt like he meant to crush the bones. “You still dare talk back? You really don’t know what’s good for you.”
He trained year-round and had tremendous grip strength. If it had been the old Vivian Ashford, she would’ve been crying from the pain by now.
But who was Vivian Ashford?
In her last life, she could go hand-to-hand with top special forces men and come out even. This bit of force was nothing.
She didn’t struggle. Instead, she suddenly looked past Nathan Caldwell’s shoulder and cried out, “Watch out! The thermos shards are splashing at your face!”
Nathan Caldwell instinctively turned to look.
That one second was enough.
Vivian Ashford twisted her wrist and slipped his force aside in one smooth motion. At the same time, her right knee shot up hard and struck him squarely below the stomach.
“Ugh—!”
The pain exploded through his whole body in an instant. Nathan Caldwell’s face went white. His hand loosened at once, and he doubled over as he staggered back. Cold sweat rolled down from his jaw, and for a long moment he couldn’t even catch his breath.
Vivian Ashford pulled her hand back and wiped it on her clothes in disgust. “I told you not to touch me. You deaf or what?”
Everyone in the room was stunned silly. No one had expected the usually meek and obedient eldest daughter of the Ashford family to actually dare hit Nathan Caldwell, a soldier, like that.
Vivian Ashford ignored all their staring. She turned to Miranda Ashford, whose face had gone pale, and said each word slowly and clearly, her voice bright enough to carry all the way into the yard outside. “And another thing. Stop calling me ‘sister’ like we’re close. My mother died long ago. Your mother climbed into this house as the other woman, and you’re nothing but baggage she dragged in. What makes you think you’re qualified to claim kin with me?”
Those words hit like a thunderclap, and the whole courtyard blew up at once.
"Good Lord! So Adelaide Hawthorne really was the other woman?"
"I knew something was off. Vivian's mother died so sudden back then—turns out that mother and daughter pair drove her to it!"
"No wonder Miranda Ashford was in such a hurry to steal her own sister's man. Like mother, like daughter!"
The gossip came at Miranda like a shower of needles. Her face turned white as paper. She shrilled, "That's nonsense! You're slandering my mother! Nathan Caldwell, you have to believe me, it wasn't like that..."
Gritting through the pain, Nathan Caldwell forced himself upright. When he looked at Vivian Ashford, his eyes were full of fury. "Vivian Ashford! You're vicious! Auntie Ashford has always been a decent woman, and Miranda is innocent and kind. How could you make up something like this just to ruin their name? Fine, you want to call off the marriage, then do it. But now you're throwing filth at other people too—you..."
"I'm throwing filth?" Vivian lifted a brow, her tone cool. "Whether it's filth or the truth, go ask Auntie Thornton and Uncle Prescott at the mouth of the alley. Ask them how your so-called kind Auntie Ashford walked right into my home while my mother was still pregnant."
Nathan Caldwell choked on that. His face went greenish-dark, and all he could do was stand there breathing hard.
Seeing things slipping out of control, Miranda Ashford cried even harder. She rushed to Nathan Caldwell's side and sobbed, "Nathan Caldwell, don't be angry. It's my fault. I shouldn't have come... If Sister really can't stand me, then I'll leave..."
As she spoke, she made a show of turning to go, but her body went limp and soft, leaning straight into Nathan Caldwell's arms.
Nathan Caldwell quickly reached out to catch her. He was all heartache and anger now, lowering his head to comfort the girl in his arms, not even noticing Vivian Ashford across from him.
A sharp cold light flashed through Vivian Ashford's eyes.
Now.
