"The surgery was successful."
Annie removed her mask and said wearily to Lu Qianqian.
"The shrapnel... it's all been removed."
"It didn't damage any vital organs."
"She is very lucky."
"And also... incredibly tough."
"Her physical constitution is the best I've ever seen."
Hearing Annie's words, Lu Qianqian's tense body gradually relaxed.
She nearly collapsed to the floor.
"Can I... go see her now?" she asked.
"Of course," Annie nodded.
"But she's still under anesthesia and needs quiet."
Ji Wushuang was transferred to a private room.
Lu Qianqian walked into the ward.
She looked at Ji Wushuang lying on the bed, her face as pale as paper.
Her tears could no longer be held back and streamed down.
But this time, she made no sound.
She simply sat quietly by the bedside.
Then, she began to study frantically.
She found the hospital nurses, asking for instruction on various first aid knowledge.
From how to bandage a wound, to how to measure vital signs.
She found a thick copy of The Field Survival Manual and began studying it earnestly.
She vowed never to let what happened today repeat itself.
Never to let herself become a burden to anyone again.
Ji Wushuang woke up on the third day.
Ji Wushuang, true to her name meaning "Peerless."
Lucky and tough.
When she opened her eyes, she didn't see the white ceiling.
Instead, she saw a face etched with exhaustion and worry, yet utterly focused.
Lu Qianqian was holding a medical notebook she had procured from somewhere.
Reading it while softly murmuring something.
"...Shock index equals heart rate divided by systolic pressure. Normal value is 0.5; greater than 1 indicates shock..."
Her voice was very soft, still carrying a hint of hoarseness.
Yet, this voice felt like a warm current flowing into Ji Wushuang's heart.
"Water..."
Ji Wushuang uttered a faint syllable.
Lu Qianqian's head snapped up, seeing Ji Wushuang's open eyes.
Her eyes instantly reddened.
But she didn't cry.
She just quickly pressed the call button.
Then, picked up a cotton swab, dipped it in water.
And carefully moistened Ji Wushuang's parched lips.
Her movements were clumsy, but very gentle, very soft.
Ji Wushuang looked at her, at this girl who seemed reborn in just a few days.
Her eyes no longer held the spoiled willfulness from their first meeting.
Nor the fear she had faced danger with.
All that remained was a settled resilience and sense of responsibility.
Ji Wushuang wanted to say "thank you" to her.
But in the end, only two words came out.
"Not bad."
Lu Qianqian was taken aback for a moment, then, she smiled.
...
Time passed, several more months.
The gunfire and explosions of Country K seemed like a distant memory.
This was Country T.
A country whose name was hard to find even on a map.
Red earth and a scorching sun seemed to be the eternal themes here.
At a dusty temporary medical camp.
Several large white tents stood lonely on the barren plain.
This was another aid station for "Doctors Without Borders."
Lu Qianqian was crouched in the shade of a tent.
She wore a volunteer T-shirt.
She was changing the dressing on a little girl's arm wound.
Her movements were no longer as clumsy as before.
They were skilled and gentle.
Sweat dampened the hair on her forehead, sticking to her cheeks.
Her skin was tanned a healthy honey color.
A few smudges of dust still clung to her face.
Those eyes that once only showed willfulness and confusion now held only focus and calm.
She was a completely different person from the exquisitely doll-like young lady of a few months prior.
The little girl was very well-behaved, not crying or fussing.
Just staring at her with big, clear black-and-white eyes, full of curiosity.
"All done."
Lu Qianqian tied the final knot.
She looked up and gave the little girl a gentle smile.
She took a piece of candy from her pocket.
And handed it over.
The little girl happily accepted it.
In the local dialect, she whispered, "Thank you."
Lu Qianqian smiled and patted her head.
After completing the research in Country K, her and Ji Wushuang's footsteps began appearing all over the world.
From war-torn borders to plague-ridden villages.
From drought-cracked deserts to flood-swept river valleys.
She had seen too much death.
And also too many resilient lives struggling to survive amidst hardship.
She was no longer afraid, nor confused.
She had found something more important than the identity of "the Lu family heiress."
Just then.
Ji Wushuang walked quickly to her side.
She handed over a satellite phone.
On the screen was a piece of news from back home.
"Qianqian, take a look at this."
Lu Qianqian, somewhat puzzled, took the phone.
When her eyes fell upon the headline, bolded and enlarged in bright red font.
She felt as if struck by lightning.
[Shocking Secret! The Inside Story of the Eighteen-Year True and False Heiress Saga in the Top-Tier Lu Family, A Meticulously Orchestrated Life Swap!]
Buzz—!
Lu Qianqian's mind went completely blank.
She felt the whole world spinning.
She couldn't make out the dense text in the report.
But those few key phrases were exceptionally glaring.
"Cuckoo occupying the magpie's nest."
"Liu Mei's daughter."
"Deceived for eighteen years."
Her body began to tremble uncontrollably.
She wasn't the Lu family's daughter?
She was the daughter of that woman—Liu Mei—who had destroyed her family?
So, everything she had possessed for the past eighteen years.
Her father's affection, her mother's doting, her brothers' indulgence...
All of it was a lie?
A life she had stolen from someone else?
A massive wave of humiliation and absurdity threatened to drown her.
She instinctively wanted to scream.
To burst into loud sobs.
To immediately return to Jingzhou and confront everyone!
But when her gaze swept around.
Seeing those children still striving to live on this barren land.
Seeing those international doctors still standing firm at their posts under harsh conditions.
Seeing the steadfast Ji Wushuang beside her, always protecting her...
A completely different emotion slowly overwhelmed the shame and panic about to erupt.
She remembered many things.
Remembered her eldest brother's almost cold attitude towards her over the past six months or so.
Remembered the "Young Leaders Independence Plan" her eldest brother had forced her to join.
Remembered the words her eldest brother had said to her when seeing her off at the airport.
"Qianqian, the value of a life never depends on where you stand, but on where you look."
"I hope you can find the sky that truly belongs to you."
At the time, she hadn't fully understood her brother's deeper meaning.
Only at this moment did she awaken as if from a dream.
Instantly, she understood all of her eldest brother's struggles!
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
world slacker. But a genius female disciple just had to get clingy, insisting that he take her as a disciple. Not only that, she was always making advances on him, thoroughly disrupting his peaceful slacker life...
e, Immortal Body, Transmigration, System, Progression Fantasy, Academy Setting, Third-Person Perspective. Alternate Title: Transmigrating into a High Martial World and Reading Live Comments. Bad news: I transmigrated. This is a terrifying high-martial world, and my original, pathetically weak body fell into a coma and never woke up. Good news: I got a Popularity Points system upon arrival. I can see live comments and even create an unkillable alternate identity. Starting out, the alternate identity has all stats at 1. The system tells me that to grow stronger, I must participate in the plot, gain popularity points to allocate stats and grow stronger, and ultimately awaken my original body. And so, carrying my original body on my back, I officially entered Huaqing Academy, where the story's protagonist resides. From that moment on, Chen Guan kicked the original plot to pieces. Live Comments: [Doesn't anyone find this mysterious coffin guy creepy? He can summon indescribable grey misty hands.] [Is this guy a hero or a villain? What kind of onion became a spirit?] [By the way, does anyone know who's in the coffin? Shouldn't the debt for saving his life be repaid by now?] [According to unofficial histories, the person in the coffin was Chen Guan's first love. Their love was once passionate and earth-shattering, but they were separated by life and death due to worldly circumstances. What a star-crossed pair.] ... Years later, the world knew of a demon god born from a coffin, shrouded in grey mist, impossible to gaze upon directly. His foremost divine emissary often wielded a scythe, reaping lives like the god of death. As war approached, facing former friends and a boundless sea of enemies, Chen Guan merely raised his scythe. "Would you like to dance as well?"
