Chapter 1: There is No Worst, Only Worse

When standing at the doorstep with her new mother, Sheng Jiaoyang felt like she was having a mental breakdown.

The heavy, dull gray door was pushed open, revealing an interior so crude she couldn't have imagined it—a bed measuring less than 1.5 meters was tucked against a corner, a simple cloth wardrobe stood beside the head of the bed, and in another corner sat a wooden table and two plastic stools. Further in, a narrow balcony connected to the kitchen and the toilet.

In truth, from the moment she accepted that she had become someone else, she had been subtly asking around to get a general idea of this new identity.

A single-parent household, where all the family expenses were supported solely by Xu Qing's meager wages.

Xu Qing was her new mother. And her current name was Xu Jiaojiao.

She knew this family was poor, but seeing it in person, she realized it was even poorer than she had imagined—so poor it was difficult to accept.

She drifted in a daze for a long time, and it wasn't until the sound of the door closing echoed through the room, leaving her all alone, that Sheng Jiaoyang finally snapped back to reality.

While she had been lost in thought, her new mother had already completed a series of tasks: cooking, washing clothes, and mopping the floor. Two bowls of food sat on the table, barely touched, and by now, Xu Qing was already on her way to work.

"Jiaojiao, Mama is going to work. Get some sleep after you finish eating." She vaguely remembered Xu Qing saying something like that before leaving.

Sheng Jiaoyang propped her chin on her hand, looked down at the two unappetizing bowls of food, and sighed.

If she really died one day, it would definitely be from starvation!

With a bitter expression, Sheng Jiaoyang put down her chopsticks and walked to the bedside to rummage through the backpack she had brought back from the hospital. She pulled out tissues, a phone, a coin purse, keys, and a bunch of other miscellaneous items.

After picking out the phone, wallet, and keys, she turned and walked out of the room.

She had to find a service hall to top up her phone credit. After discovering she had become someone else, she had attempted to contact her closest relative, her maternal grandfather, but on the night of the car accident, her grandfather had taken her original body abroad for medical treatment. To contact him, she first had to get past his personal assistant, Uncle Zeng. Fortunately, she had called Uncle Zeng frequently in the past and remembered his number. However, while the call went through, Uncle Zeng not only refused to transfer the call to her grandfather but hung up on her directly. Then, her phone ran out of credit and was suspended, making it impossible to make any more calls. Therefore, she had to ensure her phone service remained active first before she could make any further plans.

Walking along the narrow alley filled with clutter toward the street, Sheng Jiaoyang felt as if she were experiencing a nightmare. Just a few days ago, she was a young lady driving a sports car, excitedly heading out to "catch a cheating spouse"; now, she had become a poor girl living in low-rent housing who had to go to a service hall in person just to top up her phone.

How fickle is life!

Over the years, she had specifically avoided stimulating activities and lived like a normal person, enjoying a peaceful life. Who could have known that after she slammed on her brakes, her heart condition would trigger without any warning?

Even more unexpected was that she could actually wake up in someone else's body.

Unknowingly, Sheng Jiaoyang arrived at the entrance of a service hall. When she had followed Xu Qing back earlier, she had noticed a service hall near the bus stop that could be used to top up phone credit, and their place was about a five-minute walk from the bus stop.

On this hot afternoon, there weren't many people on the street, and there was only one female clerk in the service hall, who was currently eating.

"Hello, how do I top up my phone credit?" Sheng Jiaoyang walked up.

The clerk looked up and asked, "How much do you want to top up? If you top up a hundred right now, you'll get a free gift."

Sheng Jiaojang flipped through her coin purse and silently pulled out... a 10-yuan bill.

"..." The clerk's gaze darted back and forth between the phone in Sheng Jiaoyang's left hand and the banknote held in her right.

Sheng Jiaoyang looked down at her phone. Actually, she also found it strange; how could the very poor Xu Jiaojiao afford a phone model that sold for several thousand yuan in this country?

A moment later, holding a phone with just over one yuan of credit remaining, Sheng Jiaoyang walked out of the service hall under the clerk's strange gaze.

The sun was bright outside, but her heart felt very dark.

She had just checked; the money in her small coin purse was countable on one hand. The largest denomination was actually that ten-yuan bill she had just used to top up her phone; the rest were just a few one-yuan bills.

Now, she only had a few yuan left on her.

What could a few yuan do?

The once-wealthy Miss Sheng, who had never lacked money, wandered the streets in a state of desolation. This subversive change in identity left her at a loss.

In the past, whenever she went out, people were there to attend to her every need.

In the past, she used the best tools for her painting and studied under top-tier masters.

In the past, her outfits never cost less than five figures; luxury cars, fine wine, and delicacies were always at her beck and call.

In the past, she could recklessly do anything she liked...

But now, clutching a few yuan, she stood at a busy intersection amidst the flow of traffic, realizing that stripped of her original identity, she could do nothing.

Suddenly, a crisp phone ring sounded.

Sheng Jiaoyang froze. Seeing an unmarked number on the screen, she hesitated but eventually answered.

"Hello?"

"Jiaojiao, your admission notice arrived at the school yesterday. Your phone has been unreachable for the past two days. Remember to keep your phone active in the future, otherwise, it won't be good if you miss important information. Anyway, come to the school. I'll be in the office for the next few days."

"...Oh."

After the call ended, Sheng Jiaoyang suddenly realized a very serious problem: she had no idea which school Xu Jiaojiao had graduated from.

Her only option was to return to her place of residence to see if she could find any useful information.

After turning the room—which was less than twenty square meters—upside down, Sheng Jiaoyang was puzzled to find that she couldn't find anything related to school. Forget a diary; there wasn't even a trace of textbooks or homework.

This room was indeed too small, but it was truly incomprehensible that a student's living space had no books!

After searching for a long time without finding the information she wanted, she had instead broken into a sweat. Sheng Jiaoyang felt like she was losing it. For a moment, she even thought about causing another car accident to see if she could change back, but it was only a fleeting thought; ultimately, she didn't dare to gamble on such a possibility.

Opening the wardrobe, Sheng Jiaoyang silently critiqued the original owner's taste. After picking through the clothes, she selected a white T-shirt without any messy patterns, tossed the loose, baggy casual pants aside, and found a pair of capri jeans.

With a few snips of the scissors, the T-shirt and jeans were transformed.

The high-round-neck T-shirt now had a curved cutout at the neckline, the hem was shortened, and she had left wide, half-finger-length tassels. The capri jeans had been turned directly into denim shorts.

As for the undergarments, she had asked Xu Qing to buy new ones while she was in the hospital. She absolutely could not tolerate using someone else's intimate clothing, even if that "someone else" was the original owner of the body.

It wasn't until she reached the bathroom that she discovered the place was so crude that there wasn't even... a water heater!

Sheng Jiaoyang nearly went mad. This place challenged her endurance at every turn; every time she thought things were at their worst, she discovered something even worse.

On the grayish-white wall, a half-meter-high mirror reflected Sheng Jiaoyang's current frustrated expression. Beneath thick bangs was a beautiful face: large eyes with curved lashes, a high nose bridge, and pink lips. Her face shape was extremely similar to Xu Qing's—small, though her chin wasn't as sharp as Xu Qing's due to some baby fat on her cheeks.

Sheng Jiaoyang squinted at her current appearance in the mirror, raising her hand to dismissively brush back her bangs. Although her looks were decent, her hairstyle had already ruined half her image; the other half was ruined by the original owner's nearsightedness. She should have had dazzling, captivating eyes, but because of her vision, she had to squint to see things.

If there was one thing that satisfied her, it was the body. It was healthy and tall—two qualities she had always longed for. If she had Xu Jiaojiao's height, she wouldn't need to wear sky-high heels. She remembered when she, a petite girl just over 1.6 meters, had entered a circle of tall foreign girls; she had been frequently looked down upon by those girls who were very exclusionary regarding height.

Thinking of those various sarcastic remarks, Sheng Jiaoyang still felt annoyed even now. One could imagine how infuriated she must have been back then. As someone who took great care of her reputation, she naturally couldn't let that anger fester in her heart—it would be bad for her health. Since height was an unchangeable fact, she would start from other areas—academics, connections, taste, and other aspects—to ruthlessly surpass them. Watching them feel various shades of envy, jealousy, and hatred would be incredibly satisfying.

"Looking at it this way, at least I'm not completely useless."

Sheng Jiaoyang looked down at her long, straight legs and muttered a somewhat comforted remark.

Her gaze swept to the clothes in her hand, and her expression stiffened as she felt a massive headache coming on.

Hot water...