Chapter One

Gasping for air, Isolde felt a blow to her chest pushing her against the wall in sheer disbelief. Not because she was hit but because she felt pain in her death-induced hallucination. 

So she was still alive? How? Why?

"That hurt," she looked up at the thug who had just punched her.

Her hands covered her mouth in shock. That was not English. Why was she not speaking in English?

"Did you want it to tickle?" The thug laughed letting the two behind him share a look and chuckle.

"Is this a robbery?" Isolde looked around, seeing herself inside a strange room with a karaoke stand. How had she gotten from her bedroom to here? Amnesia? Her head did hurt. No this was a different language, they were all speaking in Mandarin.

"Brother, did you hit her head?" one of the goons asked.

"It was just a little bump," the leader rolled his eyes then grabbed Isolde by the hair.

She looked up and then compared her head height to the men feeling disoriented. These Asian men were either very tall or she had… shrunk?

"Hey, state your intentions," she demanded, feeling very irritated to escape death just for this.

"Miss Fei, is it not obvious?" The thug holding her gave a creepy smile but was questioning himself internally. Before he hit her head she was full of snot and tears offering them her money for freedom.

Since they weren't cooperating and fighting over who should go first, Isolde studied her surroundings more, finding the room unused except for the music playing loudly. The three hooligans were dressed in cliche hooligan clothes, not smartly like herself. 

Money was scattered carelessly under their feet. This wasn't a robbery. They'd not trample her cash like that if it was.

There were no obvious weapons either so not murder, unless they thought she could die easily from a few beatings. Not a robbery, not murder, she'd think she was getting a beating if she couldn't overhear them argue about who got to pop her cherry.

"Gentlemen," she smiled sweetly, interrupting their laughter, "please tell me you're not aiming to fuck me in such a filthy place?"

"Do you know how expensive a room here is?" One goon hit his chest trying to calm down, "Brother it's no fun you've knocked her silly…"

Isolde having got a definitive answer, raised her knee into the goon holding her hair's groin whilst taking the designer stilettos off her raised foot. He let go of her head to protect his family jewels. Instead of him, she swung the heel directly at the nearest thug's crotch, accidetally piercing it from the adrenaline rush.

Not only was her control clumsy, but her knee hurt. When was she so weak? Her dad would laugh at her right now.

The only thug not calling out in pain took a step back pulling out a crude kitchen blade. She kicked her heeled foot to his inner arm pushing it aside.

"Name?" She asked out for any of the three to answer.

"Bitch, why would we give you our names to you?" The one cupping his jewels snapped out of his pain as the other sobbed collapsing onto the sofa booth with blood seeping into his pants.

"No, what's my name?"

She never got her name; however, she got a few more bruises than anticipated, alongside a bloody nick on her forearm, and potentially a cracked rib. In the end, all three goons were unconscious and hopefully eunuchs. 

Seeing the state of the one she'd stabbed a little harder than anticipated, she panicked. The only lady bag in the room was scattered, and with the dim light no mobile was in sight. Had they took it from her?

Searching in the pockets of the closest goon, she uswd his thumbprint to unlock it and went to call emergency services with one of their phones.

"No service? Are you fucking kidding me?" She groaned, pushing herself to stand up. 

Suddenly she realized the phone wasn't showing her English at all.

"Ah, shit I don't know the number…"

Inhaling deeply to calm her mind, she pushed back the dark mahogany hair glued to her sweat-laced face.

As she noticed the unfamiliar hair, something in her brain clicked. Laughing maniacally until her ribs hurt as they turned it into a heaving sob. Her hair was a fair auburn color, frizzy and wild just like herself. Not this smooth wavy mermaid-like hair.

As a wannabee author and webnovel addict, of course, she knew what transmigration, and reincarnation were. However, the paling bloody man gave her no time to dive down the rabbit hole.

Looks like she'd have to go find someone else for help first, then seek answers. All that mattered was she was not dead, she still felt very much alive, the pain in her chest reminded her of that, keeping her sober.

Tossing his phone aside to land on its owner, she stumbled back up to her feet for the door. Biting her lip anxiously, she pushed open the door. She'd gotten in a few fights in high school before, but she'd never actually sent someone to hospital. Was he going to die? Would she become a murderer?

On the other side of the door was a dimly lit hallway filled with only a few people walking into a room down the other end. Ignorant of her, they entered laughing and jesting between themselves, before she got a chance to call out. The door closed filling the hallway with an eerie silence.

No wonder they said the room was expensive with such good soundproofing.

Walking directly to the room opposite she opened the door to see a room with four men smoking and drinking whilst playing poker, the karaoke machine ignored.

"Help?" She coughed feeling mentally triggered by the smoke, flashes of her last panicked moments made her eyes roll back in her head as her whole body dropped to the floor as if dying all over again.

Jerking upright, she found herself now in a blindingly bright bedroom. Her chest still ached as the overstimulation of her mind rendered her dumb and mute.

Her hands tugged at the hair on her head, confirming last night's suspicions. With the amount of blood sweat and tears she put into taming her hair, she knew instantly this was not her hair.

As she tried to curse out loud, her throat clenched up feeling stabbed by countless razor blades.

"Ah Miss Fei, you're awake," a gentle voice called out from the doorway.

Wiping the tears from her eyes, she looked at the tall thin Asian man walking in carrying a bag.

Her arm was attached to an IV drip; however, she was not in a hospital but a bedroom.

The lack of a hospital made her feel extra cautious about the gentle-looking man approaching.

He seemed oblivious to her fear, opening his bag beside her withdrawing feet.

"Miss Fei?" He paused as he put the stethoscope on, her eyes were full of fear at him and his brain almost exploded. "Miss Fei, don't tell me you don't recognize my face?" He pointed at his cheeky smile.

Panicked, she subconsciously touched the ache in her temple, finding a bump.

He fumbled into his pocket and pulled out a hospital ID card, then slowly passed it toward her trembling fingers.

Glancing down, she saw the name Dr An Lixin. The name rang a bell, but she couldn't put a face to the name, "do, do I kno-" she coughed, struggling to speak.

He moved to the bedside table and poured out the warm water coaxing her to drink it.

"I was certain it was just a concussion," he hummed, "we'll have to take you to the hospital after all."

"Yes," the hospital was good, the hospital was safe.

As she drank slowly, he pulled out his mobile phone, then as the other person answered shouting, he pulled it away from his ear, "Brother Mo, calm down and let me speak," he complained, moving away from the bed.

Again another familiar name. She, a Scottish person born and bred, did not even have a single Asian friend, she just had a slight temporary obsession with Asian web novels lately…

Seeing the same bag as last night on the other nightstand, she painfully endured her ribs and reached out to pull it on her lap, tossing the now empty cup aside.

Tipping its contents out, she found a purse and opened it up, her hands shaking more than before. A college ID caught her attention.

She was now the cute little rich miss, Fei Fuyi, who was a twenty-year-old philosophy student.

"No," she gasped, then used her thumbprint to open the mobile phone. Opening up the weibo app she clicked on her profile and the phone became too shaky to read.

"No, no, no, no," it all made sense, yet at the same time, none of this made sense.

She heaved as she cried, her vision too blurry from tears, and her head rolled around struggling to remain upright.

Collapsing sideways she clutched the phone wishing to crush it into nothingness.

"Dad, I want my dad," she cried wishing to just run home and hear his nagging, get a cup of tea, and be told everything will be okay.

But it won't, it won't ever be okay. She was no longer Isolde Shaw, this was not even her reality.

This was the book she drunkenly started writing last night before the fire.

"She was calling for her dad?" A new voice asked as she fought a war with heavy eyelids.

"Yeah, she passed out calling for him," the doctor replied.

"Fuck, do we have to tell her twice?" The new man groaned in frustration.

"It's alright brother Mo, just give it time, it's best not to stimulate her anyway, hopefully, she'll remember in her own time, it's likely just a blood clot, but we should arrange a scan at the hospital as soon as we can," The doctor coaxed him.

Isolde lay numbly on the bed. It was alright Mr. Villain she already knew her pathetic little backstory. She wrote it, she wrote it all. Now some sick God had thrown her into the book she wrote as a dead character.

Fuyi, like herself, should have died last night. Fuyi died in the room opposite her fiance and her stepbrother's friends.

This should have stimulated her Villain fiance and her Hero stepbrother to be at odds with each other, overlooking the person who accidentally killed her, her stepsister, and the Hero's little sister.

There was nobody to blame but herself.

She wrote it, she was to blame for everything. All the pain, all the suffering.

Numb all over, her eyes finally opened to stare up at the ceiling.

"Miss Fei," the Villain walked over, leaning over to check her injuries for himself, "do you remember me? Do you know who I am?" 

"Zimo," she mumbled, "Jin Zimo."

He let out a heavy sigh of relief, "Good, good, your big brother is on his way back home, he's taken an earlier flight, should be an hour or so."

"Umm…" she hummed, not caring for the male lead who did not even catch on to his villainess sister. Though could she blame him? The plot she messily wrote had just begun; however it was also unfinished, and she never got the chance to write the grand reveal of the villainess.

The smoke filled the room, the door handle burned her hand to the point her flesh almost melted into the metal.

Crying, she felt herself gasping for air like she was back in her bedroom all over again.

Zimo turned to get their doctor friend, but her hands moved to grip his forearm desperately not wanting to be alone. 

Only if she saw him can she remind herself she wasn't dying in that room. 

"I'm dead," she finally muttered, passing out for the third time in a row, thinking if her father knew he'd laugh at her for being so fucking weak.

When she first woke up in this room, there was one strange man, the second time, there were two strange men. The third time she woke up there were now three men. Two of them were arguing whilst the poor gentle doctor was in the middle of them.

If she passed out again, would she summon a fourth?

Anxiously, she forced herself to sit up, feeling the pain much less than before. Glancing nervously at the window, the sun was blindingly bright.

It appeared the hero was already picking a fight about her condition with the wrong person.

"Haofeng," she coughed, shaking her hand to beckon him.

The male lead was nothing like she imagined him when she wrote. Sure he was tall and handsome, but he was a person, an actual person, not the anime character she drew.

"Little sister," he strode over, brushing the fringe aside to see the bump on her head. Looking back at the two friends he asked, "You did get them right?" Isolde saw her villain fiance nod his head.

"Jiaxin," she fumbled for the mobile phone and opened up the chat history, "Jiaxin did it."

Jiaxin had lured Fuyi to the KTV telling her her fiance was with another woman, but the poor girl didn't get to the room before being dragged into the room opposite. She wrote that Fuyi admired the Villain, but the Villain only saw her as notbonly just a little sister, but an extra burden to bear.

"You must be mistaken," he frowned, taking the phone to look through the chat history. "Maybe somebody used her phone to trick you?"

Isolde groaned in frustration and pushed him away to get comfortable resting against the headboard. Who would want to harm her? Fei Fuyi was the daughter of a national hero, whose mother remarried into a loving rich elite family. She was everybody's little darling, with a plethora of friends. A little shining star that made all the male characters feel bitter regret.

"Little sister, don't, don't trust things too easily. In families like ours, sometimes bad things happen. Jiaxin treats you as well as I do. We have to investigate first," he coaxed her, genuinely in disbelief that his blood sister would do something so vicious. "She has no reason to-"

Isolde turned her head to glare at him, shutting him up. Too angry to care about anything, she lectured him, "You know she has every reason to be angry Haofeng. Well, I know it too okay, so does she. We're not all just pretty little vases, or did my mother being a bitch not show you that yet, huh?"

Fuyi's mother had poisoned their father to death, scheming with Director Long. The male lead thought only he knew, but as the author of course she knew that and she also knew that Jiaxin knew. She knew too much. 

"Brothers, please leave the room," Haofeng spoke between gritted teeth. Dr An swiftly left, but Zimo simply closed and locked the door, leaning against it and folding his arms.

"I already know the dirty laundry, brother-in-law, go on," his lips curved up in a fake smile.

Haofeng flinched as Isolde laughed, irking Haofeng more.

"It's funny?" He warningly glanced at her, shutting her up.

"Your naivety is a little funny yes," she smirked, pulling the spare pillow to hug protectively at her chest.

Haofeng slumped on the edge of the bed running his hand through his curly chestnut-coloured hair. When designing him, she went for the warm sunny look, easy to fool people into thinking he was warm-hearted and weak. When at heart he was vicious and cold to everyone but his two little sisters.

She had to admit, her drunken self was a tad too cliche.

"She's just acting out of anger, I'll reprimand her when we go back home, I know you're innocent little Yi, I'll explain it to her thoroughly," Haofeng finally came to a conclusion and announced his decision like her opinion was nothing. "She, she won't do this again."

"I'm not going back," she shook her head, unwilling to take part in the irrelevant storyline. Also angry that he seemed to believe her but had no mention of punishing Jiaxin.

"Fuyi, can you blame her, your mom…" his teeth clenched as he fought down his rage.

"Yeah, I get it, my mother is a scheming bitch who killed your father," Isolde rolled her eyes, "but did I have anything to do with it? Does falling out of her womb mean I have to suffer in my mother's place? I've already agreed to marry for your Li company's interests. I remained quiet and well-behaved all for your interests, to let you elite fuckers play your games. But that wasn't enough to stay alive, so no, I will not be going back to that Villa in this life, nor will I have anything to do with your Li family. I am a Fei. I am my father's daughter, that is it."

She collapsed backward out of breath as the rage dissipated upon the word father. He would be ashamed of her acting out of anger and not keeping a cool head. She had to calm down and think straight, she had to survive this.

Zimo laughed darkly at her words but otherwise remained quiet.

"Little Yi, please, I promise I'll keep you safe, you don't have to act like this," he pleaded, reaching to grab her hands. Fuyi had been brought along into their family over ten years ago. There was a large ten-year-long age gap between her and these two elder siblings and she was doted on by all three members of the Li family as their little princess.

The real Fuyi might have been coaxed by his honeyed words, but to her who knew the characters she created well enough, they felt like sweet poison.

Her veteran father was right. Only by facing death can one truly understand the complex fears death brings. She did not want to die again.

She had given up on Haofeng, eager to dispose of him from her sight. If she had known she was Fei Fuyi last night, she would have simply fled the KTV to catch a flight home and let them all think her dead.

Though she had written him as a severe sis-con, he will one day understand his blood sister was the villainess. Unfortunately for her, only the female lead would open his eyes. Which rendered him an unreliable tree to shelter under.

Breathless, with a mind still filled with suffocating smoke, she turned to Zimo for help. Although he disliked the marriage, he agreed to it because his father was forcing him by using his mother's life. He would not reject her. In his mind, his father promised to let him see his mother once he married her.

"Zimo, sort the marriage paperwork, I'll marry you today," she pleaded openly with her eyes, her fingers clinging to the pillow desperately.

"Okay," he nodded, then pulled out his mobile phone. Isolde almost gasped at how easy his response was. Poor guy...

"There, now there's no reason for me to go back to the villa, this is my home now," she jeered at him, redirecting her guilt for Zimo into anger at Haofeng.

"Fei Fuyi, you don't have to go this far," Haofeng stood up angrily, never actually intending to let these two marry. His father was dead now. Haofeng was too busy fighting to take over the company or he'd have canceled it for them already. It was on his to-do list to change before she graduated.

"Neither did she, she took this too far. If she was just angry at my mother, then why attack me? My mother doesn't even like me." Open your eyes mister male lead, that scheming woman will turn on you in a heartbeat.

Fuyi died. She died. Yet as angry as she was at the characters, they were just characters that she wrote.

All she could remember when she wrote Fuyi's character was that she wanted to give a reason for these two men to turn on each other whilst the vilainess grows in confidence.

That's all she was now, a plot point to turn the Villains into the Villains.

"I will… I will go home first and sort all of this out. Don't do anything reckless, just rest well and heal here for now okay? I'll be back later on tonight, tomorrow at the latest." Haofeng felt at a loss for what to do or say for the first time since discovering his father's poisoning.

"Sure thing," she muttered, knowing he'd never be back, because the world would change before sunset and she would be the last thing on his mind.