When Lu Qingyan woke up, her head felt like cotton stuffed in a washing machine—spinning, soggy, and a little warm.
Her eyelids fluttered as she squinted into the sunlight filtering through a car window.
"Little girl, we've arrived," said a raspy voice.
A shadow moved beside her, and then someone waved a phone screen right in front of her nose, nearly blinding her.
Lu Qingyan glanced at him while rubbing her forehead.
Strange, where was she?
Lu Qingyan blinked a few times, slowly turning her head toward the source of the voice.
It was a middle-aged taxi driver with stubble, a bucket hat, and mirrored sunglasses reflecting her own dazed expression.
Lu Qingyan pressed her fingers against her temple, trying to ground herself. Where… was she?
Why did it smell like pineapple car freshener and regret?
Why was she in a taxi? Wasn't she… dead?
The driver stared at her through the rearview mirror, visibly annoyed. "What are you daydreaming for, little girl? I got off work in ten minutes. Don't make me turn into a pumpkin."
Lu Qingyan slowly lowered her gaze. A phone sat neatly on her lap.
Still in a daze, Lu Qingyan looked down.
The phone case glared up at her like a neon sign in Las Vegas. It was… sparkly. No—blindingly sparkly. The gaudy, purplish-pink case had a giant speech bubble printed on the back, outlined in glittery rhinestones with the word "Kissmet" embedded in the center.
Lu Qingyan nearly dropped it in horror.
Is this mine? she wondered, hesitating before lifting the phone.
On reflex, she tried facial recognition.
The screen lit up.
A reflection showed in the black glass—big, round almond eyes stared back at her, framed by long lashes. She had a small, pert nose and soft pink lips. Her hair was pulled into two neat ponytails tied with velvet ribbons.
She looked… like a high school student. And a cute one, at that.
However, the abnormal thing was that she clearly died in an accident while saving a kid, but she was actually wearing a high school uniform right now, and this uniform wasn't even their highschool uniform.
Lu Qingyan thought that she might might be dreaming, but can a dead person even dream?
She rubbed her eyes again before picking up the phone to take another look.
Nothing before her changed.
Lu Qingyan: ???
Faced with the impatient huff of the taxi driver, she mechanically scanned the QR code and climbed out of the car, confusion clouding every thought.
Lu Qingyan stood by the side of the road as she thought about the discoveries she made in the taxi.
She was wearing a crisp school uniform she had never worn in her life. Blue blazer. Plaid skirt. Little golden school crest on the lapel.
She quickly looked through the personal possessions she was carrying before finding an ID in her wallet.
The name and photo on the ID matched her perfectly, even the birthday was the same.
She frowned and checked again.
She frowned and checked again.
If it wasn't because she found an unfamiliar student ID with a school she didn't recognize, she really would've thought it was all her own personal belonging.
She stood by the side of the road for a long time.
It was only until after she inhaled a mouthful of car exhaust that she slowly accepted the fact that she has transmigrated after dying.
And as luck would have it, not only did the original host had the same exact name as her, she also looked exactly the same. It was simply a second Lu Qingyan.
She knew of a person with the same name as her, but it's just that that person…
And just when she thought the situation couldn't get weirder—
BZZZZ. BZZZZ.
She jumped and fumbled it open. A call.
"Hello?" she said cautiously.
The guy on the other end answered immediately, chewing on something audibly—probably gum or his dignity.
A voice came through the speaker—chewing on something loudly, like sunflower seeds or gum. "Hey, when are you gonna get here? I already told your mom I'd wait, but you're slower than a turtle on a treadmill. I'm standing out here in the sun like a fool. You think I'm doing this for fun? My back is practically sizzling. If I get heatstroke, I'm blaming you."
Lu Qingyan pulled the phone away from her ear and stared at it like it had personally offended her.
Who is this noisy brat?
"You know, it's already been ten—wait, no, fifteen minutes! You seriously can't expect me to wait here all day, right? If it weren't for—"
The original host can't possibly be someone that mingles with the underworld, right? But according to the student ID, she seemed like an ordinary high school student.
She couldn't even catch the end of that sentence. The guy talked like a malfunctioning voice assistant—fast, relentless, and allergic to listening.
"…Lu Qingyan, are you listening? Hey, I said if you don't arrive in five minutes, I'm going to—"
"You can enter first," Lu Qingyan said flatly.
"What?! I've been waiting for fifteen minutes and you tell me to enter now? You should've said that ten minutes ago! How dare you make me—"
"How noisy." she muttered, massaging her temple.
She hung up.
There was a full three seconds of blessed silence.
How could someone's voice be so… shrill and persistent?
The voice was vaguely familiar, but the tone? Absolutely unbearable.
She sighed and opened her chat log. The name flashed on screen:
Lu Mingxuan.
Lu Qingyan stared at the name.
This body… was someone who knew Lu Mingxuan?
And that meant—if this wasn't her old life, if this wasn't a dream, and if that high school ID was real—then she had really, truly transmigrated.
At first, she was only joking when she told herself that she transmigrated, but who would've thought that she really did transmigrated.
And by some cosmic joke, she had entered the body of another girl named Lu Qingyan.