Siam.
A desolate mountain wilderness.
A petite young woman ran through the tall grass, pushing forward without stopping, while behind her came swift, frantic footsteps—a chaotic chase closing in on her.
The young woman's name was Weizhen Chang. She pushed through the grass, heading ever upward. This path led up the mountain, but she had no choice. If she turned back, she would wish for death. So she had to burn her bridges. The hum of a helicopter sounded overhead, followed by a gunshot. Weizhen Chang lunged forward, slamming hard onto the ground.
They had missed.
She looked at the helicopter in the sky and the pursuers behind her, clenched her jaw, and pushed herself forward with all her strength. But as she burst through the underbrush, she suddenly skidded to a halt, unable to believe her eyes.
Ahead of her was not an escape route to freedom, but... a cliff.
She didn't know how long she had run, but she had reached the edge of a precipice.
The helicopter buzzed in circles overhead, but this time it didn't fire, as if it wanted to watch her struggle helplessly alone. The helicopter was low, so low she could almost hear the mocking laughter drifting down from above.
It was the triumphant laugh of a cat toying with a mouse, watching its prey cornered with nowhere to go.
Weizhen Chang collapsed onto the ground. She peered over the edge—a sheer drop, bottomless and dark.
In a matter of moments, the pursuers had caught up. More than a dozen tall, burly men, every one of them with twisted, savage faces, glaring at her like demons from hell.
The man at the front spat viciously and cursed: "Bitch, you run! Why aren't you running now? Damn it, you made us brothers go through all this trouble—you're a dead woman walking."
He leered at her openly. Her short hair was chopped as if gnawed by a dog, but even so, it was clear she was a striking young woman.
His smile turned venomous. "Be smart and hand over the goods, and we brothers might be generous enough to take you in. Otherwise... hah. Do you want to find out what it feels like to wish you were dead?"
Weizhen Chang's expression was icy. She looked at the thug in front of her, then at the helicopter circling overhead, and knew in her heart that there was no escape. But even if she couldn't escape, she would never let those bastards get what they wanted. She touched her arm, confirming that the item was still strapped tightly there.
She stared at them, then looked up at the helicopter. She knew perfectly well that these men were nothing but scum, and she understood clearly what they planned to do. They didn't just want to steal the thing—they wanted to tear her apart piece by piece.
No matter what excuses they made, nothing could hide what they truly intended.
Even if she died, she would not fall into their hands!
She could die, but they would not have their way.
Suddenly, Weizhen Chang bolted upright. Before anyone could react, without a moment's hesitation, she hurled herself off the cliff!
Rather than be captured, tortured, and torn apart by those men, she would rather die by her own choice.
Death was death!
Frantically, she tore an old embroidered pouch from her arm and tried to fling it far away, so that even if they found her body, they would never find what they sought. But before she could throw it, her vision went black...
Summer of 1948, St. Maria Hospital.
At midnight, the drizzle that had begun at dusk swelled into a heavy downpour, whipped by strong winds that rattled the windows, while rain hammered against the glass with a harsh clatter.
But at this moment, no one paid any mind to such a storm. From inside the delivery room came the piercing, heart-wrenching screams of a woman.
"Ah! Ahhhh! The baby... my baby... save my baby, my baby... please, save him, save him..."
"Ahhhh...!"
The shrill cries pierced through the closed delivery room door and reached the ears of everyone waiting outside.
The corridor was brightly lit, packed with people from end to end. At the front stood an elegant, distinguished old lady—advanced in years but clearly accustomed to a life of comfort and luxury. Her face was anxious, radiating urgency and worried attention. Beside her was a middle-aged man, around forty, dressed in a Western suit with wire-rimmed glasses, his hair slicked back immaculately—refined, scholarly, and courteous.
He tried to console her: "Mother, don't worry. Old Ninth's wife will make it through the delivery safely."
There were many other men and women around them, each with a different expression. Some looked worried, some indifferent, some utterly disengaged. Behind the man, a woman in a blue brocade cheongsam rolled her eyes and muttered under her breath: "It's just giving birth. Why all the fuss, like she's made of glass? Every woman has kids. It's not like she's the first. Such an act."
The moment the words left her mouth, the distinguished old lady turned around with a piercing gaze and snapped: "Silence!"
Miss Brocade-Eye-Roll shrank back and dutifully tucked in her chin, not daring to say another word. She quickly stepped back a few paces and felt several unfriendly glares land on her, and she knew immediately that this wasn't the occasion for loose talk. A flicker of panic rose in her chest, but then she remembered she hadn't said anything wrong, and she proudly straightened her back.
Why snap at her? Everyone wanted that wretch to have a difficult labor anyway.
There were plenty of people in the corridor, each with their own expression, while the screams from the delivery room continued without pause. But after the initial high-pitched cries, the voice began to fade, growing weaker and weaker.
Inside the delivery room, the doctors and nurses were tense with strain. As the mother's breath grew fainter, beads of sweat rolled down the brows of the medical team. If Ninth Madam's baby were to fail, they might not survive the night themselves.
This was the posthumous child of the Ninth Branch of the Weng family!
"Doctor, doctor!" A young nurse's trembling voice rang out as she almost collapsed, whispering: "The mother... the mother seems to have stopped breathing..."
The lead doctor could practically hear the countdown to death ticking in her ears. Old Ninth of the Weng family was already dead, and if his wife lost this child too, given the ruthless cruelty of the family patriarch... she clenched her fist and said: "Impossible. No, she can't die. Hurry, rescue her, hurry. She can still live, she can still live!"
Though her mind raced with the consequences of outside pressures, her professional training remained intact. "Quick, get the machine, she can still be saved. She can still be saved..."
Whether she said it for the others or to reassure herself, she insisted: "She can live. She can live, I'm sure of it..."
The tension was thick both inside and outside the delivery room, and within the room it was even worse. Everyone could hear their own heartbeat pounding in their chest.
The mother had stopped breathing, her pulse was gone. The team felt their guts twist in terror, but they still sprang into rescue efforts, begging heaven to show mercy.
Perhaps heaven had indeed heard their desperate prayers, because the woman who had seemed to breathe her last suddenly let out a cough, as if she had come back from the brink.
The whole team wept with joy.
The howling wind seemed to ring in her ears. Weizhen Chang felt a searing pain slice through her, let out a hiss, and bit down on the tip of her tongue. The taste of blood flooded her mouth, and she snapped awake. In the next instant, she heard voices brimming with joy: "She's awake! She's awake! Quick, mother, push! Push! If you don't push now, the baby won't make it out. Bear down!"
Through the agony, Weizhen Chang realized her left hand was clenched in a death grip around an embroidered pouch, her fist tight against her palm.
"Wonderful! Keep pushing! Push! You're still in labor, push! Push!"
Before she could even react, the female doctor grabbed Weizhen Chang’s clenched fist and said, “If this child doesn’t survive, you won’t survive, and no one will survive. Pull yourself together. This is your child, the child you fought with all your might to have. Breathe with me, follow me…”
Weizhen Chang was dazed for a moment. Chaotic memories suddenly flooded her mind. She wavered for a second before the searing pain cut through her haze. At that moment, she had no time to think about anything else.
Her instinct for survival made her follow the doctor’s words and keep moving. She pushed with everything she had, and it hurt more than when she was eighteen and fell from a fifth-floor building as a stunt double. It felt like every bone in her body had been sawed through by an electric drill.
“Ah! Ahhh!”
She couldn’t bear the agony and screamed. Her clenched fist shot up and knocked the doctor’s hand away. Her face was pale, sweat pouring down like rain, but she still pushed with all her might as the doctor instructed.
“Breathe in, breathe out. Come on, one big push! Hurry! This is the child you’ve always longed for. Your baby is about to be born. Once you have this child, life will be better for you. Didn’t you say you wanted to be a good mother? Have you forgotten? Push, push! Quick!”
Weizhen Chang didn’t recognize the doctor in front of her, couldn’t even hear what she was saying. All she knew was that if she didn’t follow the doctor’s orders, she would surely die. No matter how much pain she was in or how confused she was, she understood that she had transmigrated.
The original body was having a difficult labor.
If the child couldn’t be delivered, she probably wouldn’t survive either.
Weizhen Chang drifted in and out of consciousness, two sets of memories overlapping in her mind—one was her modern life, and the other was the memories of the woman in labor. The memories twisted together, becoming more and more chaotic. Weizhen Chang felt like her head was about to explode.
But even so, instinct made her clench her fists, not letting go for even a second.
Deep in her subconscious, she knew this was her golden ticket to survival.
Weizhen Chang felt as if she was standing on a cloud, memories pressing in from both sides. She was Weizhen Chang, born in the year 2000, and like many transmigration heroines, she came from the Aijin Transmigration Association Orphanage. No parents, no family. She had grown up like a weed.
The only difference was that the small orphanage she lived in was right next door to a martial arts school.
She had known kung fu since she was young. Because she didn’t do well in school and had no money, she went to Hengdian after junior high and worked as a stunt double for female actresses. Although she was only twenty-six, she already had over ten years of filming experience. Since the job was dangerous and didn’t pay all that well, she had been thinking about switching careers and had already started taking action. She’d made connections in the industry, so she decided to learn makeup from a makeup artist sister she knew on set. Recently, she had finished her training, and on the next production, she was going to join the crew as a makeup artist.
Her life should have been stable and decent, but fate had other plans. She had a rare blood type—the legendary panda blood.
And because of that, someone had set their sights on her.
Weizhen Chang had just turned twenty-six, and she was not only young but also strong from years of martial arts. The old man who wanted her heart was already in his eighties, but he refused to accept his mortality.
He had originally planned to have people take her by force.
But something went wrong.
While watching her and preparing to kidnap her, one of the people tailing her accidentally discovered that Weizhen Chang had a qiankun pouch. No one knew where she had gotten it, but they had installed a hidden camera in her room.
No matter how careful she was, she couldn’t beat their professionalism.
Weizhen Chang never noticed she was being watched. She used the pouch indoors, and that’s when they found out.
That discovery drove the old man nearly insane. The older you get, the more you fear death. A qiankun pouch… something so miraculous, a legendary object appearing in this world? How could he not go mad? Now he didn’t just want her heart. He wanted the pouch too, and every piece of knowledge about it.
They had to have Weizhen Chang in their hands.
They were terrified that a single word about the pouch might leak out, that the slightest mistake would alarm other powerful forces and provoke them into action.
So they wisely decided to trick her into going to Siam. Once she left the country, things would be different.
To do that, they made a grand show of putting together a legitimate film crew and going to Thailand to shoot. No one would suspect that the crew was real but served a hidden purpose.
Perhaps fate hadn’t abandoned her, or perhaps because they were on their own turf they got overconfident—somehow, Weizhen Chang discovered the camera watching her.
But even though she found it, she was already on their territory. She was alone and outnumbered, and in the end, she was pushed into a corner with no way out.
Weizhen Chang died. But then she came back to life. She became Azhen, the wife of the youngest son of the Weng family, one of Shanghai’s great capitalists.
Yes. She was alive. She had to live!
She had fought her whole life to survive, ever since she was a child. She couldn’t give up. She couldn’t give up on herself.
Weizhen Chang valued her life deeply. She suddenly gathered every last bit of strength and yelled: “AAAAAHHHH!!!”
“It’s born!”
An excited cry erupted from the room.
Weizhen Chang felt her vision go black, and her whole body collapsed into unconsciousness.
