Qiu Yun died.
Right when the Duke was critically ill, she helped the Madam triumph over Concubine Liu’s eldest son born out of wedlock, securing the succession for the legitimate heir—when the entire Duke’s manor was about to become her mistress’s domain.
She slipped and fell to her death.
It was utterly undignified.
And deeply infuriating.
Like fighting through a war for the emperor, only to die in a senseless accident on the eve of reaping the spoils—leaving a hollow emptiness inside.
One would think that when a person dies, it’s like a lamp going out; once gone, there should be no regret or sorrow.
But Qiu Yun remained fully conscious. She clearly knew she was dead—and that she had been reborn into the body of another girl also named “Qiu Yun.”
In an instant, the life of that ‘Qiu Yun’ rushed through her mind like flowing water: birth, learning to walk, learning to read, starting school, watching television, arguing with her parents, going out with friends…
Qiu Yun watched it all like an outsider, experiencing the original owner’s entire life quickly and completely.
In her mind, broken fonts, strange buildings, short and revealing clothes, oddly shaped tools—none of it stopped shattering her old, stale worldview.
Her brows were tightly knit, her fingers twitching unconsciously as she struggled to digest those unfamiliar pieces of information. From them, she extracted a few words to summarize her current predicament.
—Resurrecting in another’s body. Time travel.
“...You scared me to death, Third Uncle! I-I really thought she was dead, that’s why I came to bother you! Just now, she had no breath!” A woman’s voice rang in Qiu Yun’s ears, amid the chaos of her mind.
“Alright, stop making a fuss. Help her up quickly—what if someone sees her collapsed here?” A middle-aged man’s voice.
Qiu Yun felt her arm being grabbed and propped up. The voice near her ear grew clearer: “Third Uncle, what do we do now? She won’t try to trick me into medical fees, will she? Dressed like that, sneaking into Ming Si Tower—everyone knows what she was after! And I swear I didn’t push her! She slipped on her own!”
“Let me check. What’s the name on her badge?”
“Qiu Yun. Autumn’s Qiu, the side-radical for ‘woman’ next to the word for ‘cloud.’”
The middle-aged man typed it into a work app on his phone. His tone turned contemptuous in an instant. “A trainee nanny from the Seventh Miss’s building. Only been here a week.”
Once he finished, the woman let out a long sigh of relief. “Oh, then just fire her. With intentions like hers—sneaking around trying to seduce the Eldest Young Master—the Mister and Mistress would never tolerate it.”
“You don’t have to tell me.” The middle-aged man glanced down at the heavily made-up girl on the ground, curling his lip in disdain. “I’ll send an OA to Assistant Chen. After all, she belongs to Ming Yue Tower.”
Qiu Yun’s lashes fluttered. She immediately understood her situation.
From the gossip of two other nannies, ‘she’ had learned that the Eldest Young Master had fallen out with his family over a poor female college student. That gave ‘her’ an improper idea—to use her youth and beauty to climb up and grab money.
So, under the pretense of visiting the Seventh Miss, she’d slipped into the Eldest Young Master’s courtyard. There, she’d accidentally run into another woman lurking suspiciously.
Qiu Yun opened her eyes and saw the name badge on that woman’s chest: Sun Qiao.
“Hold on.”
A hoarse woman’s voice came from inside Sun Qiao’s arms. “I am… I was hired after passing an interview. My internship assessment hasn’t failed yet. You have no right to fire me.”
She spoke haltingly and vaguely, as if she’d just woken up and wasn’t fully coherent. In truth, she was desperately trying to recall the scene and adapt to those strange, new words.
Qiu Yun secretly breathed a sigh of relief.
Back in the Duke’s manor, if a new servant behaved half as improperly, they’d be sold off without anyone daring to object.
But here, there were no life-long contracts, and the hiring terms were clear. According to procedure, she had a three-month probation period with monthly assessment opportunities. Only after failing three times could she be dismissed.
The middle-aged man sneered. “Technically, yes. But you broke Article 8 of the Employee Conduct Code. That’s grounds for immediate termination.”
Article 8…
Qiu Yun frowned, trying to recall it—but found that the original owner’s brain held no memory of the Employee Conduct Code at all. She’d spent the entire training chatting and playing on her phone!
The afternoon sun was harsh. Struggling against the dizziness and nausea of just waking up, she forced herself to stay calm. Her sharp eyes swept quickly over the uncle and niece before her.
Since she had no solid defense, she’d have to resort to unconventional methods.
Seeing her silent, the middle-aged man gave a cold snort. As he worked on his phone, he said, “The Jiang family doesn’t expect you to work for nothing. Before you leave, go to the office building beside the manor’s side gate and ask Finance to settle your wages for the week you worked… What are you doing?!”
So annoying.
Fast as lightning, Qiu Yun moved. Her left hand gripped Sun Qiao’s wrist while her right hand swiftly hooked a man’s wristwatch from inside Sun Qiao’s uniform bag.
She’d been leaning weakly against Sun Qiao just moments ago. Her sudden move caught them completely off guard.
Tsk.
The original owner might know nothing about employee regulations, but she could recite luxury goods like the back of her hand. The moment Qiu Yun saw the watch, the information popped into her head—LZ men’s vintage watch, market price around eight hundred thousand.
Seeing the stolen item, Sun Qiao froze. Panic flashed in her eyes before she lunged wildly. “Give it back to me!”
Qiu Yun took a step back, dodging her easily.
Before she had fainted, the original owner had discovered Sun Qiao sneaking around. But because she herself had guilty intentions, Sun Qiao struck first, twisting the story to frame her.
Having spent a lifetime in the inner court, Qiu Yun knew exactly what those maids were scheming the moment they shifted their eyes or twitched a finger.
“Eight hundred thousand.”
Qiu Yun mentally converted that into silver taels based on current rice prices and clicked her tongue. “No wonder you framed me for trying to seduce the Eldest Young Master. You had a guilty conscience—afraid I’d expose you. So you and your uncle teamed up to fire me and shut me up.”
She shifted her gaze to the middle-aged man, noting the name badge on his chest—Sun Bo, Assistant Manager. Her tone was light but laden with meaning. “I wonder, Assistant Sun—how much will your cut be? If it’s too little… covering for her might not be worth the risk.”
Assistant Sun’s face darkened. He glared at his niece as if he could strangle her.
Shallow little thing! Lured into stealing an eight-hundred-thousand watch! And then lying to him—dragging him into this mess!
Sun Qiao, seeing her third uncle’s livid expression, stammered out a denial. “You’re slandering me! I never—”
“Shut up!” Assistant Sun instinctively glanced toward the surveillance camera on the garden lamppost.
If this kept escalating and reached the Mister and Mistress, what then? If the heads of the house found out he had a niece with sticky fingers, wouldn’t they start suspecting him, too?
Assistant Sun’s movements didn’t escape Qiu Yun, who was watching his every move closely.
She followed his gaze to the oval-shaped device on the lamppost. Recalling its function and purpose, the smile on her lips deepened.
“Are you sure… there’s nothing?”
Her pointed words made his heart quiver. He looked again at this new nanny.
Her makeup was garish, her features flashy—the kind of trashy, low-class girl that made people sneer at one glance. But now, smiling as if she saw through everything, she made him feel a chill of panic. An urge to cave and beg for mercy crept over him.
Steward Sun furrowed his brow, shaking off the absurd notion that had crossed his mind.
“Ah, Xiaoqiu,” he said, his tone softening considerably. “This whole matter is really just a misunderstanding. We’re both servants in the senior branch’s household—there’s no need to stir up internal strife and make the other branches laugh at us.”
The young steward before him had completely shifted his attitude, a far cry from the arrogant and contemptuous demeanor he had shown just moments ago.
