Chapter 1
What are the downsides of staying up late?
Countless marketing accounts and trending articles on WeChat and Weibo will tell you it leads to liver and kidney failure, and in severe cases, sudden death.
If you scroll through Kou Shuang’s Weibo, you’ll find plenty of similar scare tactics.
Sandwiched between a sea of “hahahas,” you’ll find reposts with comments like, [Oh my god, I really can’t stay up late anymore! I’m still a young beauty!]
And right after that, you’ll see another post, this time at three in the morning, filled with life reflections.
If you were to ask Kou Shuang why she persisted in staying up so late, night after night, she’d yawn and say, “Because I’m not tired… Besides, I’m used to it.”
She was a die-hard night owl who claimed to be “cultivating immortality,” and no amount of persuasion could get her to sleep before midnight.
——”Unless I die!” she’d say.
And then, she really did die.
She collapsed on a crosswalk, all her muscles and organs seizing up as if she was trying to find the most comfortable position for a long, deep sleep.
Kou Shuang seemed to smell asphalt and thought to herself, oddly, ‘This smells so good… Am I about to die?’
When Kou Shuang woke up, she was staring at a white ceiling. The smell of disinfectant and the crisp white sheets and pillowcases told her she was in a hospital.
Someone must have been kind enough to bring her here. That’s what Kou Shuang thought as she heard a rustling sound from behind the curtain.
“…I don’t have any plans to date right now, thank you for liking me.”
“Really, really can’t you reconsider? I’ll take you to a movie.”
“Sorry.”
Three sentences, perfectly encapsulating the tragedy of a failed love confession.
There were two people speaking. The one confessing was a man with a very ordinary voice, the kind that would blend into a crowd. Kou Shuang didn’t pay much attention to him.
The one rejecting him had a clear, cold voice, like moonlight that had instantly frozen into ice. Kou Shuang was a voice enthusiast, and the moment she heard this voice, she felt a surge of excitement and wondered what the person looked like.
After being rejected, the man paused for a moment and said, “I’m sorry for being so abrupt.”
“It’s okay.”
A set of footsteps gradually faded away, the man was probably leaving.
A moment later, the curtain was lifted. The woman walked in and sat down in a chair by the window.
Sunlight streamed in from the window, landing on the woman’s hair.
Kou Shuang was finally able to get a good look at this woman.
The woman sat up straight, her head slightly lowered as she read a book intently. From this angle, Kou Shuang could only see half of her face, but it was enough for her to conclude that she was beautiful.
Her long, straight black hair, which reached down to her waist, had a slight curl at the ends, softly draped over her chest, outlining her curves.
In short, she was a beauty.
And coupled with the faint impatience in her expressionless face, she could be described as:
—An ice beauty.
Kou Shuang fully understood the man’s sudden confession. Even though she was a woman herself, she could feel the fatal attraction of the woman in front of her.
But, she was neither wearing a white coat nor a nurse’s uniform, so what was she doing here?
And why was the hospital so quiet?
Kou Shuang moved, and the cheap blanket rubbed against itself, making a slight sound.
The woman looked up, a hint of worry in her eyes. “Are you awake?”
Kou Shuang nodded and instinctively asked, “Doctor, who brought me here?”
The woman’s expression turned surprised and confused. Tilting her head slightly, she asked in a puzzled tone, “‘Doctor’?”
“Uh, or should I say, did you bring me here?”
Could she be the kind person who helped her?
The woman snapped the book shut, walked over to Kou Shuang, and stood at the head of the bed. “Of course it was me. You fainted during the 800-meter run. Don’t you remember?”
800-meter run?
That was strange. She hadn’t run a mile since her last physical exam in her senior year, two years ago. How could she have been running 800 meters?
“What the hell, didn’t I faint while crossing the street?”
Kou Shuang’s expression was genuine, and the woman finally turned serious. She stared into Kou Shuang’s eyes and said solemnly, “Kou Shuang, do you remember who I am?”
Nonsense, they had just met, of course she didn’t “remember” her!
This woman was too beautiful, and when she looked at you with such focused eyes, you couldn’t think about anything else.
Kou Shuang involuntarily replied, “I don’t know.”
How could someone so cold have such enchanting eyes?
Hearing this, the woman frowned, stood up abruptly, and walked quickly out of the room, fumbling for her phone as if she was searching for someone in her contacts.
Kou Shuang couldn’t help but shout at the woman’s back, “What’s your name? Give me your Alipay, I’ll transfer you the medical expenses later!”
The woman, who had already reached the door, turned around and glanced meaningfully at Kou Shuang, saying, “Song Muxue.”
With that, she left the room, presumably to make a call.
Kou Shuang was dumbfounded in the ward.
Song Muxue, Kou Shuang?
No way…
What was going on?
Why did this beautiful stranger have the same name as the female lead in “The Wind and Snow Gifted Me”?
••••
*The Wind and Snow Gifted Me* is a famous mystery romance novel on Jinjiang Literature City, and it has been nearly a decade since it was written. Although the author disappeared before finishing it, the story was so captivating that it still has a large following. The female lead, Song Muxue, is intelligent, independent, and a lawyer. The male lead, Zheng Fenglin, is brave and righteous, a detective with a strong sense of justice. The two are deeply in love and work together to solve many cases, with a strong sense of CP(Couple-Pairing).
When this book swept through high schools, Kou Shuang particularly liked the male lead and was ridiculed by countless classmates because there was a vicious female supporting character in the book with the same name as her, Kou Shuang, who stole the male lead, framed the female lead, and did countless bad things, yet she was both stupid and clumsy, and almost no reader liked her.
At that time, Kou Shuang weighed a whopping 130 kilograms and was undoubtedly a big fat girl. Coupled with her fondness for the male lead, her character aligned perfectly with the “vicious” Kou Shuang in the book.
Everyone said she couldn’t compare to Song Muxue and subjected her to what could be called school bullying, which deeply hurt the teenage Kou Shuang.
Because of this, she firmly remembered the book and its female lead.
Hearing the name “Song Muxue” so suddenly, Kou Shuang even suspected that she had transmigrated into the book. But this thought only flashed through her mind, how could such a miraculous thing happen? It was just the fantasy of online novels.
After a while, Song Muxue entered the room again, bringing in a middle-aged man.
“Uncle Kou, Kou Shuang is here, she says she doesn’t recognize me anymore,” Song Muxue said.
Kou Shuang didn’t know this middle-aged man and couldn’t help but be wary.
“What’s your name?”
“I’m Kou Deqin, don’t you even recognize your own father?” Kou Deqin said as he sat on the edge of the bed and carefully examined Kou Shuang. “Xiaoxue, what happened back then?”
Kou Deqin?! In *The Wind and Snow Gifted Me*, Kou Shuang’s father was also named Kou Deqin! Was this really transmigration?
Or was someone playing a trick on her?
Kou Sang’s eyes widened in shock.
“Today was the physical exam, and halfway through the 800-meter run, Kou Shuang suddenly collapsed. A male classmate and I sent her to the infirmary, and when she woke up, she didn’t recognize me anymore,” Song Muxue replied meticulously.
Kou Deqin waved his hand in front of Kou Shuang, saying, “Shuangshuang, do you remember Dad?”
Kou Shuang was quite speechless and said, “I have amnesia, I’m not blind…”
No matter what, pretending to have amnesia was the first step for all transmigrated characters.
Amnesia?
Kou Deqin turned to look at Song Muxue in surprise and said, “Shuangshuang, are you honest with me? Are you just playing a trick on Xiaoxue? Is it that fun?”
Wait… What kind of reaction was this?
Looking at Kou Deqin’s impending anger, Kou Shuang thought: Could it be that Kou Shuang was really that annoying in the original story? Did she often play tricks on Song Muxue?
“I’m not lying, really…” Kou Shuang said subconsciously.
“You still say you have amnesia? How can someone who has amnesia know they have amnesia?! Even if you’re playing around with Xiaoxue, you shouldn’t come up with such a shameless trick. You don’t know how scared Xiaoxue was when she saw me! You’re so old, you should have some sense! Why do you dislike Xiaoxue so much?!” Kou Deqin stood up and paced back and forth in the ward.
Kou Shuang wanted to argue, but seeing Kou Deqin like this, it was clear that he couldn’t hear anything, so she kept her mouth shut.
After all, she was just a character in a book, why bother with his emotions. Maybe she was just dreaming, and she would wake up any second now.
Seeing that she was unmoved, Kou Deqin became even angrier, pointing at Kou Shuang and stammering for a while, unable to say anything.
It was Song Muxue who stepped forward and said to Kou Deqin, “Uncle Kou, Kou Shuang must have missed you for so long that she came up with such a way. Don’t be angry.”
Kou Deqin looked at Kou Shuang, then at Song Muxue, and finally sighed heavily, saying, “You! Why can’t you learn from Xiaoxue, who is still speaking up for you at this time!”
Comparing the two, his disappointment was even more obvious. He pointed at Kou Shuang with his index finger and tapped her a few times before leaving the ward without looking back, as if he had completely given up on Kou Shuang.
Song Muxue hesitated and looked at Kou Shuang before chasing after Kou Deqin.
Kou Shuang sat there feeling a huge emptiness.
She suddenly fell backwards, but she forgot to adjust her posture, and hit her head against the wall.
“Ouch! It hurts!” Kou Shuang cried out, holding her head.
“Your physical exam isn’t finished, you can make it up next week, remember to check the school website. You won’t be going to the departmental party, right? I’ll ask for a leave of absence for you.” Song Muxue appeared at the door at some point, speaking in a cold tone.
“Also, if you really dislike me, you can ignore me. But there’s no need to go to such lengths to deceive even Uncle Kou.”