“Now, put this in your mouth and chew.”
What? Ning Yun slowly opened her eyes. She really had blocked everything about thinking about that old memory.
When her eyes were focused and her mind was out of her thoughts, Ning Yun felt refreshed. She looked at the clothes on her body, and found that they were new, clean, and fit her well. Though the style didn’t really fit her body type. Well, now that she thought about it, nothing was going to fit her seeing as she was in the body of a teenager who’d get to hit puberty. Though she did have to appreciate the design Ning Qian picked out with the overlapped fabric rather than the chest wrap or whatever it was called. Ning Yun really didn’t know.
The pattern on the bottom portion of the hanfu had a simple design, one that she liked, and the colors of the dress were nice too. The colors were pastel rather than a very strong and pigmented color. It was nice. Something Ning Yun would wear to a cosplay event. Though, it wasn't like she’d ever gone to one. All in all, Ning Qian had a really good sense of fashion.
“Chew on this. It is not poison.”
Ning Yun snapped back to her guardian, who had some type of wood in his hand. She had a bit more trust in him after she blacked out and nothing seemed to be wrong with her body. He really only washed her and did nothing else, so she took the wood and chewed on it like he said.
“Go sit on the stool over there,” Ning Qian said, pointing at a stool that was in front of a little mirror laying on the table. Like before, Ning Yun followed what he said, and sat on the stool, continuing to chew the piece of wood in her mouth. The wood didn’t taste good, and she was a little scared that she would get a splinter in her mouth. Still, it was for the sake of hygiene, or that’s what she told herself.
While sitting, she was also getting her hair done to match her nice, fresh clothes. First, he combed it to get all the knots out then he actually started styling. It was surprising seeing that Ning Qian actually knew how to style hair. Well, female hair, seeing as everyone’s hair was long since it was an eastern thing. Actually, it was more surprising that their heads could hold that much hair. Historic people really were well evolved. Honestly, it started to seem that modern day people back tracked on the evolution scale a little bit. Like why couldn’t modern people be as loyal as historic people? And the funny thing is that people from historic times were loyal to people they weren’t even in a romantic relationship with, while modern people struggled to keep their hormones in check. Thinking about it, there was that one king who had six wives, but there were more good examples than bad. That's what she meant!
Knowing that there was a little mirror in front of her, Ning Yun became curious about what she looked like, so she picked it up and brought it to reflect her face.
In truth, she was surprised. Almost so that all of her physical insecurities almost went away. She found that she was actually nice looking. Her skin, even though she worked outside, wasn’t tan. It was rather light, and when she touched it, it was as smooth as porcelain. Her eyes were a nice round size, weren’t small, and the puff under them was almost non existent. The puff could really only be seen if the mirror was really close to her face, and there wasn’t a single hint of darkness around or under her eyes. Her eyelashes were long, and her lips had a little pink pigment even though she wasn’t wearing any makeup. Her cheeks still held a bit of baby fat because her body had died before reaching the peak of puberty, and well, if she had to admit, her looks were good enough to become a K-pop idol. Though, her facial features only kept her attention for so long. Ning Yun’s eyes were drawn to her stitched up neck. She wondered if her injury would heal; if the pulled together feeling was going to be gone. If she took the string out, would her head still be attached to her body? It made her wonder aloud, “Am I even alive?”
After all, how could a body survive after getting its head chopped off then stitched back on only after the heart stopped beating.
“No,” Ning Qian said, “You are not alive.”
Of course she wasn’t, but there was no point in even being sad about it. However, it was a shame to not see what type of beauty this body was going to turn into. More importantly, did this really mean that she was part of the undead category? Was she a monster? Well, Ning Yun went to feel her pulse on her neck, it seemed that she was. She really didn’t have a heartbeat. That also meant that she didn’t have to breathe. Which also meant that she wouldn’t have died if she was laying in that coffin. Wow, she thought, all of that energy wasted. Though, thinking about it some more, since she wasn’t living, did that mean that she was going to be around for a long time? That seemed lonely. Actually, more like it was.
Ning Yun remembered reading books in her past life that were about vampires and other immortal beings. They were never afraid of dying. Rather, they opened their arms to it because they lived for so long. She remembered when she was younger and people were dressed up as vampires and such, she remembered thinking how stupid they were. She knew that everything with a conscience wasn’t meant to live for a long time.
Why do phoenixes turn to ash rather than living as a flaming bird? It was because they weren’t meant to live that long. It was the same with everything that had a consciousness. As the phoenix’s body couldn’t withstand the heat, its mind wasn’t meant to live through hundreds of years of loneliness or loss. It simply wasn’t what it was made for. At some point, that long life was going to come back and bite the immortal in the butt. Though, it was Ning Yun’s time to confirm if that was true. Scientists always test their theories after all. Why not try acting as one in this life? She always wanted to be one when she was younger.
“Your hair is finished. Now give me the twig and wait for the tea.”
Ning Yun obediently spit out and gave him the twig that she had chewed on and waited, just like he said to. While waiting, Ning Yun ended up falling asleep from how tired she was from walking around and seeing the beauty of the historical time. Seriously, it made her understand why multiple romance stories were written with this timeline as a setting. Everything was just so eye-catching that it sucked the energy right out of her.
“For one whose body does not need rest, you sure do sleep a lot,” Ning Qian said, bringing in a teapot and a single cup.
To be honest, Ning Qian wasn’t looking for an apprentice or a disciple. The only thing that was the intention was pulling the girl out of the ground. Everything after was just a spur of the moment decision that only happened because of what she was. She was closer the hell then she was to heaven. It was unnatural for an undead to have a conscious, talk, or not be stuck to some sort of grudge. Whether it was a ghoul, ghost, or some other undead. All of those things were true, but that didn’t seem to be the case for her. The sleeping girl in front of him seems detached from this world. She was different, and he wanted to see how she would live her abnormal life. After his life, it would be interesting to watch the outcome of this undead’s second life.
Ning Yun woke up at least 20 minutes after Ning Qian came back with the tea. She stretched her body, not like it would really make a difference, but she did anyway. Then, she went looking for something to drink like the tea she remembered was supposed to be somewhere in the room. When she saw the single cup, she picked it up and downed it without caring whether it was poisonous or not. Would poison even work on her?
After drinking it all, she had to admit that the tea was a bit too strong for her taste. Still, it also made her wonder just how connected her head was to her body. She wanted to know if her body, even though dead, still had its normal functions. Well, she knew that some of it was working seeing as she could talk. Though, she didn’t know if she could drink, eat, or breathe. It was easy to test breathing by walking around and holding a hand to her stomach.
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At the end of that little experiment, she found that she didn’t need to breathe, but if she wanted to, she could. Her mind caused her to constantly keep oxygen circulating through her body because that’s what it was used to doing, but when she thought about herself not breathing and stopped her intake of air, there was no difference in her bodily functions. She continued walking around like nothing had happened, but she realized that she wouldn’t be able to talk without breathing. After all, one was only able to talk by creating vibrations in the air, or whatever that one website said.
She also, having drank that cup of tea, didn’t see or feel anything coming out of her body, so something in her body was working. Maybe, her digestive system or excretory system. Who knows, but something was keeping that tea from spilling out of her body, and really, as long as nothing was coming out unintentionally, there was nothing Ning Yun really felt the need to worry about.
In any case, she put all the pieces about herself together. She, from her past life of an average person, was brought to live in another time by some weird demonic cultivation spell. However, because the body was already dead by the time her soul went there, instead of having a living body, she got a dead one, leaving her to be stuck in the dead body of a random 15 year old who’d she’d never met before.
Going through all of that in her head, Ning Yun found that she was missing one vital piece of information. Had she simply been moved earlier in time or has she been transmigrated? Honestly, with everything she read, Ning Yun even doubted if she would recognize the main characters by name or appearance. After all, she could barely remember the main character’s names from a whole bunch of stories, and coincidentally, the majority of them always had the same hair colors. Either way, she concluded that, even if she was in a novel of some sort, she wouldn’t even be able to recognize it because of the magnitude of stories she read. Plus, she knew that she wasn’t in any of her favorite novels because of the scenery. It really was a shame, but it wasn’t like she could survive in any of her favorite novels anyways. She was too lazy to deal with all of those problems the main character had to deal with. Everything the main characters did was just too much work for her. If she really was in a novel, she would make sure to be a TRUE side character. No harems, no trying to save characters, no trying to save the world, no trying to change the story, nothing like that. She was just going to let everything play out as it will. Hopefully, with a bowl of popcorn in her hand or some other good snack.
But, like always, that was something to think about later. Right now, since she didn’t have anything to do and her teacher was asleep, she thought it best to go to sleep as well. She walked over to the empty bed, laid down carefully so her clothes didn’t wrinkle, and drifted into dreamland, curious about what her next dream is going to be about.
By the time she woke up, Ning Yun found that her adoptive father wasn’t sleeping in the room. Rather, he’d left, and since she was a curious person, she wanted to know where he went. Of course, the first step to do that was to leave the room, so she did just that before walking down the stairs to the first floor of the inn.
Like in all of the novels, an alcohol selling establishment really was full of people after the sunset, and there were types of people sitting in the seats. Though, it wasn’t as rowdy and loud as she thought it would be. Ning Yun guessed it was like that because of the region she was in. After all, Asian countries tend to be insanely modest and polite even when drunk. It was like being polite ran through their veins, but that didn’t mean all of them could keep that same composure while black out drunk.
While Ning Yun walked through the set tables, there were only a few that joked about a kid walking around a place filled with drunk adults. They were mostly drunk rambles about it being past her bedtime. However, some jokes were pushing the good nature she thought they had, but Ning Yun paid them no mind. It’s not like those words were going to affect her in the long run.
She continued walking. Looking around to see if she could find the dignified figure of her master sitting at one of the tables, maybe drunk, but as she kept walking and circling the layout, she couldn’t find a single hair on his head. Due to her pessimist nature, Ning Yun immediately headed to the entrance of the inn. It was a given that she was going to be left. At least, there was always a possibility that shouldn’t be ignored, and well, since she was dead, the possibility of being left was 25% higher than the original 50. It was in her mind, at least.
She was the negative thinking type and someone who hated wasting time on meaningless things like waiting around for someone to come back or hoping for someone to change. At one point in time, one just has to realize that you don’t have the time for any of it. You can’t sit there waiting for someone else to turn around and look at you. To think of you, speak to you. To want you. All of that was just a waste of time. It’s a magnitude of time that no one can afford to lose. But at the same time, because of that kind of mindset, Ning Yun could never put herself out there. Her anxiety told her that she was irrelevant, annoying, and a bother to everyone. That she meant nothing to anyone, no matter what they said. Her hair never looked nice, her skin was never clear, she was never smart, she was never talented. Because of that mindset, everything she was told, every compliment she was given, every piece of comfort, was fake. It was pity because she knew that she was the complete opposite of everything they said. She was nothing, and she could never be anything. If she put herself out there, the only thing she was going to find was the pit of rejection, and with all the pressure just exhausting her, she couldn’t deal with that too. So, it was better to head for the door and never look back. It was better to forget everything but the thankfulness she had because she was undeserving of it all. But, of course, she didn’t care. She was too busy adoring the night sky.
“It’s sad to think that this is the first time I've seen the stars so clearly.” She couldn’t help but smile.
With her hands collapsed together behind her back, Ning Yun walked the streets looking up at the sky which was, unlike in her past life, filled with scattered stars. Honestly, it had her wondering if she could find the star people named after a certain sacrificial maniac. Of course, that named star didn’t have its name yet, but one day, it will. She just couldn’t wait for that day to come. For the brightest sky in the star to receive its name, like how she was given one just hours ago.
“Names really are such precious things,” she said, under her breath, only to complete her thoughts aloud.
“Of course they are,” she heard someone say behind her.
Ning Yun stopped and took a little glance over her shoulder, wondering who joined in on her finishing thought. She found the person joining her in thinking was Ning Qian. The exact person she thought had left her to fend for herself. She was wrong, and instead, he was following her during, what ended up being, a midnight stroll.
“Now then, child. Do you mind telling me what has you walking around in the middle of the night?”
“I wanted to see the entire sky,” she said, putting her arms up and spreading them out.
“Really?” he asked. Ning Yun nodded her head, “Yes.”
Yep, it was just a simple walk in the middle of the night. There wasn’t a special thing about it. She wasn’t allowing him to find anything special.
The two stood there. They just looked at each other. They didn’t continue walking to turn back to the inn. It was very awkward. Neither of them had anything to say and both were waiting for the other’s next move. It was a social stalemate that happened at least once a year. Ning Yun wasn’t really good in awkward situations, so she just took a step forward in the direction of the inn because there wasn’t any other place she could go. Besides, her walk was long enough. She did get to see the unnamed stars along with the shimmering moon, after all. That was enough for her.
“Are you not going to finish your walk?” he asked, which confused Ning Yun. Her walk was over. She was caught. Her pessimist thoughts-
She was wrong. Like always, wrong.
She was about to tell him that everything is fine when Ning Qian said something else, “I can tell that your mind is in turmoil. You can walk around and think, but make sure you go back to the inn before the sun rises.”
No, there was nothing more she had to think about. Rather, her thinking came to an end because of his abrupt appearance behind her. Besides, even if there was, she’s not the type to inconvenience a person just because she needed to think about something irrelevant for a little while longer. Then again, she did want to look at the moon a little more. She wanted to feel the slight chill run through her body a little more. She wanted, a little more, to keep her mind in this cool, unbothered state. But, it was an inconvenience to others, so she just shook her head, “No, it’s fine.” Then, she smiled, “I want to start learning more about medicine.”
“Alright,” Ning Qian said, not digging into her mind anymore. “Come with me, then.”
Starting from that moment, the young woman stuck in the body of a dead fifteen year old, started paving a path for herself and no one else. It was a path that no one else could create or walk on.