"Oh..." Zhao Luo'er murmured, rolling over in an attempt to go back to sleep.

Her back ached from the hard surface—she really needed to cut down on camping outdoors. Last night, they had emerged from the ancient tomb too late, forcing her and Professor Wu to take shelter in a nearby cave.

But something felt off. The surface beneath her was hard and cold, nothing like the soft foam padding of her tent. Puzzled, Luo'er opened her eyes.

"Ah!" Right in front of her was the enlarged face of a stranger.

Wait—no, not a full face. The upper half was obscured by a strange purple-patterned mask, leaving only a strong jawline and sharply defined lips exposed.

Luo'er scrambled backward in alarm, putting distance between them before realizing she wasn’t in a tent at all. She was lying on the cold stone floor of the cave, and standing before her was a long-haired man dressed in ancient robes.

Tall and imposing, his jet-black hair was tied up with an obsidian hairpin, cascading like ink down his back. His high-quality black robes were adorned with intricate gold embroidery at the cuffs and collar, exuding an air of nobility. His well-shaped lips and chiseled jawline gave him a cold, unapproachable aura. Based on her years of archaeological experience, Luo'er could tell—this man was either incredibly wealthy or someone of extraordinary status.

Her eyes darted around the cave, but Professor Wu was nowhere in sight. Only this imposing stranger stood before her.

Who was he?

She had only ever seen two types of people dressed like this: actors in historical dramas… and the ancient dead she often excavated from their tombs.

If he wasn’t an actor…

The thought made her eyes gleam with mischief. What was there to fear? Just a ghost, right? She stepped forward boldly, reaching out to pinch his earlobe teasingly. "Hey there, handsome. Let me get a closer look."

If she could brag about flirting with a ghost, that’d be one hell of a story.

Her touch made the man stiffen for a split second before his lips curled in disdain, and he took a step back.

"Don’t run away! Play with me a little!" Ghosts were supposed to fear the living, right? Luo'er advanced again, undeterred.

The man stepped back until his body hit the cave wall, leaving him with nowhere to retreat.

Seeing him cornered, Luo'er nearly burst into laughter. Who in the world had ever "wall-pinned" a ghost—and a corporeal one at that? She had even touched his earlobe earlier—ha! This would go down as one of the greatest oddities in archaeological history.

Behind the mask, the man's eyes gleamed like the cold edge of a blade, sharp and ruthless, his gaze icy as it fixed on Zhao Luo'er.

Just as Luo'er reached out her mischievous hands toward the ghostly man again, his figure flickered—and vanished.

Her family had little means to support themselves. Her uncle, working as a servant in the distant Stone City, occasionally sent them coarse grains to scrape by. Growing up half-starved, Luo'er, now sixteen, was as thin and shriveled as a dried radish.

Why was she in this cave? It all started when her neighbor Xiaohua mentioned that the purple coconuts on the mountain were ripe. Desperate for food, Luo'er ventured up alone—only to run into Wang Laizi, who tried to assault her. She fought back fiercely but was knocked unconscious.

When she woke up, she had become the modern-day archaeologist now inhabiting this body.

Ah! What a shame about all those treasures she'd left behind in her original life.

Luo'er scrambled to her feet and looked down at her tattered clothes—a patchwork of coarse gray fabric, torn during her struggle with Wang Laizi, exposing parts of her arms and legs. Her feet were stuffed into ragged cloth shoes, her toes poking through.

The villagers and Wang Laizi showing up was no coincidence. Why would Xiaohua tell her the coconuts were ripe? If they were, she'd have picked them all herself. Clearly, it was a trap.

Fine then!

"Kid," Luo'er muttered to herself, "since I've taken over your body, I'll live a life worth living for you."

"Hmm!" A faint voice echoed in her mind before something seemed to slip away from her body, vanishing into the air.

Ah.

The girl's spirit had only just departed.

Luo'er turned and strode out of the cave, the villagers trailing behind, jeering and pointing fingers. She halted abruptly and spun around, shooting them a glare so fierce it stunned them into silence. They froze, gaping at her—none of them had ever seen Zhao Luo'er look like this before.

Zhao Luo'er paid them no mind and turned to descend the mountain along a narrow path.

Aunt Liu, the neighborhood gossip, was perched on a stone by her front gate, regaling a group of elderly villagers with lurid tales of Zhao Luo'er and Wang Laizi's supposed tryst in the cave. Her voice boomed loud enough for the entire village to hear, her arms flailing dramatically as she spun the story with vivid detail, as if she had witnessed it firsthand.

Her daughter, Xiaohua, leaned against the doorframe, a smug smirk playing on her lips.

The elderly villagers, spotting Zhao Luo'er approaching from behind Aunt Liu, frantically signaled for her to stop. But Aunt Liu, oblivious, continued her tirade. "That blind Zhao's daughter is nothing but a shameless hussy! This isn’t the first time she’s been caught rolling in the dirt with Wang Laizi. Why, just the other day in the vegetable patch—ah!"

A sharp slap cut her off mid-sentence. Aunt Liu shrieked and looked up to see Zhao Luo'er standing before her, eyes blazing with fury.

---

Glancing around the cramped cave, Zhao Luo'er found it empty. She smacked her thigh in regret. "What a waste of such a handsome ghost! I should’ve pinned him down the moment I saw him!"

Perched on a tree outside the cave, Helian Yan nearly lost his balance. So she had mistaken him for a ghost—and worse, she’d wanted to overpower him? What a bizarre little creature.

"Over here... she’s here!"

"Ah! There she is!"

"That shameless wench!"

Amidst the clamor of voices and hurried footsteps, a crowd of villagers in coarse, old-fashioned clothing suddenly appeared at the cave entrance.

A cold sweat trickled down Zhao Luo'er’s forehead. So many ghosts—where had they all come from?

The villagers glared at her with undisguised scorn, their voices rising in unified condemnation.

"Disgraceful! That blind Zhao should’ve raised you better!"

"Shameless hussy! No upbringing at all!"

"A motherless brat, corrupting public morals..."

What nonsense was this?

She was an archaeologist who excavated tombs, not some streetwalker. Was this kind of abuse really necessary? So what if she'd flirted with a male ghost—it wasn't like she'd actually gotten anywhere with him!

As Zhao Luo'er stood there bewildered, a blinding white light flashed through her mind. With a deafening *boom*, it felt like a floodgate had been thrown open—suddenly, a torrent of memories surged into her consciousness.

A sharp pain lanced through her skull, forcing her to clutch her head and crouch low. The voices around her faded into nothingness as the life story of a young girl unfolded vividly in her mind.

This girl was also named Zhao Luo'er. She lived in Bamboo Grove Village, struggling to survive alongside her blind father.