"Xinxin, your mother’s saying this for your own good. If you go off to that island with Adrian Caldwell, all that’s waiting for you is hardship!"

"You’d be far better off with Director Stanton. You’d eat well, live well. Wouldn’t that be a fine life?"

Outside the door came Gemma Thornton’s voice. A moment later, a heavyset figure slipped into the room.

Vivienne Hartwell’s head felt thick and foggy, as if her skull were about to split apart.

Who was talking?

Hadn’t she stayed up all night reading a novel and then fallen asleep?

All at once, a fat hand reached over and started feeling across her face.

"What a pretty little thing..." The man’s rank, greasy smell hit her full in the face.

"Who—"

Alarm bells went off in Vivienne Hartwell’s mind. The second she forced her eyes open, she saw a bloated, oily face crammed close to hers, layers of flesh jiggling on it.

Then came the sharp sound of cloth tearing, and her chest turned cold.

Pure instinct took over. She jerked up her leg and drove her knee hard upward, straight into the man’s crotch.

"Get the hell off me!"

"Aagh—"

Her shout and the man’s scream burst out at nearly the same time, filling the whole room.

"Smack!"

One hand clamped over his groin, and with the other he swung hard and slapped her across the face.

"You filthy bitch! You’ve still got the nerve to fight back?

Listen good—if you serve me nice and proper today, I might let that Caldwell bastard off easy.

Otherwise, you can just wait and go suffer with him in that godforsaken wasteland!"

No sooner had he finished than the man bared his teeth and lunged at her again.

Xi?

This rotten place?

Those few words hit her like a spark to dry straw. A flood of strange memories rammed into her head, and Vivienne Hartwell went completely blank.

Good Lord... had she ended up inside a book?

And not just any book, but the one she had stayed up half the night reading—The Fake Heiress of the Seventies, Spoiled by the Toughest Officer?

That story was about Isabelle Thornton, the Hou family's adopted daughter. Even though she was a fake heiress, the whole family doted on her, and she lived a life sweet as syrup.

And who was she now?

She was actually the real daughter in the book—the cannon-fodder ex-wife of the male lead, the one who died young.

Vivienne Hartwell hadn't even had time to sort out the mess in her head.

That greasy man with the shiny bald forehead was staring straight at her loosened collar, his eyes sticky and filthy, the kind of look that made her skin crawl. He lowered his head and leaned in toward her.

She jerked up her leg and drove her knee hard into his groin again.

"Get off me!"

"Aaagh—"

Her sharp shout tangled with the man's scream once more.

Smack!

One hand clamped over his crotch while the other swung out and slapped her hard across the face.

"You filthy bitch! Still got the nerve to fight back?

Listen up good. Serve me nice and proper, make me feel good, and if I'm in a decent mood, maybe I'll spare that bastard Adrian Caldwell's life!

But if you make me unhappy, I'll smash his head open!"

The moment the words left his mouth, he threw himself at her again.

"Bang!"

Vivienne Hartwell gripped the vase she had just felt around for and smashed it hard against the back of the man's head.

The filthy look in the man's eyes froze at once. Then his whole body went stiff, and he dropped straight to the floor.

Vivienne stared at that bloated body sprawled beside the bed. Her heart was still pounding like mad, and she sucked in breath after breath, chest heaving.

At the same time, she felt a wave of heat rushing wildly through her body, like a fire had been lit inside her. From head to toe, she was burning up.

Just then, voices came from outside the door.

"Why's it gone so quiet in there? Don't tell me something went wrong?"

"What could go wrong? I specially got that stuff they use on livestock, and I even gave her extra. Maybe by now she's worn out with Director Cui and already fast asleep."

"Fine. When she wakes up, you'd better talk her around proper. Don't let her make a scene. She's still our own daughter. If she really kicks up trouble, it'll look bad on us too."

"Relax, will you? I already made it plain to her. If she won't behave and marry Director Cui, then Adrian Caldwell will be shot. She wouldn't dare make a fuss."

Gemma Thornton's certain, steady voice drifted in from outside.

A trace of coldness flashed across Vivienne's eyes.

The two people talking outside were this body's own father and mother.

When she had read the novel, it had all been from the fake heiress heroine Isabelle Thornton's point of view.

According to Isabelle Thornton, after something happened to the Caldwell family, the original owner had gone straight back to her parents' home and even brought up divorce with the male lead.

The male lead had wanted to see her once and clear things up, but she had refused every time.

When the divorce was handled, it was her mother, Gemma Thornton, who took the household register and went to do the paperwork with him.

And just a few days after the divorce, she hurried to marry Director Cui from some committee.

So later on, the male lead Adrian Caldwell had never been willing to mention this ex-wife of his at all.

Turns out it wasn't that she didn't want to see him, and it definitely wasn't that she looked down on him.

Her whole family had set her up.

After being tricked into losing her innocence to Director Stanton, that fat pig, how could she still have the face to stay with Gavin Caldwell, the male lead?

"Alright, alright, quit dawdling! Yanyan’s dead set on going with the Caldwells to that godforsaken island. We need to get her things over there fast. The conditions are awful there. How’s a pampered girl like her supposed to bear that kind of hardship?"

From outside the door came Gemma Thornton’s impatient voice, sharp with urging.

Clifton Thornton muttered under his breath, his whole face full of reluctance. "She’s the one who insisted on following the Caldwells to suffer. Fine if you won’t talk her out of it, but now you’re even rushing to send her supplies? Isn’t that just spoiling her more and more till she has no sense of limits?"

Then he added, sounding old-fashioned and sour, "There’s an old saying—spare the rod and spoil the child. If you keep indulging a child, you’re ruining her."

"What do you know?" Gemma Thornton said at once. "Yanyan told me herself the Caldwell family was framed. At most, in two years, they’ll be cleared. And when that happens, they’ll be even more powerful than they are now."

Her tone was brisk, full of shrewd calculation.

"Me doing this is just leaving our family another way out. Even if that little wretch has already divorced Gavin Caldwell, Yanyan can still go and look after him. If the Caldwell family really gets their name back, then at least we’ll have shown them some goodwill.

And if the Caldwells really rise again, won’t our family get to bask in a bit of that glory too?"

Clifton Thornton’s eyes rolled a few times as he thought it over. The Caldwells really did have some backing. If it had been any other family in this situation, they’d have been dragged out, struggled against, and sent down long ago.

But the Caldwells had only been demoted and transferred to work on the island. Huangshi Island had rough conditions, sure, but the chance was still there. Maybe the Caldwell family really could make a comeback one day.

After a pause, Clifton Thornton asked again, "And Director Stanton’s side? You settled everything?"

"Don’t worry. It’s all arranged."

Gemma lowered her voice, but the delight and smug pride in it still leaked through.

"The moment she marries in, Director Stanton will handle your promotion to deputy factory director. As for the eldest, Director Stanton has already spoken to the school and got him lined up for an associate professorship.

The second one can be promoted to head of the supply and marketing cooperative. And the third—he’s managed to get him a worker-peasant-soldier university recommendation slot."

Even though Vivienne Hartwell was not the original owner of this body, hearing all this still made her feel wave after wave of cold run through her heart.

This family had sold the original host out completely.

The book had never gone into detail about what kind of life the original host lived after marrying Gideon Stanton.

It was only mentioned once, in Isabelle Thornton’s memory, that she’d died less than a year after marrying Gideon Stanton.

And she hadn’t died easy either. Gideon had some sick, twisted habit in that regard. She was pregnant, and he tormented her to death.

Back when Vivienne Hartwell had read the book, she’d thought the original girl was too proud for her own good, always looking to marry above herself. To end up like that, she’d figured, was asking for trouble.

But now that she knew what had really happened, she felt Clifton Thornton and Gemma Thornton were worse than animals.

The sound of a door shutting came from outside. She glanced at Gideon Stanton, sprawled on the floor and still unconscious.

The hatred inside her kept churning.

She knew this rage belonged to the original owner of the body, not truly to her.

Still, since she had taken over this body, then the least she could do was help her get justice first.

She grabbed the only chair in the room and brought it smashing down on Gideon Stanton.

Again. And again.

She didn’t stop until that lump of fat on the floor was beaten black and blue, his face swollen and ruined beyond recognition. Only when her arms gave out and she was left panting hard did she finally stop.

Before the divorce papers with Adrian Caldwell were finalized, she had to hurry to the Caldwell house and make things clear.

Yes, she did plan to divorce Adrian Caldwell.

Just not now.

This was 1970. That whole upheaval had only just begun. In times like these, a divorced woman had no real way to survive.

Just as she was about to push open the Thornton family’s door, her eyes suddenly fell on the dull gray silver bracelet on her wrist.

It looked old and plain, nothing special at all.

This bracelet was the keepsake left to the original girl by Grandma Hartwell, the old lady from the Hartwell family who had raised her single-handedly.

A thought flashed through her mind.

The book had mentioned before that after Isabelle Thornton went with Adrian Caldwell to the island, she had mailed a letter to the original owner, that poor unlucky girl.

After the original owner replied, a silver bracelet appeared on Isabelle Thornton’s wrist.

And that bracelet was the female lead’s absurdly powerful cheat code—the key to the spirit spring space.

Could it be...

Vivienne Hartwell closed her eyes and shifted her thoughts.

When she opened them again, she stared at the scene before her, and her bright clear eyes lit up at once.

That was it. This bracelet really was the female lead’s spirit spring space from the original book!