CH 1

When Su Mu woke up, he felt a severe headache and his body was limp and weak. He lay paralyzed on the bed without moving for a long time. After a while, he closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead.

It was still freezing yesterday. Despite it being April and a sunny Qingming [1] day, the mountain air was chilly, and there had been light drizzles. Relying on his youth, he only wore a long T-shirt to visit the tomb, and he went down the mountain sweating from his busy work. It is inevitable that he will suffer from cold and headache.

He wasn’t sure if there were any medicines in this old house. He had an ongoing case to attend to and needed to hurry back as soon as possible…

After letting his mind go blank for a while, Su Mu struggled to get up from the bed. However, when he saw his surroundings clearly, his eyes suddenly opened wide.

This wasn’t the Su family’s damp, dim, and old ancestral house. Although this room wasn’t large, the furnitures inside has a sense of design and they look worth a lot of money at first glance. This kind of decoration style, not to mention the ancestral house, even his own home can’t match it.

The big bed was facing the floor-to-ceiling windows, the curtains were half-closed, and the bright sunlight was directly projected on him, making him a little dizzy.

He felt that he might not have woken up and was still dreaming, so he got out of bed with bare feet in a daze. But within a few steps, he was caught by the clothes under his feet and fell directly to the ground.

The fall was quite harsh, causing the floor to emit a loud “thud,” fully waking up his still unclear mind.

It took Su Mu a long time to get up. While rubbing his red and swollen forehead, he casually scanned the room. When he looked at the one-person-high mirror next to him, he shuddered instantly.

The boy in the mirror opened his eyes in astonishment. He was not very old, so he should be younger than him, about 18 or 19. This person has a small frame and a thin figure. His shoulder-length flaxen hair is scattered smoothly behind his head. Because his skin was so white that it was almost transparent, the red on his forehead was particularly eye-catching.

He seemed like someone who hasn’t seen sunlight for years, exuding a fragile and sickly beauty.

Su Mu was often praised as the “campus heartthrob” during his school days; he was good-looking, tall, with a slender figure and handsome eyebrows, but he was completely different from the overly weak and beautiful person in the mirror. Just a single glance would tell anyone that they were two distinct individuals.

However, at this moment, he himself was feeling a little confused.

He blinked in horror, and after seeing the person in the mirror doing exactly the same movements as him, he was sure that his appearance has really changed.

Transmigration? Kidnapping? Face change? Or a prank?

Su Mu squatted on the floor in shock for a moment, thinking wildly at a loss…

He is 24 years old this year. He passed the law exam in one go in his junior year. After graduating from undergraduate, he did not go to a law firm, but joined a good public relations company.

The mentor who brought him is well-known in the PR circle and is also very kind. He went there because of this mentor.

However, compared with the success in work and studies, Su Mu’s other fortunes are relatively mediocre.

Father Su and Mother Su divorced when he was very young. After the two separated, they quickly formed a new family and had their own children. They gradually faded away from him. Grandpa Su was worried that he would be angry, so he raised him by his side since he was a child.

Grandpa Su is an old criminal policeman with a rigid and fierce temper. He doesn’t have a good face towards his son, but he loves him very much. Therefore, although Su Mu lacks the love of his parents, under the careful care of the old couple, he was cheerful and not withdrawn. It’s a pity that the two old people passed away one after another when he was in college. Since then, he has been living alone.

His father wasn’t very reliable. He immigrated to a foreign country when he was 8 years old, and he left for more than ten years. The old couple’s funeral was arranged by himself, and his father didn’t care at all.

According to his grandfather’s last wish, he buried the old couple in the ancestral land of the Su family. His father also went there that time, and in the past few years, he didn’t come back even once. The father and son have never had much contact, and the relationship was not deep.

Yesterday was Qingming, and he had specially rushed back from S City to pay respects to his grandparents’ grave.

Because he used to accompany his grandfather to visit relatives in this area when he was young, seeing the familiar sights triggered memories of happy times. Thinking of his current solitary life, he couldn’t help but feel a bit emotional. Before his grandfather’s tombstone, he unconsciously sighed a few words, and he didn’t go back to the ancestral house until the sun went down.

However, during this time, nothing unusual had happened. So how could he be a different person after sleeping and waking up?

Su Mu thought about it, and felt that kidnapping and face-changing was really unreliable. His situation, no matter how he looked at it, looks more like transmigation…

But if it is transmigation, who was the original owner of this body? Where did the original owner go?

Thinking of this, Su Mu frowned, hurriedly opened the door and ran out.

There was no one else inside, only himself in the one-bedroom apartment. Although this apartment was not large, the furniture and furnishings inside are of great value. The clothes in the cabinet are also branded, and there are still a few luxury brand shopping bags scattered on the wooden floor that haven’t been opened.

Su Mu rummaged through boxes and cabinets for a long time before finding some documents and bank cards from the drawer. The photo on the ID card was the owner of this face, the name was actually the same as him, also named Su Mu, but the age was older than he thought, just turned 20 years old.

Su Mu didn’t give up, and continued to search for things throughout the room. After a while, he found the original owner’s phone in the corner of the bathroom. The date on the screen showed April 5th, the second day of Qingming, which was consistent with the current date.

He unlocked the phone with facial recognition and then dialed his own mobile number without hesitation. However, the call didn’t get through. The notification sound informed him that the number was wrong, please check it before dialing.

How is this possible? How could there be a mistake in the phone number he has been using since college?

He dialed a few more times in disbelief, but it was the same every time, as if the number didn’t exist in the first place.

Su Mu exited the mobile phone interface with a headache. He thought for a while, then clicked on the Weibo app in the phone, wanting to log in to his own Weibo.

But when he exited the original owner’s Weibo and entered his own phone number and password, the system prompted him that there was a problem with the mobile phone format. The number was not a domestic mobile phone number, and he needed to click on the international version to log in.

A bold guess flashed through Su Mu’s mind; this world is not the world he knew, although many things are the same as his original world, and the date was also the same, but this is like a parallel world.

In order to verify this idea, he swiped off the screen and returned to the Weibo homepage.

Sure enough, the trending topics were unfamiliar, he didn’t know any of the hot searched celebrities, he hadn’t even heard of the well-known scientist who was at the top of the search list.

This is indeed not his world!

Su Mu’s eyes were unfocused, and it took him a long time to wake up from the shock. He brushed aside the fine bangs on his forehead and smiled wryly at his reflection in the mirror.

Maybe it wasn’t as bad as he thought. After all, the owner of this body shared the same name as him and came from a well-off family. Though he didn’t know why he had transmigrated, it was still better than ending up in a primitive society or a feudal society, at least there are still human rights to speak of…

Just as he was trying to comfort himself, the phone suddenly vibrated.

Su Mu was startled, and looked down at the caller ID on the phone, only to see ‘Sun Hao’ written on the screen.

He hesitated for a while before answering the phone.

A man’s voice came from the other end, “I’m near your place, come down.”

Su Mu’s heart tightened, he didn’t know anything about this unknown world now, so it’s not wise to go out rashly like this.

He thought for a while, then politely refused, “I’m not feeling well.”

The other end was unmoved, and said with a strong attitude: “Okay, don’t pretend, hurry up and pack your things. The old man has agreed, he promised you’ll study at the Imperial University… You’re about to become schoolmates with the person from your family.”

Su Mu felt that his tone was a bit strange, but he couldn’t tell what was wrong for a while.

He hesitated for a moment before cautiously asking, “The person from my family?”

“Yes, the one you’ve been longing for, your pre-arranged fiancé [2]. Didn’t you come back from abroad because of him?… When you see Grandfather, act soft for a bit. The old man is worried about you regarding this matter. With your poor grades, you still want to transfer to the Imperial University…”

The voice on the other end kept talking, but Su Mu couldn’t focus on it at all. It was like he had been struck by lightning, and the fog in his mind was instantly dispelled.

Pre-arranged fiancé? Longing for her [3]? Grandfather…

A scene suddenly flashed in his mind. Before sweeping the grave yesterday, he said a lot of words in front of his grandfather’s grave because he was touched by the scene.

It seems that there was a sentence among them that said, “I’m already 24, still single, living alone without a partner, I hope that Grandfather in heaven blesses me to get out of the singles soon…”

God! He, he had just casually chatted, not expressing any serious intentions!

Thinking of this, Su Mu reached out and pinched his face in horror.

Could it be that his grandfather had somehow manifested himself? In order to find him a wife, did he specifically bring him here on purpose?

[1] ((清明) – 清明节) Qingming Festival – is a traditional Chinese festival that usually falls on April 4th or 5th of the Gregorian calendar. It is a time for Chinese people to pay respects to their deceased ancestors and visit their graves to clean and maintain the burial sites.

[2] (娃娃亲) – Childhood Engagement/Childhood Betrothal – term that is used to describe a childhood relationship, often between two families, where they agree that their children will be betrothed or married in the future. It’s basically arranged marriage when very young. (This term here was used to refer someone, for now, let’s just use ‘pre-arranged fiancé (・–・;)ゞ)

[3] In spoken Chinese, the distinction between “他” (tā) which refers to male, and “她” (tā) which refers to female, isn’t very clear. The pronunciation of these two pronouns is the same (“tā”) in Mandarin Chinese, hence, when there is no clear indication of the gender, it can be misunderstood ╮(╯_╰)╭.