In an alleyway in Ningdu, in the State of Qi.
Fu Yingzhi woke up in a woodshed, the rough hemp ropes biting painfully into her wrists. Through her grogginess, she heard voices whispering.
"Big Brother, this young lady is a real beauty. My heart is itching just looking at her. Why don't you let me go in?"
"Don't be a fool! We can't actually touch her. If you ruin the Second Master's plans, ten heads wouldn't be enough to pay for your life!" another man with a raspy voice scolded in a low tone.
At these words, a roar erupted in Fu Yingzhi's head. Her throat tightened, and a cold shock gripped her heart: *Am I being kidnapped?*
She blinked her eyes hard to adjust to the light, taking in her surroundings. A thick layer of cobwebs hung from the wooden rafters; the room was dim, and the ground was covered in a thick layer of straw that gave off a damp, musty odor.
Frowning, her gaze drifted down to her own body. In the dim light, she was shocked to see she was dressed in a pink silk *ruqun* with embroidered ribbons.
A sense of disorientation washed over her. She tried to stand up, trembling, but her legs had gone numb from being curled up for so long. She stumbled and fell heavily back onto the straw with a dull thud.
The movement inside instantly alerted the men outside. The door was kicked open with a bang.
"Stay put! Don't think you’re still the high-and-mighty miss of the Count's Estate! Once you’ve landed here, we are the ones in charge!"
A gaunt man in a grey coarse-cloth gown stood before her. His face was twisted with menace, marked by a hideous scar; his cheekbones protruded sharply, and his eyes were sunken and eerie. As he spoke, he stared at her with a venomous gaze. Seeing that she didn't cry or make a scene, he assumed she was paralyzed with terror. The scarred man sneered, turned, and locked the door once more.
After he left, Fu Yingzhi knitted her brows, scanning the strange room again until her eyes landed on a handkerchief left in the corner. Holding her breath, she shuffled toward it, her hands bound behind her back. Despite the pain from the ropes, she struggled until she hooked the corner of the cloth with her fingertips, dragging it toward her and spreading it out.
In the dim light, she clearly saw the name "Jing'an" embroidered in gold thread.
*This name... it feels so familiar.* Combined with the mention of the "Second Master" and the "Count's Estate," a thought struck her like a lightning bolt: *Could I have transmigrated into a book?*
She vaguely remembered reading *The Regent's Biography* before falling asleep the previous night. This kidnapping plot—had she become the cannon-fodder supporting character with the same name? The Third Miss of the Count's Estate, Fu Yingzhi!
A sudden, intense pain surged through her head. She gritted her teeth, shaking her throbbing skull, and then her eyes snapped wide open.
Memories of the original host flooded her mind like a film. In this very woodshed, when the thugs tried to assault her, Xiao Yu had appeared like a light in the darkness to "save her." But when the others arrived, he spoke in ambiguous terms that confirmed the original host had lost her chastity, all while labeling himself a "hero who acted for justice."
Her reputation ruined, she would have died under her father’s cane had it not been for her older sister Mingyue, who shielded her with her own life. When the host was at her lowest, contemplating suicide, Xiao Yu had come to her, promising that he had long loved her and pledging that once he was promoted to the fifth rank, he would marry her in style.
The host had fallen for his sweet talk. Recalling his "debt of life-saving grace," she had given him all the property her mother left her to "grease the wheels" of officialdom. She had even lost her virginity to him before marriage and become pregnant. Little did she know, he had already been colluding with her half-sister behind her back. Together, they plotted to ruin her, steal her wealth, drug her to cause a miscarriage, and lock her away in a manor to rot.
Even then, they wouldn't let her be. The Side Consort—the woman the host had treated as a mother—sent servants to the manor to humiliate her. Old wounds never had time to heal before new ones were added.
On the eighteenth day of the twelfth lunar month, in the freezing wind and snow, her half-sister had kicked over a charcoal brazier, laughing as the servants held the host down in the snow. Her half-sister had sneered, "Since Mingyue wouldn't let go of your jade pendant before she died, I used hot coals to help her loosen her grip. I suppose she has you to thank for her fate."
At that moment, the last thread of the original host's sanity had snapped.
Back in the present, tears filled Fu Yingzhi’s eyes. "How detestable!" She clenched her fists, suppressing the surge of bitterness. She patted her right hand with her left, as if comforting her other self. "I understand your pain. Now that I am here, I will settle this debt with them."
She took a deep breath, her eyes turning cold and determined. "Rest assured, in this life, I will make something of myself for you."
As she finished, a strange sense of calm settled over her. A fleeting feeling of something leaving her body faded away. She shook her head—the priority now was to escape.
She looked at the floor, found a sharp stone, and sawed through the hemp ropes on her wrists. She stood up, leaning against the wall, and moved to the window to observe the two men. One was stout and heavy, looking fierce but breathing shallowly—a paper tiger. The other was the gaunt man, whose breathing was steady and powerful; he was clearly trained.
*I cannot fight them head-on; I must outsmart them.*
*If only I had acupuncture needles,* she thought.
In the next second, a delicate rosewood box appeared out of thin air. She reached out, felt a weight in her sleeve, and pulled out a specialized acupuncture case. *Heaven is on my side!*
She grasped two needles, hid some straw behind the door to use as a makeshift ambush spot, took a deep breath, and shouted at the top of her lungs:
"Help me!"