When Evelyn Hartwell opened her eyes again, the first thing she saw was a super modern living room. It looked weirdly familiar. An illusion? A heart demon? The thought flashed through her mind almost on instinct.

She had clearly been in seclusion, breaking through to the Nascent Soul stage. She had already survived eight of the nine lightning tribulations. She’d been one step away from success, one step away from becoming one of only two geniuses in the cultivation world to form a Nascent Soul before a hundred years old.

And then that last bolt had straight-up erased her.

Evelyn couldn’t help thinking the ninth tribulation had been targeting her on purpose. It had looked like the weakest one, almost harmless, but the second it struck her body, it exploded with absurd force. Back then, even in that split second, she had judged it—there was no way that power was weaker than her master’s tribulation lightning at the Ascension stage. If anything, it was even more ridiculous.

In the final moment, she had seen her senior brother’s stunned face, and her master’s eyes gone blood-red, both of them shouting something at her.

Too bad she hadn’t heard a single word.

All she’d managed to do, deep in her heart, was silently flip the heavens the middle finger.

She tried to sit up, but the second she moved, pain tore through her whole body. She couldn’t budge at all. A violent headache followed right after, like someone was drilling into her skull.

Her gaze landed on the staircase not far away, then on the furniture around it.

Familiar.

Way too familiar.

This was... her old apartment?

Had she really come back to the modern world?

In a daze, Evelyn remembered what had happened before her first transmigration. She had found out that the man she’d been secretly dating for three years had never truly loved her at all. To him, she was just a substitute for the white moonlight in his heart. Her mind had gone blank, and she’d fallen down the stairs in a haze. After that, she had crossed over into the cultivation world.

So now what?

Was she actually back?

The pain all over her body, and the warm flood of blood around her head, dragged her brutally back to reality.

Almost by reflex, Evelyn tried to circulate spiritual energy to heal her injuries.

Nothing.

There wasn’t even a trace of spiritual energy.

Not one strand.

“Oh, come on. Don’t tell me I came back just to die on the spot? Are you kidding me?” Evelyn cursed under her breath. She used her right hand to clamp down hard on the wound at her left wrist, then staggered out of the room.

“Help—”

Her vision blurred more and more, darkening at the edges. In the final haze, she seemed to see a giant snow-white dog, and behind it, a pair of long, straight legs.

Right before she blacked out, Evelyn still had the energy for one last thought.

What a waste. Didn’t see the face. Wonder if someone with legs that good-looking was actually handsome.

...

When Evelyn woke up again, she was already in a hospital room.

White walls. Sharp disinfectant in the air.

It all told her one thing clearly enough.

She was still alive.

“Evelyn Hartwell, wow, look at you. You actually dared to kill yourself over a man. Seriously, you’ve got some nerve now.”

The irritated male voice in front of her cut through her half-foggy brain, and her thoughts slowly cleared.

“Harris? Harris Colton?” Evelyn looked at the man standing before her and spoke, her voice still weak.

“Oh, so you still remember me.” Harris glared at her, anger practically written all over his face. “Trying to kill yourself, huh? You’ve really leveled up.”

“No way was I trying to kill myself,” Evelyn said hoarsely, frowning. “I probably just slipped and rolled down the stairs by accident.”

"My head’s kind of spinning. Let me sort it out, okay? Also... can you get me a glass of water? I’m really thirsty." Evelyn Hartwell looked at Harris Colton with pitiful eyes. The second she saw him about to start nagging again, she hurried to cut him off.

Harris kept grumbling under his breath, but his body moved faster than his mouth. He still got up and went to pour her some water.

Evelyn watched him while he muttered the whole way, and old memories, buried so deep they almost felt unreal, slowly surfaced in her mind.

She honestly felt innocent here. This really couldn’t be blamed on her fuzzy memory. Too much time had passed. She had lived in the cultivation world for nearly a century. Who on earth could clearly remember what happened a hundred years ago? That would be insane.

Evelyn rubbed her aching head again. Only now did she finally confirm it—she really had crossed back from the cultivation world.

Before she transmigrated, Evelyn had a secret relationship with a superstar boyfriend for three years. Then, the moment his so-called one true love came back, he dumped her without hesitation. And the most ridiculous part? He had stayed with Evelyn all those years only because her face looked vaguely, maybe twenty or thirty percent, like that woman’s.

Yeah. It was that bloody melodramatic.

Of course Evelyn couldn’t accept it after finding out the truth, but so what? She had no power to fight back. Compared to someone like him, she wasn’t even in the same league.

She stayed miserable for a long time, then finally forced herself to get it together. She threw that trash ex out of her mind and buried herself in building her career. But because she hadn’t eaten properly for days, her body gave out and her mind was in a haze. When she was going downstairs, she missed her step and tumbled all the way down from the top—

and that was how she ended up in the cultivation world.