Hearing the commotion, a crowd quickly gathered, drawn by curiosity.
“You heartless girl! All we asked was for you to give your brother some money so he could get married!”
“And now you have the nerve to say you don’t have any money? Then where did all the money you earned go?”
“You’re already twenty, yet still so immature! I painstakingly found you a good family to marry into, and you actually dared to run away!”
A middle-aged woman was furious, tightly gripping the girl who appeared to be around twenty years old. Meanwhile, a man of the same age as the woman ruthlessly punched and kicked the girl.
Beside them stood a shady-looking man in his twenties, who didn’t lift a finger to help. Instead, he fueled the fire:
“Dad, hit her harder! She definitely hid the money somewhere. She even ran away and never contacted us—might as well break her legs!”
The onlookers whispered among themselves, trying to figure out what was going on.
Eventually, after the police intervened, the crowd gradually dispersed, though many left still discussing the incident.
“I’ve never seen such heartless parents! It’s like they’re sucking the life out of their own daughter just to support the rest of the family,” one passerby said angrily.
“Exactly! I heard from a neighbor of the girl that she works herself to the bone every day from dawn till dusk. She even picks out spoiled or wilted vegetables at the market, just to save a little money,” another added.
“Not only that,” the second onlooker continued, “she’s incredibly kind too! If she sees an elderly person needing help, she never hesitates to lend a hand.”
“She’s such a pitiful child,” a third person sighed. “She must have been so badly mistreated by her parents that she felt she had no choice but to secretly change jobs and move. But in the end, she still couldn’t escape their clutches.”
“You probably don’t know this,” a fourth person chimed in angrily, “but the reason this whole mess started is because her parents wanted to marry her off to a widower in his fifties! Let’s be honest, isn’t that just another form of selling their daughter? Who would’ve thought such outrageous things still happen in today’s society?”
…
At once, the crowd was in an uproar, all expressing condemnation and outrage toward the heartless parents. Gradually, their voices faded into the distance as they walked away, still shaking their heads and sighing.
Inside the law enforcement office, the atmosphere was tense.
“I was just disciplining my daughter—is that a crime?”
A short, slightly overweight man hunched over, his face wearing a fawning smile, cautiously asked the officer in front of him.
His name was Wei Dachuan. Though he was over fifty, his hair had already turned gray and sparse. His eyes darted around, avoiding eye contact with the police.
The woman standing beside him quickly echoed his words:
“Yes, our daughter has always strayed from the right path. Her father was only doing this for her own good. Please, try to understand the pain we feel as parents!”
Her name was Li Xiaohua. Also in her fifties, time had etched deep lines into her face, making her appear older than she actually was.
Her wrinkled face looked as though it had been carved by hardship, bearing the clear marks of a difficult life.
She was thin and frail, wearing an obviously oversized men’s shirt that had been washed so many times it had turned white, making it nearly impossible to tell its original color.
Her rough, weathered skin told the story of years of hard labor.
Just then, a young man suddenly interjected:
“My sister is always attracting the wrong kind of attention. My dad really had no choice—he just couldn’t talk sense into her, so he had to use force.”
The speaker looked to be around the same age as the girl who had been beaten. His tone carried a hint of helplessness and blame, as if he were deeply disappointed in his sister’s behavior.
“It’s all her fault.”
The man quickly shed his cocky, cynical demeanor, replacing it with a flattering, sycophantic smile.
He looked about twenty-five, with a round, slightly bloated face—so swollen it was hard to see his eyes clearly.
As he walked, the fat around his belly jiggled with each step, and every movement came with a heavy wheeze.
He was dressed head to toe in clothing from a well-known sportswear brand. His name was Wei Chenglong.
“No one has the right to physically assault another person.”
The law enforcement officer looked at the family before him, his face betraying clear disapproval, while his heart ached for the poor young girl.
At that moment, Wei Jinning was sitting quietly in a room inside the law enforcement office.
Her thick bangs covered her forehead, and her large eyes stared blankly around the room. Her gaze was vacant and lifeless, giving her an almost dazed appearance.
Her once fair and delicate skin now made the bright red handprints on her cheeks look even more glaring and painful.
Yet even so, she sat up straight, with her hands neatly folded in her lap.
“It’s okay. Don’t be afraid.”
A female officer spoke to her in a soft, gentle voice, reaching out to smooth the girl’s messy hair.
Seeing the girl remain silent, her eyes dull and her complexion pale, the officer assumed she had suffered extreme shock and simply needed time to recover.
What none of them realized was that, at this very moment, this was no longer the same Wei Jinning as before.
Just hours earlier, Wei Jinning had been full of excitement as she attended an awards ceremony—her first time receiving the Best Actress award in her acting career, a milestone that held tremendous significance for her.
But no one could have predicted what would happen next.
As she was preparing to take the stage to accept her award, a fellow nominee who couldn’t accept losing lost control and rushed the stage. In a fit of rage, the woman snatched Wei Jinning’s trophy and, during the scuffle, violently pushed her off the stage.
When Wei Jinning opened her eyes again, she found herself in a completely unfamiliar place—a law enforcement office.
She touched her body and found that she was wearing an ill-fitting black suit. Her mind was a complete mess, and she had no idea what had happened.
Faced with questions from the officers, she could only stay silent, because even she didn’t understand what was going on.
However, after overhearing the conversations around her, Wei Jinning gradually started to piece some things together.
Just as she was trying to sort out her thoughts and make sense of the situation, a sharp, splitting headache suddenly struck her as if her head were being torn apart.
She groaned in pain, her vision went black—and she collapsed on the spot.
The nearby female officer panicked at the sight and quickly called for someone to help send her to the hospital for treatment.
“My daughter is really good at putting on a show. Look, the moment she realized she was in a police station and that her lies were about to be exposed, she pretended to faint.”
What no one expected was that Wei Jinning had actually fainted!
Wei Dachuan thought to himself: I’ve beaten and scolded this girl countless times before, and she’s never reacted like this.
At the hospital, after a series of thorough tests, the doctor concluded that she had suffered only minor external injuries, with no trauma to the brain.
However, the strange thing was—despite all her vital signs being normal, she remained unconscious, showing no signs of waking up.
Even the hospital director was alerted. No one could figure out the cause of her coma, and in the end, they could only continue to keep her under observation.
The reason Wei Jinning hadn’t woken up was because, within her dream, she had learned everything that had happened to the girl whose body she now inhabited—and realized that she had entered a novel titled The Rise of the Delicate Adopted Daughter.
She had only read the book in her spare time, mostly out of boredom. In it, there was a side character—not even an important one—who shared her name.
As Wei Jinning was trying to recall the plot of the novel, she was suddenly interrupted—
[Master, sob sob, I finally found you!]
The voice startled Wei Jinning awake within her dream.
“Who? Who’s talking? Who are you?” Wei Jinning looked around the hospital room in a panic but didn’t see anyone.
[It’s me, Master. I’m Xiao Liu. I’m in your consciousness,] replied the system.
“What do you mean?” Wei Jinning thought she had just transmigrated into a book—she hadn’t expected there to be something like a Xiao Liu.
[Master, I’ve waited so long for you. You’ve finally awakened me.]
[You died in your original world and were reborn into this body. So I came along with you.]
“I don’t get it. What do you mean you came with me? You were already in my mind?” she asked, confused.
[Yes, Master. I wasn’t awake back then, but I’ve always been aware of the things you did,] Xiao Liu said cheerfully.
“Alright, I accept you. You’re called Xiao Liu, right?”
Wei Jinning accepted Xiao Liu’s existence quite easily—after all, transmigrating into a book was already bizarre, so nothing felt too unbelievable anymore.
Just as she stirred slightly, the female officer outside noticed that she had awakened and pressed the button to call the doctor, interrupting her conversation with Xiao Liu.
After another round of examinations, nothing abnormal was found. If there were no issues in the afternoon, she could be discharged.
“She really is fine? After being in a coma for so long, is it really okay for her to leave already?” the female officer asked with visible concern and sincerity.
Wang Wei, over forty, had a rosy complexion, delicate skin, a slender figure, and was slightly tall. She wore casual clothes and had the demeanor of a kind neighbor.
“Officer Wang, all the instruments show she’s fine. If you’re still worried, we can keep her under observation for another day,” the doctor offered, knowing Wang Wei’s personality.
“No need. Thank you, doctor. And thank you too, officer.”
“I’m fine now. I can be discharged,” Wei Jinning said quickly. She didn’t like the smell of disinfectant in hospitals and was afraid Officer Wang, out of concern, might insist she stay longer.
Wang Wei frowned and looked at the girl on the hospital bed—her face was pale as paper, her features weary, and her body was so thin it looked like she could be blown away by a gust of wind. Wang Wei’s heart ached with sorrow and pity.
But if Wei Jinning knew she was being described this way, she might retort:
“That’s so exaggerated! Isn’t this the perfect figure?”
After all, to her, this kind of thinness was something to be grateful for.
Back then, in order to look good on camera, she had to survive on a vegetable-only diet and live like an ascetic monk.
But now, she no longer needed to work that hard. Her current body was flawless—slender where it should be, curvy where it counted.
Even compared to her previous life, she was no less stunning, if not better.
This beautiful body was a truly unexpected gift!
Not only that, her skin was soft and dewy, like smooth porcelain, glowing with an irresistible luster. Even she wanted to take a bite out of herself.
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