Xing Fei lifted the lid of the wooden food box. Steam curled upward like a gentle prayer. The aroma of rice, steamed greens, and fried fish filled the air. The scent cut through her daze, an anchor in the surreal. She picked up the chopsticks, her fingers trembling as if holding something sacred.
The first bite broke her open.
The rice was warm and sticky. The greens were sharp, the fish crisp and golden. It wasn't grand, but it was real—more real than anything she had tasted in years. The flavors grounded her, tying her to this strange, ancient world.
And yet, as the food filled her mouth, her chest grew heavy.
A memory bloomed, uninvited. Yesterday. The campus cafeteria, air thick with chatter. Students laughed over their noodles and future plans. Xing Fei had sat among them but apart, scrolling through her phone in that hollow, practiced way—watching lives brighter than her own flicker across the screen.
Then the teacher's voice, sharp and weary, piercing the noise.
"Some people are only here to waste time.They don't study, don't care to learn. How can they expect to pass, living life like that?"
He hadn't said her name.He didn't need to. She had only bowed her head lower, pretending to write, her heart shrinking into itself.
The second bite of rice turned to ash in her mouth.
Her mother's voice came next—thin, tired, layered with a disappointment that never fully healed.
"You were always so clever,Fei. You got into a top university. Why are you wasting it? When will you stop being like this? Look at your cousin—another promotion. Another one just started her new job."
She had mumbled an excuse and hung up, then spent an hour staring at a textbook, the words swimming meaninglessly on the page. The shame was a constant, low-grade fever.
She remembered the ache in her chest—not anger, not sadness, just a vast, hollow emptiness.
That same emptiness stirred inside her now, a ghost that had followed her across worlds.
She lowered the chopsticks.
Her throat tightened. She couldn't eat anymore.
For years, she hadn't cried. Even when everything hurt, even when she wanted to disappear, the tears had refused to come. But now—in a world where she had no name, no past, no one watching—she felt them.
The first tear fell, quiet and unsure. Then another. And another.
They fell onto the simple wooden table, darkening the grain. She didn't wipe them away. She let them fall. For the first time in a long time, she didn't have to be strong, or clever, or fine. She could just be.
------------------------
After a while, the heaviness in her chest began to lighten. The blurry, teary vision stabilized. She looked around, truly seeing her surroundings for the first time since the tears began. The food was still warm. The simple, ancient dress, while not luxurious, fitted her perfectly, as if it had been woven just for her. The whole world around her felt safe for a mind that hadn't known peace in a long time. The view through the window—the slow-moving people, the swaying trees, the faraway mountains—was a balm to her frayed nerves.
She knew, logically, that in this ancient world, survival was tough. Being a woman alone would make it tougher. The challenges would be raw and physical, not the abstract anxieties she was used to.
But the realization dawned with the clarity of the morning sun outside. The choice wasn't between safety and danger. It was between a slow, quiet death of the spirit and a chance—however risky—to truly live.
A fierce, burning clarity erased all her doubts.
"I am not going back," she said aloud, her voice firm in the quiet room. The words weren't a wish; they were a vow.
Her own world had given her nothing but echoes of her own inadequacy. This world, for all its unknowns, had given her a solid floor beneath her feet and a sky she could actually see. It had given her a challenge she could understand: survive. Not pass an exam, not meet an expectation, not win a rat race. Just… live.
She would rather face bandits, hunger, and the scorn of this new world than ever again face the hollowed-out version of herself she had left behind. She would prove, if only to herself, that she was not made for failure. She was simply made for a different life—a life with purpose and meaning, found not in a title or a salary, but in the very act of survival, in the simple, profound courage of taking her next breath in a world that was wholly her own.
And she had just found it.