Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Cold, clear air forced its way into my lungs, which had already stopped moving, bringing with it a tearing pain.

The man with a mouthful of yellow teeth spat another thick glob of phlegm at me.

“Bah. Stiff as a plank. What are you, dead? What a damn buzzkill.”

My mind, still muddled and dazed, seemed to carry the lingering ring from just moments ago.

The curses I had already heard once before beat against my eardrums all over again.

My temple, which had taken a vicious blow, suddenly erupted with a delayed, searing pain.

My body reacted faster than my mind could process it.

I was back again.

Almost on instinct, I sprang up and shoved the man away hard before he could fully sit up.

Startled, he quickly caught his balance.

His rough, greasy fingers reached for my shoulder.

“Oh? So you’re not a plank after all. If you’d reacted like that earlier, then next time-”

He didn’t get to finish this time either.

Maybe it was instinct. Maybe it was memory. My hand moved faster than last time, burrowing into the pile of ragged bedding stacked at the corner of the bed until my fingers closed around the wooden hairpin that had been sharpened to a point.

Then I raised my hand and brought the pin down.

A different angle. More force.

This time, the hairpin pierced his windpipe.

The lecherous expression on the man’s face didn’t even have time to fade.

Shock and fury made him instinctively try to say something.

But air, mixed with bloody foam, hissed out of the wound.

His bloated body crashed to the floor. The footsteps from my memory sounded once more.

The first to rush in was still the madam.

She glanced swiftly at the man, then immediately fixed her gaze on me, still kneeling by the bed.

“You little bitch!”

Blood poured from the man’s neck, slid down his ugly chest, and finally spread across the dark floor tiles in a small lake.

A burly man stepped out from behind the madam, grabbed me by the hair, and slammed me to the ground.

“You still dare fight back?”

His deep voice dropped beside my ear, thick with threat. Terror rose instinctively from within this body.

Fists and feet rained down on me. Without meaning to, I curled in on myself. My vision seemed to be stained by that blinding smear of red.

Unsurprisingly, I died again.

Once more.

I came back again.

For the third time, I saw the same man.

He was nothing like the male leads or supporting men in all those transmigration dramas.

He was crude, vulgar, foul-mouthed, and covered in rolls of fat.

The first time, he called me a dead fish and haggled with the madam over the price of buying my body.

The second time, he thought I was rather novel and wanted to book me again.

So what about the third time?

My hand reached once more for that small wooden hairpin.

The man kicked me viciously, cursing all the while, saying over and over that I wasn’t worth the twenty copper coins he’d spent.

The curtain over the doorway was lifted. The madam’s face hovered at the border of light and shadow as she saw off the old customer and brought in a new one.

I couldn’t be impulsive.

Acting rashly meant certain death.

A shadow fell over me again.

My fingers tightened around the hairpin. The sharp end of it pierced my palm.

Endure a little longer.

I would find my chance.