Nanyang.

In the vast ocean, a lone island was isolated from the world by seawater.

Underneath this seemingly ordinary island, there hid an inhumane underground laboratory unknown to others.

In the research room filled with drugs and high-tech equipment, the girl was missing on the narrow single bed, leaving only four bloodstained handcuffs hanging on the four corners of the bed, eerie and creepy.

"Blood Shadow is gone!"

The disappearance of the girl on the bed in the surveillance video plunged the staff in front of the screen into panic.

As soon as these words came out, the group of people in the control room changed their faces in shock, as if facing a formidable enemy, their eyes focused on the screen.

They quickly searched for the girl's whereabouts in the numerous small square surveillance screens, but there was no trace to be found.

The guards who had fallen unconsciously in the corridors made them extremely disturbed.

"Immediately activate the security system to search for Blood Shadow. She must not be allowed to escape, otherwise none of us will survive."

The system was turned on, and a huge blue projection appeared in midair. The dense data flashing back and forth was like a cast heavenly net.

"Quick, release the NT34 smoke. No matter the cost, take all feasible measures to catch her."

As soon as the order was given, spray devices appeared on the walls as solid as iron walls, releasing toxic gases.

Countless real guns and bullets wearing gas masks were moving carefully in the laboratory filled with toxic gases.

A series of bone cracking sounds of necks being twisted came from the smoke, making people's scalp tingle. Screams did not have time to come out.

Under the invisible smoke, piles of corpses accumulated.

"Immediately notify Dr. Sang to enter the protection zone."

"Zizi." The equipment suddenly made a few electric current sounds.

The next moment, all the equipment was damaged, the console was burned by the electric current, sparks flew up, the instruments gave off a unpleasant burnt smell, scaring people to retreat again and again, away from the console.

The monitoring screen was completely destroyed, and the entire laboratory lost the most basic monitoring and control, and alarms went off.

Everyone was shocked.

The emergency report from the communication device: "All doctors and researchers have been killed, Dr. Sang is missing."

"Dr. Sang must have died at Blood Shadow's hands already."

"Let's retreat. No one here is Blood Shadow's opponent. Most of the genes have been extracted successfully. Let's escape with the data."

"Let's decide quickly before Blood Shadow finds this place."

The control room was in chaos. The leader finally spoke: "Take all the data and evacuate immediately. Prepare to detonate. The top ordered that after the gene extraction was successful, Blood Shadow cannot be kept."

Just then, there was a loud "bang", and the metal door of the control room was forcibly blasted open.

The entire laboratory shook with it. The explosive sound temporarily deafened everyone. The raging flames mixed with metal fragments scared them to crouch down and take cover.

The door had become ruins.

But from the ruins, a haggard figure stepped over the blood.

With an aura of destroying the heavens and annihilating the earth.

As the thick smoke dispersed, everyone saw the person coming, as if seeing an asura, and as if seeing death itself.

"B-Blood Shadow."

The girl slowly raised her face, and looked at the group of people in the control room who were too scared to move with bloodthirsty eyes.

Her long hair was loose and her gaze was as cold as a blade. With blood stains covering her peerless face, she now looked like a vengeful ghost taking lives.

This girl was the Blood Shadow they talked about with utter dread.

A top assassin who dominated the killer world, making all assassins impossible to catch up to her and avoid her, striking fear into the hearts of high officials at the mere mention of her name.

The girl lightly raised her arm and threw away what she was holding as if throwing away trash.

When everyone saw what was rolling on the ground, their legs went soft in fright--it turned out to be Dr. Sang's head!

It was chopped off alive. Wherever the head rolled, the blood would follow and flow there. The two horrified wide-open eyes on the head had no time to close, remaining open and staring at them. This scene brought them a suffocating feeling.

The leader came to his senses, took out a black detonator with trembling hands, and threatened: "...Blood Shadow, your brain has been implanted with a chip by us. As long as I detonate, you will be reduced to ashes within 30 seconds. You'd better not act rashly."

The girl's icy voice slowly sounded: "Thirty seconds is enough to kill you guys."

"We were just following orders. It was Dark Shadow who told us to do this. Blame the right people." Seeing that Blood Shadow was fearless, everyone pleaded for mercy at once: "Spare us."

Dark Shadow?

The girl chuckled grimly, and the hatred-filled bloodthirsty eyes also flowed a trace of mockery.

Dark Shadow, the largest and most overbearing killer organization in the world, used inhuman training methods to cultivate one ruthless assassin after another.

And she, Blood Shadow, was one of them.

Unlike others, she was the only one who was brought back to the organization as an infant, becoming the youngest yet most talented trainee in the entire killer organization.

After thirteen years of perverted training, she started taking on one extreme mission after another since the age of fourteen.

At the age of seventeen, she successfully took the No. 1 spot on the world assassin leaderboard with the title of "Blood Shadow", and no one had shaken her position since.

In the six years of her debut as a reckless assassin, she set one unbreakable record after another, and possessed countless formidable identities, becoming the legendary invincible myth of the entire Dark Shadow organization and even the assassin world.

Even those retired old men in the organization were no match for her, but her terrifying growth rate still aroused the organization's jealousy.

Because her powerfulness made the organization wary of her, bringing her own demise.

The organization wanted to extract her genes to clone another or even countless Blood Shadows, to replace her and serve the organization.

She did not come here under duress, but voluntarily.

Only because she was grateful for the organization's years of nurturing, she was willing to provide some of her genes to strengthen the organization.

But she did not expect that they would try to extract all of her genes, completely cloning an identical her, and crossing the river to demolish the bridge by wanting to kill her to eliminate future troubles.

Blood Shadow could not help shaking her head inwardly.

Although she was powerful enough to have the strength to build her own power long ago, and she had no lack of money, power and connections, she never had ulterior motives against the organization.

She did not expect that her own terrible growth rate still gave birth to ideas in the organization, wanting to use her and then kill her like this.

Thinking of this, Blood Shadow was self-deprecating.

Since childhood, the organization had warned her not to have feelings. She did not expect that compassion would finally move her when it came to her own people, and it would be inflicted by her own people.

She could not help sighing: the most ruthless use of cold-bloodedness was still the people in the organization!

During the moment Blood Shadow was distracted, the leader saw a chance and secretly pressed the detonator, then retreated.

The girl noticed his actions with one look, and directly made the leader lose his footing in fright.

The girl did not move, but under the horrified eyes of everyone present, she also took out a detonator.

"Are you familiar with this detonator? Dr. Sang told me that you buried 100 pounds of TNT in the laboratory."

"Let's go to hell together."

The girl's voice was cold and indifferent.

Under the frightened eyes, she pressed the detonator.

The leader only regretted not detonating and blowing her up in the first place, and was obsessed with the illusion that he could capture her and continue to extract all her genes.

With a loud bang, the fire soared into the sky, and the sinful island with its lifelong glory sank to the bottom of the sea, taking with it the girl who was only in the spring of her life.

Yun Cheng.

The shabby ward in the affiliated hospital.

"My daughter got a concussion from the fall, and your school is only willing to pay this little amount of money to get rid of us? What if she has after-effects and becomes an idiot who can't study anymore? Her life would be ruined! Who's going to take responsibility for this? I'm telling you, if I don't get at least 100,000-80,000 yuan today, I'm going to the police station. I'll make sure everyone knows how your school handles things and ruin your reputation!"

"Mrs. Qiao, please be reasonable. Your daughter isn't a preschooler that needs constant supervision from teachers. Besides, she fell down the stairs because she's too fat. She has only herself to blame. It's already very generous of the school to cover half of her medical expenses."

"Qiao Ying usually doesn't behave well in school either. Her grades are terrible and she doesn't strive to improve. Not to mention she distracts other students from learning. Her classmates have complained to me about this multiple times. Just a few days ago, she was even dating a male classmate and bringing him breakfast. This severely damages the school's moral standards. The boy's parents have already come to me to complain."

Li Lilian put her hands on her hips with the stance of a shrew: "You're just trying to get out of paying money, aren't you?"

The few quarreled until their faces were red.

Suddenly, a cold voice snapped: "All of you shut up!"

Li Lilian, Mr. Qiao, the head teacher, and the principal simultaneously went silent and looked towards the chubby girl lying in the hospital bed.

Qiao Ying pressed a hand to her aching temples as she sat up from the bed. The thin mattress let out a tortured creak under her weight.

Sharp pain radiated from the back of her head throughout her body, causing her to frown. Then, she seemed to sense something. Her movement of massaging her temples froze abruptly. In the next moment, her eyes flung wide open.

She didn't die?

Qiao Ying quickly scanned the hospital room, her gaze landing on the four ordinary-looking people standing at the foot of her bed.

"Who are you people?"

The moment she spoke, Qiao Ying's eyes froze over. That wasn't her voice. She immediately touched her throat, only then noticing the fat arm she had raised.

This time, she deeply furrowed her brows.

What was going on here?

The girl's question left the four people dumbfounded.

Li Lilian immediately threw herself at the teachers, yelling and making a scene: "Look what's become of my daughter! And your school only wants to pay some medical fees? You're basically inhuman! Heartless jerks!"

The bespectacled head teacher in his forties also panicked a little: "Calm down, Mrs. Qiao."

"Xiao Ying, I'm your dad. Don't you recognize me?"

"Qiao, don't try to scare your teacher. Is your mind not clear yet? Take a good look at who we are."

But the girl just kept staring at her own fat arm.

Just then, the TV news anchor reported: "A massive explosion occurred on a remote island in Southeast Asia this morning at 7:10 AM..."

Qiao Ying looked towards the TV screen.

Before she could react, a segment of foreign memories suddenly poured into her mind like a flood. She grimaced in pain.

Li Lilian was still loudly arguing with the head teacher about money. Mr. Qiao and the principal kept asking Qiao Ying if she was okay in worried voices beside her.

Her head throbbed unbearably. She couldn't stand it anymore. "All of you get out!"

"Stop making noise. Xiao Ying just woke up. Let her rest properly. We can discuss things outside." Mr. Qiao finally steeled himself and brought the endless nagging Li Lilian out of the ward.

The room finally quieted down. Breathing in the faint smell of disinfectant in the air, Qiao Ying maintained an unusually calm composure.

Li Lilian's loud voice could still be heard from the hallway outside.

The girl had been staring at the unfamiliar face reflected in the bathroom mirror for over ten minutes now. Her features were quite pretty, and although her body was fat, her face didn't have much flesh. Her skin was fair and lustrous.

If she lost weight, she probably wouldn't look bad.

"Qiao Ying."

After a long pause, the girl uttered two words at the mirror.

This name happened to have an affinity with her.

Reincarnation of the soul?

Having seen many strange and bizarre things, this wasn't too difficult to accept either.

She had only been standing for a little over ten minutes, yet her body already felt weak. Her legs were shaky. This wasn't only caused by the concussion, but more so due to the lack of exercise resulting in poor physical health.

Qiao Ying really wondered how this body managed to be both obese and frail at the same time.

What a pity. What a pity that her body, once sturdy as sheets of copper and iron walls, had been completely obliterated in that explosion, reduced to fish food in the sea. All those years of intense training, only to end up as nutrients for marine life in the end.

Qiao Ying closed her eyes, then opened them again. By now, she had fully accepted this new body and identity.

Qiao Ying.

Not bad. It sounded much more human than Blood Shadow.

Back in the hospital room, the hallway outside had gone silent. The doctor came in holding a medical chart and asked: "Qiao Ying?"

The girl's bright eyes looked up as she responded: "That's me."

Beijing, Qin Family Home

In a study decorated in an understated yet luxurious style, a man sat at his desk looking over a document.

"What a shame."

The man murmured in a deep, magnetic voice, carrying a note of regret that the hope for his father's cure was now gone.

A moment later, another lament: "What a shame to lose such a genius." This sentence straightforwardly expressed his grief.

His gaze rested upon the document, which had the name Blood Shadow printed clearly at the top.

This elusive, genius assassin whom countless people didn't even know the gender of - yet this man had the bulk of her information laid out plainly before him.

Qiao Ying only stayed one night in the hospital before her mother, Li Lilian, urged her to go home the next morning.

"Hurry up and get changed so we can go home. The school only compensated a tiny amount. We don't have money for you to be hospitalized."

Li Lilian threw the clothes she'd brought at Qiao Ying while complaining nonstop about the paltry sum they were paid.

Qiao Ying's eyes turned icy as she sat motionless on the hospital bed.

"Hurry up! What are you dazed for? I still have work soon. If I'm late and they dock my pay, you'll have to cover it for me!"

Money-grubbing words spewed from her mouth.

Considering she had taken over Qiao Ying's body after all, Qiao Ying endured this mean spirited biological mother.

Once they left the hospital, Li Lilian abandoned her, giving her a couple dollars for bus fare and shoving the house keys in her hand before rushing off to work herself.

With the original host's memories as guidance, Qiao Ying found her way back to this body's home.

The original host's family lived in an urban village slum area. Before even entering the dilapidated housing complex, she encountered a boy with refined features.

He wore a blue and white school uniform and seemed full of youthful spirit, though a bit skinny and quiet.

Although Li Lilian was nasty, she was beautiful, leading to her haughty personality unwilling to accept mediocrity.

This boy had nicely inherited Li Lilian's genes in terms of looks.

Seeing her, the boy paused briefly at first, then glanced at the bandage wrapped around her head.

Qiao Ying also cast an appraising look his way.

Perhaps the old Qiao Ying was accustomed to being meek and avoiding eye contact, so her bold gaze made the boy frown in surprise.

The boy walked towards her. Qiao Ying noticed he limped slightly when he walked.

Qiao Yi didn't say anything to her, but as he passed by, he shoved what was in his hand at her - a steamed bun. Then he headed off to school with his book bag on his back.

This cheap younger brother didn't seem to have inherited his mother's nasty personality.

A concussion was no small matter. The doctor absolutely did not approve of Qiao Ying being discharged, but the penny-pinching Li Lilian could not be stopped. Thus, after Qiao Ying got home, she didn't do anything except go to bed and sleep.

She slept until night fell.

"You fat pig, no wonder you were born a swine. All you do is eat and sleep all day. Why didn't you die falling down?"

Qiao Ying opened her eyes to see Qiao Lingling standing at her bedside, looking at her with utter disgust and contempt.

"What are you looking at? Get up and come eat since you're awake. You need someone to call you even for meals. You're more useless than a cripple!" After speaking, Qiao Lingling immediately stormed off, unwilling to stay in her room a second longer.

In terms of looks and personality, she was truly cast from the same mold as Li Lilian.

Qiao Ying sat up, feeling something was quite wrong with this whole family.

Especially this younger sister of hers, Qiao Lingling. Having inherited the original host's memories, Qiao Ying understood very well just how much bullying the original host suffered under this "wonderful" sister.

Young in years yet cruel in heart, she really deserved a good beating!

Qiao Ying came out of her room.

"Little Ying, come quickly to eat." Qiao's father had set out her bowl and chopsticks for her.

The completely bare living room didn't have a single valuable item, only a dim light bulb covered in dust.

The family of five gathered around a small, worm-eaten square table in the corner. The place left for her was in the corner.

Qiao Yi lowered his head to eat his meal. When Qiao Ying came over, he silently slid his chair over to make more room for his obese sister, sitting himself at the head of the table.

"You must feel much better after sleeping. Eat up," said Qiao's father as he added meat to her bowl. "I'm sorry our family doesn't have good conditions and doesn't have money for you to stay a few more days in the hospital. Just rest well at home and go back to school when you've recovered. Tomorrow Dad will buy a chicken and make soup to build up your health."

"With her grades, it makes no difference whether she goes to school or not. The teachers would be happy if she didn't show up," sneered Qiao Lingling mockingly.

"Lingling! She's your sister, how can you talk like that?" Qiao's father angrily scolded her.

"Why are you yelling at me? What did Lingling say wrong? I really don't know what's in that pig brain of hers. She gets scores of 5 and 10 points, bringing shame on me. And at such a young age she's shamelessly dating." Li Lilian was getting more angry the more she spoke.

After scolding Qiao Ying it wasn't enough, so she turned her anger towards Qiao's father: "Do you know how your relatives laugh at me? How could I have married a useless thing like you? Back then each of your brothers was as poor as a church mouse, but now they each have their own cars and houses, only you still have your wife and kids living in this old house, collecting your brothers' hand-me-down cars, TVs, refrigerators that they don't want anymore. If you had any ambition at all your son's foot wouldn't be crippled, but even after so many years, now even if you had money it couldn't be cured."

"I was really blind to have seen you."

Facing his wife's complaints, Qiao's father silently lowered his head, only holding his wine glass, his face much older than his peers flushed red with shame.

Qiao Yi ate his meal with indifference, long numb to this. But when he heard about his lame foot, his chopsticks gripped tighter.

"You really are shameless. Mom and Dad are fighting like this because of you, but you just keep watching TV. You're hopeless." Qiao Lingling angrily glared at Qiao Ying, pouring oil on the fire.

Sure enough, it brought Li Lilian's nearly hateful dagger-eyes towards Qiao Ying.

However, Qiao Ying only moved her eyes away from the TV to look expressionlessly at Qiao Lingling.

Her gaze was as cold as a blade.

"What's with that look? Did I say something wrong?" Qiao Lingling felt something was off about Qiao Ying since she came back from the hospital. If this were the past, she would only dare to lower her head and cower, too scared to even eat her meal, much less dare to look back at her like this.

She must have been possessed or hit her head and damaged her brain.

"Damn girl, you even dare to glare at your little sister? Hurry up and eat, just looking at you pisses me off." Li Lilian scolded Qiao Ying, then started eating her own meal.

Qiao Ying's gaze swept past Li Lilian. She didn't intend to dwell on this with them at the moment.

She returned her eyes to the television.

The TV was very old, after who knows how many years of use. The style had long been phased out.

At the moment, it was reporting the news - a big explosion on a southern island.

Qiao Ying watched quietly until the news finished reporting.

She put down her chopsticks and got up to return to her room.

"Wow, you're eating so little today? Don't you usually eat three bowls to be full?" Qiao Lingling looked at Qiao Ying's bowl and mocked.

"Wash your dishes before going back to your room." Li Lilian threw out to Qiao Ying.

"Little Ying just took such a bad fall yesterday, how can she wash dishes? Lingling and Yi, you two wash them." Qiao's father said in a low, coarse voice.

Qiao Lingling: "But I don't know how to wash them." She mumbled softly: "She just fell and hit her head, not her hands. She's the one who always washes them."

"Lingling and Yi still have homework to do. What if your grades slip? Every New Year when we sit with your relatives, our family only has Lingling and Yi's grades to show off." Li Lilian impatiently finished speaking, then urged Qiao Ying to wash the dishes again.

Qiao Ying stood in the doorway to the living room, looking back at Li Lilian. Her eyes narrowed slightly, as if restraining something.

She wasn't easygoing, and the outside rumors about her being ruthless weren't exaggerations or baseless claims.

If Li Lilian and Qiao Lingling dared say another word, Qiao Ying couldn't guarantee she wouldn't get violent.

Just then, Qiao Yi silently cleaned up the bowls and chopsticks after finishing his meal.

"Put those down, are those yours to wash? Go back and do your homework." Li Lilian wouldn't let her son do this work, as household chores were always left to Qiao Ying.

Qiao Ying worked herself to exhaustion every day, so she didn't eat much.

Qiao Yi ignored Li Lilian and brought the bowls and chopsticks to wash.

Qiao Lingling wrinkled her brows, somewhat unable to stand watching this, but was too lazy to say anything to her taciturn brother. She got up and returned to her room, still unaware that she had narrowly avoided a "storm".

Li Lilian shot an incensed glare at Qiao Ying, then went to the kitchen to chase her son back to his room so she could wash the dishes herself.

After sleeping for a day, Qiao Ying's mental and physical state had recovered somewhat. She walked to the courtyard to inspect the place where this family lived.

This old house had been passed down from two generations ago. Although dilapidated, it was spacious with a courtyard and surrounding walls, and a separate kitchen.

There was an osmanthus tree planted in the courtyard.

The house had several rooms, originally for a large family to live in. Later when Qiao's father's brothers had earned some money they moved out, leaving just their family.

Qiao Yi came out from the kitchen, glanced into the courtyard at Qiao Ying. Their gazes met for a moment before he turned and limped back to his own room.

Qiao Ying watched his retreating figure, then followed after him.

Qiao Yi took out a difficult math problem he had copied from the internet yesterday and sat at his desk, frowning as he continued thinking about how to solve it.

He suddenly sensed something and looked up to see Qiao Ying inexplicably standing in his doorway, arms crossed and leaning against the doorframe.

A huge lump of flesh completely blocking his doorway.

This was the first time Qiao Ying had come to his room. Usually no matter day or night, she would shrink back to her own room after coming home from school, aside from doing housework.

Qiao Yi discovered his sister seemed a little different today.

Qiao Ying walked over, glanced down at Qiao Yi's notebook, and raised her brows, asking, "Can't figure it out?"

Qiao Yi looked at her: "......"

Qiao Ying took the pen from his hand and started swiftly writing in his notebook without even a thought process.

By the time Qiao Yi reacted, the notebook was already filled up. This extracurricular difficult problem was perfectly solved!

The steps were clear and logical, with skilled techniques.

Qiao Yi was enlightened after looking it over, the confusion lifting entirely.

After checking against the online answer, this was even more concise and essential than the online answer. He couldn't help getting excited, his face flushing red.

After the shock wore off, he looked at Qiao Ying in complete disbelief: "How do you know how to do this?"

This was the first sentence her cheap little brother had said to her.

"This kind of idiot problem, anyone can do it if they have hands?" Qiao Ying answered sincerely.

Qiao Yi: "I copied this from a university problem online."

Qiao Yi was in 10th grade, one grade below Qiao Ying and Qiao Lingling.

Qiao Ying: "So?"

Qiao Yi stared suspiciously at the abnormal Qiao Ying: "You usually get scores of 5 or 10 points. The highest you ever got was 25 points. On math tests other than circling ABCD for multiple choice, for everything else you just write 'solution'."

With his sister's intellect, how could she possibly do this?

Xue Ying, who had inherited the original owner's memories, knew well how stupid the original was.

Qiao Ying didn't even think before disdainfully saying: "Just writing 'solution' is giving them face. Wasting time and ink on these kinds of problems is pointless."

Qiao Yi couldn't believe it: "You were faking it the whole time?"