The bullet hit me just below the ribs.

I felt the heat first—then the pressure, then the strange stillness that happens right before your body realizes it’s dying. Blood soaked through my shirt. A convenience store, 3:12 a.m., and a jittery teenager with a stolen gun was all it took to end my twenty-nine-year-old life.

My name was Hana Kim. Logistics officer. Lived alone, worked too much, trusted too little. I wasn’t special. I wasn’t brave. I just happened to be in the wrong place when someone needed cash more than they needed my life.

I should have died there.

Instead, I woke up to bright fluorescent lights, a scratchy sheet beneath my back, and an oxygen tube up my nose.

My first breath was a gasp that sounded like it belonged to someone else. My chest felt tight. My hands were smaller. My skin was lighter.

The ceiling tiles weren’t the white plastic ones from Seoul hospitals. They were smooth, beige, and spotless.

The clipboard hanging from the bed rail read:

Name: Jiang Lanying

Age: 17

Admission: Head injury, brief coma

Allergies: Penicillin

The handwriting was in Mandarin.

I sat up too fast. The room spun, and a wave of nausea hit. But I forced myself to the edge of the bed, just to see—my legs were thinner, my arms delicate, my feet tucked into hospital slippers that weren’t mine.

I staggered to the mirror in the bathroom.

A teenage girl looked back at me. Long black hair. Narrow chin. Sharp cheekbones, but hollow from stress or illness. Her eyes—my eyes—were deep brown, but not dead. Confused, yes. But alive.

That’s when the door slammed open.

A nurse rushed in. She looked no older than twenty-five, wearing a crisp white uniform and an expression of half-panic.

“Miss Jiang!” she exclaimed in Mandarin. “You’re awake! I have to inform your father—just stay there—don’t try to stand yet!”

She was gone before I could speak.

I leaned against the wall, heart pounding, head racing. I wasn’t hallucinating. This wasn’t a dream. I’d died—and come back in someone else’s body.

Someone rich, apparently. The room was private. The air was filtered. The sheets were silk.

And then I heard him.

Down the hall. A voice like gunfire.

“Clear the corridor. She’s awake. If another doctor touches her without authorization, I’ll have their license.”

Bootsteps. Not rushed—controlled. Military.

The door swung open again.

He stepped in wearing a dark green officer’s uniform and a heavy expression. Forty-something. Towering. The kind of man who didn’t walk into rooms—he took control of them.

His eyes scanned me, like he was verifying a field report.

“Lanying,” he said. “You remember me?”

I froze. I didn’t dare speak.

He didn’t wait for my answer. Just exhaled sharply and stepped closer. “You took a bad fall. The doctors said you might have some confusion. But I need you to focus. Your name is Jiang Lanying. You’re my daughter.”

He didn’t hug me. He didn’t smile. But something flickered behind his eyes.

Fear?

The General didn’t speak like a father. He spoke like a man used to issuing orders and being obeyed.

“Don’t worry about school,” he continued. “You’ll rest here another week. Your brother will visit. We’ll resume your schedule after full recovery.”

“Schedule?” I finally rasped, surprised by how weak my voice sounded.

“National Defense Preparatory Academy.” He paused. “You’re still enrolled.”

Right. Because that made perfect sense.

I wanted to scream I’m not your daughter. But I couldn’t. Not yet. I needed to understand what this world was. Why I was here. Who she was.

Jiang Lanying.

Seventeen. Military heiress. Someone who apparently had fallen down stairs hard enough to land in the hospital and wake up with a stranger in her body.

Someone no one seemed to think needed emotional support.

Just orders.

The nurse wheeled me out of the hospital two days later, even though I said I could walk. She gave me a paper mask, sunglasses, and a thick coat, as if I were some fragile celebrity with sunlight allergies.

I wasn’t.

But I played along.

Outside, a black military SUV idled in the cold morning air. It looked like it belonged in a convoy, not a hospital driveway. A soldier stood by the door, hand raised in a stiff salute.

“Good morning, Miss Jiang. The General’s waiting at home.”

Not your father. Not your family.

The phrasing was careful. Controlled.

The driver didn’t talk much. The windows were tinted, the road bumpy, and the silence heavy. I stared at my hands—small, pale, smooth. Not mine, but becoming familiar. Jiang Lanying’s body. Still not sure if I belonged in it.

The House

The Jiang estate sat behind two layers of security gates, stone walls, and a guard post with two armed men standing at ease. Not a mansion, not quite a compound—something in between. Cold, symmetrical, spotless.

No flowers. No family photos. No welcome.

Inside, a housekeeper led me to my room. Large. Minimal. A desk, a single bed, a wall-mounted screen, and shelves lined with military texts and prep manuals. Everything was perfectly arranged—lifeless.

“This is where you’ll sleep,” she said. “The General expects you downstairs at 1800 for dinner.”

I nodded. She left.

I stared at the books on the desk: Military History of the Eastern Territories, Combat Ethics, National Defense Structure.

No fiction. No journals. No traces of who the old Lanying really was.

That was the first thing that scared me.

The Brother

At 17:59, I came downstairs wearing the uniform they left folded on my bed. Sharp lines. Navy blue. Gold trim on the cuffs. It felt like armor.

At the table sat a man I hadn’t met yet, but recognized instantly: Jiang Rui.

Older brother. Cadet major at National Defense Prep. Age nineteen. Clean-cut. Back straight. Eyes sharp.

He didn’t look at me when I entered.

“You’re late,” he said without turning.

“It’s 18:00 on the dot.”

“Late for a Jiang.”

I didn’t answer. Just sat across from him. A maid brought soup and rice, placed it without a word, and left.

The air crackled with something unsaid.

“I heard you hit your head falling down the stairs,” he said.

“That’s what they told me.”

“You remember it?”

“No.”

His eyes narrowed.

“Convenient.”

I met his stare head-on. “You think I did it on purpose?”

“I don’t think anything yet. That’s the problem.”

First Flash

That night, I stood in front of the bathroom mirror after everyone else had gone to sleep. I pulled the mask off my face. Washed away the powder they’d used to hide the bruising near my temple.

And there it was. A faint scar under the hairline.

I stared at it, and suddenly—

A flash.

Running. Breathless. Someone yelling behind her. A stairwell. A hand on her shoulder. A shove.

Darkness.

Gone.

I gripped the sink, heart pounding. The mirror fogged up from my breath.

I didn’t just fall.

Someone pushed her. Pushed me.

“Wake-up is at 0500. You’ll be at formation by 0530. Your uniform better be crisp, your shoes better reflect light, and your face better not show anything but focus.”

That’s what General Jiang told me the night before I was shipped off to National Defense Preparatory Academy. No hug. No smile. Just orders.

The SUV dropped me at the front gates at sunrise. Two other cadets—both male, both silent—were already standing at attention. The gates opened without fanfare. Just the sound of boots on concrete.

This wasn’t a normal school.

This was a pipeline to military command.

You either followed the system, or you got crushed under it.

Orientation and Observation

The academy looked like a fortress: stone walls, four-story dormitories, training fields stretching out into mist, and buildings numbered instead of named. Blocky, cold, functional.

A woman in a tailored black uniform met us at the entrance. Major Li. No expression, no wasted words.

“You are not here to be comfortable,” she said. “You are here to become useful.”

She handed us our schedules—color-coded, brutal. Weapons theory. Strategic logic. Field movement. National protocol. Leadership labs.

And a block of something called Psychological Discipline Training.

I frowned. What did that mean?

“You will each be assigned a counselor,” Major Li said. “You will report weekly. Emotional control is just as vital as physical stamina.”

Or just another way to keep us quiet, I thought.

Inside the Dorm

My dorm was shared. Two bunks. A sink. A steel locker. No mirrors. No privacy.

My roommate was already inside—boots off, flipping through a notebook. She looked up as I entered and her eyes widened for a split second. Then narrowed.

“You’re Jiang Lanying,” she said.

I kept my expression neutral. “Yeah.”

She tilted her head. “You cut your hair.”

I hadn’t.

The girl—Tan Wei—smirked and got up. She was shorter than me, sharper around the eyes. Confident.

“We had classes together last semester,” she said. “You never talked. Always sat in the back. Scared of everything. Fainted during live fire practice.”

I didn’t respond.

Now she stepped closer, lowering her voice. “What happened to you, Jiang?”

“What do you mean?”

“You walk different. Your eyes don’t look like they want to disappear anymore.”

She studied me for another beat. “I liked the old one. She was easy to beat.”

The First Test

The next morning, we had our first assessment: endurance run, combat drills, and shooting test.

I made it through the run middle of the pack. Not impressive—but not weak. I was still adjusting to this body, still learning its limits.

In hand-to-hand drills, I slipped once. Not because I couldn’t fight, but because I hesitated. I wasn’t used to sparring with teenagers. They weren’t playing.

“Again,” the instructor barked.

This time, I didn’t hold back. I dropped my opponent in two moves. Quick. Efficient.

People stared.

At the shooting range, I picked up the Glock 19, exhaled, and fired five rounds.

Center mass. Tight cluster. Muscle memory I didn’t expect to have in this body.

Someone behind me muttered, “That’s not the same Jiang.”

Counseling Room 3B

I was summoned to “psych discipline” that afternoon.

Room 3B was empty except for a table, two chairs, and a man in civilian clothes with a laptop and unreadable face. Dr. Yan.

He didn’t stand when I entered. Just nodded. “Sit down, Lanying.”

He clicked open my file. Scanned it. Spoke without looking up.

“You fell down a flight of stairs. Hospitalized with head trauma. Coma for two days. Memory loss reported.”

I said nothing.

“Now you’re acing weapons tests, standing straighter, and not reacting to former classmates the way you used to.”

Still quiet.

Finally, he looked at me. “Do you feel like yourself?”

I met his gaze. “I feel more like myself than I ever have.”

His fingers paused above the keyboard. That wasn’t the answer he expected.

He smiled faintly. “Good. That’s what this place is for. Change.”

The Note

That night, I found a folded paper tucked under my pillow. No name. No handwriting I recognized.

It said:

“You’re not Jiang Lanying. I don’t know who you are, but I know she didn’t survive that fall.”

I froze. My stomach turned cold.

Someone knew. Not suspected—knew.