Chapter 1: Shot and Gone

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.

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