Chapter 1 Transmigration into a Book

Chapter 1: Transmigration

"Miss? Miss Eve? Wake up, Miss Eve!"

Who's calling like they're trying to wake the dead? Can't a person get some decent sleep?

But who is Eve? Why does that name sound so familiar?

Lu Qing's head throbbed, a pain akin to being clubbed after a heavy night of drinking, then left to shiver on the cold ground. She struggled to open her eyes, her vision a blur. Only the hard bed beneath her confirmed she wasn't dreaming.

"Miss? Miss! Are you awake or not?"

Seeing Lu Qing's eyes open but her lips sealed, the woman who had been calling grew impatient. She grabbed Lu Qing’s shoulders, forcing her upright. Perhaps sitting helped blood flow more than lying down, for Lu Qing’s vision gradually cleared.

She stared in shock at her surroundings: a dim, austere room, a plain black comforter, and a middle-aged woman by the bed, her face etched with impatience. Lu Qing looked down. She was wearing a thin white nightgown, her fingers delicate and slender—clearly those of a young girl.

But she was supposed to be a tired office worker in her thirties! Where were the calluses from years of typing? Where were the pea-sized nodules of tenosynovitis from constantly propping up her hands? Whose youthful body was this, belonging to a sixteen-year-old?

"Am I still dreaming...? Where is this?" Lu Qing murmured, dazed.

"Miss, have you truly lost your mind from sleep?"

The woman in the gray dress by the bed glared, scrutinizing Lu Qing with a sharp tone. "You are Baron Medici’s daughter, Eve Medici. Where else would you be if not in your father’s mansion?"

"Stop dawdling. You have to go for your psychic aptitude test this morning. The main family will be here this afternoon to inspect and select candidates."

As if remembering something, the woman’s expression shifted, a mocking smile playing on her lips. "You're not worried about your lack of talent, are you? Afraid of embarrassing yourself? Is that why you’re making excuses to stay here? If you had said so earlier, I wouldn’t have wasted my time urging you."

Eve Medici?!

Wasn't that the villainess from *Empire’s Exclusive Darling: Watching the Starry Sea with You*, the interstellar Mary Sue novel she had read last night?

Lu Qing was stunned. Had she really transmigrated into the book as the villainess?

Though the novel’s title was tacky, Lu Qing had forced herself to finish it because the writing was decent and the female protagonist’s character was likable. At first, she hadn’t thought much of it, but as she read on, she became more and more engrossed. The tropes truly captivated her—a Mary Sue story had managed to keep Lu Qing, an adult, up late at night, squirming with excited anticipation.

The only downside was its length. Every day after work, the first thing she did was open the novel. It took her three full nights to finish.

And now, right after finishing it, she had transmigrated into the book.

Not only had she transmigrated, but she hadn’t even become the female protagonist. Instead, she was the villainess.

Since it had come to this, Lu Qing had no choice but to force herself to calm down and recall the plot related to Eve’s character. The more she thought about it, the colder her heart grew.

If Alice, the female protagonist of *Empire’s Exclusive Darling*, was righteous, kind, and hardworking, then the antagonist Eve was her complete antithesis. She was evil, cunning, and looked down on inferiors while sucking up to superiors. As the daughter of a cadet branch of the Medici family, one of the four great families, Eve had lost her mother early. Her stepmother disliked her, and her father ignored her. Under the family’s deliberate neglect, Eve developed an extremely twisted sense of values from a young age.

She craved power and and status, and devoted her life to scheming her way to them. After struggling to climb to the pinnacle of power and becoming the fiancée of the Medici family’s heir, she was enraged to discover that her fiancé had fallen in love with a common-born girl. He even intended to defy his family for her and break off his engagement with Eve.

This completely contradicted Eve’s values. She couldn’t understand why her noble fiancé would love a common girl, nor could she accept that her lifelong efforts were about to be lost so easily.

In everyday life, Eve often made things difficult for the female protagonist, deliberately trying to humiliate her. When her fiancé stepped in to protect the female protagonist, Eve grew even more jealous and resentful. After investigating the female protagonist’s background, Eve completely lost her mind. She was shocked to discover that the girl had a similar experience to hers: her biological mother had died early, and her father and stepmother had mistreated her. But after leaving her family, the girl had been discovered to possess an exceptional S-level psychic ability, was specially admitted to the First Empire Academy, and subsequently won the favor of the heirs of the four great families and even the crown prince.

What Eve had worked so hard to obtain was something others could effortlessly achieve. Sheer jealousy and resentment eventually shattered Eve’s rationality.

She secretly bought a lethal poison from a family specializing in poisons, intending to poison both her fiancé and the female protagonist.

But unfortunately, her plan was exposed. In the end, she was forced to drink the poison herself and was ironically accused of infidelity by her unfeeling fiancé.

While reading the book, Lu Qing had mixed feelings about this character. Eve was undoubtedly a villainess, but her character was so well-developed. She was also a silver-haired, blue-eyed beauty, and Lu Qing’s morals took a backseat in the face of such looks. When Eve died, Lu Qing felt a hint of pity—though only a slight one, since she preferred the female protagonist, Alice.

I mean, who wouldn’t like a kind, hardworking ray of sunshine like the female protagonist?

But now, after waking up, she had transmigrated into the villainess, who would get killed off halfway through the plot. Lu Qing couldn’t help but cover her face and let out a bitter laugh, musing about life's unpredictability.

Since things had come to this, she had no choice but to play along with Eve’s story for now and look for a way to return to her own world. If she couldn’t return, then she would change Eve’s fate. No matter what, she absolutely could not meet such an absurd end, poisoned by that unfeeling fiancé from the novel.

First, she needed to get used to being called Eve.

Then, she would handle the plot as it unfolded.

The novel had only briefly mentioned Eve’s past without going into detail. However, it did specifically explain why she came to the main Medici family.

Because the main family had few members, to expand their talent pool, the Medici family liked to select gifted children from branch families to bring into the main family for training. These children would live and train alongside the main family’s sons and daughters, with the hope that they would become loyal supporters of the family in the future—or even spouses for the main family’s sons and daughters.

In the original story, this was exactly how Eve entered the main family.

But didn’t that woman just say, "You have to go for your psychic aptitude test this morning. The main house will be here this afternoon to inspect and select candidates"...?

Eve jolted violently and leaped out of bed. She hurried after the woman, who was pretending to walk slowly toward the door, and grabbed her sleeve, coaxing, "Auntie, I was wrong. I wasn’t fully awake earlier. I really do want to take the psychic aptitude test. Please don’t take it to heart, okay?"

The woman in gray snorted through her nostrils and glanced at her sideways. Understanding the hint, Eve muttered 'old hag' under her breath and took off her pearl necklace, stuffing it into the woman’s hand. Only then did the woman nod in satisfaction.

Eve was neither favored nor entitled to inheritance in her family, so even the servants treated her poorly. The only reason anyone was still willing to serve her was to squeeze the last bit of value out of her, since she was still the daughter of a baron.

Looking at the pearl necklace in her hand, the woman noted that after being exploited for so long, Eve didn’t have many good things left. The necklace was lackluster, with pearls of uneven sizes and poor quality, but it could still be pawned for some money.

The woman casually stuffed the necklace into her pocket and snapped, "What are you still dawdling for? Hurry up and change your clothes. If you keep the master, mistress, and Miss Anna waiting, you can walk to the testing center yourself."

"Okay, Auntie. Please wait for me for a moment."

Eve put on a bright smile to coax the woman in gray, but as soon as she turned around, her smile vanished. She frowned at the drab, gray clothes in the wardrobe. While reading the novel, she knew the female character’s family treated her poorly, but she hadn’t expected a baron’s family to mistreat their daughter to this extent.

The clothes were wearable, but just barely.

She reluctantly picked out a relatively neat black dress and an iron-gray short coat, then sat in front of the mirror to comb her hair. The girl in the mirror looked to be only fifteen or sixteen years old, with a face so tender it looked dewy fresh. Her skin was fair, and she had the Medici family’s distinctive silver-white hair, which shimmered with a radiance that made the dim room seem brighter. Her aqua-blue eyes were as beautiful as the purest sapphires.

Eve touched her face and smiled slightly, not out of vanity over her beauty—this was Eve’s face, not her original one.

What made her happy was that silver hair and blue eyes were proof of the Medici family’s bloodline. It was almost as if Eve had "I am a genius" written on her face.

She couldn’t understand what her character’s ridiculous family was thinking. If she were the father or stepmother, and an unfavored daughter had the potential to be exceptionally talented, she would either show kindness to win her loyalty or suppress her so thoroughly that she could never rise again.

What was the point of merely making life difficult for her without taking any real action? It would only create empty resentment.

Eve pouted, attributing this to the novel’s need to shape a villain for the sake of having a villain.

When she stepped outside and saw the happy family of three standing by the door, Eve couldn’t help but let her expression turn cold. Baron Medici, his wife, and their daughter were all dressed in bright, fashionable new clothes. Compared to her, who was dressed entirely in black, even standing together, and even though three of the four had silver hair and blue eyes, no one would ever think they were a family.

Because clothes had that power to distinguish class and group identity.

Baron Medici had been leaning against the hover car, chatting and laughing with his wife and daughter. Suddenly, his wife’s smile faded. Following her displeased gaze, he saw his daughter, who was always disliked for the excessive ambition in her eyes, standing under the eaves in front of the house, silently watching them in clothes black as mourning wear.

Because of the distance, he couldn’t make out the exact expression on her face, but that didn’t stop his mood from suddenly souring.

So he also stopped smiling and waved at her, calling out coldly, "Since you’re ready, let’s go."

The entire car ride was silent. Even the usually lively younger daughter, Anna, didn’t dare say a word. She glanced at her parents, then at her half-sister, opening her mouth only to close it like a clam.

Anna hoped Eve would be chosen by the main family. Unlike her mother, she didn’t despise her half-sister, but whenever Eve appeared with them, the family atmosphere became strange. Anna wished Eve would leave the family, preferably far away, but she didn’t want her sister to be driven out in such a cruel manner.

If only she could be selected by the main family, Anna thought. The main family was on the capital planet, the most prosperous in the empire, and surely they wouldn’t mistreat a branch family child who shared their surname.

If Eve could be chosen, it would be the best arrangement for her and for the family.

Amidst this silence, each lost in their own thoughts, the high-end hover car bearing the Medici family emblem slowly came to a stop at the entrance of the Psychic Aptitude Testing Center.