1 Who Am I? Where Am I?

Fu Mei Li endured her massive headache and opened her bleary eyes, only to be stunned by the slightly smiling male god in front of her. Where did this ultra handsome guy come from?

"You're awake." The male god smiled and looked relieved.

Was she really awake? Fu Mei Li wondered to herself. She cannot be blamed for her disbelief and confusion. She forced herself to look away from the handsome vision who could easily claim to be a model with millions of net worth just based on his looks. She then took in the details of the room she's in.

Ancient. That was the first word she thought of to describe the place. Her well-trained eyes as an archaeologist with more than 15 years of study and experience clearly noticed the design style of the room, furnishings, and decor and immediately placed them in a certain timeline. The room, and even the clothes the man was wearing, can easily blend well in the Han or Tang dynasty.

Although the guy's clothing and some patterned fabrics in the room seem to have some elements of ethnic tribes, too.

That's right, she suddenly remembered that she was drinking with her fellow archaeologists after dinner. They were celebrating a major find at the excavation site they were working on. How did she end up here? Where is this place and who is this guy? Have I been abducted? Numerous questions flitted through her mind but her rational and analytical brain allowed her to remain calm. Besides, the man in front of her doesn't seem to have ill intentions towards her.

As her brain fog cleared further, she realized that the man was waiting for her response. "Ah...umm..." she said awkwardly as she subconsciously touched her dry throat. Why is her hangover this time so weird?

"Drink." The man quickly gave her a cup of warm water. Just as she handed back the cup, pain assailed her frontal lobe.

Along with the pain were flashes of memory. What scared her was that those memories were not hers!

She was clearly a woman in her 30s with a PhD in Archaeology and a degree in Anthropology. She spent her time studying ancient technologies, art, and culture and she shuttled between Beijing, the US, and a few European universities per year. She even took up A-level subjects such as Botany, Geography, Geology, and Chemistry over the years.

Her world involved fieldwork, excavations, laboratory research, reconstruction projects, and speaking or teaching engagements. In her free time, she cooked for herself, did yoga, or practiced different kinds of dances for exercise.

Where did these memories of a hapless eldest miss from an aristocratic family come from? Why does she remember parents she didn't recognize and even a concubine mother and a half sister? She clearly was orphaned at a young age and it was her grandparents who took care of her growing up. Her last surviving family, her grandmother, died ten years ago. So what's going on?

Fu Mei Li clutched her head in confusion. The pain has subsided considerably but more memories kept coming.

It seems like she...transmigrated?! Wait, wait, wait!

She ignored the concerned man asking her what's wrong. His voice seemed far away and she couldn't care about him at the moment.

Fu Mei Li did her best to focus and understand those memories.

This girl's name was also Fu Mei Li. She was from the Fu family, an aristocratic family in the capital. She was engaged to a man named Jin Mingyu when she was 12 years old and was set to be married at 15.

Her fiance seemed to be a Jinshi, a top graduate of the imperial exams, and has become the Imperial Grand Tutor's adopted son. He also entered the Hanlin Academy to work for the emperor. For all intents and purposes, this Mingyu guy seems to be an excellent scholar with a bright future, hence the Fu family betrothed their eldest miss to him. That eldest miss was her, Fu Mei Li.

The first in a series of tragedies struck Mei Li two years later after her engagement was set, when she was 14. Her mother passed away due to illness and she had to observe three years of mourning so her marriage was delayed. It was also at this point that 22-year-old Mingyu resigned from Hanlin Academy due to vague reasons.

A few months after her mother passed away, her cheap father's favored concubine was promoted as the main wife and this was the next step of Mei Li's hellish life.

Her stepmother and half younger sister bullied the timid Mei Li and ridiculed her for her engagement to a man who seemingly fell out of honor. Her father ignored her and so she was maltreated and malnourished and became ill frequently.

The day of her marriage, when she's 17 and has finished her mourning period, became a huge joke around the capital. This was because not only the fallen Jin Mingyu came to fetch her, but his four brothers came with him as well since this was how it was done in their village - brothers marry a shared wife.

She didn't even get much of a dowry because her stepmother hogged the silver and the shops that were originally from her own mother's dowry. Her concubine mother intended to give those to her half-sister to use. Her father, meanwhile, kept quiet about these things despite knowing, which served as tacit approval of his concubine's evil deeds.

Nobody stopped Fu Mei Li's marriage on account of the Grand Tutor's face. The revered old man came to observe the proceedings that day but did not say much. The whole thing - from the arrival of her five husbands at the Fu family's gate to her leaving with them on her own without any servants and with just one small chest of dowry - became a sham and gossip fodder for the capital.

Many noble daughters and sons, and even the general populace, ridiculed Mei Li for being a loose and non-virtuous woman. After all, the people in the capital were used to marriages composed of a husband, main wife, and numerous concubines. They did not understand and even disdained the practices of ethnic groups and remote villages.

When the brothers came to pick Fu Mei Li up, she was already ill due to malnutrition and the bullying in the Fu household.

On the 8th day out of the 10 days of the journey from the capital back to the Jin brothers' village, Fu Mei Li's cold worsened. Since she traveled at the start of Spring, the weather was still very chilly. And since Mei Li was timid and still shocked from suddenly being married to five husbands, she didn't get out of the carriage much. The brothers took turns handing her food through the carriage window.

It was too late when the brothers discovered that she was severely ill when she didn't respond to the lunch sent to her that day. When they checked, she had already fainted.

This was when the previous Mei Li died and the current Mei Li's soul took her place.

What's to become of her?