The moment Li Na finally succumbed to slumber, her spirit was whisked away by a soft breeze.
𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴-, 𝘢𝘮 𝘐 𝘣𝘦𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘴𝘮𝘪𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯?
Her mind was still sorting out all the pieces when she felt a body materialize around her.
Her new feet immediately landed on something soft, and a whiff of a natural, soft fragrance touched her nose, causing her to open her eyes.
Before her was a vast field, filled with swaying grass and wildflowers that gently bent under the breeze. Above her, multiple stars dotted the night sky. An angled fog tinted rose, emerald, and lime twisted and turned below the natural illuminations.
Her brain was still muddled as she gazed at the scene before her, confusion swarming her mind.
Eyes wandering, Li Na noticed a small pool reflecting the colorful night sky. Her feet padded softly against the grass until they reached the edge of the water, and she bent down, face leaning forward.
What met her eyes was a girl with pale, jade white skin, dark chestnut hair that cascaded in silky lines down her back and shoulders, chocolate brown eyes under elegant, long lashes, and a red tinted mouth that was frowning with her. She and the girl touched their face at the same time.
She became Li Na again?
As if to answer all the questions running through her mind, suddenly, the pool's reflection of her began to swirl. The water showed the reflection of the upper sphere beginning to contort, inducing Li Na to glace up at the sky.
It was like the upper half of the world was turned into a large motion picture.
Li Na, in a daze, watched the scenes that played above her go by, familiar and distant memories rapidly streaming into her mind.
The beginning scene displayed a castle gate and a dirt road that split into two paths, all submerged in darkness and tinted with varying shades of indigo caused by the faint moon light.
"Prince Devon!" An anxious voice sounding exactly like her own echoed gently through the quiet night scene.
A smooth, white porcelain face and delicate neck that softly captured the moonlight appeared behind the metal gate. Strands of luscious, silver-grey hair spilled out from the young woman's hood, also glazed slightly with the faint, cool light. The female's beautiful sky-blue eyes gazed outward with intense concern.
Without hesitation, the woman unlocked the door and stepped into the outside world.
A shadow immediately appeared behind her. "Princess Elswyth, it's dangerous. It is best if Her Royal Highness stays inside."
The woman shook her head urgently. "No, my little brother the prince has snuck out. I must retrieve him. Come with me."
The princess and the dark figure set off into the darkness, rushing onto the path toward the forest.
"Prince Devon!" Princess Elswyth called out again as they entered the woodlands towering over them, this time louder.
The distant hoots of an owl answered them.
Both of them searched through the darkness for a while longer, but to no avail; the young prince had completely disappeared.
"Your Highness, it is best to go back. I can summon other knights to search for him with me at the first sight of dawn."
"But-"
Before the princess could object, a grown man's sobbing quietly filled the air.
Resolve soon filled the young woman's eyes at the sound, and she headed toward the noise. Her companion had no other option but to follow. In a clearing, the princess saw an old man crouching on the forest floor, his mournful cries building up and becoming more grievous.
Her gaze softened and she moved to closer to the elder. "My good man, what is the cause of your mourning?"
When the elder looked up, something flickered in his eyes. He immediately grabbed the edge of the princess's cloak, inciting her companion to draw half of his sword. "Miss, my daughter is in desperate need of help. She is laying there dying in my hut from a severe injury from a wolf. I plead with you to come and save her!"
The princess immediately agreed. The protecting figure next to her tried to accompany her, but the old man strongly refused, saying, "My daughter is incredibly afraid of meeting men."
With reassuring eyes, the princess nodded at her protector. "Don't worry, this elder means no harm. Return to the palace first to call a physician, and hand me the herbs you have on hand. I will treat the girl and wait for your return. Go."
Unable to disobey a command, her guard reluctantly headed back, and the princess followed the old man deeper into the forest.
Li Na watched as the princess eventually fall into capture by a group of black clothed men with black veils covering their faces. The old man had duped her, having led her instead into a place where she could be easily taken as a hostage without anyone's knowledge.
The leader of the men coerced the princess to no avail when they tied her up in their hideout, and thus they proceeded to lock her in a water dungeon for ten days.
After this scene, the sky turned pitch black, then an array of clips played, this time flitting through Li Na's own life. Clips of her working as a teenager were displayed, up to her death by the speeding truck.
From the first scene that was played on the surface of the night sky, Li Na had begun to discover her original identity before she was born into a modern society world as Li Na.
The world she was now in was her initial world, where she was originally Princess Elswyth Anthea Olbrecht. She was the 4th child of King Edmundus Maven Olbrecht--the fifth successor of the bloodline of the Olbrechts to succeed the throne of Gerwenia.
She had grown up as the princess during peaceful times, sheltered within the castle walls as a treasured daughter of the royal family. When she was taught moral principles, Elswyth only learned to simply interpret what was wrong and what was right like differentiating between black and white on first sight.
In other words, she was quick to judge and quick to carry out actions according to what she initially saw.
She awarded the maids that looked generous and kind, and punished other servers that she caught in an immoral act. Beyond that, she looked no further. After all, her father and brothers saw no need for her to be in the royal court helping to identify more complicated cases where the individual in the wrong was more disguised.
This personal characteristic unfortunately led to her demise, as she just had seen when her past self interacted with the deceitful old man.
Because of her ignorance and imprudence, she was unable to spot the hidden wolf among the flock of sheep.
Her previous life as the fifth princess soon ended after being locked in a water dungeon, just like what Li Na had experienced that night.
But contrary to what Li Na later had experienced after she was pulled out of the water cell, her past self as the princess did not last in one piece as long her present self.
Previously, when they had wanted the princess to steal a certain document from her father the king, Elswyth in the past had persistently refused. Even after they had locked her in the water prison and threatened her with her youngest brother, Prince Devon, who was her little brother that had run away that night, she still refused to work for them.
In the princess' mind, if that one document fell into an enemy's hands, there was the great risk of costing potentially hundreds to thousands of the lives of her countrymen and the lives of the royal family.
And so, even if it penetrated a deep thorn of regret and guilt in her heart, Elswyth had decided to give up on saving her young brother's life. She was neither clever nor strong enough at the time to find a way out; all the princess could do at the moment to prevent any further damage to her family and kingdom was by refusing to be a puppet and choosing to sacrifice her life for the greater good.
The leader of the black-clothed men, seeing her constant, firm refusals, had deemed her too stubborn to keep alive, and so instantly cut off her head before anyone else could say a word.
The princess was then reborn as Li Na, the daughter of a lower-class family struggling to survive in the city. Her mother worked in a fish factory and her father was a janitor at a local elementary school. Due to their high rent, Li Na's parents could only pay off a portion of her high school and college fees.
Thus, by the age of fifteen, Li Na had already begun to work at a convenience store, and then at other jobs while simultaneously being a full-time student. As she was no longer a princess in a rich household filled with attendants to satisfy her needs and wants as well as knights to protect her, Li An had begun to learn the value of prudence and thorough discernment of people as a working, young female in a society littered with disguised, ill-willed authorities and with the help of her cautious parents.
The scenes that replayed her two lives finally stopped, fading away with the night, stars, and the twisting, multicolored fog. The sky was replaced by clear, blue upper-sphere, and she was left sitting in the swaying, grassy field dipping their heads under the wind.
Li Na closed her eyes, and a resolve grew within her heart.