Yona has now accepted that she is Huo Yòu'nà.
She ran for a long while until she reached an area with stores and spilled into a building that said café.
Huo Yòu'nà wasn't sure what it was, as she was still receiving the memories from her soul.
She found a seat in the back of the café, a small corner hidden away from prying eyes.
Yona's priest spirit felt restless and weak, still not accustomed to their new body as Huo Yòu'nà.
They had the same name in face, but led to completely different lives and seemed to be completely different people, as she refused to suffer a loss without the other one going down with her or suffering a hundredfold times more than her. And her other half.
She didn't want to call a piece of herself weak necessarily. Still, she was a bit disturbed and disappointed by the fact that she allowed so many people to walk over her without snapping back, feeling Yòu'nà's core with annoyance.
"Tsk, are we pathetic?" Her knee shook in agitation as she relived every beating the piece of her soul had endured until the main soul, herself, came fully alive.
From the memories of her soul, she gathered that she was currently living in the dorms at her school. Yòu'nà had low status in the eyes of her family, even though she had all rights to the heritage as the only soul, and yet a bunch of greedy relatives—her aunts and uncles—were trying to uproot her.
She had been adopted into the family when she was a baby. Later, she learned from her cousins that she was "just a bastard" and shouldn't have any right to the family's heritage. No matter how many strays the family took in and raised, she would always be an outsider.
When Huo Yòu'nà turned sixteen, her grandparents gave her the belongings left at the orphanage where her mother had been brought home after dying from complications two months after giving birth to her. Her adopted mother and birth mother had been best friends, and her adopted mother had raised Yòu'nà as her own since she couldn't have children. It was her best friend's dying wish.
They often mocked her condition, calling her a psychopath, and paid local thugs to bully her and steal her money. She suffered in silence, never using her right as sole heir to protect herself.
She was often cornered on her way to and from school to the point where she stopped returning home and decided to stay in the dorms so she wouldn't be harassed.
She then lied to her grandparents, saying she had decided to study harder and that it was easier to stay on campus for the commute.
Her grandmother and Yòu'nà were very close, but currently her grandparents were away on a business trip. Her uncles, aunts, and cousins took that opportunity to plot against her and ruin her reputation, tricking her into various troubles as she had always been isolated at school and naive.
She left the family a few months later, tired of being constantly harassed by her uncles, aunts, cousins, classmates, and local thugs. She thought leaving would stop it, but it only made things worse. One of her cousins even stole her songbook and composed music, knowing Yòu'nà had always wanted to be a singer like her birth mother.
Straight despicable!
"SLAM! CRACK!"
Without meaning to, Yòu'nà, who hadn't realized she was gripping, cracked the table with her strength.
"Shit!" she ducked when others looked her way. "Oops… I didn't realize I had to re-learn how to handle my strength in this body. It's like back in my adolescent days."
Yòu'nà sighed, laying her head in her hand. She wanted to get these memories sorted quickly and then figure out her next move.
She got into a meditative position.
It took her a full thirty minutes to sense any kind of mana or spiritual energy in the world, and it was quite sparse. This made her annoyed again.
Ugh, how the hell was she supposed to cultivate now? There were still many ways, but they required resources she didn't currently have, and connections she had yet to build.
Tsk. Forget it. Let's just meditate and try to recover as much strength as possible.
She shut down her thoughts and fell into her meditative state, letting the background of the world fade into silence.
Three hours passed before a waitress came over and almost gently tapped her shoulder.
"Hello, excuse me, little sister, do you need to go to the hospital? You don't look too good." The beautiful waitress hesitated when Yòu'nà didn't reply, reaching her hand out to gently shake her awake—but never got the chance.
Yòu'nà snapped her head and looked at the waitress with a murderous glare before she could touch her.
The poor waitress jumped back in fright but still timidly asked after seeing Yòu'nà's battered appearance.
"Gasp!" Her hands flew to her mouth at the sight of the delicate, curvy young woman with a black eye, busted lip, and disheveled hair and clothes.
It startled Yòu'nà for a moment, but she calmed down when she realized the young waitress worked at this café and meant no harm.
She lazily stretched, looking unfazed, then focused her gaze on the waitress.
"And how can I help, little pretty Dolly?" she asked, her words awkward but fluent. She wasn't very used to speaking Mandarin; it had been a while.
It's been a few years since my grandmother passed, and I would only speak it occasionally with friends, she reflected quietly.
"Umm, oh—I didn't mean to scare you, but you've been here a while and haven't ordered anything. My manager sent me over to see what was going on, but do you need help? I think you should probably see a doctor." Zou Qingzhao said politely, blushing cherry red, before quickly leaving, like she was being chased by a ghost.
Well, ghost isn't necessarily wrong—technically, she was a ghost in a twisted, funny way.
"VRMMM VRMMM—"
Huh?! That noise!?
Yòu'nà looked around, trying to locate the source of the vibration she felt.
"VRMMM VRMMM—"
Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out a rectangular metal device that glowed on the front.
What is this vibrating monstrosity? A magic weapon? A divine artifact maybe?
The device, slightly bigger than her hand, kept lighting up with the name "Grandpa" flashing.
She checked her memories from her merged soul and realized this divine artifact was called a phone.
You could communicate, see faces, and send messages instantly—like projection arrays or flying messages, but millions of times faster!
How marvelous. And there's a thing called the Internet, and social media—all enormous aspects of this world.
She was familiar with some things, but not a phone or modern technology. Her grandmother had explained parts of the culture and written characters, but she had only heard stories—now she could experience them herself.
Another thing she learned: she was a background singer for her cousin, who was in a big pop group. Huo Xiulan exploited Huo Yòu'nà's talent, claiming she wasn't beautiful enough to perform, and that her only usefulness was to sing behind the scenes to grow fans—indirectly. And her previous soul had stupidly agreed.
Sigh.
Yòu'nà rubbed her head in frustration. Her cousin couldn't even sing and had to lip-sync, while Yòu'nà performed in the back or under the stage, getting scraps while her cousin collected fame and money. Her cousin Huo Xiulan had something to do with it—otherwise, how would they know she had money in her hands?
Tsk.
So many things to handle. So many people to punish and get back at. She was remembering names, making a list—definitely checking it twice.
Grandmother never talked about things like this! Had she experienced this?!
"VRMMM VRMMM—"
The vibration of the thumb brought her out of her thoughts. Following her soul's memory, she slid her finger across the green button on the screen, answering the call.
…..
Yòu'nà stayed silent, waiting for the other person to speak first.
"My dear Na'na, are you still on your way home? We're finally back in town. Come home for dinner—Granny and us grandpas miss you."
An elderly, deep timbre—strong with vanity—echoed in her ear.
It was Huo Yuanjun, one of her grandfathers.
Memories of Huo Yòu'nà's soul flashed into her mind, allowing her to relive the moments with her grandparents.
She couldn't see her grandmother's face clearly, but her soul felt restless and anxious to see them, especially the two grandfathers. She had her grandmother's husbands Kong Jingguo and Huo Yuanjun.
Her soul piece was very close with all three of them.
"I'll send a car to pick you up from the dorms," Huo Yuanjun spoke again after not hearing her say anything.
Finally coming out of her days of memory processing, she answered:
"I'm not at the dormitory, so I'm at a café, but I'll come and see you guys. You can send it here. I'll send you the location." Youna's voice was soft as she spoke into the phone as which was held to her ear.
"The driver will see you in a few minutes," Huo Yuanjun told Yòu'nà.
"Hmm" she hummed in agreement. They shortly hung up after.
Yona couldn't wait to see her grandmother!