Chapter 2: An Unfamiliar World

Fana rushed all the way to the park in front of the hospital, hid in the shade of a tree, and wept silently.

Yes, she had uterine fibroids, and damn it, they had turned cancerous.

She no longer held any hope for her own life.

Because her eldest aunt, second aunt, youngest aunt, and even her grandmother had all died of this disease.

At first, they tried to fight it too: surgeries, medication, endless suffering.

But they gave up so much, and not one of them made it to the end.

Every single one of them relapsed after two years, and then left this world in despair.

After crying, Fana looked up at the brightly lit city. Even though it was still summer and waves of heat rose from the concrete ground, she still felt terribly cold.

Her heart was cold, and so was she.

Fana cried for nearly half an hour. When she finally stood up, her hands and feet felt weak, but she did not sit back down.

She had to go home. Even if she was just clinging to life, she wanted to spend whatever time she had left comfortably and peacefully.

The traffic light was right in front of her. Fana stared blankly at the road, still bustling even at night.

Just then, the phone of the woman beside her rang. She fumbled to answer it, even letting go of the child she was holding.

Cars were racing by, exhaust fumes hitting her face, making it hard to breathe.

The five- or six-year-old child, distracted, dropped his toy, which rolled straight into the middle of the road.

"Ah!" The mother screamed. The child had already walked right into the middle of the street, determined to pick up his beloved toy.

With a blaring honk, a red sports car came speeding over.

Just as everyone braced for a tragedy, a white figure dashed out, flowing long wavy hair spreading through the air like ribbons, and the child was pushed out of the way.

Fana had no time to dodge. The blinding headlights drew closer, and she simply closed her eyes.

So, a person's life really is full of unexpected twists.

Yet, the pain she expected never came.

She felt a gust of wind rush past her ears, lifting her hair before gently letting it fall again.

Soon, the sounds of traffic faded, but she began to hear other noises overhead.

Could it be that the moment of death is painless? Fana thought. Maybe she could open her eyes and face the hell waiting for her.

Her long, curled lashes trembled in the breeze until she finally could not help but open her eyes.

"Ah!" Fana screamed in shock at the sight before her, but quickly covered her mouth.

This, this was not hell.

Looking at everything around her, which was strikingly futuristic, Fana's dark eyes darted around like a startled sparrow.

Above her head were all kinds of flying vehicles, and on the road ahead, only children were riding two-wheeled hoverboards.

Skyscrapers basked in the sunlight, looking as if they were about to pierce the clouds.

The roadsides were lined with colorful flowers and lush bushes. Everywhere was breathtakingly beautiful.

Taking it all in, Fana felt that perhaps she had not arrived in hell, but in heaven.

However, before she could celebrate, a pair of handcuffs snapped onto her wrists.

"Intruder! Surrender now!"

Fana immediately raised her hands. "I, I'm new here!"

"Name?"

"Fana Vesper."

"Age?"

"Twenty-eight."

"Home address?"

Fana stayed silent.

She had always been a sharp, observant woman. The place in front of her was clearly not the so-called heaven, and to be cautious, she decided to say as little as possible.

But the uniformed officer across from her grew annoyed. "Be honest! Where are you from?"

A wise woman knows better than to argue with a man in uniform. Fana quickly replied, "I'm from Earth!"

The officer blinked, as if her answer was perfectly normal.

"Oh, an Earth refugee, huh, so you don't have an Imperial citizen ID."

"Citizen ID?" Fana looked confused.

"Seems like you don't have one." The uniformed man immediately lowered his head and muttered to himself.

A moment later, he pulled out a large stack of documents and said to Fana, "If you want to get an Imperial citizen ID, sign this."

Fana took it, dazed, and looked down. The words were the same ones she knew, but the title at the top only made her more bewildered.

"Rules for Citizens of the Aethelgard Empire"

Fana did not read it carefully, just flipped through a few pages. The dense, tiny text made her dizzy.

"And if I don't sign?" Fana tested the waters.

The man across from her immediately darkened. "If you don't sign, I'll lawfully arrest you as an illegal refugee!"

"Hey, are you kidding me?" Fana's eyes widened.

"Who's kidding you? To live in the Aethelgard Empire, you have to sign this. After that, you need to go to the hospital for a physical check-up to get your residence permit." The uniformed man seemed to be losing patience.

"If you really won't sign, then don't waste my time. Come with me. Maybe we'll even make it in time for your first prison meal!"

That scared Fana half to death. She quickly grabbed the papers and said, "I'll sign, I'll sign!"

With that, she flipped to the last page and scribbled her name down in a hurry.

"Alright, take this and go to the hospital for the check-up." Seeing she had signed, the uniformed man quickly took back what could practically be called a book of rules and handed Fana a slip of paper.

Just like that, Fana was shooed out of the police station.

In a corner where she could not see, the two uniformed men were whispering.

"Sixer, nice one. You actually brought back a woman!"

The uniformed man smirked proudly. "Of course! I just didn't want her to get away. As long as that Fana Vesper becomes part of our Imperial registry, I get a bonus of two thousand credits."

"Bonus? That's nothing! The key is you just recruited another woman for our Empire!"

"If that lady just now wasn't a Resonant Omega but a Commoner Beta, our chances of a successful match just went up..."

"One in a hundred thousand!"

"Exactly, exactly!"

"If she were really a Resonant Omega, how would she end up drifting here? She's definitely a Commoner Beta!"

"You've got a point!"

The two chattered away excitedly, while Fana, guided by a kind passerby, found her way to the hospital.

Along the way, her eyes never stopped scanning. She felt something was off about this place.

Everyone on the streets was either a child or a man. Women were few and far between.

And all the people giving her directions were men. A ridiculous thought flashed through her mind…