Chapter 5

Lia stared at the ceiling and sorted out her thoughts.

She transmigrated. Transmigrated! In that novel. As her namesake. A cannon fodder. Great.

Lia clicked her tongue and thought back to what she remembered from the novel. If she was going to live here from now, she had to know at least the plot turns so she could avoid them.

Lia was sixteen years old, still young and naive in Lia’s modern views, but too old in this world’s norm. She was expected to be married at this age. But there were a lot of reasons why she could not find a man to marry her.

For one, the men around her were not the male lead. The novel Lia only felt attraction to the opposite sex once she met him. Second, novel Lia was the daughter of the witch. Obviously, no one wanted the witch which extended to her daughter. So Lia lived a secluded life…until the protagonist came and swept her feet.

Lia crunched her nose in disgust. The protagonist would be the end of her so she might as well avoid him at all cost. How she would do that though was something that still needed further thinking later.

The air wafted in her room through the gaps in the wooden door. It smelled of chamomile, instantly relaxing Lia’s frayed nerves. She could hear the clanging of pots and bowls in the kitchen, with Tamara preparing whatever it was for Lia.

While Tamara treated Lia as her daughter, she was not really Lia’s mother. Lia’s real parents died out of illness. They were poor so no one wanted to help them. Only Tamara extended her hands to heal them with her extensive knowledge of medicine. But it was too late. Far too late. They were dying before she could even know how to treat them. Not too long after, Lia was left alone in the world.

At first, Lia was happy. Having been ostracized and bullied since young, she thought this wonderful and almost ethereal lady would help. She thought it was finally her time to enjoy life like the other kids.

Only, the noble lady she thought was hated by many, known as the witch for most people. She was bullied again and more harshly. She grew to hate the woman who once tried to save her family. She longed to be free, to be out there, far from this woods, far from this woman.

That was why she followed the protagonist in a heartbeat when he asked her to come with him in the Imperial City. And that was her biggest mistake, the beginning of her misfortunes.

Lia shook her head. She should never follow her namesake’s example. If she could, and she would, staying away from the protagonist seemed like the best option, both for her heart and for her life. Boy problems and other dramas should be left behind in her past life. This new life, this kind of rebirthed life, she was willing to accept this new reality and live a worry-free life.

Her main concern at the moment was the witch. But Tamara seemed far from the witch of her imagination. She might need to know more about Tamara before deciding.

That seemed like a good plan.