The Soul Knows No Face

💫 1 : Waking Up In Another Life 💫

The taxi slowed to a stop at the corner of the street. Inside, Xue Yaoyao sat between Fu Jiu and Feng Shang, the hum of the engine filling the silence left after a long day.

They had just come from the internet café, where the three of them somehow convinced the elusive manager—and former pro-player—Yin Wuyao to join the He Army for the upcoming Rookie Tournament. It had taken every ounce of Yaoyao's charm and determination, but seeing her friends' smiles now made it worth it.

"Call us when you get home," Fu Jiu said as Yaoyao gathered her things.

"Don't forget to rest," Feng Shang added, his voice teasing but fond.

Yaoyao laughed, pushing the door open. "Yes, yes, I'm going! Go before you two start nagging like an old married couple."

She waved as the taxi drove away, the taillights disappearing into the distance. The night breeze was cool against her cheeks. She took one step toward the small street that led home—

—and never saw the car coming.

Headlights flashed.
A deafening screech.
Then silence.

When the world stilled again, Xue Yaoyao was gone.

💫

The Stranger's Faces

When I opened my eyes, the first thing I felt was pain.
A dull, suffocating ache that spread from my head all the way to my toes.

The ceiling above me was white—too white. The kind of white that didn't belong to homes or offices, but hospitals. A soft beep echoed nearby, followed by the faint rustle of fabric. I tried to move, only to feel something tight around my neck and bandages brushing against my skin.

Then I saw them.

A middle-aged couple hovered at the foot of the bed. The woman had worry written all over her face, and the man stood stiffly beside her, his eyes red, as if he hadn't slept in days. Beside them stood a younger man—early twenties, tall, sharp-jawed, with eyes so cold they made me shiver. He didn't speak. He just stood there, watching me like I was some stranger who had broken into his world.

I blinked at them, disoriented.

Didn't I just come out of the grocery store?
Didn't a motorcycle hit me so hard I thought I'd black out right there?

So why was I here?
And—where were they?

"My husband," I croaked, voice rasping against the dryness in my throat. "Where's my husband?"

They all froze. Confusion flickered across their faces.

The woman turned to the young man, whispering something I couldn't understand. He replied in a low tone—his words foreign, twisted, wrong.

It hit me then.

They didn't understand me. Not the nurses who rushed in when the young man called, not the doctor who adjusted my IV, not even the woman who tried to hold my hand.

Panic clawed its way up my throat.
"What's happening?" I asked again, voice breaking. "Did someone call him? Does he know I'm here?"

Blank stares. No answer.

And as the sound of their unfamiliar words filled the room, as the pain in my head prompted me to close my eyes, I guessed in dread something that made my blood run cold—

Whatever place this was, it wasn't my world anymore.

💫

The woman beside me gasped when I opened my eyes again. For a second, she just stared, frozen between disbelief and relief. Then she started speaking rapidly in a language I didn't recognize — Chinese, maybe? Or Japanese? I couldn't tell. The sounds were foreign, soft, but urgent.

She reached for my hand, her palm trembling. "Yaoyao..." she whispered, her voice thick with emotion before slipping back into that unfamiliar language that made my head spin.

Yaoyao? Is she calling me Yaoyao?

My name isn't Yaoyao.

I swallowed hard, trying to keep calm. "Please," I said, forcing a weak smile. "Can you contact my husband? I'm afraid he'll be worried about what happened to me."

The woman blinked, her brows furrowing as though trying to piece together what I just said.

Beside her, a man who had been silent this whole time finally spoke up — in English.
"Contact your husband?" he asked, his tone careful, testing.

"Yes!" I almost sighed with relief. "Yes, my husband. Please tell him I'm alright."

The woman turned to him, confused. "Darling, what is Yaoyao saying?"

He hesitated before replying to her in Chinese — "She's asking if we contacted her husband."

Their exchange made no sense to me. It was like watching a movie with the subtitles missing, the dialogue all emotion but no meaning.

Then the woman's lips trembled. Her hand tightened around mine as tears filled her eyes.

And that's when it hit me.
They weren't strangers reacting to an accident.
They were reacting to me.

And whatever they saw when they looked at me wasn't the woman I remembered being.