The Years I Spent as a Princess Consort

A chill seeped into her very bones, rousing Yan Heru to slowly open her eyes. Droplets of water still clung to her trembling lashes.

She propped herself up, her entire body aching and shivering with cold, her clothes thoroughly soaked. Glancing around, she found herself in a pitch-dark cave, an underground river flowing before her. It seemed she had been swept down here by the current.

“How did I end up here…” she murmured, standing unsteadily.

She remembered clearly: only moments before, she had been traveling by private plane to visit a patient, when an explosion had torn the craft apart. Had she truly survived such a disaster? Was it because she had fallen into the river?

Leaning against the slick, black wall, she prepared to follow the current upstream, but when she glanced at her own hand braced against the stone, she froze.

That hand was covered in scars and calluses. Impossible!

She was a physician—her hands were her most precious instruments. She had always taken meticulous care of them, believing it a sacred duty to save lives with these hands.

A sense of unease rising within her, she hurried to the river’s edge and crouched down. The reflection in the water was indeed hers, but it was her sixteen-year-old self staring back.

Though the cave was dark, the mirrored image was faintly discernible.

“How can this be…” she whispered in disbelief, stumbling back a few steps. Suddenly, a sharp pain pierced her skull. Clutching her head, she curled herself into a corner as a torrent of unfamiliar memories overwhelmed h