Awakening in the Liao Dynasty

The last thing Gongxi Da'e remembered was the cup of stone-cold instant coffee on her desk and the densely packed employee performance review forms on her computer screen. As the general manager’s secretary at an “online nanny” company, she spent her days struggling through oceans of data and navigating the buck-passing between departments, honing her skills at reading people and seizing every opportunity. But now, a bone-chilling cold seeped through her thin clothes, making her shudder violently and snap awake from the haze. Instead of the familiar cubicles of an office tower, she saw a low, ramshackle earthen house. The thatch on the roof rustled in the wind, and a sliver of moonlight squeezed through a crack in the wall, illuminating dust motes dancing in the air. Beneath her was a hard earthen bed covered with a layer of musty dry grass that dug painfully into her back. “Ugh...” Gongxi Da'e sucked in a sharp breath and tried to sit up, only to find herself weak all over, her head foggy as if she’d been struck with a heavy hammer. She raised a hand to rub her forehead, then caught sight of it: slender, pale, and lightly callused, it was nothing like the sharply knuckled hand she used to type on a keyboard all day.