### The Next Morning
**BREAKING: Tech CEO Elara Chen Found Dead in Apparent Suicide**
*NetVault Security founder discovered in penthouse office amid federal investigation*
NEW YORK — Elara Chen, 29, CEO and founder of NetVault Security, was found dead in her penthouse office early Sunday morning. Initial reports suggest suicide by drug overdose, though the investigation is ongoing.
Chen's death comes hours before a scheduled federal raid on NetVault headquarters. Sources close to the investigation indicate the company may have been involved in unauthorized data sharing with foreign entities.
"This is a tragedy," said Richard Morrison, Chen's longtime mentor and NetVault's primary investor. "Elara was under immense pressure. I only wish I'd seen the signs sooner."
Chen, who built NetVault from a dorm room startup to a billion-dollar corporation in just six years, was known for her brilliance and her notably reserved demeanor. Colleagues described her as "focused" and "driven," though some noted she seemed emotionally distant.
She leaves behind no immediate family. A private memorial service will be held—
***
### The Awakening
*Drip. Drip. Drip.*
Water. Somewhere close. Rhythmic and slow.
Elara's eyes snapped open.
Wrong. Everything was wrong.
The ceiling above her wasn't glass and steel—it was stone, carved with intricate patterns she didn't recognize. Golden chandeliers hung from iron chains, their candles flickering with real flame. The smell hit her next: incense, old wood, and something floral she couldn't name.
She tried to sit up. Her body felt heavy, unfamiliar. Too small.
*What—*
Her hand flew to her throat, expecting to find the needle mark, the poison still burning through her veins. Instead, her fingers met smooth, unblemished skin.
Alive. She was alive.
"Your Highness! You're awake!"
Elara's head whipped toward the voice. A young woman in elaborate robes rushed toward her—not a nurse, not a doctor, but someone in silk and embroidery, her hair pinned up with jade ornaments.
"Stay back," Elara said automatically.
But the voice that came out wasn't hers. Higher. Younger. Wrong.
The woman stopped, confusion crossing her face. "Your Highness, are you feeling unwell? Should I summon the physician?"
*Your Highness.*
Elara looked down at herself. She was lying in an enormous bed draped with crimson silk and gold embroidery. Her hands—small, delicate, definitely not her hands—were pale and decorated with intricate henna patterns.
This wasn't her body.
"Where am I?" The words came out shakier than she intended.
The woman's confusion deepened. "You're in the Azure Lotus Palace, Your Highness. Your own chambers. Did you hit your head during the fall?"
"Fall?"
"Yesterday. In the garden. You fainted and—" The woman's eyes widened. "Do you not remember?"
Elara's mind raced, processing information faster than her racing heart. None of this made sense. Richard had killed her. She'd felt herself dying. This couldn't be real.
Unless—
"What is my name?" Elara asked slowly.
The woman looked genuinely alarmed now. "Your Highness, you're frightening me. Shall I fetch—"
"*What is my name?*"
"Princess Yue Lian," the woman said carefully, as if speaking to a child. "Second Princess of the Celestial Empire. Daughter of Emperor Zhao and Imperial Consort Mei. Your Highness, please, I must call—"
"No." Elara—no, Yue Lian?—held up a hand. "Just... give me a mirror."
The woman hesitated, then hurried to an ornate table and returned with a bronze hand mirror, its surface polished to a shine.
Elara stared at the reflection.
The face looking back at her was not her own. Younger, maybe sixteen or seventeen. Delicate features, almond-shaped dark eyes, black hair that cascaded past her shoulders. Beautiful in a way Elara had never been.
A stranger's face.
She lowered the mirror slowly, her analytical mind attempting to process the impossible.
She had died. She was certain of that. The poison, the darkness, Richard's face as he—
"Your Highness?" The woman's voice was gentle now, worried. "Should I summon your sister? Princess Yue Mingzhu has been asking after you since—"
"I have a sister?"
The woman's face went pale. "I'm calling the physician."
"No. Wait." Elara—Yue Lian—forced herself to take a breath. To think. "How long was I unconscious?"
"Since yesterday afternoon. Nearly twenty hours."
Twenty hours. Not long enough for any of this to make sense.
The woman was backing toward the door, clearly intending to get help whether Elara wanted it or not.
"What year is it?" Elara asked suddenly.
The woman stopped. "Your Highness?"
"The year. What year?"
"The... the thirteenth year of the Crimson Phoenix Dynasty?" The woman looked completely baffled now. "Your Highness, you're truly worrying me."
Crimson Phoenix Dynasty. Elara ran the phrase through her mind. Nothing. No historical record, no cultural reference she could identify. Either she was hallucinating—poison-induced delusion, perhaps—or something impossible had happened.
She looked down at her small, unfamiliar hands again. Felt the weight of silk robes she'd never owned. Smelled incense from a world she'd never known.
"Leave me," she said quietly. "I need to think."
"But Your Highness—"
"*Leave me.*"
The command came out sharper than intended, but it worked. The woman bowed quickly—too quickly—and fled, her robes rustling as she disappeared through carved wooden doors.
Alone, Elara stood on shaking legs and walked to the window.
Outside stretched a palace complex unlike anything she'd ever seen. Pagodas with swooping roofs. Gardens with carefully pruned trees and lotus ponds. Stone pathways where people in elaborate robes moved like colorful shadows.
In the distance, mountains rose against a sky too blue, too clear to be New York.
Elara pressed her forehead against the cool stone window frame.
She had died.
And somehow, impossibly, she had woken up as someone else.
Princess Yue Elara. Second Princess of the Celestial Empire.
For the first time in her life—in either life—Elara didn't know what to do.
So she did the only thing that made sense: she started gathering information.
Because whether this was death, delusion, or something else entirely, one thing was certain.
She was alive again.
And this time, she wouldn't waste it.