consciousness swam back into focus, and the first thing she noticed was a splitting headache. Not that kind of headache, the kind where you pound a fist against the wall, but the kind that made you question your sanity. She blinked, and the blurry shapes around her sharpened into the dim interior of a room. It was small, poorly lit, and smelled faintly of dust and something else… something that wasn't entirely clean.

"Ugh." She groaned, pushing herself up and glaring at the ceiling. Sunlight streamed through a gap in the roof, painting stripes across the floor. She was lying on a hard floor, propped up by a pile of straw. Not the most comfortable setup, but she’d seen worse in her life. Specifically, she’d seen nothing.

She was Si Mu E, or at least, she thought she was. Until she’d woken up here. Last she remembered, she’d been trying to save her little brother from a fever. She’d gathered herbs, brewed a decoction… and then, darkness. A lot of darkness. Like, ‘坠落进深坑’的黑暗.