Transmigrated as Jane’s Ghostly Godmother - Chapter 1

Chapter 1: A Bolt of Lightning, Two Terrified People; Only a Dream, Not…

When she opened her eyes, she was met with a desolate landscape. A thin mist drifted through a forest of withered branches and fallen leaves.

A gust of icy wind hit her. The thin jacket she had worn for her driving lesson offered negligible warmth, and Lin Zhao couldn’t help but shiver. She looked up, her brow furrowed as she scanned her surroundings.

The gnarled, leafless branches of spindly trees stood like grim sentinels, looking down at her expressionlessly.

Looking further up, the sky was a murky gray—not bright, but clearly not night.

Where was she?

Wasn’t she just sitting in a car at the driving school?

Lin Zhao tried to recall more details through a slight headache.

This was supposed to be just another ordinary day of her summer vacation. Once it got dark, she had followed her schedule to practice “Subject 3” (road test) at the driving school, picking up a delivery package on the way.

Unfortunately, in mid-July, the weather is fickle. Not long into her practice, thunder and lightning erupted outside, followed by a sudden downpour that made it impossible to continue.

She immediately tried to contact her instructor, but the signal was terrible. The loading icon spun for an age before her message finally sent; it spun for an age again before she received the instructor’s promise: “I’ll pick you up when the rain lets up.”

Lin Zhao sighed, deciding not to hold the “false intelligence” of the weather forecast against anyone. She adjusted her seat, unwrapped her package, and prepared to kill time by reading.

Yes, a book. The package contained a copy of Jane Eyre. Every year, she bought a new edition to re-read.

As she remembered this, Lin Zhao’s heart began to race. She sat bolt upright and felt a weight in her arms. Looking down, she saw that very book.

More images flooded her mind.

Inside the flickering interior of the car, she had used her phone’s flashlight to illuminate the black-and-white pages. It hadn’t been easy to read, but fortunately, she knew most of the content by heart—especially the opening, which she could recite from memory.

“There was no possibility of taking a walk that day…” (Note 1)

A cold, late autumn wind swept through Gateshead. In the drawing room, Jane Eyre hid behind the curtains to read. Outside, the sky was bleak; the little girl’s story began in her tenth year…

Yes, she remembered everything now.

Back then, she had only turned two pages when a massive roar erupted from overhead—or perhaps from the roof of the car. She had gasped, turning to look out the window, and the world had vanished into a sea of white light within seconds.

When she opened her eyes again, she was here.

“So, was I knocked unconscious by a lightning strike in the car?” Lin Zhao murmured. She gripped the book and reached into her jacket pocket with her other hand.

Empty. No phone.

Wait, really?

If she truly had been knocked out by lightning, had someone robbed her in the chaos? Large items, small items—had everything of value been taken?

Helplessly, she stood up and brushed the mud off her clothes, not forgetting to check the condition of the book.

The cover was thick, with the title embossed in gold. It was perfectly clean, looking no different from when she had first unwrapped it.

Truly a pack of thieves with no eye for value.

Fortunately, though—this edition was hard to come by.

Another gust of wind pulled her thoughts back to the gravity of the situation. Lin Zhao hugged the book tight, deciding to leave the forest first and then analyze what was happening.

“Hopefully I’ll run into another living person on the road so I can borrow a phone and call the police.”

She prayed silently, her footsteps never stopping as she trudged through the intermittent muddy paths toward the edge of the woods.

After an unknown amount of time, the trees began to thin out, and her vision cleared. The mist still lingered, but as she stood at the border between the plain and the forest, she saw a manor house in the distance.

A manor? She was startled by the word that popped into her head. She rubbed her eyes and looked again.

Pointed roofs, stone walls, and orderly rows of lattice windows with dim lights flickering behind them. It was a classic medieval Western European structure that should only exist in movies or history books. Not to mention the vast lawn in front of the building and the forest she had just emerged from.

By all accounts, it looked exactly like a manor.

“Was there a place like this near the driving school?” Lin Zhao muttered to herself, stopping in her tracks. Things were getting weirder by the second.

Time was distorted, her belongings were gone, and now, she couldn’t even determine her location.

Even the most unflappable person would have to admit they were likely in a very unknown and dangerous situation.

…Wait, was that a person?

She re-examined the mansion, her eyes falling on a window.

A little girl sat there, her thin frame barely filling her oversized gown, a book resting on her lap. Red moreen curtains hung softly beside her, shielding the interior from view.

The bleak sky, the grand mansion, the girl hiding behind the curtains to read…

A vague and absurd thought exploded in her mind. She looked down in disbelief at the book in her palms, which was slightly damp from the mist.

When the lightning had struck, she had only read a few pages—it had stopped at exactly this scene.

…This felt suspiciously like “Transmigrating into a Book.”

“No, impossible…” She immediately denied the thought as soon as it surfaced. “There must be another explanation. For example… I was probably dazed by the lightning, and now I’m lying in a hospital bed in a coma.”

While this development was also magical, it was at least more common and easier to accept than book transmigration.

Besides, in the 21st century, discussions about time travel were still confined to the screen. How could something so unscientific happen in this world?

Lin Zhao’s gaze shifted from the book cover back to the figure by the window. She quickly judged her current state:

She preferred to believe she was dreaming. A fantasy generated by a brain in a deep coma, a recurring dream about rewriting Jane’s fate.

It had to be mentioned that she had read Jane Eyre so many times over the years that she had progressed from a “perception phase” to a “fantasy phase.” Her daydreams included, but were not limited to, various scenarios of transmigrating into the book to help Jane change her path at different stages.

Although the current scene felt far too real to be a dream, she convinced herself of it for the time being.

Taking a long, deep breath, her racing heart calmed somewhat. A strange, shivering anticipation began to rise from the depths of her soul.

In her fantasies of transmigrating to the beginning, she had always wanted to be in that drawing room to stop Jane’s impolite cousin from bullying her.

With a feeling akin to going on a pilgrimage, she started walking again toward that window.

Just like in the original book, Jane was immersed in her reading, her head down, completely unaware of her approach. As the distance closed and Jane’s features became clearer, Lin Zhao involuntarily slowed her pace, even her breathing becoming light.

The girl on the windowsill had a focused expression. Her left hand supported the book, and her right hand, having finished turning a page, hung in the air, forgotten by its owner. Her suspended wrist was bony; Lin Zhao was now close enough to see the veins beneath the pale skin.

She finally stopped by the window, her eyes falling on Jane’s cheek, and she unconsciously held her breath.

Pale skin, messy strands of hair falling over her temples, and thin, delicate eyelashes cast down, concealing most of her eyes.

Should she say it was expected of a dream? This girl looked different from any version she had imagined while reading, yet she knew at a glance, without a doubt: this was Jane Eyre.

According to the original description, Jane was currently immersed in the grotesque stories of her book. If she stood here, Jane might be terrified when she looked up.

Lin Zhao thought this and was about to back away, but it was a step too late—her position blocked the already meager light of the overcast day. Jane’s page-turning stopped. The small head buried in the book suddenly lifted, and their eyes met.

“…”

The eye contact was so sudden that both of them froze the moment their gazes locked.

Looking at someone reading through a window was far too strange. A series of thoughts flashed through Lin Zhao’s mind: Should I run? But this is my dream, what am I afraid of? But it is a bit scary, I should explain…

Before she could speak, Jane reacted faster. After a few seconds that felt like years, the girl’s face turned deathly pale. She clumsily slammed the book shut and scrambled to pull the curtains and leave.

But she moved too fast. The book slid from her knees, and Jane herself tumbled off the windowsill.

The book, which had only been closed for two seconds, lay sprawled open on the floor. It stopped at the page where “the fiend, in a shape more terrible, grips the thief’s pack from behind.”

Just as Lin Zhao saw the illustration, the world plunged into darkness. A crack of thunder exploded, and lightning whipped across the sky like a lash. The pale light illuminated Lin Zhao’s shifting, shadowed face outside the window.

“Ah… uh…” Jane’s scream escaped for only a second before being choked off by the sight before her, leaving only ragged gasps for air.

The spectacle startled even Lin Zhao.

“Jane, don’t be afraid. I’m not a ghost,” she quickly tried to soothe her, not caring if the glass made it impossible for the other to hear.

“…I don’t understand…” Jane became even more terrified, muttering a few words to herself. Trembling, she began to crawl backward on the floor, her legs weak.

As the scattered words reached her ears, Lin Zhao realized late that speaking Chinese to Jane was a tall order.

She waved her hands frantically and translated her previous words into English. As she spoke, she thought it strange: There’s even a foreign language barrier? This dream follows the original text so strictly, it’s so logical…

Jane, however, turned white as a sheet, covering her ears and suspecting she was hallucinating from fright.

How did this oddly dressed, strange-looking phantom suddenly start speaking her language? No, someone help…

She didn’t dare look out the window again and began to scream: “Bessie! Bessie! There’s a ghost—”

The door was pushed open almost instantly, but the person was not the maid Jane had hoped for.

“Bad animal! What are you shouting for?” a boy said. His gaze swept over the book on the floor and the terrified Jane. His nonchalant expression turned into anger. “What a mess you’ve made! What are you raving about?”

John Reed.

Although she hated this blustering cousin, the appearance of a living person did ease Jane’s terror somewhat. Gasping for breath, she struggled up from the floor and pointed toward the window: “Outside… there’s a strange thing…”

“What could be stranger than you?” John insulted her habitually, glancing disdainfully toward the window.

Lin Zhao met his eyes and raised an eyebrow.

She wasn’t surprised by John Reed’s appearance. After all, according to the book’s plot, he was about to have a quarrel and a scuffle with Jane. However…

Looking at that face with its “large, fat features and thick brows,” she couldn’t help but feel that the original description was incredibly realistic. In fact, this fat, sturdy boy was even more of an eyesore than he seemed in the book.

At the thought of Jane being bullied by people like this every day, Lin Zhao suddenly felt that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to play along with Jane’s misunderstanding and scare him as a ghost.

She immediately pulled a face and stuck her tongue out at him.

John stared blankly for a few seconds, a flicker of confusion crossing his eyes. Then he turned back and roared at Jane: “I see you’ve forgotten the rules! You should call me Master Reed! Now, get over here!”

He sat down in an armchair as he did in the book, signaling for Jane to stand before him.

He can’t see me?

Lin Zhao frowned, watching Jane slowly walk toward John. Her shock was quickly replaced by urgency.

She instinctively tapped on the window.

“Why is the wind so loud out there?” John grumbled. He glanced out the window again, still completely oblivious to Lin Zhao’s presence.

How was this possible? Why could Jane see her, but John couldn’t?

The impact of this discovery was even stronger than the realization that she was “dreaming.” While Lin Zhao was lost in suspicion and shock, John inside was already losing his patience.

“Get over here this instant! You really need to learn some manners, daring to hide here and read my books!…”

The vicious scolding, Jane’s small, thin figure trembling with fear… all of this was different from the cold text. It was alive. That little girl, bullied by everyone and utterly helpless, was right before her eyes.

She had to stop what was about to happen.

No sooner said than done. Lin Zhao placed the book she was holding onto the windowsill, gripped the ledge, and climbed up. Once she was steady, she hammered on the glass with more force, making an even louder noise.

The gaze of both people inside was drawn to her.

“Go away… she’s coming in…” Jane’s voice was shaking. She shook her head, refusing to go near John, and instead began to move toward the door.

“Scared of a bit of wind, you really are a rat…” John tapped the arm of the chair dissatisfiedly, grumbling as he reached out to grab Jane.

Lin Zhao hesitated no longer.

She raised the heavy, brick-like copy of Jane Eyre high. With all her might, she slammed it down against the glass pane—

“You! Idiot!”