Adeline leaned against the headboard, feeling the lingering weakness in her body.
It was her third day since transmigrating.
Compared to when she first woke up three days ago, her condition had improved somewhat.
At least she could sit up without assistance now.
As for walking, she could manage a few steps, but each step made her knees feel weak, as if stepping on cotton.
Light footsteps sounded in the hallway.
Adeline looked toward the door.
Sure enough, the oak door handle turned gently from outside, and a young girl in a black-and-white maid dress walked in carrying a silver tray.
Lina, the maid of the Castiya family.
Strictly speaking, calling her a “maid” wasn’t accurate.
Over the past two days, Adeline had taken advantage of the moments when Lina brought meals, fed her medicine, or cleaned up to ask seemingly casual questions.
She was careful with every word, vague enough not to arouse suspicion.
And Lina was so innocent she hardly had any guard up.
As long as the topic wasn’t too sensitive, she answered everything truthfully.
So Adeline pieced together the general situation.
Lina wasn’t actually a hired servant of the Castiya family.
She had been adopted by the Castiya family since childhood.
The family provided her with education, taught her etiquette and manners, and raised her as one of their own.
Therefore, her loyalty to the Castiya family far exceeded the typical employee-employer relationship.
In a sense, she was an unofficial member of the Castiya family.
That also explained why Adeline’s father, who had been away from home for a long time, trusted Lina to take care of his only daughter.
Anyone else would hardly have earned that trust.
Lina herself was only sixteen this year, not much older than this body.
She had a simple personality, not much cunning, diligent but occasionally absent-minded.
Her care for Adeline was genuine and unreserved.
If she had to be described in one word, it would be a loyal dog-type girl.
“Good morning, Miss Adeline.”
Lina placed the tray on the bedside table, then quickly walked to the window, grabbed the edge of the thick dark curtain, and carefully pulled it open a crack.
Morning light spilled in through the gap, laying a narrow golden strip on the carpet.
The sky outside was gray, as if covered with a thin veil, not looking like a clear day.
But even so, this bit of light brought some life to the room that had been gloomy for two days.
Lina didn’t pull the curtain open any further.
She knew well that Adeline’s body couldn’t handle strong light and cold wind, so just letting in this sliver of light was enough.
She carefully smoothed the tassels on the curtain edge to ensure there were no gaps for drafts, then turned around.
“It’s a bit chilly outside today. I checked the windows; there are no gaps.”
Lina said as she picked up a white porcelain cup from the tray.
“Breakfast is ready. Today’s hot drink is warm goat’s milk with honey, much better than yesterday’s. The doctor said you can have more dairy products now; they help restore your strength.”
She handed the cup to Adeline.
Adeline took the cup, feeling the warmth in her palm.
The liquid inside was pale milky white, with a thin layer of milk skin floating on top, exuding a mild sweet fragrance.
She took a sip.
Indeed, it was much better than the sour and astringent medicinal drink from yesterday.
“Thank you,” Adeline said softly.
Lina set the other food items on the bedside table: two slices of lightly toasted white bread, a small plate of thinly sliced cheese, and a small bowl of warm oatmeal porridge.
It wasn’t particularly lavish, but enough for someone who had been bedridden for a long time.
Adeline picked up a slice of bread and took small bites, but her eyes fell on the stack of books on the bedside table.
Those were the ones she had asked Lina to take down from the bookshelf yesterday.
In her room, there was a huge oak bookshelf, twice as tall as a person, crammed full of all kinds of books—literary works, poetry collections, historical texts, and even a few rather thick natural history volumes.
Most of the spines showed signs of being handled, indicating that the original owner had enjoyed reading and read often.
This was a huge blessing for Adeline.
A person who already liked reading suddenly starting to read—who would find that strange?
She didn’t need any excuse for spending all day with books.
She could just quietly be a “sickly young lady who keeps company with books.”
She pulled out the top book from the stack.
The cover was embossed with gold lettering:
A General History of the Kingdom of New Clare
She had specifically chosen this book from the shelf yesterday.
From the bits of information Lina had chattered about over the past two days, Adeline learned that the country she was in was called New Clare, full name the United Kingdom of New Clare and the Northern Land.
Lina wasn’t well-versed in politics and history, but since she had received basic education in the Castiya family, she knew some common knowledge.
For example, this country was a monarchical kingdom, with the king living in the palace of the capital, Vist.
Society was divided into three major classes: nobility, middle class, and commoners, with quite solid barriers between them.
For another example, the steam engine had been invented about two hundred years ago.
Now factories were everywhere, railways crisscrossed the land, and society was undergoing a period of tremendous change.
All of this pointed to one conclusion: this era was very similar to the Victorian period of her previous life, around the time of the First Industrial Revolution.
Except the history was completely different.
Adeline opened A General History of the Kingdom of New Clare and continued from where she had left off yesterday.
Although the book was titled A General History of the Kingdom of New Clare, more than ninety percent of its content was about the history of the Kingdom of Clare itself.
The parts about New Clare were pitifully few, more like a short appendix added at the end.
The book’s opening described the founding of the Kingdom of Clare: in the year 545 of the Long Night Calendar, a king named Clare established this kingdom in the darkness of the Long Night Era.
Thereafter, the kingdom underwent countless reforms and changes of rule, with periods of prosperity and decline, internal wars and external threats.
As for New Clare, it was merely a country rebuilt on the ruins of its predecessor by the successors of the Kingdom of Clare.
It inherited the name Clare, but in essence, it was already a completely different regime from the old Kingdom of Clare—different systems, different ideologies, and even its territory had shrunk considerably.
It was like a person who changed their name and personality but insisted on living under the same old face.
Adeline turned to the chapter about the Long Night Era, frowning slightly.
She had encountered this term multiple times in the book.
According to the text, the Long Night Era began with the collapse of a great dynasty that once unified the world, and it lasted for over a thousand years.
During that millennium, a church called the Church of the Holy Calamity ruled all of human society.