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In the distance stood a grand cathedral with a beautifully designed dome, and the entire town stretched on endlessly.
Hedy looked around, feeling a bit lost, seeing the blacksmith loudly chatting with the butcher.
She looked down at the maid's outfit she was wearing and suddenly remembered something.
This was—
Her slender, long fingers instinctively tugged at the coat and collar, and sure enough, she felt something hard beneath it.
This was the same outfit she had worn when she escaped at the age of nineteen.
That year, she became famous for her scandalous film, so much so that even Hitler himself had ordered the banning of certain scenes.
Then she married the biggest arms dealer in Austria, only to be confined in his mansion, with her every move watched by the maids—who were actually spies.
Hedy gripped the edge of her maid's dress and felt the diamond jewelry sewn into it.
On the night of that grand banquet, she had slipped sleeping pills into the maid's tea, changed into her clothes, and sewed all the valuable jewelry into the seams before escaping from Austria to England.
A cool breeze swept by as passersby occasionally glanced at her, even pointing and whispering among themselves.
The young girl clutched the hem of her skirt, her heart trembling so much that she could hardly find the words.
I died at eighty-five, then returned to when I was nineteen.
A strange city, a strange era, everything starts anew.
Hedy took a deep breath and once again examined her hands and elbows.
There were no traces of surgery, no signs of aging or spots.
She even reached up to touch the back of her ear and her cheek, the soft, smooth texture making her want to cry.
Her latter years had been so hard; now, everything had returned to when she was nineteen. It was like a dream.
Her hair was smooth and black, her cheeks as tender as the softest skin, and even the excess skin that once hung from her neck had disappeared.
She had truly returned to her most beautiful self.
The first priority was to figure out where she was.
Hedy snapped back to reality, hiding her presence behind the haystack, and began observing the city more closely.
The ochre-colored rooftops alone were a dead giveaway, and in the distance, some buildings displayed a red-and-white city crest with painted irises. Everything pointed to one answer.
Having spent nearly a lifetime in a film studio, she could distinguish between sets and reality.
This was Italy, and more specifically, Florence during the Renaissance.
She had visited this city in her middle age while shooting The Love of the Three Queens, where she portrayed a passionate tale with Napoleon.
Hedy steadied herself, clutching the necklace sewn into her dress, too afraid to speak.
Before she could figure out her next move, a young man’s voice suddenly came from behind her.
The Italian accent made the words sound a bit odd, and she couldn't understand Italian.
Instinctively, she turned around and saw a young man with brown hair and eyes.
