Chapter 1

So cold.

Xu Qingling was awakened by the chill, feeling as though she were trapped in an ice cellar. Sharp pain radiated from her wrists and ankles. Her mind was clouded, images flickering past like scenes in a carousel. She didn’t know how much time had passed before her frozen body finally regained some mobility. She struggled to pry open her eyelids.

Darkness surrounded her. Xu Qingling shook her numb head, dazed for a moment before she remembered—before waking up, she’d been drunk, lying on the floor of her rented apartment.

It had been half a year since she was able to sleep in a bed; only curled up on the floor could she barely drift off.

She tried to sit up and realized something was wrong: she was outside. Her entire body was soaked, her lower half submerged in water, her upper body sprawled on rough, dry grass.

Only the sound of cold wind rustling the wild grass along the embankment filled her ears. Icy rain struck her head and neck, the chill seeping outward from her chest.

Though it was night, by the distant pinpricks of light, Xu Qingling quickly oriented herself. This was the Falling Star River on the outskirts of Xun City. When she was in elementary school, she often came here to dig for wild vegetables.

Later, Xu Demao rebuilt the old house in the city village into a five-story building and started a supermarket and a small hotel. Whenever school was out, she had to stay home to help run the shop, trapped behind the counter from dawn to dusk, without a hint of freedom. Only after dinner would she finally have time to herself, dragging her best friend Wan Yue here to walk along the river embankment and gaze at distant train tracks from the exposed riverbed.

Back then, her mind was filled only with dreams and longing for the future.

Memories from her distant girlhood surged, making her chest ache with cold. She got up, stomped her feet hard, and shouted into the pitch-black night sky, trying to drive away the people who had just come to her mind.

Looking around, her frozen brain gradually thawed. She finally understood what had happened: she had returned, back to the summer of over a decade ago.

That year, after the college entrance exams, she had been accepted to a technical college, but her parents wouldn’t let her go. In the dead of night, she came to the riverside, so angry she wanted to jump in and end her life.

Thinking back on it years later, Xu Qingling always wanted to slap her younger self. She had been too naïve then, believing her death would make her parents regret it for a lifetime.

Xu Qingling was the middle child of three. Her elder sister, Xu Hongjiao, and younger brother, Xu Junwen, rounded out the siblings. Among the three, Xu Hongjiao was the most accomplished. She studied foreign languages at Jing University, got a job at a multinational corporation, earning a basic salary of over four thousand a month, with allowances and year-end bonuses bringing her annual income to seventy or eighty thousand.

A decade ago, this income was enough to make the neighbors envious. Xu Hongjiao was good-looking, high-earning, and had found herself an excellent partner—a golden phoenix from the city village.

In comparison, Xu Qingling and her brother Xu Junwen paled. Xu Qingling loved painting since childhood, but her studies were mediocre; she barely scraped into Xun City First High. Xu Junwen was the worst, not even passing the high school entrance exam. He was placed in the same school by paying, a grade below her.

This year, Xu Qingling took the college entrance exam. The results had just come out; she was accepted into the art department of Xun University as a specialist. Her parents, however, adamantly refused to pay for her schooling.

No matter how much their daughter protested, the couple wouldn’t budge.

In truth, the Xu family wasn’t poor. Xu Qingling’s father, Xu Demao, came from three generations living in Oak Village in Xun City. Years ago, the city expanded, Oak Village was incorporated, farmland became residential land, and villagers became city folk overnight.

Xu family’s two-story brick house was well-located, facing a main road and directly opposite Xun City Hospital. Xu Demao’s younger brother, Xu Deyou, was the first university graduate from Oak Village, holding a government job and marrying a well-connected wife. He naturally looked down on the old family house, so he gave his share to his elder brother Xu Demao.

Later, Xu Demao borrowed money from friends and, with the eldest daughter’s monthly contributions after she started working, gritted his teeth and added three more stories, turning it into a five-story mini-mansion.

The first floor housed a supermarket, the second was their residence, and the third to fifth floors operated as a hotel.

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With the wave of migrant workers flooding the city, the hotel flourished from its opening, business so good that half their debts were paid off within a year. The family’s prospects, holding onto city village property, were decent.

The couple’s reluctance to let their second daughter go to college wasn’t just about money. Due to family planning, their elder daughter, Xu Hongjiao, had been sent to live with relatives in the countryside as a child, only returning when the youngest, Xu Junwen, started elementary school. As a result, Hongjiao had always been distant from the family. She went off to college, found work far away, and returned home only once or twice a year.

The couple reasoned that at least one daughter should stay by their side, lest they have no one to care for them in old age. The second child had always been with them, kind-hearted and not as aloof as her sister. They thought it best to keep her close. Besides, they were getting older, Junwen was still in school, and the family business needed help.

If the second daughter would stay and help run the shop, there was no need to spend money on college. Especially since she and Junwen were close in age; in two years, Junwen would take the entrance exam. Supporting two college students at once would be too much.

Xu Demao and Wu Guifen had long reached an agreement on this: one played the bad cop, the other the good. Wu Guifen stayed in bed for days, complaining of headaches and back pain. Xu Qingling, soft-hearted, felt for her mother, who had borne three children and suffered from illness, working inside and out while bearing her father’s temper.

After several days of conflict, Xu Qingling finally gave in.

Thinking back now, she realized how easily she’d been swayed in her previous life. If she had known that when Junwen took the entrance exam, he wouldn’t even get into a specialist college and the family would spend ten thousand yuan to place him in an open university, she would have been furious.

In the end, out of the three children, only she never attended college. This remained a thorn in her heart for many years.

Sometimes, listening to her sister and brother talk about university life, all she could do was envy them. What hurt even more was that the year Shen Luan was accepted into Xun University’s economics and management department and became a star, she had no college to go to, standing at the supermarket every day, the gap between her and Shen Luan growing ever wider.

A train roared by on the distant tracks, breaking her reverie.

Snapping back to reality, she watched the dazzling headlights pierce the night sky, wrung out her soaked clothes, and walked along the embankment toward the city.

*

At Zijin Villa in the east of the city, Xu Deyou and Fu Juan sat anxiously by the phone.

Normally, they would have been asleep by now, but tonight they were worried, waiting for news.

Suddenly, urgent knocking sounded at the door. The couple braced themselves. Fu Juan glanced at her husband, “Is someone from the Shen family here? I’ll check!”

She got up and opened the door, startled to find a drenched figure standing there.

Xu Qingling had walked half an hour through the night, soaked to the bone. Seeing the gentle, familiar aunt from her memories, her nose tingled, “Aunt!”

Fu Juan finally recognized her niece, calling for “Deyou” as she pulled the girl inside.

Of her elder brother’s three children, Fu Juan was closest with this niece. Both her niece and her own son, Shen Luan, were in their final year at Xun High. The child was usually quiet and well-behaved, always helping her parents in the shop during holidays, a considerate daughter.

It was a pity her elder brother and sister-in-law, despite making money these past years, remained as short-sighted as ever.

Seeing the girl soaked as if fished out of water, Fu Juan fussed, “Child, the rain wasn’t even heavy—how did you get so drenched?”

The niece’s arrival at this hour surprised Xu Deyou as well, “Did something happen at home?”

Xu Qingling had only been to her uncle and aunt’s villa during New Year as a child, and found her way here relying on the faint memories she had left. Now, she was tired and thirsty.

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Fu Juan, seeing her niece’s pale face and wet clothes, quickly poured her a cup of warm water and found clean clothes for her to change into.

The care on her uncle and aunt’s faces allowed Xu Qingling to finally relax. She calmed herself, sat down, and explained her parents’ refusal to fund her schooling.

Xu Deyou was the first prestigious university graduate in the Xu family, excellent in his studies and a campus star during college. After graduation, he didn’t pursue further studies or join the entrepreneurial wave, but instead became a physics teacher at a secondary school.

As a teacher, Xu Deyou cared deeply about his family’s academic prospects. His niece, unlike her sister, was not outstanding, but getting into Xun University’s specialist art program showed she had worked hard.

Moreover, as he knew, Xun University’s art department was quite strong. Even specialist graduates were in high demand.

After hearing her out, Xu Deyou was furious, “This is outrageous! No matter how much you want to save money, you can’t refuse to let your child study! That’s destroying her future!”

He knew his brother and sister-in-law’s nature better than anyone. In the past, to have a son, they’d sent their eldest daughter Hongjiao to the countryside to dodge family planning regulations. Fortunately, Hongjiao was determined, went to the capital for university, and stayed there after graduation.

Xu Demao and his wife had only one son, now in junior high and at a rebellious age.

Unlike her husband, who came from an ordinary city village family, Fu Juan’s background was much better. The Fu family had connections in the public security system, and Fu Juan herself worked in the police department, usually strict with her son.

But faced with her gentle, sensible niece, she couldn’t bring herself to be stern. She took Xu Qingling’s hand and patted it, speaking softly, “Now that your uncle and I know, we won’t ignore this. It’s too late tonight—go home soon so your parents don’t worry.”

Xu Deyou didn’t expect his wife to take a stand so quickly. His tightly knit brows relaxed, and he urged his niece, “Keep your acceptance letter safe. I’ll talk to your parents. Don’t worry—you won’t miss out on college!”

This was exactly what Xu Qingling had come for. In her previous life, influenced by her parents, she hadn’t been close to her uncle and aunt’s family at first. When her uncle heard she hadn’t gone to college, he regretted it deeply. Seeing her at home day after day, helping at the supermarket, her aunt even introduced her to work at Shen Anwu’s company.

She knew that in the matter of college, her father was the real decision-maker. Xu Demao was stubborn and headstrong; years of smooth business only made him listen to his younger brother and sister-in-law occasionally. Without them, how could a small-time city village shopkeeper connect with the Fu and Shen families?

Besides, the Xu family’s homestead was half Xu Deyou’s by rights. Villagers gossiped behind their backs that Xu Demao had taken advantage of his brother; over time, Xu Demao felt uneasy, sensing he was diminished in his brother’s eyes.

Having said everything she needed, Xu Qingling glanced at the clock on the wall—it was nearly eleven. She stood up, “Uncle, Aunt, I’ll head home now.”

Xu Deyou grabbed a coat from the sofa, “It’s too late; I’ll walk you to the gate and call a car for you.”

Xu Qingling followed closely behind her uncle. This villa district was large enough that she might well get lost trying to retrace her steps.

Fu Juan was about to get up to see her niece off when the landline rang urgently. She turned and answered the call.

Xu Qingling heard an anxious woman’s voice through the phone. Soon, her aunt asked, “Anwu still hasn’t been found? Have you notified the other district police stations…”

Xu Qingling’s heart skipped a beat—Shen Anwu?

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