“I’m pregnant, and the child is Lu Shaoting’s.”
Gu Xia had been reborn three months ago.
In her previous life, her entire family had been denounced by the eldest branch of the Lu family and forced to move to the countryside to live in a cattle shed, where they faced endless chores and never-ending struggles.
Her father was a refined university professor, and her mother was a dancer.
Her maternal grandfather’s family had modest assets in Shanghai.
When her mother married her father, she brought a substantial dowry.
The Gu family was considered well-off, living a life of comfort.
Her parents had two daughters.
Gu Xia’s older sister was six years her senior and had always cherished this well-behaved younger sister like a treasure.
Everything changed a year ago, when someone anonymously reported that their family was hoarding the “Four Olds”—including valuable antiques and cultural relics—and keeping a secret “little goldfish[1]In revolutionary China, the term 金魚 (jīnyú, goldfish) fundamentally retained its traditional cultural meaning of wealth, abundance, and good fortune. However, during times of intense … Continue reading jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_2734586_1_1').tooltip({ tip: '#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_2734586_1_1', tipClass: 'footnote_tooltip', effect: 'fade', predelay: 0, fadeInSpeed: 200, delay: 400, fadeOutSpeed: 200, position: 'top center', relative: true, offset: [-7, 0], });.”
The Revolutionary Committee officials paid no heed to their pleas and raided the Gu household without hesitation.
As a result, five small goldfish were indeed found during the raid.
But those had been part of the dowry her maternal grandfather had prepared for her mother, out of concern for his daughter marrying far away.
The Gu family’s antiques and calligraphy and paintings were all treasured cultural artifacts.
The Revolutionary Committee officials paid no attention whatsoever to her parents’ explanations and arrested the entire family.
Under her older sister’s cover, Gu Xia sneaked out and went to Uncle Lu’s house to seek help.
The Lu family and the Gu family were old acquaintances, with ties stretching back to Gu Xia’s grandfather and the Lu family’s patriarch.
Later, in their professional lives, Gu Xia’s father and Uncle Lu’s eldest son became very good colleagues.
The two families often visited each other during holidays and special occasions.
The Lu family had even considered setting up Uncle Lu’s son, Lu Ye, with Gu Xia’s older sister, Gu Mingyuan.
But later, when Gu Mingyuan found out her younger sister Gu Xia had a crush on Lu Ye, she deliberately went to study out of the province.
To Gu Mingyuan, her younger sister was more important than any man.
But Gu Xia truly liked Lu Ye.
As a sixteen- or seventeen-year-old girl in the throes of first love, she had sent him gifts and written love letters.
She didn’t receive the slightest bit of affection from Lu Ye; on the contrary, he grew to loathe her the moment he saw her.
When she went to the Lu family home to seek help from Uncle Lu,
she happened to overhear a conversation between Lu Ye and Uncle Lu, Lu Jianming.
> “That nuisance. It’s perfect that she’s going to the countryside—she’ll bother me less from now on.”
Upon hearing Lu Ye’s words, Lu Jianming finally felt at ease.
As long as his son didn’t like Gu Xia, the Gu family would be stuck in the countryside for the rest of their lives.
They would never return to the city.
And the Gu family’s fate unfolded exactly as Lu Jianming had planned.
The entire family was sent down to a rural village in the northwest.
As city dwellers, even though they tried their hardest to survive in the countryside, life remained incredibly difficult.
Her older sister, a top student at the foreign language school, had a bright future ahead of her.
Her future should have been one of dressing appropriately and serving as a diplomat engaging with the international community—not being humiliated to death in the countryside.
Her parents, in particular, could not bear the agonizing pressure of having human waste thrown on them day after day.
One was a university professor; the other, a stunningly beautiful dancer.
Suddenly, they were transformed from refined city dwellers into country folk.
They simply couldn’t adapt—after all, they had lived a life of refinement and propriety their entire lives.
Just because they insisted on using proper bowls and plates for meals, the villagers mocked and berated them, accusing them of acting like capitalists.
Yet clearly, over the years, her father had used his own money to sponsor many college students from the countryside who had come to the city to study.
Sometimes, he would even invite them to stay at their home for a few days, worried that these college students—who had just arrived in the city and hadn’t yet secured housing—would have nowhere to stay.
Yet this kind-hearted university professor, after being sent down to a rural village in the Northwest, suffered inhumane treatment.
Gu Xia felt that human nature was inherently evil.
Her family had simply lived a little better in the city—how had that made them capitalists?
There were plenty of well-off families in the northern part of the city—so why was it the Gu family that was sent down to the countryside?
If the Gu family was considered capitalists, then what about the Lu family?
The Lu family lived in a detached Western-style mansion, had a maid, and traveled by car.
Was it simply because the Lu family had an uncle who was a military officer that no one dared to cross them?
They’re picking on the weak—do they want to crush the Gu family?
In her previous life, she died when she was barely in her early twenties, facing the Lu family—a family she knew nothing about.
Gu Xia had no other choice; she could only use her own body to fight for a chance.
And she succeeded.
The matriarch of the Lu family sat in her chair, watching the young girl stubbornly lift her head, her gaze fixed and determined as she spoke.
The matriarch of the Lu family didn’t particularly care for her youngest son.
Because she had given birth to him at an advanced age, she had nearly lost her life during the delivery.
Later, a fortune-teller had also said that her youngest son, Lu Shaoting, had a strong birth chart; as a child, he would bring misfortune to his parents, and as an adult, to his wife.
Lu Shaoting had been raised in the countryside until he was eight years old. After his grandparents passed away one after another, he was brought to the city out of necessity.
Since she hadn’t raised him herself, she could never feel truly close to him.
The elderly Mrs. Lu immediately had someone make a phone call. When Lu Shaoting heard over the phone that Gu Xia had come to the house,
a faint crack of anger appeared on his usually composed face.
As the call ended, a loud clang of fists pounding on the desk could be heard from Deputy Division Commander Lu’s office.
Xiao Sun, who was waiting outside the door, shuddered in fear, unsure who had angered Deputy Division Commander Lu.
“Give me the car keys. I’m going home.”
Xiao Sun was Lu Shaoting’s personal driver; usually, no matter where he went, Xiao Sun was the one behind the wheel.
But today, Deputy Division Commander Lu intended to drive home himself—which meant it must be a matter concerning the Lu family.
Gu Xia knew that the moment Lu Shaoting saw her, all hell would break loose.
She had already steeled herself for it.
But when she saw the uncontrollable rage on his stern, rigid, and aloof face, Gu Xia’s petite frame still trembled involuntarily.
In fact, Lu Shaoting was quite handsome—with arched eyebrows, starry eyes, a high, straight nose, striking, well-defined features, and a tall, slender, upright figure.
But he was too cold; he was particularly rigid and stern in his dealings with people and matters.
Gu Xia had been afraid of Lu Shaoting since she was a child.
Upon seeing him, she instinctively wanted to step back, but she couldn’t—she absolutely could not back down.
If the Lu family’s eldest branch could bully the Gu family by leveraging Lu Shaoting’s status,
why couldn’t Gu Xia use Lu Shaoting’s status to help the Gu family?
Besides, things had already come to this—she’d given herself to him, and now she was carrying his child. Backing down at this point would cost her dearly.
What made Gu Xia even more determined not to back down was her desire to save her parents and older sister.
She didn’t want her older sister to die while being humiliated.
Thinking of everything that had happened to her family in her past life, Gu Xia’s eyes turned bloodshot, and tears streamed down her face as she opened her mouth to accuse Lu Shaoting.
“Uncle Lu, you have to take responsibility for me. I’m pregnant now, and the child in my womb is yours.”
“Gu Xia….” Lu Shaoting growled her name through gritted teeth.
But he knew he had indeed slept with Gu Xia.
Yet all of this was part of Gu Xia’s scheme.
He truly never expected an eighteen- or nineteen-year-old girl to be so cunning.
She’d played the innocent victim in front of him, trying to elicit pity.
He’d thought of her as a girl he’d watched grow up; seeing how pitiful she was in that rural village in the Northwest, he’d wanted to help her.
Little did he know he’d fallen into her trap. Right there in that dilapidated village temple, she actually dared to…
Thinking of Gu Xia stripping off her clothes and straddling him, Lu Shaoting felt a desire to kill her.
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