In the living room, Su Ranyue’s eyes were red from crying, while Cui Yuanwei held the repaired photograph in his hands. The tear running through the middle was painfully obvious.
“Sister…”
Before Su Ranyue could finish her sugary, manipulative act, Cui Qingshu briskly trotted upstairs.
“Stop right there!”
Cui Yuanwei roared furiously.
Cui Qingshu ignored him completely. After fighting all day, she was tired. Now that she had eaten her fill, anything else could wait until tomorrow.
The moment she entered her room, she slammed the door shut with a loud bang.
The noise downstairs abruptly stopped.
Cui Yuanwei had always prided himself on being a refined gentleman. He couldn’t bring himself to burst into his daughter’s room, so he could only swallow his anger helplessly.
Su Ranyue felt disappointed.
She had gone through great effort to explain that she hadn’t torn the photo on purpose.
She had hoped her father would teach Cui Qingshu a harsh lesson, but now she could only stew in resentment herself.
Lying on the bed, Cui Qingshu checked her spatial dimension again.
It was still heartbreakingly empty.
This was her first night in this new world. Though she had been exhausted earlier, now that she was lying down, she couldn’t sleep.
Since she was here now, she might as well make peace with it. Having been given a second life, she naturally intended to live it properly.
Being born into a capitalist family in this era was basically a ticking time bomb. Just imagining being sent down to the countryside made Cui Qingshu shiver.
She absolutely could not end up like that.
That left only two possible paths.
The first was to secretly flee to Hong Kong and avoid the most dangerous years.
Then, once conditions on the mainland improved in the future, she could return.
But sneaking into Hong Kong was far easier said than done. A boat ticket cost a fortune these days, and controls were extremely strict. Even with money, tickets were almost impossible to obtain.
Even with all the favoritism Cui Yuanwei showed Su Ranyue, he still couldn’t secure an extra ticket for her.
She could ask the Wen family for help, but that would inevitably tie her to them.
And Hong Kong was chaotic right now. A young girl leaving with the Wen family’s huge household might not be safe either.
As Cui Qingshu tossed and turned, she suddenly thought about the “Deadly Poison Master” from the novel’s plotline.
Her eyes lit up.
After the original owner died, that person had abandoned her previously kind and gentle nature and transformed into a terrifying poison master.
That alone showed how much she cared about her biological daughter.
Whatever reason she had for separating from Cui Yuanwei, her love for her daughter was undoubtedly real.
A capitalist background in this era was a bomb waiting to explode.
Divorce. Publicly severing family ties in the newspaper. Ending marital relationships.
Those were all common survival tactics of the time.
Thinking about it, drowsiness gradually overtook her, and Cui Qingshu finally drifted into deep sleep.
Her first day after transmigrating into the novel had been busy and strangely fulfilling.
That night, she had a wonderful dream.
In the dream, her entire five hundred grams of saved gold had transmigrated with her.
Countless gold jewelry pieces and little gold bars flooded toward her, filling her spatial dimension to the brim.
Morning sunlight streamed through the window lattice, illuminating the wildly raised corners of Cui Qingshu’s lips. The sunlight danced playfully over her closed eyelids.
The mischievous sun woke her up.
The first thing she did after opening her eyes was check her space.
Still empty.
She sighed regretfully.
By the time Cui Qingshu woke up, it was already noon.
As she headed downstairs, she heard movement coming from the kitchen.
Walking over, she saw Su Ranyue crouched beside the stove, yawning while tending the fire.
The fragrance of porridge drifted through the air.
Cui Qingshu sniffed.
Peanut and almond porridge.
After one glance, disgust flashed through her eyes.
“If you’re going to play the martyr card, at least put some effort into it. You should’ve gotten up before dawn to cook this. Dad would’ve been even more touched.
Who eats porridge at noon?”
Su Ranyue looked up and glared furiously at the culprit.
It was all Cui Qingshu’s fault. Otherwise, why would she be squatting in this greasy kitchen, making herself look so miserable?
And thinking about everything Cui Qingshu had done yesterday made her chest ache with anger.
She mourned the jewelry that had been taken.
But even more than that, she mourned the jade pendant.
She truly felt that pendant should have belonged to her.
The instant she lost it, it felt as though her heart had bled.
“Cui Qingshu, you’re too much. No wonder Brother Shen doesn’t like you.”
As she said it, Su Ranyue instinctively glanced toward the doorway to make sure nobody was listening before speaking maliciously.
“You’re right. You two are perfectly matched. A turtle and a mung bean—made for each other,” Cui Qingshu replied casually.
Then she glanced disdainfully at the food in the kitchen.
“You’re pretending to be a dutiful daughter, and all you made was porridge?
Guess people from small families really lack vision. Serving Dad a bowl of porridge for dinner? Are you feeding a beggar?”
Su Ranyue froze again.
Cui Qingshu had no reaction whatsoever to Brother Shen.
Between yesterday and today, Cui Qingshu’s changes had completely overturned everything Su Ranyue thought she knew.
She stared blankly at her and blurted out,
“Who are you?”
Was this still the same Cui Qingshu?
Cui Qingshu raised a brow.
“Did your brain break? I’m your mother.”
Then she turned and walked away.
“Remember to make a full imperial banquet, dutiful daughter.”
Watching her leave, Su Ranyue nearly coughed up blood from anger.
Looking down at the porridge in the pot, she thought about Cui Qingshu’s words. Gritting her teeth, she returned to her room to gather money and ration coupons so she could buy groceries.
As she looked at the coupons she had painstakingly saved, her heart ached.
She didn’t lack money, but ration tickets were extremely scarce. She had squeezed these out little by little from both her father and Shen Ziming.
Still, Su Ranyue comforted herself.
You can’t catch a wolf without sacrificing bait.
As long as she pleased her father, everything in the Cui family would belong to her eventually.
Meanwhile, Cui Qingshu sped along the asphalt road on a bicycle, heading toward her mother’s home.
The original owner’s mother, Lin Weihua, lived in an old apartment building on Wuhua Road. Cui Qingshu rode like the wind for more than an hour before finally arriving.
As she walked toward the apartment, she sorted through the faint memories left behind by the original owner.
The original owner had never been close to her mother.
She always felt her mother was distant and inconsistent, unlike her father, who had doted on her when she was young.
When the original owner was ten years old, her mother separated from Cui Yuanwei and moved into this old apartment on Wuhua Road.
The apartment itself had a remarkable background.
Lin Weihua’s parents and older brother had all died as martyrs for the country.
This home had been granted to the Lin family by the state.
As the youngest child born late in her parents’ lives, Lin Weihua became an orphan at a very young age and was taken in by the Cui family, with whom she already had a marriage arrangement.
Under Old Master Cui’s pressure, Cui Yuanwei painfully gave up Su Fanghua—the capitalist woman who had been his true love—and married Lin Weihua instead, the orphaned daughter of martyrs.
The more Cui Qingshu remembered, the colder her heart became.
The Su family, fellow capitalists, had already been purged long ago.
Yet the Cui family still stood strong to this day.
Did Cui Yuanwei never stop to think whose influence had protected them all this time?
With Lin Weihua’s background, if she hadn’t married into the Cui family—and if not for her daughter—how could she possibly have ended up living such a miserable life now?
Standing before the tightly shut door, Cui Qingshu took a deep breath.
Too much time had passed since her grandparents’ deaths.
So much time that their achievements had already been deliberately forgotten.
She raised her hand and knocked gently on the wooden door.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
After a long while, the door finally creaked open.
“Who is it?”
The voice was terribly hoarse, rough and awkward like someone who hadn’t spoken in a very long time.
The moment the door opened, Cui Qingshu quickly sized up the person before her.
A loose blue cloth jacket hung from her narrow shoulders.
Her face was so pale it looked bloodless, and her cheekbones protruded sharply from how thin she was.
Even her lips were nearly colorless.
Her eyes resembled stagnant water—dead, silent, emotionless.
Standing close, Cui Qingshu caught the faint scent of sandalwood on her body.
She looked so faint and ethereal it was as if she might ascend into nothingness at any moment.
Not someone barely alive.
More like someone barely dead.
This was completely different from the capable, socially graceful woman in the original owner’s memories—the woman who had once worked desperately to fit into the village and please everyone for her daughter’s sake.
Emotion welled in Cui Qingshu’s chest.
This was maternal love.
For her child, this woman had dragged herself back from the edge of death through sheer willpower alone.
No wonder, after the original owner died, she lost the will to keep living.
Cui Qingshu’s eyes reddened, tears spilling out.
For once, the always-skilled actress wasn’t pretending.
She was genuinely moved by this love.
“Mom, it’s your daughter!”
“Mom, why have you become so thin?”
Cui Qingshu threw herself into Lin Weihua’s arms, heart aching as she held her wrist.
She could clearly see the blue veins protruding beneath the thin skin.
Too thin.
Far too thin.
The stagnant water in Lin Weihua’s eyes suddenly rippled violently.
Shock. Surprise. Emotion.
Instinctively, she grabbed Cui Qingshu’s hand.
“Y-you… why are you here?”
Since childhood, her daughter had always been closer to her father. She had never expected her daughter would willingly come visit her.
Had she been wronged?
Was Cui Yuanwei treating her badly?
No… probably not.
He wouldn’t dare.
After all, this was his only daughter.
Then Cui Qingshu lifted her face.
Lin Weihua’s gaze landed on the bruises covering it.
Her pale expression instantly darkened.
“What happened to your face?”
Her grip tightened unconsciously around Cui Qingshu’s hand. Veins bulged on the back of her hand as her voice turned cold and vicious.
“Who did this?”