Yu Yan, the executive secretary to Jin Fuxiao, rushed to the hotel in a daze after receiving the news. She then liaised with the hotel lobby manager and filed a statement with the police, feeling completely detached from reality the entire time.
Was she dreaming?
Had they not said Chairman Peng was dead? Then who was this woman with a child?
How could someone missing for six years suddenly appear with a five-year-old kid?
Was it what she thought it was? What kind of world was she living in? How could there be a secret pregnancy trope playing out in real life?
Had the order gotten mixed up? Today should be Chapter 1 instead.
“Ms. Jin, we have verified this lady’s ID. She is indeed your missing ex-wife, Peng Hu.”
Jin Fuxiao had built her fortune here and contributed significantly to the local urban development. She had invested in the airport and the sea-crossing bridge on the island, making her a prominent local entrepreneur.
The officers handling the case knew who she was, so they naturally felt curious about the couple’s relationship.
Same-sex marriage had been legal for many years, but no one had ever heard of them having a child before.
Did they split up over the child? Did Jin Fuxiao claim her wife was dead after the divorce?
The spacious conference room was quiet. Sitting opposite Jin Fuxiao was a woman wearing sunglasses; right now, the sunglasses were pushed up on her forehead, sweeping her bangs back to reveal a pair of narrow eyes. “Did you hear that? This is your wife, Peng Hu.”
“This is the real Peng Hu.”
Jin Fuxiao reached out her hand. Her secretary’s mind was still wandering, and only after a moment did she react, hurriedly handing a photo to her boss.
Slap.
The photo was slammed onto the table. There was a date printed on the bottom right corner.
“Do you see this? This is Peng Hu’s work badge.”
Jin Fuxiao refused to admit it. She appeared composed on the surface, but her mind was already in chaos.
That identical face was enough to make her yield spinelessly. If it were not for the hatred she had harbored over these past years because of Peng Hu leaving without saying goodbye, she might have already had a blissful reunion.
How could this be?
Where did the child come from?
She knew nothing at all.
Peng Hu, Zhou Qi, and the woman in sunglasses all looked at the photo on the table.
“Cosmetic surgery is so advanced these days, and even celebrities are having a collective youth revival. Is our great entrepreneur Chairman Peng not allowed to get a little maintenance done?”
The three people sitting opposite appeared very close, which filled Jin Fuxiao with fury. “And who are you? Show me your ID.”
She had a bad temper to begin with. She had moderated it slightly for the sake of doing business, but deep down, she was still that quick-tempered girl from the factory who would get into fights if anyone slandered Peng Hu.
“My apologies, Ms. Jin, please don’t be angry.”
“This is the general manager of our Zhoulie International Group Hotel, Ms. Dai Buyu.”
Most hotel employees wore formal attire, but Jin Fuxiao felt this woman did not look like a general manager at all; she seemed even more relaxed than a vacationing tourist.
Peng Hu had a very narrow social circle and was a homebody. During their years together, her world revolved solely around Jin Fuxiao.
That was why when many people asked Jin Fuxiao directly or indirectly whether Peng Hu had gotten divorced because of an affair, she firmly denied it every time.
She knew some suspected her of putting on a brave face, treating their years of struggling together as just another case of a same-sex couple failing to last a lifetime.
But so what? That was just other people’s opinion.
As if heterosexual couples came with a guarantee of growing old together.
Jin Fuxiao firmly believed that Peng Hu would never betray her.
Even if Peng Hu had died and rotted in some unknown corner, Jin Fuxiao was determined to find her.
Yet this kind of lost-and-found scenario had never been among the thousands of possibilities Jin Fuxiao had envisioned.
How could Peng Hu end up in the bed of her hotel suite? How could a daughter named Zhou Qi suddenly appear out of nowhere?
She had a splitting headache. The past rushed back like ocean waves, filled with the naive vows of their youth.
“Should we get a cat or a dog too?”
After getting through the hardest phase of starting their business, during a rare breather, they had moved into a villa. Many residents in the neighborhood kept dogs.
They would always run into them during their post-dinner walks.
Jin Fuxiao had asked Peng Hu that back then.
“No dogs. We don’t have time to keep them company.”
“How about a cat then?”
Peng Hu shook her head. “I don’t like them.”
“Then what do you like?”
Jin Fuxiao had asked uneasily.
She had suddenly realized that Peng Hu rarely revealed her own preferences; it was as if whoever she was with, her habits and interests would align with that person.
“I like Fufu.”
The woman with long, light-brown hair walked hand-in-hand with her under the moonlight, watching the dancing tree shadows and families passing by with their children.
“My name is Jin Fuxiao now, not Jin Furong.”
That was Jin Fuxiao’s original name. She felt it sounded too rustic and shared the name with countless others.
Once she and Peng Hu left the factory, she went to change her name.
“Fuxiao” (Daybreak) was chosen by Peng Hu, who said her earliest memory of this world was the moment of daybreak.
And so, Jin Fuxiao became her world.
Peng Hu, who didn’t keep cats or dogs, had her sole interest in keeping fish, putting all kinds of marine life into the aquarium.
She had even installed a full wall of glass in their new home where jellyfish drifted, looking especially beautiful at night.
After she left, those jellyfish inexplicably died.
Jin Fuxiao had someone clear out the wall-sized aquarium. Finding it too empty, she still filled it with water, occasionally tossing a coin inside, partly like making a wish, partly like voicing a complaint.
“And you two, what is your relationship?”
Jin Fuxiao had changed her clothes. Half of her curly hair was tucked behind her ear, while the other half fell onto her shoulder. Her earring looked like a blade.
She looked well-complexioned, though perhaps makeup was concealing the dark circles caused by a lack of sleep.
At least in a negotiation setting like this, her presence was extraordinary; it was hard to imagine she had come from a fishing village.
“Me?”
Dai Buyu toyed with the business card on the table. Her name was not glamorous, but it was her true identity.
As a ribbonfish and a jellyfish, they had known each other all along. She said with a smile, “We are relatives.”
“Bullshit!”
Jin Fuxiao slammed the table again. “Peng Hu has no relatives at all. Are you a scammer?”
“Ma’am, please calm your emotions,” the officer on the side spoke up. Jin Fuxiao’s secretary slid Dai Buyu’s information in front of her.
The little girl sitting in Peng Hu’s lap had bangs that looked like they had been chewed by a dog. Because she was young, her cheeks were round and looked very cute.
She looked so cute that parents would inevitably ask the question.
She could be a child model.
She could even be a child star.
Zhou Qi was also quite annoyed. “Mommy, I didn’t fart!”
She was playing with Peng Hu’s phone, which had a cute bear sticker on the back. To Jin Fuxiao, it did not look like Peng Hu’s phone either.
Then again, when Peng Hu disappeared, everything had been left at home, and no transportation records showed any trace of her.
Her secretary had even suspected Jin Fuxiao was responsible; after all, as the closest person, societal news was full of such stories.
“I didn’t either,” said the woman whose hair was loosely clipped behind her head with a claw clip.
Her voice was ethereal and highly recognizable. Combined with that face, it was really hard to call her a product of tech-surgery; she looked more like someone cropped right out of a video game.
The adult and the child wore matching outfits. Their eye colors were identical, while their hair color and lower half of their faces resembled Jin Fuxiao.
Even if God Himself came down today, it would be hard to claim these two had no connection.
But was that even possible? When was such technology developed?
The big one and the little one both looked over at Dai Buyu.
The sunglasses-wearing ribbonfish quickly waved her hands: “I didn’t fart either. That is a swear word, got it?”
Zhou Qi: “You’re full of it!”
The adult mimicked the child: “You’re full of it.”
The police officer on the side couldn’t hold back and let out a laugh.
Jin Fuxiao’s secretary also twitched her mouth into a crooked smile, clearly struggling to stay professional despite her training.
Only Jin Fuxiao finished reading Dai Buyu’s information with a frown. “Since you are relatives, why did we never stay in touch during all the years Peng Hu and I were together?”
“So you admit she is your wife?”
The woman was wearing a tank top with an outer shirt printed entirely with ribbonfish, laser metallic ones at that. It was almost blinding, and her taste was truly hard to compliment.
Jin Fuxiao didn’t answer. She merely looked at Peng Hu. “Where did the daughter come from?”
“Let’s wrap it up here then. The rest is private time for the couple.”
Dai Buyu snapped her fingers. The lobby manager guided the officers out, but the secretary remained standing in place.
“Aren’t you leaving?”
She winked at Yu Yan. The secretary looked toward Jin Fuxiao, and her boss gave a low “Mm.” “Thank you for your hard work. Go rest first.”
“Then regarding your schedule to go to the factory this afternoon…”
Jin Fuxiao rubbed the space between her eyebrows. “Have Ju Cixin go instead. She shouldn’t have left the island yet, right?”
Yu Yan gave a quiet “Mm.”
The heavy doors of the conference hall closed, leaving only three adults and one child inside.
Jin Fuxiao leaned against the back of her seat. Her mature eyebrows and eyes looked as rich and intense as blooming plum blossoms. Zhou Qi, who retained Peng Hu’s memories, found her very familiar and endearing.
“Can you talk now?”
“Let me explain…”
“No need. I want her to tell me herself.”
The ID card was real, appearing to have been reissued not long ago, and the news had not reached Jin Fuxiao yet.
The child had an ID too, showing she was five years old.
The mother had disappeared six years ago, and the child was five; there was a huge problem with that.
Jin Fuxiao would never suspect Peng Hu of cheating, and she could see the child looked somewhat like herself, but this was just too sudden.
It was impossible that she vanished without a word just to have a child. What was there to hide?
“You can see it too. She lost her memory, and her mind is entirely filled with Fufu.”
Peng Hu was looking for the sixteen-year-old Jin Fufu, not the current Jin Fuxiao.
Time moved too fast. It was just one brief life among the ten life-cycle reversals of a Turritopsis dohrnii (immortal jellyfish). No matter how much she resisted, she could not escape the curse of immortality.
Returning to the polyp stage, moving from strobila to ephyra, and dying once again upon reaching adulthood.
She simply didn’t want to forget her.
“What about her new memories? She can always explain your relationship.”
Jin Fuxiao had red lips and dark eyebrows, and her chin was not pale and pointed like Peng Hu’s.
As the older generation would say, she looked blessed with good fortune. Refined by years in the business world, her aura was sharp and piercing.
Dai Buyu had searched her information online.
It seemed very popular for entrepreneurs to make public appearances nowadays; Jin Fuxiao had even been on variety shows to personally recruit employees.
However, people were always deeply curious about a beautiful woman’s love life. Even though Peng Hu was already gone back then, the leaked old photos still sent their names and the company to the trending searches.
With that level of beauty, she could hardly be considered an ordinary citizen. Many old rumors about Peng Hu surfaced as a result.
Her unknown background made her all the more mysterious, rendering this relationship even more worthy of praise.
It also left onlookers sighing in regret over their divorce and separation.
Dai Buyu wanted to explain on Peng Hu’s behalf, but her old friend, who had lost her memory countless times, stared at the woman sitting opposite her. Having seemingly explored the woman all night, Jin Fuxiao’s neck still bore the scratch marks she had unconsciously left behind.
Unprovoked intimacy flickered through the silent air. Zhou Qi understood nothing and simply played with her mommy’s hair.
She was a new species separated from the immortal jellyfish, carrying Jin Fuxiao’s genes, almost a miracle among the sea folk.
Over the past few years, everyone had taken turns caring for her. None of the old friends in the ocean could bear to let Peng Hu search for the mother while carrying a child.
“I’m sorry, I am looking for my Fufu, even though you look a lot like her.”
“Who is Fufu?”
“My wife.”
“I am.”
The woman shook her head. “She wasn’t as beautiful as you.”
She answered very quickly, making Jin Fuxiao laugh out of sheer frustration. The necklace Peng Hu had given her hung against her chest, swaying with her breathing.
Without knowing what came to mind, the woman pursed her lips. Having spent so many years together, Jin Fuxiao knew what she was thinking with just a single glance.
“So don’t your eyes still remember?”
Peng Hu murmured a response. “I kissed your chest. You are beautiful down there.”
Dai Buyu immediately covered the baby jellyfish’s ears.
Jin Fuxiao grew even angrier. “Then if you claim I am not her, why did you kiss me?”
Peng Hu showed a bewildered and conflicted expression. “In that moment, you looked the most like Fufu.”