It hurt, yet she couldn’t tell where it hurt…
Her whole body felt as if it were on fire.
Scorching breaths beat against Chi Mi’s cheeks, one after another.
She heard a man’s voice right by her ear.
He seemed to be calling her name.
“Mi Mi.”
But her head ached terribly, and her entire body was filled with an indistinct sluggishness and numbness. All she could feel was the violent pounding of her heart and her own labored breathing.
She didn’t know how much time had passed.
When Chi Mi woke up, she was lying on a strange bed, and beside the bed, a strange man was getting dressed.
Not far away, outside the window, hazy sunlight streamed in, casting its glow on his profile.
She opened her mouth, but no sound came out, as if her consciousness had yet to fully awaken.
The man right before her eyes, bathed in golden sunlight, had a silhouette as unreal as a dream.
Finally, she struggled to sit up and looked at everything around her, utterly bewildered.
The room was simply furnished but elegant, and the bed was large, yet it didn’t feel like her bed at all.
How could she—Chi Mi, seventeen years old—have ended up here?
At that moment, the man, who had put on his black trousers and was wearing an unbuttoned white shirt, finally turned to look at her.
His face was as exquisite as a classical work of art, with sharply defined features and deep, cold black-gray eyes.
When he looked at her, an inexplicable chill ran down her spine.
She didn’t know who this person was, but he seemed to have done something bad to her.
Chi Mi wrapped the thin velvet quilt tightly around herself, her face full of fear.
“Wh-Who are you? What did you do to me?”
Hearing her words, a flicker of bewilderment passed across his stern face.
Chi Mi was both panicked and terrified, on the verge of tears. Trembling, she said, “I-I’ve never even kissed a man before! What exactly did you do to me?!”
The man frowned, then let out a cold laugh. Grabbing her hand, he dragged her up from the bed and forcibly pulled her in front of him.
He said, “Chi Mi, no matter what kind of trick you’re trying to pull this time, I’ve had enough of you—”
The moment he finished speaking, he flung half her body onto the bed, like discarding a toy he was tired of.
Chi Mi was completely weak. She frantically pulled the quilt over herself to cover her body, her voice trembling just as much as her body.
“You—you know me? Who the hell are you?!”
The man seemed to find her even more unreasonable, and shot back, “Have you lost your mind?”
She didn’t dare look at him, already at a complete loss. Tears rolled down like beads as she murmured in reply, “Wh-What?”
His expression remained utterly impassive as he asked again, “Who do you say I am?”
Chi Mi sobbed, speaking in broken fragments, “I really don’t know you. My head hurts so much. I… Where is this… Mom… Where’s my mom…”
She vaguely remembered that last night, he had called her “Mi Mi” with such intimacy.
It must have been an illusion, right? This man clearly seemed to despise her.
How could he have called her that?
The man seemed to be barely suppressing his impatience as he called her name: “Chi Mi.”
She still looked dazed, her face deathly pale. After scratching at her hair, she curled up on the bed and said, “Wh-Where exactly am I?”
He watched her in silence for a moment, then asked coldly, “Why are you crying?”
Chi Mi sniffled and said, “You’ve already done this to me, and I can’t even cry about it?”
She was only seventeen and had never even been in love!
This man was truly worse than a beast.
He merely let out a cold snort, not bothering to waste another word on her. He buttoned up his shirt and strode out of the room.
Hearing the door click shut, her heart gave a frightened thump.
A few minutes later, still utterly bewildered, she got out of bed.
She frantically scrambled to pick up her clothes from the floor and put them on, only then noticing all sorts of things that were off.
Her hair was longer.
Her body was different from what she remembered—there was a bit more flesh on her than she recalled.
Frankly speaking, it was sexy. Even she blushed when she touched herself.
There was a small scar on her abdomen, very faint and well-healed, like the trace of some kind of surgery.
After throwing on her clothes in a hurry, she turned and saw a family portrait on the bedside table.
In the photo were a man, a woman, and a little girl she didn’t recognize.
The man was the same one from just now. He didn’t have much of an expression, but his eyes were completely different from the coldness she’d just seen—there was a hidden tenderness in them. The woman in the photo was smiling like a blooming flower and looked very much like her.
The little girl held in the man’s arms had a proud air about her, with pretty little braids and her head tilted slightly up. She looked about three or four years old.
Chi Mi walked barefoot around the room.
After searching for a while, she entered a walk-in closet.
Inside the closet were some men’s clothes that looked expensive, along with a few sets of women’s loungewear.
There was also a huge full-length mirror.
In the mirror, she saw herself with a mess of long hair cascading down to her waist, a slightly pale face, and listless, dispirited eyes. She looked a bit less youthful, but she still had a beautiful oval face, smooth and fair.
She stood there in a daze for a long time, then slapped herself a few times across the face. Finally, she had to admit that she was not seventeen.
She had probably… traveled through time, hadn’t she?
That unfamiliar man seemed to be her husband.
And they had a daughter she also didn’t recognize!
How could this be? Why would she be married?
Since she was little, Chi Mi had always been a proud rose.
She was the pearl of her family, her father’s precious darling.
The only daughter of one of Li City’s top tycoons, the young miss of Anda Group.
No one in this world was good enough for her.
How could she have married a man who was so rude to her?
Chi Mi wandered back to the bed in a daze, and as her gaze shifted, she spotted a white object.
It was square and flat, looking somewhat familiar.
Was it a phone?
The phones she remembered didn’t look like this at all.
Chi Mi picked it up and fiddled with it.
Just as she was feeling confused, the moment her face aligned with the screen, the phone lit up and unlocked.
She was startled and nearly dropped it.
Chi Mi was nervous and completely baffled, finding everything on the phone novel and strange. She tinkered with it for a while longer, then pulled up the contacts and found her mother’s phone number.
Seeing the familiar number, she finally breathed a sigh of relief.
She clumsily dialed the number.
Half a minute later, the call connected.
“Mi Mi?”
A familiar voice came through, almost exactly as she remembered it.
Chi Mi was so moved she nearly started crying again.
She called out, “Mom…”
But the voice that should have been full of comfort was cold and stiff.
“Why are you calling at this hour?”
Chi Mi hesitated, but in the end, she told the truth: “I… I think I’ve lost my memory…”
She was, of course, aware that she had experienced a long gap in her memory.
It wasn’t time travel—it was amnesia.
But her mother merely let out a cold laugh upon hearing this.
“Stop joking around! Mi Mi, what are you trying to pull now? Mom knows you’ve had it hard these years, but raising you was hard for me too! Have I ever treated you badly? Can you really not stomach even a little grievance? By the way, how did things go after last night? You’ve been married for years—he can’t really have no feelings for you. You absolutely must handle the matter with President Wang of Jinfeng for me. After all, you’re still Linlin’s mother; President Feng can’t possibly have no affection for you at all!”
Chi Mi couldn’t understand a single word: “President Wang? What Jinfeng? What does all this—”
Her mother responded offhandedly: “Alright, alright, Mom has to go to a meeting! I’ll say it again—if you get divorced, don’t think you can come back to the Feng family, and don’t even think about coming back to my house either!”
The sound of high heels clicking came through the receiver.
She called out helplessly: “Mom…”
But the call had already been hung up.
At this moment, the good mother who had always been infinitely tolerant and caring in her memory felt utterly foreign.
It was as if she had been sent to someone’s side like a tool.
Chi Mi suddenly didn’t know what to do again.
She sat blankly at the edge of the bed, her gaze dazed, her head still heavy with a dull ache.
As if countless tiny figures were brawling inside her skull.
Her mother, An Wangning, was the chairman of Anda Industrial Group, one of Li City’s wealthiest figures, and a female entrepreneur listed on the national Forbes rankings. As her only daughter, Chi Mi had never suffered any hardship growing up. At seventeen, she had been a walking rose of pride at Pufenix International Academy in Li City.
Now, that rose had gotten married.
Her mother didn’t cherish her, and her husband didn’t love her.
Her husband…
She knew nothing about this so-called husband of hers.
He was rather handsome, with a hint of exotic charm, and he had a good physique.
But he actually dared to push her!
No one had ever dared to push this rose!
Just as she was lost in thought, the door not far away was pulled open again.
Her unfamiliar husband appeared before her once more.
The man looked at her dazed expression, still maintaining that cold, indifferent attitude.
He asked: “Why are you still here?”
Chi Mi didn’t know how to answer him, so she could only say in a bewildered tone: “Then… then where should I be?”
A girl with her hair tied up in a high little ponytail poked half her body out from behind the man.
She called out: “Mommy!”
The little one, with her fair, soft face, asked with concern: “Aren’t you coming to eat?”
Chi Mi looked at the girl, utterly confused, yet vaguely feeling a natural sense of closeness with her.
Perhaps it was what they called a mother-daughter bond?
The man said to the little girl: “Linlin, go downstairs first.”
The little girl acknowledged with a sound, then turned and toddled off into the distance.
He returned to the room, closing the door behind him.
Then, looking at her with the kind of gaze one reserves for an idiot, he said: “What exactly is wrong with you?”
Chi Mi’s eyes were still a bit red, but after seeing the little girl, her chaotic thoughts seemed to ease somewhat. Trying to imagine the composure and maturity of an adult, she said in a strange, affected tone: “I might… have amnesia…”
“…”
He said nothing, silently watching her.
She thought for a moment, then said: “Um… you seem to be my husband?”
“…”
His expression was rather unpleasant—clearly a man with a bad temper.
Chi Mi remembered her mother’s threat, steeled herself, and forced an awkward dry laugh before asking again, “Husband, what’s your name?”
“…”
His brow furrowed slightly, as if the address had irritated him.
The silence stretched on for half a minute.
Half a minute later, he said, “Feng Yixun.”
The moment Chi Mi heard that name, she couldn’t hold it together anymore. Her eyes went wide.
She stared at him in disbelief, her voice trembling: “You—you’re Feng Yixun?!”
Feng Yixun: “…”
Chi Mi, sitting at the edge of the bed, slapped the pillow hard and shouted, “How could I have married you?! And had a child with you?!”
She sounded like she was lodging an accusation, her emotions nearly spiraling out of control.
No wonder this man felt so unfamiliar, yet carried a hint of familiarity—he was actually someone she knew.
And no wonder he had pushed her!
Feng Yixun was somewhat accustomed to her erratic outbursts. With a cold face, he asked casually, “Who did you want to marry?”
Chi Mi instinctively started to answer: “I—I want to…”
She almost blurted out that name.
But she caught herself mid-sentence, realizing something was off—if she offended him, he might just pin her down on the bed and do all sorts of things to her again.
However, he seemed to be considering something more pressing and didn’t pursue the matter further.
He said matter-of-factly, “Go wash up. I’ll take you to the hospital for a check-up.”
Author’s note: This is a story of a withered flower blooming anew. It’s also a story of ten years of drowning in love, ten years of pure devotion—two people running toward each other, saving each other in return. Light suspense, a touch of angst for flavor, but at its core it’s about pampering, and about loving one’s own daughter.
To all the dear readers: may wealth flow to you, may you be happy every day, may your lives be blessed, may you always be loved, and may there always be someone who holds you dear in their heart.
Please turn the page, dear readers—