When Zhu’s mother saw her son fall silent, the anger she had been holding back only grew stronger. She could no longer control herself and blurted out faster and faster, “What did I say back then? This child should never have been brought back! Bringing her back only caused trouble. If it weren’t for her, you would’ve already had Huanhuan long ago. You wouldn’t have been afraid of this or that, dragging things out for so many years…”
“Mom!” Su Man cut her off sharply, her expression changing. “What are you even saying!”
Startled by her daughter-in-law’s tone, Zhu’s mother snapped back to herself. Her face was still stubborn, but she immediately shut her mouth.
But every single word had already clearly fallen into Su Yunluo’s ears.
She looked at her mother, then at her grandmother.
“Back then?” she repeated slowly. “What did you say back then?”
“What do you mean, ‘brought back’?”
“What are you all talking about?!”
Her voice was shaking.
Su Man looked at her daughter. Her lips parted as if to explain, then closed again.
Su Yunluo’s gaze was like a cold blade, slowly sweeping across her grandmother’s evasive face, her mother’s panicked eyes, and finally locking onto her father.
The irritation on Zhu Junqing’s face had already faded. Now, a flicker of unease appeared instead. His eyes met hers for only a moment before quickly looking away.
He walked over to the cushion where a stunned Zhu Muhuan was sitting and picked him up.
“Huanhuan, don’t cry. Daddy’s here… were you scared? It’s okay, don’t be afraid…”
A middle-aged man who was usually serious and distant had suddenly become so gentle, holding the child carefully and speaking in a soft voice. It was as if he had built a warm wall in the middle of a room filled with gunpowder, separating the child from the tension between the three women.
And Su Yunluo was left standing outside that wall.
Her grandmother’s words kept echoing in her mind.
And her father’s glance from earlier replayed again and again, each time sharper than before.
That kind of look… she had seen it before.
When was it?
It felt as if it had been carved into her bones, yet time had also washed it so far away that she could barely grasp it anymore.
No.
It wasn’t that she couldn’t remember.
It was that she wouldn’t allow herself to.
Or rather… she didn’t dare.
But how could she really forget?
She was five years old.
Just now, when she argued with her grandmother, she said her grandmother had never taken care of her. That wasn’t entirely true.
She rarely saw her grandmother growing up, and even when she did, they barely spoke. But there was one time her grandmother did take her out.
Just once.
That year, during the Spring Festival when she was five, her grandmother suddenly took her to a market in a nearby town.
That day, her grandmother was unusually kind. She talked to her more than usual, smiled at her many times, as if trying to make up for all the affection she had never shown before. She even bought her many snacks—candied hawthorn, pea crisps, sticky rice cakes. Her hands were full, and she was happily eating when she looked up—
and realized her grandmother was gone.
All around her were strangers. She stood there quietly, holding her snacks.
Looking back now, she couldn’t remember whether she had been afraid at that moment. Maybe she hadn’t. Her grandmother had once told her that if a child got separated from adults, they shouldn’t run around—just stay where they were, and the adults would come back. She had never actually been lost before, but she remembered that instruction, so she stayed put.
And so she waited.
A long, long time passed.
By the time the market began to empty, the sun had set, the wind grew cold, her face felt numb, and her hands were frozen—but her grandmother still hadn’t returned.
When it was almost dark, her mother finally arrived, her face pale, her hair messy from running.
And behind her was her father, also rushing over.
Later, she thought she must have been too cold to react properly. When she saw her mother, she couldn’t even smile. There was a strange fear in her chest—but even more than that, there was relief. Her parents had finally come for her.
Her mother pulled her tightly into her arms, while her father stood a short distance behind. Their eyes met only for a brief second before he quickly looked away.
Just a fleeting glance.
She froze.
She was too young then to understand what that look meant, but it stayed in her memory for years.
Maybe memory protects people in its own way. To make life easier to endure, it quietly buries certain moments deep in the darkest corners of the mind. And for many years after that, she still longed for her parents’ love like any other child. She even ran toward her father with hope, waiting for him to take her home.
She waited so earnestly, so persistently, year after year… that she somehow truly forgot that moment.
That day.
And that look.
She never seriously thought about the truth behind that one time she got “lost.”
Not until tonight.
Not until this moment.
Eleven years was enough time for a girl to grow up—and enough time for her to finally understand what kind of look her father had given her back then.
There was panic and urgency, like her mother’s—but something else was mixed in.
Disappointment.
A brief flash of disappointment, which now that she remembered it, frightened her.
That night, sixteen-year-old Su Yunluo stood blankly in front of her family.
That cold feeling, delayed for eleven years, finally spread across her face, her frozen hands, sinking into her limbs and bones.
For a long time.
She felt as if her chest and throat had frozen completely. She wanted to laugh coldly, wanted to question them, wanted to scream and accuse them—her father, her mother, her grandmother, everyone in this house who was supposed to be closest to her.
But when she finally spoke, her voice came out broken and scattered:
“You all…”
“You’ve… always treated me like I’m stupid…”
Even her body felt like it was falling apart.
She originally wanted to go back to her room, but her legs moved on their own. Suddenly she turned, rushed to the front door, opened it, and stepped straight into the night without looking back.
The city of Liang at night was bright and full of life.
Su Yunluo walked aimlessly.
She didn’t expect that less than an hour after coming home, she would already be back on the street.
Would they come after her this time?
Maybe. Maybe not.
But it no longer mattered.
It had long stopped mattering.
It was almost laughable that on the way home earlier, she had still been thinking about her exam result.
Nineteenth in her grade.
A result she had earned through a month of sleepless nights and skipped meals.
It wasn’t a huge drop—but it was still a drop.
She had even thought they might be proud of her.
She had even wondered if she would need to explain the small decline.
In the end, no one asked.
No one cared.
If your existence itself is already seen as a mistake—an obstacle—then who would care about something like that?
That autumn night, the wind was cold. Traffic flowed endlessly, people hurried home—from work, from school, returning to their families.
Only she walked like a stray cat through this familiar yet unfamiliar city, tears still on her face.
A month later, during the midterm exams, Su Yunluo did not, as the boys from Class Five had said, go challenge “Brother Chen” again.
She wouldn’t be that reckless anymore.
And besides, recklessness wouldn’t help anymore.
Because there was nothing left to compete with.
Xie Chen and the top scorer of the entrance exam, Qi Ning, once again dominated the top two ranks with overwhelming scores, leaving third place dozens of points behind.
Su Yunluo’s ranking dropped to 79th in the grade.
Even the top position in Class Six shifted to Chu Han.
Everyone in Class Six, including Teacher Song, was shocked by her drastic drop—but Su Yunluo herself remained unusually calm.
She quietly looked at her scores and attributed it to what Shi Ranran had once said.
Without her advantage in politics, history, and geography, someone without strong specialization in any one subject simply couldn’t compete with those strong in science subjects.
Just in math alone, she was still stuck around 120 points, while in Class Six alone, there were already two or three students scoring above 140.
This exam made it clear once again who truly stood at the top.
Many people gave Xie Chen and Qi Ning two striking nicknames:
“God Ning” and “God Xie.”
And another person—
became a joke.