Wen Xi stood on the street at dusk like a wild blade of grass broken by the wind.
On the day she graduated from high school, she had not even had time to take a graduation photo before packing up her belongings and entering a factory.
The days on the assembly line wore away at her palms. A twelve-hour shift earned just enough money to buy three doses of medicine for her mother.
Her mother had spent years buried in medicine. Her lung disease was like a bottomless pit that could never be filled. Her father was hopelessly addicted to gambling. He had even dragged the last chair in the house to the gambling table. When he won, he drank. When he lost, he hit people.
Since the age of sixteen, Wen Xi had never slept through a full night.
During the day, she tightened screws at the Electronics Factory. At night, she washed dishes at food stalls in the night market. When she returned home after midnight, she still had to turn her mother over in bed and feed her medicine.
She had thought that as long as she worked hard enough, life would eventually get better.
But the money she earned with her life on the line could never fill the growing hole. Her father’s gambling debts snowballed with interest upon interest until Wen Xi no longer even dared calculate the total.
Until the day the loan sharks came to the door.
“If you don’t pay back the money soon, your father can forget about keeping his hands.”
The man leading the group crushed a cigarette butt into the dining table, leaving behind a scorched black mark.
“The house is collateral too. By tomorrow, principal and interest included, three hundred thousand.”
Three hundred thousand.
Wen Xi felt darkness cloud her vision. The most money she had ever seen in her life was the four thousand eight hundred yuan from last month’s salary.
That very night, she was shoved out of the house.
Her mother cried behind her. Her father—as always—had already run away.
Wen Xi wandered the streets aimlessly, her mind blank.
She did not know how long she had been walking, nor where she was supposed to go.
Streetlights lit up one by one, stretching her shadow longer and longer, like a thread that had been trampled to pieces.
The sky was dim and gray, like a rag that could never be wrung dry.
“Need money?”
A voice suddenly came from beside her.
Wen Xi stopped in her tracks.
At some point, a man wearing a mask had appeared by her side. The hood of his black sweatshirt was pulled low, revealing only a pair of emotionless eyes.
Even his voice was lowered, as though he feared someone might overhear.
A scammer.
Who would ask a stranger that on the street these days?
Wen Xi said nothing. Clutching the few dozen yuan she had left, she lowered her head and kept walking forward.
The soles of her cloth shoes had worn through, and every step stabbed painfully into the bottoms of her feet.
The man did not persist. He merely pulled a crumpled slip of paper from his pocket, quickly caught up to her, and stuffed it into her hand.
“Call this number once you’ve thought it through. The sooner, the better.”
Wen Xi walked a few more steps with the note clenched in her hand before casually shoving it to the bottom of her bag. She did not take it seriously.
But fate gave her no room not to.
That night, the men came again.
This time, it was not just intimidation.
They smashed the lock directly, prying the doorframe out of shape with iron rods.
Five or six men stormed in and turned the house upside down.
The television, the refrigerator, the last piece of gold jewelry her mother owned—an heirloom left behind by her maternal grandmother—even the half barrel of cooking oil in the kitchen.
Anything that could be carried away was taken.
Mother Wen was dragged off the bed and thrown onto the floor. Her old illness flared up, and she coughed so hard she could not straighten her back.
Wen Xi rushed over and pulled her mother into her arms, feeling her body trembling violently.
Her father, as always, was nowhere to be found.
The house was left with nothing but a crooked bed and shattered glass scattered across the floor. The clock on the wall had been smashed flat, its hands frozen at 9:43.
“Tomorrow. Final deadline.”
The leader crouched down and grabbed Wen Xi’s chin, forcing her to raise her head.
A cigarette dangled from his mouth, and ash fell onto her knee, burning a hole into the fabric.
“If the money isn’t paid back, your daughter comes with us.”
He exhaled smoke slowly into her face, making her eyes redden from the sting.
“How we sell her will be my decision.”
Before leaving, he stationed one man outside the door.
The man dragged over a chair and sat in the hallway with his legs crossed, smoking while occasionally glancing inside.
The meaning was obvious.
Your daughter was not escaping.
That night, Wen Xi did not close her eyes once.
She sat curled in the corner with her mother in her arms, listening to her intermittent coughing and the wind outside rattling the shattered glass.
She thought through every possible road her life could take.
Not a single one led anywhere.
At three in the morning, her mother finally drifted into an uneasy sleep.
In the darkness, Wen Xi dug the note out from her bag. Using the faint glow of her phone screen, she dialed the number one digit at a time.
Her fingers shook so badly that she pressed the wrong numbers several times.
The phone rang for a long time—so long that she thought no one would answer.
Then the call connected.
The other side remained silent for several seconds, as though confirming something. Finally, a brief sentence came through. The voice was cold and detached, like someone giving instructions for routine business.
“Come to the top floor of Fu Group Corporation tomorrow morning. Dress nicely.”
“Beep beep beep—”
The call ended.
Wen Xi stared at the darkened phone screen until it shut off automatically.
The next morning, she got up before dawn.
She searched through the ransacked house. The cabinets were empty. The drawers were empty too.
Finally, hidden beneath the compartment under the bed, she found something.
A white dress.
It had been washed so many times the color had faded, but it was folded neatly.
Her mother had bought it for her eighteenth birthday with the last of her savings.
Wen Xi had never been willing to wear it. She had hidden it in the most secret place she could think of, which was why those men had not found it.
She put it on.
The skirt was slightly long and covered her knees.
On her feet was a pair of old white sneakers. The leather at the toes had worn away, but she had scrubbed them clean.
She owned no makeup.
She did not even have a complete mirror.
She merely used the reflection in the water vat by the door, tying her hair back into a ponytail with a rubber band.
Fresh-faced.
Neat.
Clean.
Before leaving, she knelt beside her mother’s bed and pulled the blanket higher around her.
“Mom, I’m going to find money. Wait for me.”
Her mother did not wake up.
Wen Xi gently closed the door behind her without looking back.
The Fu Group Corporation building was so tall it made people dizzy.
Standing downstairs and looking up, Wen Xi’s neck grew sore before she could even see the top.
The glass curtain walls reflected blinding sunlight like an enormous mirror.
Someone led her into the elevator.
The security guards glanced at her several times. There was something indescribable in their eyes—not contempt, but more like pity.
The elevator shot all the way to the top floor, so fast that pressure built painfully in her ears.
The moment the doors opened, Wen Xi froze.
More than twenty girls stood inside the room.
Every single one of them was beautiful.
No—it was the kind of beauty that made people unable to look away.
Tight dresses accentuated their curves. Deep V-necks plunged to their chests. Their high heels were thin as needles. Long wavy hair cascaded over their shoulders. Their nails were painted bright red, and their lips gleamed with gloss.
Anything that could be exposed was exposed. Anything that could not was left tantalizingly visible.
The air was saturated with perfume, thick like a carefully arranged exhibition.
Some girls touched up their makeup. Some adjusted their hair. Others examined their faces through their phone cameras.
They sized each other up with scrutiny and comparison in their eyes, like products waiting to be selected.
Standing at the doorway, Wen Xi lowered her head and looked at her own white dress and sneakers.
There was a stain on the hem that could not be washed out. The leather at the toes of her shoes had faded white from wear.
For a moment, she felt as though she had come to the wrong place.
She was too embarrassed to even walk farther inside.
Like Cinderella accidentally wandering into a ball without glass slippers—or even a pumpkin carriage.
Keeping close to the wall, she found a corner seat and tucked her feet beneath the chair, trying to hide her worn sneakers.
They waited for nearly an hour.
No one spoke. Only whispers and the sounds of makeup being touched up filled the room.
Occasionally, someone would glance toward Wen Xi. Their eyes lingered on her for half a second before moving away, as though looking at something that did not belong there.
Wen Xi kept her head lowered, fingers twisting tightly in her skirt.
All she could think about was the man watching her mother at home.
That problem had to be solved before tonight.
Then the door opened again.
The room instantly fell silent.
It was the kind of silence prey felt when sensing the approach of a predator. Even breathing unconsciously became lighter.
Fu Linfeng walked in.
Wen Xi had heard of that name before.
The youngest president of Fu Group Corporation. A man rumored throughout the business world to be cold and utterly unapproachable. He avoided women, stayed away from scandals, and wielded ruthless methods.
People even said he did not know how to smile.
Now that the real man stood before them, he was even more imposing than the rumors suggested.
He wore a dark tailored suit that emphasized his broad shoulders and long legs.
His features were cold and sharp, as though carved by a blade. Every contour was perfectly defined without a trace of softness.
His gaze swept across the room like an emotionless ruler—precise, icy, completely devoid of warmth.
The girls all held their breath.
Some secretly adjusted their hair. Some straightened their backs and pushed their chests forward. Some curled their lips into carefully practiced smiles. Others stared at him with unconcealed admiration and anticipation.
Someone even quietly sucked in a breath and exchanged a look with the girl beside her that clearly said, He’s so handsome.
Whispers rippled through the room—
“Oh my god, he’s even more handsome than in magazines…”
“His presence is way too overwhelming…”
“If he picked me…”
“Shh, stop talking. He’s looking this way—”
Wen Xi did nothing.
She merely stood there without even lifting her head to look at him.
She was still thinking about one thing.
Would they really give her one million?
And after receiving it, would those people finally leave her mother alone?
Fu Linfeng’s gaze swept around the room before suddenly stopping.
He looked toward the corner.
Everyone followed his line of sight—
And it landed on Wen Xi.
More than twenty pairs of eyes pierced toward her like needles.
There was shock.
Confusion.
Unwillingness.
Disbelief.
Some widened their eyes. Some parted their lips. Someone let out a startled sound before hurriedly covering her mouth.
The whispers rose again, this time edged with bitterness—
“Her?”
“Dressed like that…”
“Why her…”
“There must be some mistake…”
Wen Xi herself looked equally bewildered.
Instinctively, she turned to look behind her.
There was nothing there.
Me?
She did not even know what she had been chosen for.
All she knew was that someone hurried over to her side and whispered in a lowered voice—
“Congratulations. You’ve been selected. The one million is yours.”