“Think carefully, Lin Xi. Apart from our family, no one would be willing to take care of a burden who needs to be spoon-fed just to eat!”
“I’d rather work myself to death than have my brother taken care of by your family!”
“Hmph, don’t act tough. Within a few days, you’ll come crawling back begging us!”
Under the “we’ve got you” gazes of Auntie’s family, Lin Xi pushed Lin Zhe and resolutely left the home that was rightfully hers.
The old Lin Xi had indeed been forced into a corner—she needed to earn money, so how could she take care of her brother?
No one stays devoted at the sickbed for long, let alone an outsider. That was why Auntie’s family had been able to push her around at every turn.
But now, the frail girl had become as stubborn as a tough man.
As for reclaiming her own house, there was no good solution for the moment. When you run into shameless tenants, even the landlord can’t evict them—let alone an aunt who held a one-percent “inheritance claim.”
Although Lin Zhe’s explosive revelations had stirred up a sense of justice among the neighbors, outsiders can’t manage a family’s internal affairs—it was just a mess of scattered feathers with no way through.
To snatch the meat from the mouths of Auntie’s family of shameless freeloaders, a few righteous words from the neighbors weren’t enough. She needed real strength of her own.
When a person is down and out, justice always arrives late; when a person is prosperous, justice merely adds flowers to brocade.
A fine drizzle drifted from the sky. Lin Xi pushed the wheelchair, on which hung a duffel bag and a guitar.
That was the entirety of Lin Zhe’s belongings.
Lin Xi walked along the streets of Sucheng at six in the evening, watching the warm lights glowing from the homes on either side, listening to housewives calling their children home for dinner. The twenty-one-year-old girl said nothing, her heart a tangle of emotions.
She had once had a warm family too—a virtuous mother, a capable father, a mischievous little brother.
But now, only the cold wind and drizzle accompanied the two of them, the road ahead vast and uncertain, with no idea where to go.
“Grrrumble~”
Lin Zhe’s stomach growled. He had been in a deep sleep since morning, and by now his stomach was completely empty.
“Zhe, what do you want to eat? How about a bowl of hand-pulled noodles?”
Lin Xi patted her pocket—only a few dozen yuan left—and forced herself to stay upbeat as she looked for the most affordable restaurant.
But Lin Zhe didn’t answer his sister. Instead, he was staring blankly at a tiny neon sign.
[Buy a lottery ticket! A person without dreams is no different from a salted fish!]
As a stream of consciousness appeared in Lin Zhe’s mind, a massive flood of memory images suddenly flashed before his eyes, flickering past at a dizzying, high frequency.
There were clips of his past life, when he used his talent to boss people around and made a few celebrity ladies dance for him;
Clips of himself in a wheelchair, accepting his first award;
And clips of the hardest times with his sister, when the two of them split a single bowl of instant noodles.
The timeline rushed rapidly from the distant past to the present—”whoosh, whoosh, whoosh”—arriving at the exact moment of tonight’s welfare lottery drawing.
If this image hadn’t suddenly appeared before his eyes, Lin Zhe would never have recalled such a trivial event, unrelated to himself, from over a decade ago.
But having lived a second life, with two identical souls overlapping across time and space, Lin Zhe seemed to have gained a cheat-like golden finger.
This was defying the heavens!
“Sis, I want to buy a lottery ticket!”
“Oh, little brother! Let’s… let’s eat noodles first, okay?”
Lin Zhe shook his head. “No, lottery ticket first. I refuse to be a salted fish!”
……
“Keep your ticket safe. The drawing is at 9:15 tonight!”
When the lottery shop owner handed the printed tickets to Lin Xi, there was clear regret in his expression.
From the way Lin Xi counted her bills, he could tell this beautiful girl was hard up, and he could also see how doting she was toward her younger brother Lin Zhe. From the bottom of his heart, he felt sorry for the beautiful Lin Xi.
A person who couldn’t move anything below the neck, someone who was obviously buying a lottery ticket for the first time—what was he thinking, dreaming of getting rich overnight and turning his life around?
Go ahead and dream, buddy! But why drag down a girl as dazzling as a phoenix?
Lin Xi pushed Lin Zhe out of the lottery shop, passed the ramen shop she had been eyeing earlier, and stopped at the door of a bakery, where she bought two soft, fluffy buns.
She remembered that Lin Zhe used to always add meat to his ramen. If he asked for meat once they went in, the dozen or so yuan in her pocket might not be enough.
“Zhe, let’s not have ramen today, okay? These fresh-out-of-the-oven buns are soft and fragrant—try some…”
Lin Xi tore the bun into small pieces and, sheltering from the rain under the awning outside the bakery’s window, tried to feed a piece to Lin Zhe.
But Lin Zhe didn’t respond. He just kept his lips pressed tightly together, as if enduring pain, or as if sulking.
Lin Xi felt terrible. Over these past few months, her brother had been very quiet, never once making any requests of her, his older sister.
Today he had made two: one was to take him out, the other was to buy lottery tickets.
But even these two small requests were hard for her to fulfill.
She only had a dozen or so yuan left—not even enough for the bus fare back to Mocheng. She’d called a few local classmates and friends hoping to borrow some money, but either no one picked up, or they weren’t in town. How was she supposed to get back?
Earlier, Lin Zhe had insisted on buying several numbers, with extra stakes on top. She didn’t have that much money, so she’d only bought fifty yuan worth.
Then Lin Zhe seemed to have gotten angry, turning silent like this and refusing to talk to her.
On this rainy night, a twenty-one-year-old girl with her paralyzed brother—no money, no one to rely on, not knowing where the road led—who knew the bitterness in her heart?
What she didn’t know, however, was that Lin Zhe really wasn’t sulking. He was in the middle of a mental conversation with the System.
The moment he finalized his lottery purchase, that voice that reached straight into his soul appeared again.
[Initial mission “Buy a lottery ticket!” complete. Random reward granted: ‘Guitar Basics.’]
“Basics only? I already knew how to play guitar! Can’t you swap it for a body-recovery reward instead—speed up my recovery, or at least reduce the pain?”
“Besides, I can’t even hold chopsticks steady right now. What good is a guitar skill to me?”
The “Kujingganlai” System ignored Lin Zhe, acting extremely cold and aloof.
Lin Zhe helplessly opened his eyes, only to see his sister Lin Xi crouching in front of the wheelchair, holding a small piece of bun, a worried look on her face, lost in thought.
“Ah~”
Lin Zhe opened his mouth and made a sound like a baby crying for food, signaling Lin Xi to feed him a piece of bun.
In his previous life, whenever she had time, Lin Xi had always fed Lin Zhe personally. Even after Lin Zhe later had many “girlfriends,” no one ever shook Lin Xi’s position as head nanny.
Lin Zhe ate one whole bun in one go. When he saw Lin Xi starting to tear into the second one, even though his stomach was still hungry, he couldn’t eat any more.
What does “depending on each other for survival” mean? Splitting a single steamed bun in two—that’s depending on each other for survival.
“You eat this one. I’m full.”
“I’m not hungry. Come on, open up… ah…”
Lin Zhe kept his mouth shut, watching his sister soothe the child, and couldn’t help asking, “Sis, why do you put yourself through this? I know someone told you to s me to a welfare…”
“Because I’m your sister!”
Lin Xi cut him off, saying somewhat awkwardly, “Your sister would never abandon you. I’ll take care of you for my whole life, feed you for my whole life.”
“Oh, come off it! I’ll be better soon. If you’re still feeding me by then, people will laugh themselves to death.”
“……..”
Lin Zhe said it with a joking smile, never expecting the unpredictable reaction it would cause.
The rims of Lin Xi’s eyes turned red before his eyes, the small piece of bread in her hand dropped to the ground, and tears came pattering down.
“Sis, what’s wrong? Fine, fine, you can buy another loaf and we’ll share it. I saw you still have a few bucks…”
But Lin Xi’s tears wouldn’t stop flowing. Her mouth opened and closed several times without making a sound, as helpless as a fish thrown ashore.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Zhe… It was all my fault… I’m sorry…”
Lin Xi collapsed onto Lin Zhe’s legs, weeping and murmuring incoherently.
“If I hadn’t forgotten my keys when I got home, I wouldn’t have called Dad to come back and open the door. You wouldn’t have rushed back from Uncle’s house, and there wouldn’t have been a car accident…”
“It’s all my fault. Mom and Dad are gone… It’s all because of me that you’re paralyzed… It’s all my fault…”
Lin Zhe clearly felt Lin Xi’s tears soaking through his trousers.
It proved that his sensory nerves were recovering rapidly—and it also proved the remorse and grief in Lin Xi’s heart.
In his previous life, Lin Xi had never told him this reason. She had simply spent a lifetime of love making up for what she considered her “mistake.”
It was true that Lin Zhe and their parents had received Lin Xi’s call and turned back from Uncle’s house halfway, leading to the car accident. But how could a chain of events like that be called a “mistake”?
“Sis, you can’t blame yourself for this. If anyone’s to blame, it’s fate for playing its tricks…”
“And even if you were at fault, I’m sure Mom and Dad would forgive you…”
“As for me? I’ll be better soon! How could I possibly blame you?”
Lin Zhe did his best to comfort Lin Xi, hoping she wouldn’t sp her life drowning in remorse like she had in his previous life.
Lin Xi lifted her head, looked at Lin Zhe, and shook her head bitterly as she wept. “But I can’t forgive myself. Dr. Li said that after your surgery, there’s only a one-in-ten chance of recovery—and without surgery, no chance at all.”
“One in ten! Why should I make my little brother chase after that cruel one in ten…”
The girl was already trembling softly with grief and sobbing, drawing sidelong glances from the passersby scattered along the street—and causing Lin Zhe pain in his heart.
But Lin Zhe smiled. Forcing himself to ure the searing pain of his body’s recovery, he began trying to control his arm.
One millimeter, one centimeter—the arm slowly began to move, the joints letting out creaking, grinding sounds, as if performing a mechanical dance.
Lin Xi, still crying, was stunned. She stared blankly as her brother’s palm clumsily brushed against her face, wiping her tears away bit by bit.
“Sis, you have to believe in miracles. Your little brother…”
“Is a miracle.”
The cold wind seemed to stop, the fine rain seemed to cease, and even the young man at the bakery stared, stunned, at the brother and sister outside the window.
In that instant, along the entire desolate street, it was as if only the tenderness between the siblings was the focus worth telling.
“Waaah~~”
Lin Xi threw her arms around her brother’s arm and burst into loud sobs.
That heart-wrenching crying poured out the fear inside her, released her pressure, redeemed her guilt— and let a girl whose eyes had known only gray see the colors of life again.