In the courtyard of the department store’s staff housing complex, a group of people had gathered to chat, and one of them brought up the hot topic of the moment: “It’s been over a month and there’s still no word about Jiaxin. I’d guess she’s not coming back.”
Just then, young Mrs. Xu from the housing complex came back from buying groceries and joined in. “I heard Jiaxin got into a fight with her family and ran off to the old family home in the ancient capital, but on the train she ran into human traffickers and got kidnapped.”
This Mrs. Xu was on good terms with Manager Lu’s second wife, Ding Jing, so when the words came from her mouth, most of the crowd believed it right away.
Among those present, the kind-hearted ones secretly felt sorry for the girl, while the spiteful or jealous ones thought Lu Jiaxin had brought it on herself. Mostly because the girl usually gave the housing complex’s residents the cold shoulder, which often left Ding Jing having to come around apologizing on her behalf, so everyone said Manager Lu’s only daughter was spoiled and arrogant.
An older woman with a black mole at the corner of her mouth said carelessly, “I heard that if a kidnapped girl is pretty, she gets sold off to some filthy place to be passed around by a thousand men.”
Lu Jiaxin was the housing complex’s acknowledged beauty, so the implication was obvious. The moment the words left her mouth, the whole scene went quiet, and people’s expressions shifted in all sorts of ways.
Just then, a crisp, clear voice cut in. “So you’re saying, Auntie, that you personally saw the traffickers sell Lu Jiaxin off to one of those filthy places?”
The mole-faced auntie didn’t dare admit to that, she’d only been gossiping for the fun of watching a show, so she turned around, trying to cover herself. “When did I ever say Jiaxin was—”
But when she saw who was speaking, she swallowed the rest of her words and stammered, “Jia—Jia—Jiaxin, weren’t you kidnapped by traffickers?”
Lu Jiaxin said coldly, “So it seems you really did see me get kidnapped with your own eyes, Auntie. Then why didn’t you report it to the police at the time? Or are you related to the traffickers, covering for them while they took me? Should I go to the police station right now and have you arrested?”
The mole-faced auntie’s face changed at once. “What nonsense are you talking, child? I never said you were kidnapped, I was hoping you’d be all right.”
She had nothing to do with any traffickers.
Lu Jiaxin said mockingly, “Hoping I’d be all right? By your own words I’ve already been sold off to some rock-bottom place. Auntie, I can’t accept your blessing, save it for your own family. And next time you spread rumors about me with that loose mouth of yours, we’ll see each other at the police station.”
The original owner of this body had been gentle and shy, too scared to even talk back when this pack of gossiping women chewed on her reputation day after day. But Lu Jiaxin was no longer that pushover who just silently endured being bullied.
Everyone present was stunned, in just over a month, how had this girl turned so sharp-tongued and unyielding?
At this point a kindly-looking older woman stepped forward and said earnestly, “Jiaxin, dear, you’re far too proud for your own good. How could you run away from home just because you didn’t do well on the college entrance exam? Do you have any idea how worried that made your parents?”
Lu Jiaxin looked at this old woman with open disgust. This Auntie Zhao acted warm and caring toward the original owner on the surface, but was actually Ding Jing’s lackey, spreading rumors behind her back to ruin the girl’s reputation.
Everyone can act, Lu Jiaxin’s eyes reddened as she put on a show. “Auntie Zhao, I didn’t run away from home. Yes, my exam results got sabotaged, and I just wanted to go back to the old hometown to clear my head, I never imagined I’d run into traffickers on the train.”
“That trafficker knew everything about my background, and along the way he deliberately got close to me. I thought he really was a relative from back home, so I got off the train with him at the ancient capital. Thank goodness, once we were outside the station I realized something was wrong and ran, but he chased me, and I fell down some stairs and hit my head on a wall and passed out. The trafficker thought I wasn’t breathing and figured I was dead, so he took my things and left. Actually, I wasn’t dead, I’d just stopped breathing for a moment.”
In fact, it wasn’t a moment of suspended breath, the original owner had truly died, and she, a person from 2023, had transmigrated into this body and come back to life.
Everyone listening whispered among themselves after hearing her account, some said Lu Jiaxin was blessed with great luck, some said she was too willful, and a small few began to have doubts. What did she mean, her exam had been sabotaged? What did she mean, the trafficker knew all about her background? How would a trafficker know so much about her?
Auntie Zhao immediately changed the subject. “How would this trafficker know your background? Could it be someone from your old hometown who recognized you?”
Lu Jiaxin added more fuel to the fire. “Everyone here knows what I looked like five years ago compared to now. Forget strangers, even my own uncle and aunt might not recognize me right away if they saw me.”
The sharper members of the crowd felt a chill, this was vicious.
The mole-faced auntie, being somewhat slow on the uptake, called out, “Girl, if you escaped from the traffickers, why didn’t you call home right away?”
Some things were better left vague, spelling it out too plainly would only arouse suspicion.
Lu Jiaxin sighed. “Because I’d hurt my head at the time and had a blood clot in my brain, and I forgot who I was and where my family was.”
In fact, the moment she woke up she’d inherited all of the original owner’s memories. The reason she hadn’t come back right away was to avoid the Lu family. Her personality was different from the original owner’s, and she was also considerably older in spirit, even with the original owner’s memories, coming back right away would have raised suspicion, so she’d simply pretended to have amnesia and stayed in the ancient capital.
Once she’d finished explaining, Lu Jiaxin turned to go upstairs, but Auntie Zhao chased after her, saying, “Jiaxin, your father’s gone to work, and your mother’s out selling vegetables and hasn’t come back yet. You won’t be able to get into the apartment right now, why don’t you just sit here for a while?”
Lu Jiaxin stopped in her tracks at once, her face darkening. “Auntie Zhao, don’t spout nonsense here, my mother’s been dead for four years.”
The original owner had never once called that woman “mother,” and neither would she.
Auntie Zhao’s heart skipped a beat, something was off. In the past, whenever she said something like this out of “concern,” this child would be moved to the point of tears, and even when she disagreed with being told to get along with Ding Jing, she’d just lower her head and stay silent, never talking back like this.
She sensed something was wrong but didn’t let it show on her face. “Jiaxin, you don’t know this, but during the time you were missing, your Auntie Ding searched for you day and night without rest. The moment she heard from your classmates that you might have gone back to the old hometown, she bought a ticket that very day and went looking for you. Jiaxin, your Auntie Ding truly treats you like her own daughter.”
Watching this old woman lie through her teeth, Lu Jiaxin found her utterly repulsive, wrapping herself in a cloak of kindness to deceive a young girl, with no fear of consequences.
Since heaven wasn’t going to deliver justice, she’d expose this old woman’s hypocritical face herself.
Lu Jiaxin’s eyes reddened at once, tears rolling down as she cried, “Auntie Zhao, why do you keep speaking up for that vicious woman? Whether she’s good to me or not, don’t I know better than anyone, since I’m the one who lived through it?”
“Let me tell you all the truth. If that woman surnamed Ding and her daughter hadn’t deliberately sabotaged me, I wouldn’t have bombed my exam. If I hadn’t bombed my exam, I wouldn’t have listened to my classmate and gone back to the old hometown. If I hadn’t gone back to the old hometown, I wouldn’t have caught the eye of a trafficker who already knew all about me. Thank goodness heaven had eyes and let me escape from that trafficker, otherwise their scheme would have succeeded.”
What a juicy scandal, the aunties and young wives present all had their eyes lit up with excitement.