Wen Li had no idea what Xu Fei was thinking just then.
Xu Fei’s voice pulled her back to her senses.
She bit down on her lower lip without a sound, and a fine, prickling pain spread across it.
Not a dream.
A jolt went through her. Wen Li couldn’t help asking, “Xu Fei, what time is it now?”
She had bitten down with some force. Her lips, already vivid red, flushed with blood and looked even redder, as if they had been thoroughly ravaged, carrying an ambiguity that was hard to name.
Xu Fei’s gaze brushed over them without thinking, and her ears went inexplicably warm. Her heart skipped half a beat.
What the hell. She was a woman, and she was blushing at another woman.
Xu Fei hurriedly lowered her eyes, not daring to look at that face again, and answered dutifully.
“Madam, it’s three-thirty in the afternoon. Don’t worry, I’ll have your nails done before five.”
But Wen Li shook her head, her voice a little tight. “I’m not asking what time. I’m asking what the date is. What year, what month, what day.”
Xu Fei blinked. The question was strange, but she answered honestly anyway. “Today is May 30, 2020.”
May 30, 2020.
The date struck Wen Li like a heavy hammer.
Her mind went blank with a buzz, every thought wiped clean, leaving nothing but emptiness.
The day of the car crash had been the autumn of 2025.
Five whole years.
She had gone back five years.
Was I… reborn?
The moment the thought flashed through her mind, Wen Li found it absurd. But soon, she felt something like relief.
If the world she had lived in for over twenty years could turn out to be a novel, what was so strange about coming back from the dead?
Heaven probably thought she had died too unjustly and given her a chance to start over.
Wen Li quickly calmed down and sorted out where she stood in time.
May 30, 2020.
Three days ago, on May 27, she had just gotten her marriage certificate with Ji Zongting.
When they came out of the civil affairs bureau, Ji Zongting’s assistant was already waiting at the door, handing over documents that needed urgent attention. Ji Zongting glanced back at her and said only, “If you need anything, find the housekeeper.” Then he got into a car and headed straight for the airport, flying overseas to handle business.
And just like that, she became Madam Ji without quite knowing how.
It was called a marriage alliance between two families, but it wasn’t even that. A marriage alliance meant two great families each taking what they needed and lending each other strength. It required matching status. The Wen family was wealthy compared to ordinary people, but before a giant like the Ji family, they didn’t even clear the threshold.
Wen Li still remembered the day she first met Ji Zongting.
It was late April. The Wen family had received a gilded invitation, from the Ji family. More precisely, from Ji Mingyi, the head of the Ji family, in his personal capacity.
The invitation’s wording was vague and gracious, calling it a “small gathering of elegance.” But everyone in Haishi’s upper circles knew exactly what it was. A matchmaking banquet to choose a wife for the Ji family’s heir, Ji Zongting.
Ji Zongting was nearly thirty, held a high position, and commanded half the Ji empire, yet he still kept women at a distance. Rumors flew. Some said he didn’t like women. Some said he had someone in his heart. Others said he had a physical ailment.
Ji Mingyi, terrified of having no successor, had simply thrown a grand banquet and invited nearly every eligible unmarried heiress of note in Haishi.
Later, gossips would gleefully call it “the Heir choosing his bride,” and the talk would circulate for quite a while.
For some reason, the Wen family had received an invitation too.
The Wen family was barely more than nouveaux riches in Haishi. They had only made their fortune in the last dozen years, running an entertainment company worth less than a billion.
Wen Li’s father was mediocre, but he had enough self-awareness to know that even though his daughter was beautiful, the gap between their households was too vast. Going would only make her a foil for others. So he hadn’t planned to let Wen Li attend.
But Wen Li went anyway.
By then, she already knew. Her father had lost a bet, and the company had a massive funding gap. If it wasn’t handled, they would go bankrupt.
Even if the company went bankrupt, she wouldn’t starve. But having grown up pampered and precious, how could Wen Li tolerate a return to ordinariness?
Besides, the Ji family had given her a chance. How would she know the outcome if she didn’t try?
If it worked, the Wen family’s company would have a way out. And she, as Madam Ji, would live an even more luxurious, comfortable life.
Despite her otherworldly looks, Wen Li was, at her core, an ordinary soul. Craving comfort, spending money, enjoying life. That was her pursuit.
To make a good impression on Ji Zongting, she had rarely restrained her spoiled temperament. At that banquet, she dressed plainly, wore light makeup, spoke softly, and smiled without showing her teeth. She played the part of “refined, sensible, sweet, and well-behaved” to the hilt.
The banquet was a clink of glasses and chatter. She stayed quietly in a corner, not competing, not vying, like an unremarkable orchid.
But her face drew attention no matter what. Even bare-faced, without a trace of powder, just standing there she lit up the whole hall.
Wen Li stood there for ages and never saw Ji Zongting appear.
She had thought she would go home empty-handed. Then, out of nowhere, someone pushed her from behind.
Caught off guard, Wen Li tumbled headlong into the courtyard pool.
Water rushed in from all sides, flooding her mouth and nose. She flailed and sank, a complete mess. People around her laughed, gasped, the chaotic noise muffled and distant through the water.
She was furious and humiliated. She was about to climb out and drag whoever pushed her into the open.
Then a hand appeared in front of her. It grabbed her forearm and hauled her out of the water.
The hand gripping her was enormous, knuckles pronounced, long and strong.
She followed it upward and saw a cold, noble face.
The hand gripping her was enormous, knuckles pronounced, long and strong.
She followed it upward and saw a cold, noble face.
It was a face handsome to the point of severity.
High brow ridge, deep-set eye sockets. Under thick black brows, a pair of eyes as deep as a cold pool in midwinter, dark and bottomless.
Every feature of the man’s face seemed to have been carved with a knife’s edge, lines cold and hard, angles sharp. But because his brows and eyes were so deep, there was a natural sinister edge to them, as if the slightest displeasure could send a chill down a person’s spine.
His expression was extremely indifferent, his lips flat, his gaze lowered. When he looked at someone, there wasn’t a trace of emotion. He radiated an oppressive presence that made it hard to breathe.
The noisy chatter and snickering around them went abruptly silent the moment he appeared.
By the vast poolside, not a single person dared make a sound.
Wen Li was half-submerged in the water, hair plastered wet to her cheeks, dress clinging to her skin, revealing a lovely figure.
She looked up and met a pair of eyes dark as ink.