Year 2000, Beijing.
Snow fell heavily through the night, and the wind was biting and cold.
At a street intersection, a weathered old woman lay alone, huddled on the ground. She wore tattered old clothes; her hair was gray, her frame thin and hunched, and her face etched with deep wrinkles.
Xu Ruyan trembled violently as she hugged herself.
Her hollow, lifeless eyes stared fixedly at a happy family of three across the street, and a sudden, startling light erupted in her gaze.
“Dad, Auntie Xu, Sister, it’s me, Ruyan!”
Crying, Xu Ruyan scrambled up and stumbled toward the other side of the street, her voice—aged and hoarse from years of hardship—straining as she shouted.
“It’s me, Ruyan! Dad, it’s been thirty whole years… I’ve finally found you!”
The family of three, dressed in opulent, elegant clothing and styled with sophisticated fashion, turned to look at the commotion.
Xu Weiguo narrowed his eyes. As he watched the stumbling, hunched figure of Xu Ruyan, he was confused for a moment, finding her vaguely familiar.
It wasn’t until he clearly heard her cry “Dad” through the cold wind that he reacted.
He was startled, his face instantly darkening. With an expression full of loathing, he shouted, “Get her away from here!”
Xu Ruyan’s stumbling steps faltered.
Xu Weiguo’s brow furrowed deeply, his expression becoming increasingly ruthless as he barked, “You shameless, filthy beggar, stop trying to claim a connection with me! I only have one daughter, and that’s Yunhua. I don’t know you!”
Xu Ruyan froze, staring blankly at her long-lost biological father, unable to believe her ears.
“Dad.”
Xu Yunhua, standing beside him, gently took his arm and smiled softly. “You and Mom go back first. I’ll handle this.”
Xu Weiguo gave her an uneasy look, remained silent for a long moment, then nodded. “Deal with her properly,” he said coldly. “Make her disappear from Beijing. Don’t let her appear before me ever again!”
Xu Yunhua watched with a beaming smile as Xu Weiguo got into the car and left. Then, her eyes flickered, and a meaningful, mocking sneer curled her lips.
She turned to the bodyguards beside her and said, “Take her away.”
The two bodyguards responded by hauling up Xu Ruyan’s hunched, staggering body. They dragged her to a secluded alleyway and threw her violently to the ground.
The fall left Xu Ruyan aching and cold.
She curled into a ball, her lips turning purple from the freezing temperatures. Her gaze was vacant, as if she were still immersed in a shock too great to recover from, and she shook so hard she couldn’t speak.
Xu Yunhua looked down at her with her arms crossed, a look of disdain and mockery on her pale, perfectly made-up face.
“Xu Ruyan, you really are tough to kill. To think you actually lived long enough to find us. I thought you’d died in some backwater corner of the Great Northwest long ago.”
As Xu Ruyan’s dazed eyes met the mocking gaze, her emotions suddenly flared. She struggled to pull herself up and grabbed the hem of Xu Yunhua’s trousers.
“Xu Yunhua, what is going on? I want to see Dad! I want to go home!”
“Haha.” Xu Yunhua covered her mouth and laughed, her tone dripping with sarcasm. “You still want to go home? You idiot, couldn’t you see that Dad doesn’t want you? You spent thirty years looking for us? Xu Ruyan, use that pig brain of yours. Did it never occur to you why we never came back for you after the policies changed and the country opened up?”
“All those assets in your house—did you never wonder where they vanished to overnight? The ancestral home was sold, and the savings your mother left for you disappeared. Did you never have even a single doubt?”
Xu Ruyan’s eyes widened. She trembled all over as a ridiculous, inconceivable thought suddenly surfaced in her mind.
Observing her shocked expression, Xu Yunhua nodded with satisfaction, unable to suppress a triumphant laugh.
“You moron, we took it all, of course!”
“Back then, Dad took the massive inheritance left by the Lin family and bought three tickets to take our family to Hong Kong for refuge. Relying on the Lin family’s assets and connections, he quickly became the richest man in Hong Kong. And now, he’s brought us back to Beijing to expand the business.”
“Oh, right, let me tell you one more thing.”
Xu Yunhua giggled, feeling more and more refreshed as she watched Xu Ruyan’s stunned expression.
“I am actually Dad’s biological daughter. We only told everyone I was someone else’s child to deceive you. I’m a year older than you. Do you know what that means?”
Xu Yunhua’s tone grew sharp, her smile mocking and cruel.
“It means that Dad had already established another family behind your and your mother’s backs long ago. Dad supported me and my mother out there using the very money your mother earned!”
“Not only that, when your mother was hospitalized back then, Dad had long grown tired of her. He fed her an entire bottle of methaqualone himself, causing her to die of respiratory failure.”
“It was also Dad who personally signed the papers to waive the autopsy and had her cremated immediately. He even switched the remains and scattered your mother’s ashes just to vent his anger. That urn you thought was hers? It actually contained the ashes of a dog! Hahaha!”
Xu Yunhua laughed triumphantly, her bright red lips curling upward, her tone becoming increasingly sinister and malicious.
“Your mother’s bones are long gone; not even a speck of dust remains. You two fools, mother and daughter, were played like fiddles by our family of three. You were being stripped of everything and didn’t even know it!”
Xu Ruyan’s eyes were wide with horror.
The cruel truth was laid bare before her in all its bloodiness. Her eyes nearly split with rage as she scrambled up, struggling to seize Xu Yunhua’s throat.
“Ah! You animals! You monsters!!”
“I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you! Ah!!”
Xu Yunhua raised her high-heeled winter boot and kicked Xu Ruyan hard in her shrunken stomach, sneering.
“Heh. Our family of three has spent all these years enjoying glory and wealth, eating and drinking the best, all thanks to your Lin family money. Meanwhile, you’ve been destitute, tricked by Dad into going down to the countryside in the freezing Northwest. Xu Ruyan, how do you expect to fight me?”
Xu Yunhua slowly crouched down, pulled a jade pendant from her scarf, and boasted in a low voice in her ear.
“One last thing, so you can die with your eyes open.”
“This Lin family heirloom is actually a Spatial Jade Pendant. It’s filled with the treasures the Lin ancestors accumulated over hundreds, even thousands of years.”
“Our family relied on this Spatial Jade Pendant—which we swindled right out of your hands—to transfer all those assets and take them away. We made a huge splash in Hong Kong and quickly became a top-tier wealthy family.”
Xu Yunhua laughed as she used the jade pendant to slap Xu Ruyan’s aged, wrinkled, and darkened cheek. Then she stood up triumphantly and instructed the bodyguards.
“It’s a freezing winter in Beijing. It’s only normal for a few beggars to freeze to death.”
The bodyguards quickly understood Xu Yunhua’s meaning. They shared a look and stepped forward together, raining punches and kicks down on the prone Xu Ruyan until she no longer had the strength to stand.
Xu Ruyan curled her body tightly. She was in so much pain she couldn’t breathe. She could only stare with bloodshot eyes full of hatred at Xu Yunhua’s slender, elegant back, gritting her teeth as blood flowed.
The bodyguards didn’t dare to actually beat her to death.
Once they were certain Xu Ruyan could no longer get up, they stood guard on the street not far away. They lit cigarettes and watched expressionlessly as she lay miserably on the ground, slowly freezing to death.
June, 1970.
Inside the century-old ancestral home of the Lin family in Jiangnan.
“Ah!”
Xu Ruyan let out a startled cry and sat up in bed, her face full of terror and her brow damp with a thin layer of sweat.
She stared blankly at her fair, delicate hands, then looked around at the familiar furnishings of her former bedroom.
Xu Ruyan’s eyes snapped wide as an incredible realization hit her.
She hurriedly turned to look at the calendar on the desk.
1970…
She had actually been reborn?!
And she had returned to the time just before she was supposed to go down to the Great Northwest, back when her scumbag father’s family was tricking her into handing over the entire Lin family estate.
Tears of fear mixed with intense hatred flowed down Xu Ruyan’s exquisite, pale face.
“Ruyan.”
The voice of her stepmother, Xu Yingying, suddenly drifted in from outside the door, gentle as water. She smiled and said, “Come down and have a snack.”
“Your father specifically bought Chao cakes from Yixiangzhai today. Weren’t you craving them a few days ago? Come down and try some.”
Hearing that familiar yet foreign gentle voice, Xu Ruyan shuddered. She snapped back to reality, her eyes erupting with a mountainous rage.
Heaven had eyes, giving her a chance to start over.
In her past life, she was deceived by her biological father in league with her stepmother and stepsister. Her mother was murdered, her family property was stolen, and in the end, she was beaten by her stepsister’s men and left to freeze to death in a cold alley.
In this life, she would keep her eyes wide open. Not one member of that scumbag family would be spared!
Xu Ruyan gritted her teeth in hatred. “Xu Weiguo, Xu Yingying, Xu Yunhua… This debt of blood—I will make you pay it back in blood myself!”