It was July 1982, the weather sweltering, in a house tucked away in a small alley in Nancheng.
“Go find her. Since we know where she is, then go find her. Why wouldn’t we?”
“Big Brother, why don’t you go find her?”
“Are you worried about disrupting her life? Or are you afraid she won’t acknowledge us?”
“Big Brother, aren’t you doing pretty well now? You’ve got a job at the factory and you’ve even become a section chief. She’ll definitely acknowledge you.”
“That’s true. She might acknowledge you, but not necessarily me.”
“…”
Yu Jiaojiao was about twenty-six now. She had married a man who worked at a factory in Nancheng. She herself had no job. Years ago, to avoid being sent to the countryside as an educated youth, she had married young.
Yu Jiaojiao wore her hair short, reaching roughly to her ears, with a hair clip fastened in it. There was something fierce about her expression.
When Yu Jiaojiao was around ten, her biological father died and her mother ran away. Her eldest brother, Yu Chengwen, was only eleven or twelve at the time. Their father had been a temporary worker, and because Yu Chengwen was still so young, there was no way for him to inherit his father’s position.
The family was poor and there were too many children. With five siblings in all, Yu Chengwen simply had no way to raise his younger brothers and sisters on his own.
At the time, Yu Chengwen was eleven or twelve, Yu Jiaojiao around ten, Yu Chengwu about six, Yu Lili five, and the youngest, Yu Tingting, only a few months old.
Yu Tingting was none other than the Qiao Mingzhu of today.
Qiao Mingzhu was overjoyed because she had been admitted to Nancheng University. She had always believed she was an only child, with no brothers or sisters.
That was what she thought, anyway.
She had absolutely no idea that her current parents had adopted her.
Her adoptive parents did have other siblings, which meant Qiao Mingzhu had quite a few cousins on both sides of the family.
But her parents had never told anyone that Qiao Mingzhu was adopted—not even their own brothers and sisters. They had gone through an intermediary to adopt her, and they had never contacted or met anyone from the Yu family. That was precisely to prevent the Yu family from ever finding their way to their door.
All these years, Qiao Mingzhu’s parents had treated her exactly as they would have treated a biological daughter.
They had no other children.
To them, Qiao Mingzhu was their own daughter.
Yu Chengwen’s younger brother, Yu Chengwu, and his second sister, Yu Jiaojiao, had remained at home. Yu Lili had gone to live with their second aunt, while the youngest, Yu Tingting, had been sent to another family.
Yu Chengwen had thought Tingting was simply too young. They couldn’t afford to raise her, and he was terrified that they might end up letting their youngest sister die from neglect.
His second aunt and the others had all told him the same thing: while Tingting was still little, before she had formed any memories of her family, they should send her away. That way, another family might be able to raise her as their own.
The moment Yu Chengwen heard that, he nodded.
Now, hearing Jiaojiao say all this, Yu Chengwen felt a headache coming on.
“She’s living well now. We shouldn’t go over there,” Yu Chengwen said.
“If you won’t go, I will.”
Yu Jiaojiao refused to let the matter drop. She was determined to find Yu Tingting.
“You don’t know—”
“I know.” Yu Jiaojiao cut him off. “If you can find out where she is, so can I. Yu Tingting is one of our family. She was our family for one day, and she’ll be our family for the rest of her life. I’m going to find her.”
“Don’t go.” Yu Chengwen frowned.
“Heh.” Yu Jiaojiao gave a cold snort. “It’s not like she has to be sent to the countryside as an educated youth anymore. She’s grown up. Why can’t we go find her? She deserves to know who her biological parents are!”
Yu Chengwen remained seated as he spoke. His mouth told Jiaojiao not to go, but in reality, he made no move to get up and stop her.
Meanwhile, at the Qiao household, Qiao Mingzhu was in high spirits.
She had been admitted to Nancheng University.
From the moment she had decided to take the entrance exam, Qiao Mingzhu had been determined to get into Nancheng University. She loved living in Nancheng and wanted to stay close to her parents.
“Mom, I made it.” Qiao Mingzhu grinned so broadly that her eyes curved into crescents.
Qiao Mingzhu was exceptionally beautiful. Her long hair was glossy and black, and her skin was fair. She was famous in the neighborhood for her looks. On top of that, her family was well-off, so quite a few people liked spending time with her.
There were also girls who disliked her. They felt that Qiao Mingzhu attracted all the boys’ attention, that in the eyes of those boys, she was the unattainable girl they could only admire from afar.
Pretty, smart, from a good family, and with a pleasant temper…
The boys thought she had nothing but good qualities. It was as though she carried a soft radiance around her, making her almost impossible not to like.
Qiao Mingzhu’s mother looked at the admission letter her daughter had handed her and smiled with delight.
“As long as you got in,” her mother said. “I told you your score was so high there was no way they wouldn’t accept you. You were the one worrying.”
“I couldn’t relax until I actually received the admission letter,” Qiao Mingzhu said.
“Back then, I told you Nancheng University was so close to home that we could just go over and take a look. You were the one saying there was no need to rush.” Her mother laughed.
“That’s just how I am, Mom.” Qiao Mingzhu slipped her arm through her mother’s and gently rested her head against her shoulder. “Mom, I’ll be studying in Nancheng, so I’ll be really close to home. I can come back all the time.”
“Then just live at home,” her mother said. “We have so many rooms. There’s no need for you to stay in the dormitory.”
“But I want to experience it,” Qiao Mingzhu said.
“Experience what?” her mother asked. “What if the school doesn’t have enough dormitory space? If you take a place, what will someone who actually needs it do?”
“Would that really happen?” Qiao Mingzhu blinked. “What if I have evening classes?”
“Are you going to have classes every single night?” her mother asked. “What’s there to worry about? We can have someone pick you up. Several people share a dorm room. Can you really put up with that? You’re used to having a room to yourself, and you keep everything neat and spotless.
“If you live in a dormitory, your roommates will come from all over the country. Their customs and habits will be different. You might say something completely ordinary and accidentally offend someone because you’ve touched on a taboo without realizing it…”
“Is it really that serious?” Qiao Mingzhu frowned slightly. “I don’t think so.”
“It could be.” Her mother was firm. “Just live at home. There’s no need to stay in the school dormitory.”
Qiao Mingzhu’s mother simply couldn’t bear the thought of her daughter living at school. Ever since the girl had come into their family, she had been meticulously cared for. Her mother couldn’t stand the thought of her suffering even the slightest hardship.
She worried that Qiao Mingzhu wouldn’t know how to get along with her roommates. Four or six people crammed into such a small room, with hardly any space and barely any air circulating.
Qiao Mingzhu’s maternal family had been a family of entrepreneurs. Before Liberation, they had donated more than half their wealth. Even after Liberation, they continued donating substantial sums of money. During the turbulent years, they kept a low profile and even moved out of their ancestral home.
Once those difficult years had passed, her mother’s family began building businesses again. They did extremely well, and Qiao Mingzhu’s mother also made investments from time to time.
Qiao Mingzhu’s father was a doctor. He was highly skilled and served as vice president of a provincial hospital.
Her mother had no formal job. Sometimes she volunteered to help others. She had also once been a teacher, but for certain reasons, she had not continued in the profession.
Her mother had suffered an injury that left her unable to have children.
When Qiao Mingzhu’s father learned that his wife couldn’t conceive, he never considered having a child with someone else. The two of them shared a deep and devoted bond.
After discussing it together, they decided to adopt a child.
While they were away from Nancheng, before any of their relatives there knew what they were doing, they told everyone that they had had a child.
Qiao Mingzhu’s father had originally considered adopting an unwanted baby from the hospital, but that would have made it too easy for people to discover the truth. In the end, he abandoned the idea.
The first time Qiao Mingzhu’s mother saw her, the baby was tiny, bundled into a little ball, her voice weak and fragile.
Her mother’s heart ached at the sight.
She felt that other people might have difficulty keeping such a frail child alive.
But she could do it.
She could raise this child.
So many years had passed, and Qiao Mingzhu’s mother had continued to cherish her daughter with painstaking care, attending to every little detail and arranging everything for her down to the last thing.
“Can we at least go take a look first?” Qiao Mingzhu asked.
“We can go see it,” her mother conceded. “Our house is so close to the university. There’s no need for you to live there. We shouldn’t take up space that other students genuinely need.”
“Oh.” Qiao Mingzhu nodded.
She was already imagining her wonderful life in the years ahead.
At this point, Qiao Mingzhu had no memories of her childhood. She didn’t remember anything from a previous life, either. She had no idea that she had transmigrated into a novel, much less that she was the doomed white-moonlight supporting character in its story.
And she certainly didn’t know that her biological older brothers and sisters were already making their way toward her.
“Once you’re going to university, you’re a young woman now. We need to get you some new clothes,” her mother said. “And another thing—don’t let those boys outside sweet-talk you into anything.”
Qiao Mingzhu wasn’t even eighteen yet. She still had a few months before her eighteenth birthday.
“I’m not that stupid,” Qiao Mingzhu said. “Back in school, there were classmates who started dating too early. Their grades were terrible, and they were still busy falling in love.”
Qiao Mingzhu personally believed that studying came first. Once she got to university, then she could think about other things.
There were confession letters that other people slipped into her desk drawer, but she always threw them away without opening them. She never bothered to read any of them.
Qiao Mingzhu knew what mattered most.
When you were at an age to study, you should study properly.
Originally, Qiao Mingzhu had considered studying medicine as well. But after thinking it over, she decided against it.
She was afraid her hands might tremble. Afraid she wouldn’t be able to handle blood. Afraid she wouldn’t be able to hold a scalpel steady.
Qiao Mingzhu had studied piano and guzheng with her mother. When she took the university entrance examination, she hadn’t entered university through the arts track. She had gotten in with her actual academic score.
“Getting into university doesn’t mean you can relax completely,” her mother said. “You still have to study.”
“I know, I know.” Qiao Mingzhu nodded quickly.
“Now that you’ve gotten into university, we’ll invite your grandparents over for a meal one of these days,” her mother said. “And your uncles, too, and your maternal uncles. They’ll all be thrilled for you.”
“It’s not that big a deal,” Qiao Mingzhu said. “There’s no need to make such a fuss.”
“It’s just a meal with the relatives,” her mother said. “They’ve been saying for ages that once you got into university, we had to treat them to a meal.”
Qiao Mingzhu shrugged. She didn’t really mind. It was up to her parents.
Just as Qiao Mingzhu was talking with her mother, Yu Jiaojiao arrived at the Qiao family’s front door.
She pressed the doorbell and then shouted loudly from outside,
“Yu Tingting! Yu Tingting! I know you’re in there!
“Qiao Mingzhu, your name is Yu Tingting! Your surname is Yu, not Qiao! You’re a member of the Yu family, not the Qiao family!”