Lin Xiao had been beaten to death. At the Public Security Bureau, the hooligans gave identical statements: they had caught Lin Xiao stealing red-handed, with the stolen goods on him. He had tried to run, so they went after him—and accidentally beat him to death.
Lin Wan didn’t believe them, but she realized she had no way to refute their story. She couldn’t even prove that her younger brother wasn’t a thief.
Despairing, Lin Wan returned home. Before she could figure out how to tell Mom, she discovered that her younger sister had fallen ill. Malnourished and traumatized, her younger sister had developed a terminal illness.
With nowhere else to turn, Lin Wan scavenged for scrap, grew vegetables by the ponds to sell, and sold her blood to save money. She had to look after Mom and pay for her younger sister’s treatment…
She struggled on for less than ten years. Mom died, her younger sister was gone, and Lin Wan herself was like a lamp running out of oil, gravely ill and near death.
The cold wind howled. Lin Wan sat leaning against her Dad and Mom’s gravestones, watching Lin Shuhua approach.
When she had truly run out of options, she had gone to the capital to seek help from the Xie family. There, she happened to learn that Xie Yanzhou had been killed while serving with the border defense forces. The whole Xie family had rushed there.
Ten years had passed since Lin Wan last saw Lin Shuhua.
This time, Lin Wan had gone to great lengths to find someone who could bring Lin Shuhua to her.
Snowflakes settled on Lin Shuhua’s luxurious fur coat. She raised a hand and brushed them away. When she saw what Lin Wan looked like, her exquisitely made-up, carefully maintained face registered exaggerated shock, her eyes widening.
Lin Wan stood before her in rags, her skin sallow and dark, her body nothing but skin and bones. Her hair was dry and yellow, her eyes sunken, and her lips split with deep cracks. When she opened her mouth, dark red blood seeped out…
“Lin Wan, how did you end up looking like this?” Lin Shuhua asked in surprise, though her face was lit with a smile. “Back then, everyone at the Cotton Textile Factory compared us. They always called me the ugly duckling and said you were the swan. Look at you now—are you still a swan? How did you end up uglier than a sixty-year-old woman?”
“I heard you married another rich man. Is this your third marriage or your fourth?” Lin Wan leaned against the gravestone and looked calmly at the excited Lin Shuhua, her voice hoarse.
“Xie Yanzhou had a short life. He died in his third year of marriage. You can’t blame me for that!” Lin Shuhua said, looking at her bright red fingernails.
“Lin Shuhua, you really are something.” Lin Wan looked at her. “I heard the Xie family fell into disgrace, that Division Commander Xie was sent to a farm and later died of illness. That was your doing too, wasn’t it?”
“They blamed me and even wanted to take Xiaobao away from me. What else could I do but protect my son? I’m his mother!” Lin Shuhua shook her head at Lin Wan. “Lin Wan, I had someone check the medical records you sent me. You really are in the final stages of a terminal illness. You won’t live more than a few days.”
“That’s right. I won’t live more than a few days.” Lin Wan gave a bitter laugh, then continued, “Lin Shuhua, I called you here because I wanted to hear the truth. What happened to Dad back then—was that you?”
Lin Shuhua stared at Lin Wan. Lin Wan raised a hand to cover her mouth as she coughed. A large pool of blood filled her palm.
“Yes. I wanted to marry Xie Yanzhou, but Second Uncle actually came to find me and scolded me, saying I shouldn’t keep trying to compete with you in everything.” Lin Shuhua glanced at the blood on Lin Wan’s lips, her face smug. “Lin Wan, since you’re about to die, I’ll tell you a few more things. I was the one who arranged to have your family thrown out of the factory housing compound.
“I’ve been keeping tabs on you all these years, Older Sister! When you sold your blood and they took half your earnings, when the shack you built out of trash was burned down, when you were fined by the city inspectors for selling vegetables—it was all me. I had people do it.
“Oh, and there’s one more secret. I paid someone to beat Lin Xiao to death. He came to demand an explanation from me and threatened that he’d never let me get away with it! So I had no choice…”
“What did you say…? Cough, cough, cough!” Lin Wan was so furious that she coughed up a large amount of blood. She looked up, her voice trembling. “I didn’t hear you just now. Say it again.”
“I said…” Lin Shuhua leaned closer. “Your younger brother was killed because I had someone—Uh!”
A flash of cold light. Before Lin Shuhua could react, Lin Wan sprang up like a leopard, a dagger in the hand she had kept hidden behind her back.
The dagger’s point had already pierced Lin Shuhua’s chest.
“Lin Shuhua, you deserve to go to hell!” Lin Wan roared. “Why did you do this to me? Why did you do this to Mom and Dad?”
“Lin Wan, you—you dare kill me… Help! Help!” Lin Shuhua clutched her chest and stumbled backward. She fell to the ground, then turned and screamed in terror.
The black-clad bodyguards Lin Shuhua had left outside the cemetery came running.
One of them rushed forward and kicked Lin Wan square in the chest.
Lin Wan slowly fell, lying across her Dad and Mom’s gravestones as she watched the snow swirl overhead. A crystalline tear slid from the corner of her eye. If there’s another life, I don’t want to live through such misery again!
“Why?” Just as Lin Wan closed her eyes, Lin Shuhua screamed hysterically. “Because your parents were always your parents, and they only loved you! They let people call me the ugly duckling—they did it on purpose! And because Xie Yanzhou never loved me. In his heart, it was always…”
A mouthful of blood sprayed from Lin Shuhua’s lips. She, too, collapsed, falling onto the muddy ground in front of the gravestones of Lin Wan’s father and Lin Wan’s mother.
…
Whether Heaven was deliberately playing a cruel joke on her or not, when Lin Wan opened her eyes, she had been reborn.
Just as in her previous life, when Lin Qiusheng heard that his old comrade’s second son, Xie Yanzhou, was home on leave, he immediately told Lin Wan to take some local specialties from the county and go by bus to the Xie family’s home in the capital’s Military Compound.
Lin Qiusheng knew how much his daughter adored the Xie family’s second son.
He liked Xie Yanzhou too. He thought the young man was steady and dependable, a man with a sense of responsibility.
The Xie family’s eldest son had been gone for a year, and Lin Wan was already nineteen. The two elders of the Xie family had also discussed with him that it was time to put Lin Wan and Xie Yanzhou’s marriage on the agenda.
On the long-distance bus from the county to the capital, Lin Wan clutched the handrail. The bus had just braked sharply, and her head had slammed hard against the seatback in front of her…
After returning to the past, Lin Wan didn’t rush off to the Xie family like she had in her previous life.
Back then, she had hurried over carrying a big bag of local specialties, only to find Xie Yanzhou holding his little nephew and soothing him. Beside him, Lin Shuhua gazed at Xie Yanzhou with gentle eyes. The three of them looked just like a warm, happy family.
At the time, she had only felt vaguely uneasy for a moment and hadn’t thought any further about it.
In this life, after getting off the bus, she took her local specialties to a guesthouse and rented a room.
Then she went out of her way to find the black market she remembered from her previous life, where she had bought medicine for her younger sister. She had no trouble getting that medicine…
“Lin Wan, are you trying to fool me?” Xie Yanzhou’s voice, cold as ice, pulled her back to the present.
Lin Wan got dressed and climbed out of bed, her expression suddenly brightening. “Xie Yanzhou, you know I’ve loved you for two years!”
Two years—wasted on him!
Xie Yanzhou stared at Lin Wan for a long while, unable to figure her out. Gritting his teeth in anger, he nodded. “Fine. Come back with me!”
The Xie family’s living room.
Lin Wan sat obediently on the sofa, with Mom, Chen Yayun, beside her.
Although she had grown up in a small county, Lin Wan had always lived comfortably because Lin Wan’s father was the factory director.
Her skin was fair, her almond-shaped eyes and cherry-red lips delicate, and her nose small. Her glossy black hair was tied at the back with a pretty ribbon. She wore a pale pink fine-knit sweater, khaki trousers, and corduroy shoes.
The outfit made Lin Wan look both stylish and demure. Beside her stood Xie Yanzhou, upright and solemn, his back straight. However you looked at them, they made a well-matched pair.