Passing by their table, the boss’s wife couldn’t resist a bit of teasing. “Xiao Shen, who’s this?”
Faced with the gossipy glint in the older woman’s eyes, Shen Zhilin quickly explained, “This is my classmate, Sheng Mian.”
“Oh?” boss’s wife hummed, clearly unconvinced. To her, the vibe between them felt far from ordinary. “It’s the first time I’ve seen Xiao Shen out with a classmate. I thought you two were a couple.”
Sheng Mian’s face flushed a deep crimson as she let out a flustered, awkward laugh. Fortunately, new customers arrived just then, sparing her from any further embarrassing comments.
“She likes to joke around. Don’t mind her,” Zhilin said softly, her hands occupied with the few remaining skewers on the table.
As night fell, the restaurant grew increasingly boisterous. Sheng Mian noticed Zhilin constantly glancing at the busy figures of the owners; they hadn’t sat down once all evening.
“You should stay and help out later,” Sheng Mian said, reading Zhilin’s mind.
Usually, even with Zhilin’s help, the three of them could barely keep up. Another rush was expected around ten or eleven.
“I’ll see you home first, then come back.”
“No need. It’s a hassle to go back and forth, and it wastes time. I’ll just call a cab. You don’t have to walk me.”
To her surprise, Zhilin was unusually stubborn. “It’s too late. It’s dangerous.”
The streets at eight o’clock were still lively. Zhilin’s silhouette cast a long shadow under the streetlights, which happened to envelop Sheng Mian.
They passed through a tapestry of life: children laughing and playing, adults drinking and making merry, and the elderly fanning themselves in rocking chairs while gossiping about their neighbors.
The autumn cicadas chirped relentlessly. Sheng Mian looked up at the bright moon, feeling a sense of quiet serenity so profound it almost made her feel dizzy.
Having looked up for too long, Sheng Mian stumbled slightly as she got out of the taxi. She instinctively grabbed onto Zhilin to steady herself.
“Be safe on your way back. I’m heading in,” Sheng Mian said with a wave.
Suddenly, she stood on her tiptoes and leaned in close to Zhilin. Zhilin reflexively stepped back, her body arching away to avoid the proximity.
A pang of bitterness hit Sheng Mian, she wasn’t some kind of monster. But she quickly soothed herself: Classmate Shen just isn’t used to this.
Zhilin held her breath as Sheng Mian’s face filled her vision. At this distance, Zhilin could see her own reflection in Sheng Mian’s eyes—a stiff, stoic expression.
Sheng Mian reached up and touched the top of Zhilin’s head, her fingers plucking away a tiny, pale-yellow object. “It’s osmanthus,” she said, sounding delighted.
She leaned in to sniff it, the rich fragrance swirling around her. “So sweet.”
She held it out to Zhilin, gesturing for her to smell it too.
Zhilin took it and sniffed cautiously. The scent was indeed sweet, it almost gave her the illusion of vanilla ice cream.
“I’m going in now!”
Zhilin watched Sheng Mian disappear into the apartment complex. She gripped the tiny, delicate petal in her hand before finally letting her arm drop.
On the way back to the shop, Zhilin cycled fast.
“Why are you back, Xiao Shen? Did you leave something behind?” The boss’s wife asked when she saw her return.
“I came to help.” Zhilin pulled her hands from her pockets, washed up, and got straight to work.
“No, go home and rest!” The woman tried to shoo her away. Zhilin hadn’t missed a day in months, and they knew she was a senior in high school. “You took the night off, so use it to sleep.”
“It’s fine. I see you’re busy. I’ll leave after this rush,” Zhilin said, adding firmly to avoid further protest, “No need to pay me for tonight.”
“You stubborn child.” The boss’s wife knew she meant well and had a mind of her own. Still, she managed to nag Zhilin into heading home after barely two hours of work.
Sheng Mian was humming a tune as she walked up the stairs.
“Ahem.” A sudden sound made her jump.
“Ah! What are you doing? Standing there in the dark!” Sheng Mian clutched her chest, her heart hammering. Sheng Yichen was leaning against the doorframe, watching her with a strange look in his eyes.
“Shen Zhilin brought you back?” Yichen had seen everything from his window.
“Yeah.”
“I also saw you kiss her,” Yichen said, dropping a bombshell.
“What are you talking about? I didn’t kiss her!” Sheng Mian’s face burned.
“I saw it clearly. You stood on your tiptoes to kiss her.”
It was a classic case of a bad viewing angle. “Something was stuck in her hair! I was just taking it out!”
The explanation was perfectly logical, but Yichen didn’t look like he believed a word of it.
After the third period the next day, Sheng Mian noticed Zhilin’s water bottle was empty. Since she was heading to the fountain anyway, she reached out.
“I’m getting water; I’ll grab yours too.” Sheng Mian naturally took the bottle.
“No need.” The words had barely left Zhilin’s mouth before Sheng Mian was already halfway to the water dispenser.
Helping a deskmate get water was common, but Sheng Mian’s over-the-top enthusiasm was difficult for Zhilin to handle.
Some people find warm, outgoing individuals easy to get along with; others suspect they have an ulterior motive. Zhilin fell into the latter camp. For her, a relationship with clear boundaries was much more comfortable.
Sheng Mian placed the filled bottle on the desk. “Thanks,” Zhilin muttered.
The final period was Teacher An’s class. “Everyone should have looked at the admissions guides by now. Write down your target universities and majors. Pin them to the back board before you leave.”
The room filled with the sound of rustling pages. Those with clear goals finished quickly and headed to the back of the room.
Sheng Mian twirled her pen. She didn’t know how long she would be in this world; so far, she had just been drifting day by day. She had no goal.
Looking around at her friends, she whispered, “Have you guys decided?”
“My family wants me to be a doctor. High pay, stable. Tianlin Medical University is pretty good—it’s in the next province, so it’s close to home,” Qin Heng said. He turned the question back on her. “What about you?”
He leaned over to look at her paper, which was blank. “Why haven’t you written anything?”
“I don’t know what to choose.”
“Yi Chi, do you have a dream school?” Sheng Mian tapped her shoulder.
“I’m planning on Starry Sea University.”
“Starry Sea City? That’s so far away,” Qin Heng said, surprised.
The further, the better, Yi Chi thought.
“What about you, what about you?” The three of them leaned over to see what Shen Zhilin had written.
Zhilin didn’t try to hide it. The words on the paper were clear:
Criminal Justice and Public Security University — Tianlin City.
Qin Heng was the first to speak. “I thought you’d go into scientific research. You look exactly like the type to bury yourself in a lab. I can’t really picture you as a cop.”
Sheng Mian agreed. She had even imagined Zhilin in a white lab coat, hair tied back, glasses on, working away with quiet intensity. It was a very attractive image.
“Being a police officer has been my dream since I was a child.” Back then, a young Shen Zhilin would watch spirited detectives on TV, admiring their ability to protect others and themselves.
With time running out, most students had already penned down their target universities. Sheng Mian followed suit, scribbling down a random school that happened to be in Tianlin City.
As school let out, Sheng Yichen called. Sheng Mian ducked into a quiet corner of the stairwell to answer.
His youthful voice crackled through the receiver: “Don’t wait up for me. Head home first.”
Sheng Mian’s heart skipped a beat. “What’s wrong?”
Yichen leaned against a wall, one hand in his pocket. “Nothing major. It’s just about the incident the other day. The principal called the police, and they have a few more questions for me.”
When Sheng Mian arrived home, she found only the nanny preparing dinner. She was surprised to see no sign of Zhao Manwen, who usually helped out around this time.
“Where’s Auntie?”
“The Madam isn’t feeling well. She’s resting in the bedroom.”
Sheng Mian kicked off her shoes and, without even changing out of her school uniform, hurried toward the master bedroom. She found Zhao Manwen looking pale and weary, struggling just to sit up as Sheng Mian entered.
Sheng Mian adjusted the pillows for her. “How did you get sick so suddenly? Have you seen a doctor?”
Zhao Manwen patted her hand gently. “It’s nothing. Just a cold with the change of seasons.”
Sheng Mian breathed a sigh of relief. “That’s good. Don’t worry about coming downstairs; just tell me what you want to eat and I’ll bring it up to you.”
She noticed Zhao Manwen’s eyes were slightly rimmed with red. “What’s the matter?”
Zhao Manwen sniffled, her voice thick and nasal. “Nothing. Thank you, Mianmian.”
“Don’t mention it. You need looking after when you’re sick. Besides, you’ve been so good to me, Auntie. It’s only right that I take care of you.”
A hot tear escaped, soaking into the duvet. “Mianmian, you’ve truly changed so much. I, I almost feel like I’m dreaming.”
Sheng Mian pulled out some tissues and wiped the tears from Zhao Manwen’s face. “Was I really that awful before?”
“From my perspective, you certainly had a sharp, difficult temper. But you had your reasons. I always knew your heart was in the right place.”
“Actually,” Sheng Mian said softly, “I’ve been sensing lately that my past self must have caused a lot of unhappiness in this house. I’ve heard bits and pieces from Yichen about the friction between us.”
“Oh, don’t listen to everything Yichen says. He definitely exaggerates.”
Sheng Mian took a deep breath. “I know I was unfriendly to you. I just want to understand where all that resentment came from.”
Seeing the genuine confusion in Sheng Mian’s eyes, Zhao Manwen slowly began to unravel the tangled history of the previous generation.
“The truth is, your father and I met back in university. Guangwen was brilliant even then. We weren’t from the same world—he was the heir to Shengshi Bank, and I was just a girl from an ordinary family. We met at a debate competition and fell in love. But his family had already arranged a political marriage for him.”
“With my mother?”
“No,” Zhao Manwen shook her head.
No?
“At the engagement party with his intended fiancée, Guangwen drank a glass of wine that had been spiked. It forced him into a premature rut. The next morning, he and your mother were found in a room together. The fiancée made a massive scene, and the engagement was called off the very next day. To protect your mother’s reputation and the group’s image, they were forced to marry.”
Sheng Mian was stunned. What kind of soap-opera plot is this?
“And the drug?”
“It wasn’t your mother. At the time, I suspected her, and everyone else assumed she was a calculating social climber who had engineered the whole thing to marry into wealth. But later, I learned the truth.”
“It was your father’s original fiancée. She didn’t want the marriage; she was in love with another Alpha. But back then, your mother was that Alpha’s girlfriend. The fiancée spiked the drink to kill two birds with one stone: escape the marriage and get rid of your mother.”
“After that night, your mother became pregnant with you. Her boyfriend found out, and they broke up. Guangwen married your mother to do the right thing.”
“Guangwen knew he owed her. For years, he was a loyal husband. But when you were fifteen, your mother suddenly asked for a divorce.”
It had been a beautiful, sunny day when Ning Panchun finally walked out of the cage that had imprisoned her heart and soul.
That day, Sheng Guangwen saw a version of Ning Panchun he hadn’t seen in years. The sorrow in her eyes had vanished, replaced by the vibrant warmth of spring.
“Sheng Guangwen, I want a divorce.” Those were her first words upon entering his office, right as he finished a financial interview.
Before he could even start a line of questioning, she spoke in a rush. “I stayed before because Mianmian was too young, and I was drowned in my own misery.”
Her eyes softened. “But I recently found out that he has been waiting for me all this time. I don’t want to miss my chance again.”
“I’ll leave Mianmian in your care for now. You’re wealthy; I know you can give her more than I can. When we return, I will explain everything to her. I am still her mother, and I love her but I need to find myself again before I can be the mother she deserves.”
“I don’t want any of the assets. I want to leave with nothing but the life I’m pursuing.” She smiled, and Guangwen realized he had never seen her look so alive.
“You’ve suffered enough all these years. Go to her. Goodbye, Sheng Guangwen.” With those words, the invisible shackles binding them both finally shattered.