Chapter 4

Jiang Hui looked at her daughter and thought she was being utterly unreasonable.

“If I switched you back now, I’d go to prison. If you want your birth mother to have a criminal record, go ahead and tell everyone.”

“Our family is poor. Look at the life Liu Qingqing has now. Could you really bear it?”

Liu Qingqing looked up at her in shock.

Though we weren’t in the same class, she’d heard of me.

I was the poor student everyone at school knew for my excellent grades. I even had to buy secondhand uniforms from girls a few years ahead of me.

If my grades hadn’t earned me a scholarship, I would have had to drop out long ago.

I once told Jiang Hui I wanted to live in the school dormitory.

She’d never cared much about me anyway, so she agreed at once.

The only catch was that she wouldn’t give me a cent for living expenses.

I moved into the dorm and threw myself even harder into my studies.

In my spare time, I did classmates’ homework, picked up their deliveries, and bought meals for them to earn a little pocket money.

I knew perfectly well that if I could just get into college, things would gradually get better.

One day, Liu Qingqing came to my classroom.

She saw me carrying ten takeout orders in one hand.

My backpack bulged with parcels I’d agreed to deliver.

I looked as if life had bent me nearly double under its weight.

At the sight of me, she gave up the idea of switching back.

When winter came, everyone bundled up in padded coats and down jackets.

I wore layer upon layer of thermal underwear just to keep warm.

Liu Qingqing, meanwhile, wore a thin coat and a short skirt that showed off her long legs.

Ye Zhenyan had picked the outfit herself.

“Sweetheart, you’re a princess. Princesses wear skirts! I used to dress like this all the time, and I never felt cold.”

Liu Qingqing held the outfit and tried to object, but Zhou Guangyao cut her off.

“Your mother went out of her way to buy that for you. If you can’t appreciate it, don’t expect any pocket money this month.”

With no choice, she wore the pretty but useless outfit to school.

When I saw her in the hallway, I gave her a pitying look.

“Aren’t you cold?”

Liu Qingqing glanced at me, bundled up until I looked like a little bread roll, and tried to sound tough.

“What do you know? This is a cashmere coat. It’s plenty warm.”

She sniffled as she spoke.

In my previous life, Ye Zhenyan had dressed me the same way.

She treated me like a beautiful, delicate Barbie doll who couldn’t feel a thing.

Short skirts in winter and sweaters in summer were routine.

I knew that bone-deep chill better than anyone.

I looked at Liu Qingqing’s legs, already purple with cold, and nodded.

“Right. I don’t know.”

During midmorning break, all the students gathered in the schoolyard.

We were following the music through our exercises when a terrified cry came from a formation nearby.

“Someone’s fainted!”

The whole class strained to see what had happened.

A boy in the distance was carrying a girl in a short skirt, hurrying toward the nurse’s office.

Liu Qingqing must have fainted from the cold.

In weather like this, a cashmere coat was nowhere near enough to keep her warm if she had to stand outside for long.

Liu Qingqing lay unconscious with a high fever on the clinic bed.

I asked to use the restroom, then hurried to the cafeteria to tell Jiang Hui.

She didn’t ask a single question. She ran straight to the nurse’s office.

The school nurse assumed she was Liu Qingqing’s mother.

“What kind of mother lets her child go out in so few clothes on a day this cold?” he scolded. “Look at her legs—they’re purple from the cold. Her hands are cracked and frostbitten!”

Jiang Hui didn’t dare say a word.

She touched Liu Qingqing’s forehead and felt the burning heat.

For the first time, a feeling called guilt stirred in her.

The homeroom teacher called Ye Zhenyan.

She was at a beauty salon, getting a treatment, and couldn’t leave.

The teacher tactfully explained that Liu Qingqing came to school in clothes that were far too thin every day, and suggested Ye Zhenyan bring over a few down jackets.

But the only answer from the other end was a sweet, childish voice.

“But I wear a cashmere coat too. It’s so warm. I never get cold.”

Ye Zhenyan spent her days in climate-controlled spaces.

She had air-conditioning wherever she went, so of course she never felt cold.

But Liu Qingqing had to do exercises outside at school and walk to the cafeteria for meals.

Every step made her feel as if she might freeze solid.

After several IV bags at the nurse’s office, Liu Qingqing was taken home by the family driver.

She rested for a few days and returned to school.

She was still wearing that same coat-and-short-skirt outfit.

Jiang Hui felt sorry for her daughter and secretly bought her a few warmer outfits.