Chapter 6

When the results came back, Ye Zhenyan burst into tears and threw her arms around me.

“Sweetheart, it was all my fault. I should have watched over you better back then.”

Her perfume kept drifting into my nose.

It was so strong I felt sick.

Jiang Hui was arrested.

Zhou Guangyao took me home.

Everything had gone exactly as I planned.

I needed money for tuition and living expenses if I wanted to go to college.

With the memories of my previous life, I also planned to start a business while I was there.

It would be hard to make it on my own.

Besides, I was the rightful daughter of the Zhou family.

Everything that belonged to the Zhou family should have been mine.

Liu Qingqing was there too.

When she looked at me, I saw hatred—and a hint of gloating.

She hadn’t taken the college entrance exam.

The night before the test, Ye Zhenyan had worried she might be too nervous to sleep, so she deliberately put sleeping pills in her milk.

Liu Qingqing slept through the exam.

She leaned close to my ear and whispered, “Take your time enjoying the motherly love that belongs to you.”

9

For years, Liu Qingqing had lived in material comfort, but in reality she’d suffered every day.

At eighteen, she was still as thin as a stick.

There was no color in her face or lips, and her eyes were sunken.

Whenever she smiled, she looked like a skeleton.

She’d thought she was finally about to escape that hell.

I smiled.

“Dad, Mom, you’ve raised Liu Qingqing for so many years.”

“Now that Jiang Hui has been arrested, why not let her stay here with us?”

Ye Zhenyan wiped her tears and nodded hard.

“I think so too. I’ve always loved Chenchen as if she were my own daughter.”

If that was what my mother wanted, my father had no reason to object.

“No, thank you, Uncle and Auntie. If I stay, Qingqing won’t be happy. Please just let me go.”

Liu Qingqing was nearly frantic.

All she wanted was to get away from that place.

But I refused to let her have her way.

“Chenchen, stop saying things you don’t mean.”

“I’ll be leaving for college in two months. You can stay here and keep Mom and Dad company.”

To her, those words were like a death sentence.

But what could she do?

She hadn’t even passed the entrance exam. She had no way to fight back.

She could only accept her cruel fate.

To make up for what I’d been through, Zhou Guangyao gave me a bank card.

Ye Zhenyan took me shopping every day, dressing me like a doll.

But thanks to my previous life, I knew how to handle her.

I played along to her face and did as I pleased behind her back.

I didn’t use a single thing she bought me.

I poured every meal she cooked down the drain.

After failing the college entrance exam, Liu Qingqing wanted to repeat her final year, but Ye Zhenyan refused.

She stroked her hair and said gently, “Sweetheart, studying is so hard. Wouldn’t you rather stay here with me?”

“Your father and I have plenty of money. We can support you for the rest of your life.”

Anyone overhearing them would have thought they were devoted parents.

To Liu Qingqing, those words sounded like a death sentence.

By the time I left for college, Jiang Hui had been sentenced to one year and five months in prison.

My whole family went to the airport to see me off.

Liu Qingqing stood silently behind the crowd, watching me board the plane with dark eyes.

Now that I had money, I flew first class.

When I arrived at college, I took a deep breath of fresh air.

That was what a new life smelled like.

Even with money now, I didn’t let myself slack off.

Everyone who got into Qingbei University was brilliant.

Among them, I was just an ordinary student.

During the first semester of my sophomore year, Jiang Hui was released from prison.

The truth was out now, so she no longer had to sneak around.

She could openly visit her beloved daughter.

But when she actually saw Liu Qingqing, she was shocked.

“Chenchen! What happened to you?!”

Liu Qingqing was lying in a hospital bed, wrapped in bandages from head to toe like a mummy.

Ye Zhenyan had taken her out.

Because she was so foolish, she got into an argument with someone.

Liu Qingqing was shoved down a flight of stairs, breaking bones in several places.

At the sight of her birth mother, Liu Qingqing thrashed on the bed.

“What are you doing here?! This is all your fault! If you hadn’t switched us, would I have had to live like this?!”