Warmth.
It was the first thing she felt. The second was the dull ache in her muscles, a soreness she hadknown all too well growing up in the Liang household's slum quarters. Her eyelids fluttered open.
The ceiling was cracked. The fan creaked. The thin blanket was faded and filled with holes. She satup slowly, her fingers trembling as they touched the edge of the cot.
"This can't be..." she whispered.
The same rusted calendar on the wall. The same flickering lightbulb. The same incense from OldAunt Mei's altar next door.
She rushed to the calendar, her eyes wide. The date-two weeks before the Liang family first came to the orphanage.
Her breath caught. She stumbled back. She was alive. But not just alive-reborn.
"I'm back."
Tears pricked her eyes but didn't fall. She'd already cried enough in her past life. Now, there was notime for grief. Only revenge.
Yuxi clenched her fists. She would not be weak this time. She wouldn't be manipulated or pitied.She would become stronger-smarter. Her life would no longer revolve around others' approval.
She tore out pages from an old notebook and began jotting down every detail she could remember.Names, dates, faces. Even the name of the man she had once seen on TV-the CEO of Huo Group.Huo Zeyan. A stranger from her past. She didn't yet realize how tightly their fates were bound.
That night, as she lay staring at the broken ceiling, she whispered to the darkness, "This time, I will live for myself."