"Who the hell cares if I die?
Who the hell cares if I live?
So, I will just go around and mess up your life, just like how you messed with mine. "
The lyrics stabbed through the stillness of the prayer ceremony like a sharp blade. The sacred air inside the Zhang family's ancestral hall trembled.
A song played from somewhere. Not a sacred chant or an old hymn, but a shrill, stubborn anthem with lyrics that questioned life itself. It didn't belong there.
Heads turned, eyes wide and horror and anticipation rippled across the crowd.
It's the ancestral remembrance day that comes once in an year, and the only time the entire Zhang family that's spread over the country gather together to greet their ancestors and seek blessings.
But who the hell left their cell phone on loud when the prayer ceremony was about to reach the main ritual?
The chant of the priest faltered. Even the smoke from the incense seemed to pause mid-spiral.
"Who the freaking hell…!!!"
It rang again.
The incense curled in the air like it was trying to escape the tension in the ancestral hall. Everyone was dressed in shades of grief and tradition. Their lips were supposed to murmur blessings to long-dead ancestors. But instead all of them asked the same question.
"Who?"
They all looked in the same direction as the song kept playing loudly, only to find a young lady at the far end of prayer hall.
There, framed in the doorway, stood Zhang Yue.
She fumbled with her phone, the song still blaring as if mocking every silent tradition in the room. Her long hair and pure white ceremonial robe danced with her frantic movement. Her red sling bag jangled with every shift of her hand. She was poking at her phone like it had betrayed her, muttering under her breath.
"Stupid phone. You had one job."
She muttered, finally silencing the device before shoving it deep into her bag.
But the silence had already cracked open.
Zhang Yue looked up and realized the entire hall had turned into a Renaissance painting of collective horror.
"Hi." Zhang Yue smiled and waved her hand, as if she'd just walked into a bookstore and not an important ritual. "Don't mind me."
The whispers began like wind through dry leaves.
"Isn' that Zhang Yue?"
"The Zhang Yue?"
Whoever took her name, looked at her with an immense amount of shock and horror.
Then the ringtone went off again.
"Who the freaking hell…"
"Get out." The command came cold and sharp. Zhang Liao's voice sliced across the hall like thunder across a silent night.
However, Zhang Yue didn't flinch. She stood rooted, jaw tight, eyes blazing.
"What is it, grandpa? no welcome drink?" She raised an eyebrow.
"Out." Elder Zhang Liao, the current patriarch of the Zhang family looked at the young woman with an evident scowl on his face.
"Sure, but after I greet my parents. That's the whole point, isn't it? Ancestors, blessings, forgiveness and whatnot?" Her tone was light, as she spoke against the elder.
But watching Zhang Yue protesting against Elder Zhang, the maids rushed to her like they were trained in hostage negotiations. It was clearly not their first time handling such incidents.
Zhang Yue didn't resist, but she definitely didn't cooperate with the maids.
"Hands off." She quipped. "I said I will leave after greeting my parents."
Even after protesting aloud, the maids didn't stop and they somehow took her to the garden outside the prayer hall. Since they were already aware about their young miss's character they didn't even care to listen to her pleas to let her go.
The hall was chaotic, people were whispering and ancestral spirits probably filing complaints in the afterlife.
That was when Zhang Yan stepped into the garden. No one had seen him walk out from the ancestral hall during the commotion.
"Let her go." He said, his authoritative voice was no less than an order.
The maids froze and looked at him with pleading eyes. But Zhang Yue casually winked at him.
"Took you long enough, Third Young Master."
Zhang Yan ,Zhang Liao's youngest son,strode into the scene like a misplaced peace offering. He was in his mid thirties and looked too handsome to be called as an "uncle" of a well-grown but not so well behaved woman like Zhang Yue.
"I'll keep an eye on her." He said, brushing past the maids, his eyes settling on the girl who had finally stopped thrashing like a cat caught in the rain. With a glance between them, the maids bowed and disappeared, relieved to be out of the mess.
"I told you to come two days ago." Zhang Yan began, already rubbing his temple like he had a pre-scheduled headache for moments like this.
"What can I do if I missed my alarm?" Zhang Yue barely blinked.
"You missed it for two straight days?"
"No, I just didn't want to come early and be interrogated like a serial killer at a family barbecue."
He sighed and sat on one of the patio chairs, intending to strike a conversation with her. "How did you even get here? I heard that several flights got cancelled because of the rain."
Zhang Yue broke into laughter before grabbing a chair next to him. "Do I look like someone who can afford a flight? I hitchhiked."
"From Xi City?" His voice pitched, exasperation creeping in. Even though she is his cousin's daughter, Zhang Yan shared a close relationship with his niece. It won't be a lie to say that he was the only person who would tolerate Zhang Yue's antics in the entire family. But how can he feel at peace when she travelled hundreds of miles in some random stranger's vehicle, that too when an unexpected torrential rain hit the country?
"Why waste money when delivery vans from Xi City are practically headed this way anyway?" She grinned, as if riding cargo trucks across provinces was the most reasonable way of transportation in the world.
"Yue, you're impossible. If it is about money, I told you, take my card." Zhang Yan knew very well- that his niece was maybe the poorest member in the entire family tree. Not because she lacked skills to earn a dime, but because of her stubbornness to touch the assets left by her parents or ride on the coat tails of her surname.
"Sorry. I'm not accepting sugar daddy applications right now." Zhang Yue shrugged her shoulders.
"Youuuu!" Zhang Yan shot her a mock glare, playfully punching her arm. "Who wants to be your sugar daddy anyway?"
"I don't know, the way you keep throwing your card and offers at me, I might start suspecting things." Zhang Yue smirked.
"I told you, just come to my office. Do whatever job you like. Or don't even work, just sit there if you want. Why can't you do that?"
"The job I like is washing plates in your company cafeteria. Is that okay for you?" Zhang Yue raised an eyebrow, arms crossed with zero hesitation.
Zhang Yan sighed dramatically. "I mean, I'm okay with it. But what if my employees find out that the director's niece is scrubbing food trays in the kitchen? What if our petty relatives catch wind of it and go full gossip mode?"
"What if Grandpa finds out that the 'good-for-nothing Zhang Yue' is doing something scandalous enough to ruin the family's last name?" She added with exaggerated flair. "No thanks. I'll stay in Xi City with my tiny little café and my dignity intact."
"Sweetheart, you're still.."
"I told you, I've stopped taking favors from people I know."
"But I'm your uncle." Zhang Yan said, softer now.
"Exactly. So, stay out of my wallet. And don't you dare pay my debts again."
Zhang Yan folded his arms, shifting his weight like he was anchoring himself for a confrontation . Though his niece has refused his help, he always made sure to alleviate her financial burdens of running a small business on her own.
"Why? What happened?"
"I closed it." She said firmly.
"You closed the café?" He asked, incredulous.
"It went under. " Her tone was so calm as if she was talking about last night's weather.
A long pause stretched between them.
"Yue…"
"Don't. It was supposed to go under." She cut in, her voice sharper now.
"Why would anyone eat weird twisted buns when they've got safe, boring pastries with cream on top?"
He watched her. She didn't meet his eyes as she spoke. Her fingers fiddled with a loose thread on her sling bag.
"Did something else happen?" He was genuinely concerned. He knew how much Zhang Yue cherished her little cafe. There must be something that forced her to close it.
"Don't start again. I already spoke to Ruhan and he gave a referral to somewhere nice. I have an interview the day after tomorrow."
Zhang Yan was curious. "Interview? Where?"
"Ever heard of Four clovers?"
"You got an offer from there?" His eyes lit up, hopeful. "As a chef?"
"A chef? Please. Clovers wouldn't let someone like me near their knives." Zhang Yue smirked. "I'm going to be a server."
"A server? In a five-star hotel?"
"Technically, in their employee dining hall. You know, where they feed the tired, underpaid masses with watered-down soup and sad rice."
"Are you crazy?" Zhang Yan was visibly disturbed when he heard that she is going to be server, that too in an office cafeteria.
"I'd go crazy if I don't get the job." She said, brushing past him toward the direction of the ancestral altar. "Now, if you'll excuse me,I came all the way here on the back of a turnip truck. I at least deserve to greet my parents."
"Wait." He grabbed her arm gently.
She turned to him, not annoyed, not amused,just waiting.
The girl was 25 years old, but the things that she had to go through these years were too much- things none of the rich heirs of Zhang family could even imagine. Loss of her family, her career, her future.
"You're stronger. But you don't have to fight every battle alone."
Her lips curved into a smile, a strange one, part bitter, part fond.
"I might be a loser, uncle. But I'm still Zhang, born in the family of great warriors and mages. I will fight every battle and create one if it is called for."