Chapter 003: The Emptied Old House, and Proof of the Engagement

Qin Xiaoran walked along, only to find that the once warm and beautiful old family house had become an empty shell—dark, cold, and lifeless.

Nearly ninety percent of the furnishings and decorations were gone. Needless to say, they had been taken away by Wang Wenbin and Cui Hongyan, either sold or given to others.

Even so, compared to when she came here in her previous life, there were still more things left behind now.

Back then, when she learned Wang Wenbin and Cui Hongyan planned to sell the old house, she had begged them desperately not to, but of course, it was useless. In the end, she could only sneak here and managed to find a few leftover medical books.

Those medical books were the last things her grandfather and mother had left her—the only source of comfort that kept her going through the difficult years that followed.

But pitifully, the books her grandfather had once carefully cherished were tossed into a corner by them for years. By the time she found them, the pages were yellowed and moldy, with parts nearly unreadable.

Now, however, everything was still in time. She could find the medical books earlier, prevent them from rotting away, and perhaps recover even more things before they were sold.

She was thinking this when she suddenly heard Wang Wenbin’s excited voice from the room ahead.

“Most of the things from the old house are in here. Xiaoran, come quickly and see if the token is here!”

Suppressing the sorrow in her heart, Qin Xiaoran entered the room with a cold expression.

She immediately recognized it as her grandfather’s study. Grandfather had disliked letting others in, but he had always brought her there to play. She was familiar with everything inside—but now, the once familiar study, stripped and in disarray, felt painfully foreign. Her heart ached, but she did not cry. Her tears had already been exhausted in her past life.

She walked to the desk piled high with odds and ends and began searching item by item.

Sadness and joy alternated in her chest—sadness that the precious items carrying her fond memories had been ransacked and thrown here so carelessly, and joy that they still remained, unsold.

Carefully, she examined each piece, feeling as if her scarred heart was being slowly healed.

Just then, Wang Wenbin spoke again.

“Xiaoran, do you remember what the token was?”

She froze and lifted her gaze toward Wang Wenbin, whose face carried a trace of suspicion.

How could she forget? This man had tricked her mother and successfully played the role of a model son-in-law under her grandfather’s eyes for years. He was not stupid—in fact, he was clever. But he had always failed to see through her stepmother’s schemes and never understood her pleas for help, giving her the illusion that he was simply foolish and easy to deceive.

Wang Wenbin frowned and avoided her gaze. Perhaps because of this particular setting, when he looked into his daughter’s clear eyes, he actually felt a bit flustered.

Fortunately, at that moment, Cui Hongyan and Wang Xiaoyi arrived, breaking the tense silence between father and daughter.

“Have you found the token yet?” Cui Hongyan asked as soon as she entered.

All three pairs of eyes fell on Qin Xiaoran. She looked down at the desk. For a moment, no one spoke.

Wang Xiaoyi, unable to hold back, blurted out, “Qin Xiaoran, you didn’t just make this up, did you? Maybe there isn’t any engagement at all…”

Qin Xiaoran only smiled faintly at the girl whose every thought showed on her face. How easy this Wang Xiaoyi was to handle at this age—yet in her previous life, she had been bullied by such a person.

“There is indeed an engagement.”

The engagement was real. What was missing was the token.

She remembered it clearly: when she was three, and her mother was gravely ill, her grandfather had brought her to the study to cheer her up. He read her a letter from his old friend in the Huo family of Beijing. She no longer recalled the content of the letter, but she remembered her grandfather taking out several photographs of boys and telling her to choose her future husband.

With her chubby little hand, she had picked the most handsome boy.

Grandfather had been surprised by her choice, saying their age gap was too large and urging her to pick again. But she clutched that photo tightly, refusing to let go. He had laughed and said something like—

“Alright, alright, this one it is. From now on, this boy will be Xiaoran’s fiancé. Once your mother recovers, and once you grow a little older, I’ll take you to Beijing to meet him…”

But her mother never recovered. Not long after, her grandfather also passed away.

And so the engagement—and the handsome boy—faded into her distant memories.

When Qin Xiaoran returned from her thoughts, the three were still staring at her, waiting for proof.

She did not panic—she had already prepared her explanation.

“I remember the token was a jade ornament. I don’t recall the exact form, but I’d recognize it if I saw it. It’s not here now.”

At her words, Wang Wenbin and Cui Hongyan’s faces darkened, especially Wang Wenbin’s.

Most valuable items from the house had already been sold or given away. There was hardly anything left here.

“So… the token is gone?”

“Then there’s no way to prove whether you’re telling the truth or not, is there?” Wang Xiaoyi said smugly. Seeing her father’s hesitation, she grew bolder, straightened her back, and looked at Qin Xiaoran with arrogance.

Qin Xiaoran ignored her. Words were useless—evidence was what mattered.

She had already noticed that while the valuables were missing, her grandfather’s books, copied notes, and correspondence were still here, albeit scattered.

The letters especially—those were still neatly sorted in a custom-made wooden chest.

The chest had been pried open before, but when the intruder saw only letters, they had tossed it aside in disappointment.

Qin Xiaoran walked over and, according to memory, found two particular letters by their date and sender.

When she opened the first, a few photographs slipped out of the yellowed envelope.

She picked them up one by one: the first two were of chubby toddlers, the last was of a boy around ten years old.

At that sight, she froze.

Even in the faded black-and-white photo, his beauty was striking. He was indeed an exceptionally handsome boy.

Fifteen years ago, when she was three, she had chosen this picture at first glance.

Fifteen years later, at eighteen, she still picked him at first sight.

Through the gulf of time, she gazed at the boy in the photo—astonished, and full of regret.

If only her mother and grandfather had lived, she would have grown up happily under their love, and later had a handsome fiancé. Life would have been like a fairy tale.

But there were no “ifs.” She had lost everything, including this fiancé she never truly had.

He had been ten when she was three. Now, he must already be married.

That was fine. She only wanted to use the Huo family’s name to take back what belonged to the Qin family from her rotten father and stepmother. She never truly intended to marry into the Huo family.