Chapter 1

Fang Zhuo was holding two umbrellas, standing at the entrance of the lobby. Damp cold air, along with splashing water, surged in through the wide-open glass doors, carried by the wind.

She wore a pair of old, cracked canvas shoes. The faded, rough fabric, washed pale from repeated cleaning, was mottled with mud from the roadside, and her pant legs were also stained with scattered dirt. Probably worried about dirtying the light-colored floor tiles, she only stood at the entrance, leaning on an umbrella.

When Fang Yiming came out from the stairway carrying his briefcase, he saw Fang Zhuo smiling gently while talking to one of his colleagues.

Fang Zhuo’s skin wasn’t particularly fair, but her features were delicate, her aura crisp and clear. With her tall figure, just standing there made her very eye-catching.

A slender, fair neck was exposed under an overly large collar. Her expression while speaking was calm and soft, and her posture appeared generous. It instantly reminded him of a face he had nearly forgotten.

While Fang Yiming was still hesitating, Fang Zhuo noticed him and called out first: “Dad.”

Hearing the voice, the colleague turned around with a surprised expression. Fang Yiming paused for a moment, walked forward, and asked, “Why did you come here?” His tone revealed no emotion, but his pace of speech was somewhat hurried.

“Showing filial piety!” That middle-aged woman had already chimed in. “I didn’t even know you had such a well-behaved daughter. I thought you only had a son. What a pretty girl—big eyes, high nose bridge. Honestly speaking, even picking the best features from both of you wouldn’t have turned out this good-looking.”

Fang Yiming’s nose bridge was tall and straight, but his facial structure and features leaned towards being hard and stern. His wife, Madam Lu, also had an average appearance; perhaps due to her personality, her face carried a touch of meanness. In fact, Fang Zhuo didn’t resemble either of the couple much.

Fang Yiming’s gaze darkened, and the corners of his lips twitched slightly, revealing no discernible expression.

Fang Zhuo said, “I look like my mother.”

The woman studied her face for a moment, then waved with a laugh, “It’s not like I haven’t seen your mom when she was young. Sure, there’s a bit of resemblance, but I still think you look more like your dad.”

Fang Zhuo said tactfully, “My mother’s surname is Ye.”

The woman was momentarily stunned, her eyes flicking toward Fang Yiming. Clearly, she didn’t know that this colleague of over ten years had a former wife.

Fang Yiming gave a dry chuckle and explained, “She used to live with her grandmother in the countryside. She only moved here after my mom passed away. She’s in her third year of high school now, usually stays at school. I rarely see her.”

“Oh.” The woman was warm and talkative. Upon hearing this, she followed up, “Are you adjusting well here?”

Fang Zhuo replied, “I transferred in during second year, more or less used to it now.”

The woman glanced at the logo on her school uniform and nodded, “A High. It’s a pretty good school.”

A High wasn’t among the top-tier schools in A City, but its school culture was decent, and its college admission rate was quite high.

However, the uniform Fang Zhuo wore was clearly ill-fitting, the colors slightly faded—most likely secondhand. The woman felt something a bit off about it but didn’t think too deeply.

Seeing that the two were about to continue chatting, Fang Yiming suddenly asked, “Why did you come here?”

Before Fang Zhuo could answer, the colleague raised her voice and said, “Isn’t it obvious? She came to bring you an umbrella! Lao Fang, you’re really too stiff sometimes.”

Fang Zhuo handed over the black umbrella in her hand, head slightly bowed, looking humble and polite. “The umbrella was still by the door at home, so I brought it over for you.”

Fang Yiming silently took the umbrella, said a quick goodbye to his colleague, and turned to head out.

The rain outside had already lightened, falling gently.

Fang Yiming grasped the handle and shook open the umbrella, glancing sideways at Fang Zhuo. Perhaps he truly had no reason to be upset with her. He opened his mouth and said, in a flat tone, “I’ll go pick up your younger brother. Head home on your own.”

Fang Zhuo replied blandly, “Okay.”

·

Yan Lie came out of his tutoring class, tapping on his phone while briskly walking along the awning in front of the shops. When he looked up briefly, he saw Fang Zhuo standing motionless by the roadside.

He slowed his steps, stopping less than two meters away from Fang Zhuo. The other party seemed not to notice him, focused instead on the ordinary building across the street.

Her half-lowered eyes and brows might have appeared gentle and compassionate on someone else, but on Fang Zhuo’s face, they only seemed indifferent and distant.

The skin on her nose and ears had turned slightly red from the cold, which added a touch of stubbornness to her aloof demeanor, and somehow made the sarcasm in her smile more pronounced.

Yan Lie didn’t really know her. Though they had been classmates for about a year, the number of words exchanged between them likely didn’t exceed ten.

He had always assumed that someone as aloof and unapproachable as Fang Zhuo would be moody and unpredictable. But now, seeing her quietly standing there like a silent, unmoving tree, carrying the pride of an observer, he realized she might not be that way after all.

Before he could figure out exactly what this feeling meant, Fang Zhuo had already noticed his presence. She withdrew her gaze, looked him over once, then pressed down the corners of her lips, retracting that inscrutable smirk and returning to her usual calm and emotionless expression.

She didn’t linger long and turned silently to leave.

Yan Lie still held his phone up in midair, watching Fang Zhuo’s retreating back. He felt like her odd personality had become just a little clearer.

Because he, too, often showed that same expression to a certain someone.

·

Fang Zhuo sat on the sofa. Her so-called younger brother was crouched in front of the coffee table nearby, watching TV. He held the remote in one hand while playing on his phone, only glancing at the variety show on the screen every now and then.

Outside, the rain had yet to stop, light and scattered, continuing to fall tirelessly.

Not long after, Madam Lu came home from work. When she saw Fang Zhuo at the door, she paused slightly as she was changing shoes. Then she raised her head and called her son’s name, loudly urging him to go do his homework. She didn’t spare Fang Zhuo a glance and went straight into the kitchen to help Fang Yiming cook.

The sound of the range hood mixed with their murmured conversation drifted over, too indistinct to make out clearly, occasionally punctuated by the clatter of tableware. Madam Lu irritably laid out the dishes.

Half an hour later, a drawn-out shout came from the kitchen, calling her younger son to come eat.

Three sets of utensils were arranged on the table. The family of three sat crowded at one end of the rectangular dining table, chatting casually among themselves as they ate.

On the TV, guests on the variety show were playing games, their exaggerated laughter contrasting against the mundane chatter of reality, adding an absurd layer of comedy to the scene.

Fang Zhuo wanted to laugh.

When she had first arrived, although Madam Lu hadn’t exactly welcomed her, things weren’t as clearly divided as they were now. It seemed Madam Lu’s patience had completely worn out after a year of dragging things along.

Fang Zhuo sat on the sofa for a while longer. When the program cut to a commercial, she got up and walked to the dining table, sitting silently on the empty wooden chair and staring at them.

Perhaps uncomfortable under her gaze, Fang Yiming opened his mouth as if to say something, but Madam Lu cut him off as she reached over to serve him food.

The boy, who had been eating with his head down, turned around and glared at Fang Zhuo. His eyes were full of the fierce malice of a wolf pup—clearly too contemptuous to bother responding. He clicked his tongue and turned back, subtly shifting away from her.

Fang Zhuo’s eyelids trembled slightly. She flattened the fingers resting on her knees and blinked with an emotionless face.

She spoke: “This semester’s tuition still hasn’t been paid.”

Fang Yiming jerked his chin toward Madam Lu. “Did you bring the money you were supposed to get this afternoon?”

“Don’t rush,” Madam Lu said in a soft, slow voice. Her tone should’ve sounded gentle, but it always carried a strange edge that made people uncomfortable. She said, “What about the thing we discussed before—have you thought it over?”

Fang Zhuo replied calmly and firmly, “No.”

“I’m doing this for your own good.” Madam Lu picked at the food with her chopsticks, carefully modulating her tone. “I pulled a lot of strings to get you transferred. If you go to No. 3 High School, the school will give you special attention. If you get into a top-tier university next year, they’ll refund all three years of tuition. And if your grades are good, you can get several thousand yuan in scholarships each semester. You can’t keep up with the pace at A High. Your teacher even called me last time, saying your foundation is too weak.”

Fang Yiming remained silent throughout.

Madam Lu put down her chopsticks and said, “Don’t look at him—look at me.”

Fang Zhuo shifted her gaze to her and repeated, “No.”

Fang Zhuo had never seen her own mother. Ever since she could remember, she had lived with her grandmother in the countryside.

Her grandmother didn’t particularly like her—nor did she like Fang Yiming. She rarely showed concern for Fang Zhuo, hardly spoke to her, and never mentioned anything about her mother.

Fang Zhuo had only learned her mother’s full name from her birth certificate.

But her grandmother had never stopped her from going to school.

Fang Zhuo’s tuition fees were saved bit by bit from her grandmother’s land compensation insurance.

When she realized she was nearing death, her grandmother gathered every egg laid by their hens, wrapped them in a red cloth bundle, and silently led Fang Zhuo—staggering all the way—to the school her granddaughter was attending at the time.

No one knew what she said to the school leaders, but in the end, the class teacher personally took Fang Zhuo to A High and used their connections to secure her a spot to take an exception exam. After she passed, she was allowed to transfer to that school.

A High was an excellent school in every aspect. In contrast, No. 3 High was a second-rate school—barely any students made it past the first-tier university cutoff in the past two years.

Fang Zhuo emphasized her words: “Give me the tuition.”

The truth was, Fang Zhuo had always understood.

She was like a tumbleweed drifting through the desert—blown wherever the wind took her, wandering aimlessly, with no place truly welcoming her.

But while the desert was vast and boundless, her world was small and cramped, hemmed in by towering walls on either side.

She despised that kind of endless, hopeless life—lonely, barren, and dark.

She wanted to climb over those towering walls and look up at a sky full of stars.

She wanted to walk through all the shadows and welcome the brilliance of the sun.

As she grew up, countless people had looked at her with sympathy or pity, patting her shoulder and saying, “You need to study hard.”

And so, in her world, the only path available to her was studying.

It was either accept her fate—or study.

She had crawled her way here purely on stubborn grit.

And she would not let anyone ruin her life again.