Chapter 4: A Life of Unrequited Devotion is Not Worth It

Tan Yanlu was reborn as a human without any memories of her past life, but deep within her heart, there was always an obsession telling her that she needed to find someone. This person was extremely important to Tan Yanlu.

However, who exactly this person was, or what they looked like, Tan Yanlu herself did not know.

Yet, in her dreams, Tan Yanlu often saw a man with a fish scale pattern on his neck. The man’s face was blurry, but the pattern on his neck was clearly visible.

Tan Yanlu felt an inexplicable closeness to this man and a strong desire to offer him her most precious tears. A voice deep within her urged her to dedicate her entire life to this man.

By the time Tan Yanlu reached her late teens, she had blossomed into a strikingly beautiful and graceful young woman.

It was around this time that Tan Yanlu encountered a turning point in her fate. At the age of seventeen, she went to a department store to queue up for wool.

However, chaos erupted in the crowd. People were pushing and shoving, and some elderly women were even jostling each other.

Tan Yanlu lost her balance and was pushed down by the person in front of her, tumbling down the stairs.

At the bottom of the stairs was a pile of wooden planks, which the store used for making cabinets. The cut edges of the planks were jagged and uneven, and hitting her head on them would have been disastrous.

The incident happened so suddenly that no one had time to react. At the critical moment, someone placed a luggage bag in front of the pile of planks.

Tan Yanlu fell onto the luggage bag instead of directly onto the planks. The cushioning effect of the bag prevented what could have been a serious accident.

The person who saved Tan Yanlu was a young man with a well-proportioned face, the kind of reliable appearance that people in the 1960s and 1970s admired. This was the beginning of Tan Yanlu and Gao Shaolin’s first encounter.

The man had a handsome face, but what caught everyone’s attention was the fish scale pattern on his neck.

After Tan Yanlu got a clear look at the man, she was instantly drawn to the pattern on his neck. Her heart raced, and she felt as though she had finally found the person she had been searching for. An overwhelming impulse surged within her—she wanted to offer her precious tears to this man.

After saving Tan Yanlu, Gao Shaolin was captivated by her beauty and fell in love with her at first sight. He also felt a deep conviction that Tan Yanlu was meant to be his.

Because of this accident, Tan Yanlu and Gao Shaolin got to know each other. Even without knowing much about each other’s families, Tan Yanlu felt an impulsive desire to marry Gao Shaolin.

In fact, Gao Shaolin was the one who proposed first. It was only after Tan Yanlu accepted his proposal that she learned about Gao Shaolin’s family background.

Gao Shaolin was not from the city; he was from the countryside. He had come to Hongcheng to study at a major hospital, and once his training period was over, he would have to return to his rural hometown.

Gao Shaolin’s hometown was in the northern province. Jiang Pan Yu couldn’t help but comment on this: “The northern province is such a vast place. Couldn’t they find a major hospital there for Gao Shaolin to study at? Are there no outstanding doctors there? Why did Gao Shaolin have to travel all the way to a small city like Hongcheng to study at a hospital? It’s simply absurd!”

Despite learning that Gao Shaolin was from the countryside, Tan Yanlu did not regret pledging her life to him.

After learning the hometown address of Gao Shaolin, Jiang Pan Yu disregarded her family’s objections and signed up for the rural assignment herself, traveling thousands of miles to pursue love, all to offer Gao Shaolin her precious tears.

Jiang Pan Yu was utterly astonished. This… this was just like Lin Daiyu!

In the past, there was the story of the Crimson Pearl Fairy from “Dream of the Red Chamber,” who was tricked into descending to the mortal world to repay the tears to the Stone’s attendant. Lin Daiyu traveled all the way from Yangzhou to the Rongguo Mansion, bringing with her the Lin family’s eldest daughter and a portion of the Lin family’s vast wealth, only for it to be squandered by the Rongguo Mansion. In the end, her useless cousin married Xue Baochai, that plump girl from the Xue family, and Lin Daiyu ended up sacrificing her own life.

Now, there was the mermaid who traveled thousands of miles to offer herself and her golden tears, all for a man? Since ancient times, how many who took the path of self-sacrifice ended up well?

This is not something to be casually emulated!

The scene before Jiang Pan Yu continued. Later, Tan Yanlu finally went to the countryside and, as she wished, met Gao Shaolin. She had hoped to start a beautiful love story.

But what Tan Yanlu didn’t expect was that Gao Shaolin couldn’t marry her. In the countryside, someone was already entangled with him.

The important thing was that Gao Shaolin was already married, though his first wife had passed away. Gao Shaolin was now facing a situation where he was being forced into marriage, and the one forcing him wasn’t Tan Yanlu, but Gao Shaolin’s sister-in-law.

The male lead’s first wife had died early, and the person he was to marry for the second time was his sister-in-law, who was also a widow.

There was a reason why Gao Shaolin’s sister-in-law was insisting on marrying him. Why? Because Gao Shaolin’s elder brother couldn’t have children.

However, the Gao family’s main branch couldn’t let their lineage end there, so Gao Shaolin took on the responsibility of both branches, stepping in for his elder brother and sister-in-law.

Then, Gao’s sister-in-law gave birth to a son and a daughter. Originally, no one knew about this, as it was something not easily spoken of.

But life is unpredictable. Gao Shaolin’s elder brother was once out chopping wood when he was gored to death by a wild boar, and the main pillar of the family collapsed.

This left Gao’s sister-in-law with two children, and life was about to become difficult. Coincidentally, Gao Shaolin’s first wife had already passed away.

Gao Shaolin was now single, and Gao’s sister-in-law began to scheme, insisting that Gao Shaolin marry her. This was how the relationship between Gao Shaolin and his sister-in-law came to light.

Only then did everyone learn that the two children Gao’s sister-in-law had were actually Gao Shaolin’s. Gao’s sister-in-law didn’t care about the pointing fingers; with such thick skin, there was little others could do to her.

Gao’s sister-in-law was entangled with Gao Shaolin, insisting on marrying him. If they married, they would become a happy family of four.

Tan Yanlu arrived in the countryside with her bags, fantasizing about her and Gao Shaolin entering into marriage and living a sweet life together forever. But after she abandoned everything and came to the countryside, she discovered that she had been deceived by Gao Shaolin.

Tan Yanlu was in agony. Gao Shaolin poured out his heart to Tan Yanlu, expressing his true feelings, saying that the entanglement with his sister-in-law wasn’t what he wanted, but it was out of a sense of duty. His true love was still Tan Yanlu.

Faced with Gao Shaolin’s affectionate confession, Tan Yanlu was in pain. Her rational mind and the voice in her heart were in constant conflict. Tan Yanlu knew that if she had any entanglement with Gao Shaolin, it would be destroying someone else’s family.

Tan Yanlu’s upbringing did not allow her to act in such a manner. She forcefully suppressed the voice in her heart and decided to cut off all ties with Gao Shaolin. However, doing so left her feeling deeply unsettled. The moment she uttered the words of rejection, the voice in her heart wrenched in agony, as if a giant hand had tightly gripped her heart, causing her unbearable pain.

After telling Gao Shaolin that their relationship was over, she wandered off in a daze to work, only to be pushed into the water and nearly drowned. It was Gao Shaolin who saved her.

Tan Yanlu, soaked and dripping, was escorted back to the educated youth point by Gao Shaolin. The sight of a man and a woman, one of whom was entangled with his sister-in-law, both drenched from head to toe, was bound to raise eyebrows and invite gossip.

Gao Shaolin had broken his promise to Tan Yanlu, yet he had also saved her life. The voice in her heart incessantly urged her to forgive him.

Tan Yanlu was constantly bombarded by this inner voice, yet her values and rationality warned her that she should not entangle herself with someone as dishonest as Gao Shaolin. She was torn, her emotions twisted into knots.

Unbeknownst to Tan Yanlu, while she and Gao Shaolin were in the midst of their struggle, someone had witnessed the scene.

The person who saw this happened to dislike Tan Yanlu. Now that she had caught Tan Yanlu in a compromising situation, she spread the word far and wide.

Tan Yanlu’s reputation was tarnished by these rumors. Unfortunately, she had no evidence to prove that she had known Gao Shaolin before or that he had proposed to her.

Before coming to the countryside, Tan Yanlu had been unaware of Gao Shaolin’s family situation. She had been deceived.

At a time when Gao Shaolin needed to step forward and speak up for Tan Yanlu, he remained silent, quietly retreating into his shell like a turtle.