Chapter 1

Pain…
So much pain…

Meng Mingxuan awoke from a wave of searing pain, lifting her gaze only to meet a pair of bloodshot eyes, furious yet restrained.

Brother Jiu…?
How—how could this be?
Wasn’t she already dead?
Then why, after death, would she be seeing Brother Jiu?
Could it be… Brother Jiu had died too?
No, that’s impossible!
He was so powerful — there was no way Yin Ting could have killed him!
It must be… a hallucination after death…

Her crimson lips trembled slightly. “Brother Jiu…”

“Meng Mingxuan, for the sake of Yin Ting, you dared to hurt yourself like this! How could you do this to me!!”

Yan Mojiu gripped Meng Mingxuan’s wrist — the one sliced open by a broken wine bottle — so tightly that his handsome face was steeped in rage.

His normally deep, magnetic voice was thick with barely suppressed fury.

Inside the private room,
not a single person dared to make a sound.

The three close friends who had been drinking with Yan Mojiu — Nie Ziyang, Tang Jun, and Feng Yilin — all silently watched the scene unfold.

In this battle of wills, in the end,
Brother Jiu still lost.

All because Meng Mingxuan had threatened him with her own death.
And Brother Jiu… could never just stand by and watch Meng Mingxuan die.

Meng Mingxuan stared dazedly at the man, his face dark with rage, her heart roiling with shock.

The wrist he clutched so tightly throbbed with two distinct kinds of pain.

Instinctively, she glanced down at her wounded wrist — and what she saw made her pupils contract sharply!

The once smooth, pale skin now bore a deep, fresh gash.

A new wound —
because the cut was still bleeding!

There must have been shards of glass embedded in it, because the sharp, agonizing pain was impossible to ignore.

And the other pain… was from how hard the man was gripping her wrist — it felt like her bones might snap.

Meng Mingxuan’s mind wavered slightly.
This scene… felt so familiar.

It was almost exactly like what happened when she was 22, the year she graduated from university.
After Yin Ting proposed to her during the graduation ceremony — causing a sensation throughout the campus —
and she, basking in sweet happiness, forced Yan Mojiu to agree to her marriage with Yin Ting by threatening her own life…

She remembered it clearly —
Back then, she had barged into the private room where Yan Mojiu usually drank. After he coldly refused her request to marry Yin Ting, she grabbed a wine bottle and smashed it against the edge of the table.

Then, using the jagged half of the broken bottle,
she slashed her own wrist.

That was the first time she saw the dark, terrifying side of Yan Mojiu —
the first time he had ever hurt her,
the first time he had ever yelled at her in front of others.

And in the end…
he agreed to let her marry Yin Ting.

From that day on, she never saw Yan Mojiu again.
Even at her wedding to Yin Ting, Yan Mojiu — the family who had been by her side for ten years — never appeared.

Meng Mingxuan stared blankly at the devastatingly handsome man before her, who seemed far too real to be a dream.
Shock shook her to her core.

Could it be that…
she had been reborn?

Reborn to a time before she married Yin Ting,
to the very night when she had forced Yan Mojiu’s hand with her own life?

Looking at Meng Mingxuan’s pale, tear-streaked face,
Yan Mojiu finally let go of her wrist, his expression a mix of bitterness and mockery.

“I agree.”
His arms fell to his sides, his voice cold and hoarse.

But only those familiar with him could tell —
his fingers were tightly clenched,
restraining the violent rage boiling inside him.

He wanted so badly to lock her away,
never let her see that man again.

Agree…?

Meng Mingxuan snapped out of her daze,
then immediately panicked!

That’s right —
after she publicly slit her wrist back then,
Yan Mojiu agreed to her marriage with Yin Ting.
And from that night onward, he disappeared completely from her life.

He didn’t answer her calls, didn’t reply to her messages —
he vanished without a trace.

No! She couldn’t let him disappear again like he did in her past life!

“You… agree to let me marry Yin Ting?”
What should she do?
How could she make him change his mind?

“Yes,” Yan Mojiu said, his thin lips barely moving.

If he didn’t agree,
would he just stand there and watch her continue hurting herself?

The little rose he had raised with his own hands
was ultimately being picked by another man —
a man full of hidden malice.

She trusted Yin Ting.
She didn’t trust him.

What a cruel irony.

“No, I won’t let you agree!”

After a moment of suffocating silence in the private room,
Meng Mingxuan suddenly spoke with a trembling voice —
then threw herself into Yan Mojiu’s arms.

“Brother Jiu, I was joking just now. I don’t want to marry Yin Ting. I want to go home… Don’t abandon me…”

The heart that had been shredded and bleeding inside Yan Mojiu
suddenly stopped hurting.

He looked down at the little head nestled against his chest,
his handsome face filled with confusion.

She had threatened him with her life.
He had agreed.

But why was she reacting like this now?

It was she who didn’t want him anymore —
so why was she turning it around,
saying it was he who didn’t want her?

The men in the room: “…”

Damn.
They had seen plenty of people flip-flop,
but never anyone flip as fast as Meng Mingxuan.

This was a first.

At that moment, Meng Mingxuan knew her behavior was irrational.
She had just self-harmed to force Yan Mojiu to agree to her marriage,
and now, in the blink of an eye, she was taking it all back,
as if possessed.

But she didn’t care.

She had to make Brother Jiu personally promise to take her home,
personally promise that he “wanted her.”

Only then would he not vanish from her world forever the next day,
like he had in her past life.

“Brother Jiu, I’ll be good from now on. Please don’t leave me…”

Meng Mingxuan clung tightly to Yan Mojiu’s waist,
terrified that he would pry her hands away.

It had been a long, long time
since Yan Mojiu had held Meng Mingxuan like this.
—No, forget about holding —
even if he got a little closer to her,
she would immediately avoid him.

He knew it was Yin Ting who had poisoned her,
taught her to distance herself from him.

But now —
she was right here in his arms,
and it was she who had hugged him first.

She said he didn’t want her…
How could he ever not want her?

“I never didn’t want you.”
Yan Mojiu, half-mad with despair,
wrapped his arms tightly around the girl crying her heart out in his embrace,
not caring whether she might kick him away the next second.

The men in the room: “…”

(They covered their faces.)

Brother Jiu had been completely crushed by this little girl —
he would never escape her clutches for the rest of his life.