Death of Loved Ones

The day I found out I had cancer.

He Wei frowned and said coldly to me, “Do you think anyone would be sad if you died? No one would feel bad about it.”

I said, “Whatever.”

Then I sincerely wished him, “I hope you’ll do as you say.”

After all, the year my brother died saving me, everyone looked at me and said:

“Why wasn’t it you who died?”

Later, I stood on the rooftop of the abandoned building where my brother passed away and jumped off.

But He Wei, why were you crying?

There is a palace rule in the Great Sheng Dynasty: regardless of rank or status, whoever gives birth to a child must raise that child.

Mother was the most insignificant Cairen in the harem.

Ever since I was born, I lived with her in the neglected Chengze Hall.

When I was eight, the Imperial Physician diagnosed Mother with a severe illness and said she did not have long to live.

That day, Mother jumped into the Taiye Pond and saved the drowning Third Prince.

She saved the Third Prince’s life, but lost her own in the waters of Taiye Pond.

Rumors spread throughout the palace. Everyone said, “The Third Prince stepped on Cui Cairen’s head, pushing her underwater so he could climb ashore.”

They fanned the flames, but I knew in my heart that Mother did it on purpose.

She used her own life to ensure that, after her death, I could be taken in by the Third Prince’s birth mother, Consort Qi.

Mother was so foolish.

She thought she had paved a path for me.

She forgot.

A child without a mother leads a bitter life.

After my wife disappeared, I frantically searched everywhere for her. Following a trail of clues, I finally found the Monitor from high school.

The Monitor had once been the top student in our class, with excellent grades, a sunny disposition, and good looks-the kind of child every parent praised, who should have had a bright future. Yet now, in his forties, he had sunk to working at a nightclub in his hometown.

I paid a hefty sum to meet him, hoping to learn the truth.

But sometimes, when you part the mist and see the stars, it isn’t necessarily a good thing.

I often wonder in what way my Stepmother would kill me.

Would she poison me with food, causing me to die of food poisoning?

Or would she wait until I let my guard down, then push me down the stairs and make it look like an accidental fall?

It wasn’t until a physical examination in middle school that I realized she had already started making her move.

To repay her, I devised a murder of my own.

The difference is, I’m a bit more greedy.

My target is… everyone in this family.

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My sister is dead. She committed suicide for a man.

When I was sorting through her belongings, I found a pair of handcuffs and some photographs.

In the photos, she was completely naked, her body covered in bruises.

A rush of blood surged through me, my whole body turned cold, and I was instantly overwhelmed by an indescribable terror and confusion.

But I didn’t know yet that the person who started all this had no intention of stopping.

And I was his next target.

My Mother was a courtesan, earning money with her own flesh and blood to support my father’s studies and imperial examinations.

Five years later, my father succeeded and was granted marriage to a princess by the Emperor.

Yet, in the Golden Throne Hall, he refused the marriage at the risk of his own life, and with great fanfare, married my Mother with ten miles of red bridal procession.

The princess was displeased.

Three days later, Mother was found abused and disheveled, dying at the entrance of an alley.

Half a year later, the princess finally married my father as she wished.

She did not know that this was the beginning of her misfortune.

Five years after my boyfriend’s death, I met a man in an interview who looked exactly like him.

When work was over, I cornered him in the conference room: “Since you’re not dead, why haven’t you contacted me in these five years?”

He straightened his tie, his smile both flippant and distant: “This kind of pick-up line is a bit cliché, Miss Meng. Why not just offer yourself directly?”

I ignored him and reached out, touching a slight bump behind his ear.

He froze instantly.

I laughed: “What’s wrong? You look alike, and now even your sensitive spots are the same?”

On Xu Anran’s wedding day, my lover jumped from the eighteenth floor.

When I opened the door to his studio, it was filled with portraits of Xu Anran.

The brushstrokes were rough and intense, yet carried the fervor of his boundless love.

A friend said, “Shen Qingqie loved Anran for ten years. She was his only light.”

When I opened my eyes again, I saw Shen Qingqie being cornered by the school bully in the classroom. I silently closed the door.

Later, he knocked on my window in the rain, his voice hoarse and full of despair.

“Ranran, don’t you want me anymore…?”

The fingerprint registration system at the police station was launched in 2011. Before 2011, there was no fingerprint database.

I received a call from the police station and rushed back to my registered residence from another province.

I brought the plastic surgery certificate provided by the hospital and my original ID card to the police station to apply for a new ID card, and took the opportunity to change my name.

Throughout the whole process, I was timid and nervous.

Afraid the police would find out.

I am not this person.

But the one who was killed by this person.

All of this started back in 2005.