Chapter 3

Chapter 3

I think of this brief and desolate life of mine.

The life that went from Nan Yu to Shen Peizhi.

When I was one, my father died in a workplace accident.

My mother took my older sister Nan Jin and all the compensation money and fled far away, leaving me to depend on Grandmother.

She took my sister because she believed my sister’s name, meaning “a splendid future,” was auspicious.

I became the one who was extra.

Growing up, I never knew a parent’s love or a sibling’s bond.

While others basked in their parents’ affection, I could only clutch the one old photo of my parents and search for my mom and dad in my dreams.

But what hurt even more than being called a wild child were the greasy, leering gazes cast at me from all sides, starting when I was fourteen,

and the hands of different men who climbed over the wall in the dead of night and found their way to my bed.

A wretched fate anyone could trample on, yet cursed with an ostentatious, eye-catching beauty-

How laughable.

If Grandmother hadn’t gritted her teeth and arranged for me to board at school, my life would likely have been sullied beyond repair long ago.

But my tuition and fees had already broken Grandmother; after the boarding expenses were added, her back never straightened again.

I studied with frantic diligence, wanting to give Grandmother a good life in her remaining years.

After the college entrance exam, I received an acceptance letter from a Project 985 university.

The ones who had been absent for seventeen years of my life somehow got word of it, and right when I no longer needed them, they appeared.

Only then did I learn that my mother had remarried sixteen years ago, to a wealthy businessman.

My sister Nan Jin had long since changed her name to “Shen Peizhi.”

They showered Grandmother and me with care, took Grandmother for a full medical checkup, and even signed us up for a tour group.

Calling it, in fine-sounding words, a celebration and compensation.

I didn’t want to go, but I couldn’t bear the eager, yearning look in Grandmother’s eyes.

All these years, she had been trapped in this poor, backward little mountain village, never knowing how vast the world outside truly was.

I was still young, with plenty of chances ahead, but Grandmother…

I wrestled with it all night and finally agreed.

On that one trip, I glimpsed a much broader world.

And on Grandmother’s face, I saw a smile of contentment I had never seen before.

The resentment in my heart toward my mother and sister silently dissolved by more than half.

But when we returned from the trip and I saw Grandmother’s medical report, my sky came crashing down.

My most beloved Grandmother had a malignant tumor the size of a child’s fist growing beside her heart.

The surgery cost three hundred thousand yuan-an astronomical sum for Grandmother and me at the time.

My mother found me in private and revealed the real purpose of her return.

She wanted me to assume the name ‘Shen Peizhi’ and Share a Life with my sister.

That is to say, my sister and I would attend this university together.

Only, all the glory-stealing the spotlight, reaping fame and profit, being seen-would go to my sister;

while the grind-attending classes and exams, piling up grade points, earning certificates-would fall to me.

After four years, the graduation certificate and degree certificate bearing the name “Shen Peizhi” would belong to my sister.

In return, she would cover all of Grandmother’s hospital expenses for those four years.

She also stipulated that I must appear instantly when my sister needed me, and vanish instantly when she didn’t.

And the most crucial point: I must not disrupt their existing life.

As she spoke these words, her manner was refined, a smile on her face.

But she wounded my heart until it bled profusely.

So the checkup they arranged for Grandmother was merely to find a way to hold me in their grip.

What they called “Share a Life” was nothing but hoping I would crawl at their feet, using my very flesh and blood to pave the way for my sister.

I suspected the medical report had been falsified, so I took Grandmother to another hospital to have it rechecked and confirmed.

Only when I saw the same diagnosis did I finally lose all hope.

For Grandmother, I changed my name and identity, becoming my sister’s “Shadow.”

My mother kept her word and arranged Grandmother’s hospitalization and surgery.

We all “got” what we had each wanted…