Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Time continued to rewind day by day, returning to the day I met Zhou Mingyu’s family. At this point, we were deeply in love.

Zhou Mingyu’s parents were both university professors who had lived lives of prestige and respect; they were very satisfied with me.

In particular, his mother-who was my doctoral supervisor-always said I was her most prized student because I was the most obedient and the most hardworking.

She smiled with elegant composure, though her voice carried an inherent authority.

“Chen Ran, from now on, you’re like my own daughter. If Mingyu ever dares to bully you, I definitely won’t let him off!”

Her surname was Lin. She was a renowned expert and professor in the medical field, and the person I respected most.

Because of those words, I treated her like my own mother after we got married.

But after I gave birth, the first time the baby choked on milk, she instinctively remarked, “Didn’t your mother teach you anything? You don’t even know how to breastfeed a child!”

At the time, I thought she said it only because she cared so much about the baby.

It turns out I was too naive.

As time continued to flow backward, my distraction caught Zhou Mingyu’s attention.

In my previous life, my friends all said he was a peerless man-handsome, good-tempered, and utterly devoted to me. I thought so too.

But revisiting the past, I realized that Zhou Mingyu was actually a master of the silent treatment. Whenever he was unhappy, he would simply cut off all contact.

Today, just because I spaced out while he was talking, his face immediately darkened, and he walked away without looking back.

Then, he left a self-staged notification in our WeChat chat:

“Busy. Do not disturb.”

Even the punctuation was exactly as I remembered.

In the past, I truly believed he was busy. I would incessantly send him caring messages and brew nutritious soups to deliver to his lab.

Now that I’ve woken up, I realize this so-called “fairytale romance” was nothing more than a performance he staged while trampling on my dignity.

So this time, I let him disappear. I didn’t even bother to reply to his scripted “notification.”

After only half a day, seeing that I hadn’t made a sound, Zhou Mingyu called. He spoke in his usual tone: “Chen Ran, didn’t your mother teach you that you should say sorry when you do something wrong?”

Actually, for the longest time, I didn’t think my mother’s early death was that significant.

Even after my father remarried, I never lacked food or clothes, and my stepmother never hit me. Therefore, I considered myself happy.

But as I carefully combed through the past, I gradually felt that something was wrong.

If I were truly happy, why would I have jumped off a building?

And while holding a five-month-old infant-what a level of desperation that must have been!

On the phone, Zhou Mingyu was waiting for my apology, waiting for me to beg for his forgiveness on bended knee as I had in the past.

This time, I didn’t give him what he wanted. I replied calmly, “Your mother certainly knows how to teach. However, in three years, she’s going to get cancer. At that time, you’ll become a motherless child too.”

According to the original timeline, my mother-in-law, Teacher Lin, was diagnosed with breast cancer the year we got married.

No, to be precise, she discovered the illness first and then pressured Zhou Mingyu and me to get married and have a child early.

For that reason, I even gave up an opportunity to join a top-tier medical department.

A loud crash came from the other end of the line; Zhou Mingyu had tripped, and his phone had been sent flying.

But by the next day, time receded like the tide, returning once again to a new “yesterday.”

Even if I were to hack Zhou Mingyu into eight pieces, I couldn’t change the direction of time.

Just as I was starting to feel despair, I woke up one day to find the calendar displaying: October 10, 2016.

It was my eighteenth birthday and the day I officially met Zhou Mingyu, so the date was deeply etched in my memory.

At this point, I was only a sophomore in college, whereas just the day before, I had been a doctoral student.

Time had actually jumped back five years overnight.

The massive leap in time left me in a daze.

I had started school two years earlier than most, entering the first grade at age five. Thus, being a sophomore at eighteen meant I was always the youngest in my class.

My father used to say I was brilliant from a young age; before I was even five, I could already recite the multiplication tables.

As a village primary school teacher, he saw at a glance that I had the makings of a scholar. Overcoming all objections, he sent me straight into the first-grade classroom.

Although I no longer remember the events of that year, being younger than my peers did offer certain advantages-especially when applying for academic grants, where the age limits were always a bit more lenient.

Because of that, I had always been grateful for his decision back then.

On this day, after finishing my evening self-study session, I bought a bowl of malatang at the cafeteria to celebrate my birthday.

My brain was hardly thinking; my body simply went through the motions, and the ingredients in the bowl were exactly the same as the last time.

I whispered to the steaming bowl of malatang: “Happy birthday!”

As time traced backward, it felt like I was reviewing a textbook; my memories became clearer and clearer.

Suddenly, certain things surfaced in my mind:

My father always said our family followed upright traditions and didn’t care for superficial vanities, so naturally, the family never celebrated my birthday.

Yet, the two younger siblings my stepmother brought with her had birthdays every year. Whenever it was their turn, the table would be spread with chicken, duck, and even cake.

Every time the cake was being sliced, Grandma would always whisper to me:

“This was bought by your siblings’ maternal grandfather. Our family doesn’t have the money for such trifles.

“Eat less. A girl who’s too greedy for food won’t be able to get married off later!”

Consequently, I could only ever eat a small piece of scrap cake cut from the edges.

It was true that my stepmother’s family was from the town. Her father was the principal of the town’s primary school, so of course they could afford cake.

But those chickens and ducks-I was clearly the one feeding them every single day.

And clearly, I loved cake too.

So, when Zhou Mingyu placed a small cake in front of me, I froze for a full minute.

The twenty-year-old Zhou Mingyu was confident and radiant. To keep me from feeling embarrassed, his words were carefully chosen:

“Classmate, here, have this cake. I bought too much and can’t finish it.”

Even though I had jumped off a building because of him at twenty-eight, on this day, having returned to eighteen, I still couldn’t stop the urge to cry when he offered me that cake again.

But this time, I wasn’t crying for him. I was crying for myself.

I had clearly been admitted to university, and the county had rewarded me with tens of thousands of yuan. How could I not even be worthy of a piece of cake?

I remembered that last time, I had sat frozen in my seat, my heart fluttering like a trapped bird.

I had been so nervous I couldn’t say a single word until Zhou Mingyu walked away with a debonair smile.

Only later did I realize he had always been very confident in his ability to capture girls’ hearts.

Showing concern for down-and-out girls was, to him, more like an act of charity to showcase his own charm.

And I had ended up taking the cake back to my dorm and hiding it in my wardrobe, unable to bring myself to eat it.

I didn’t finish it, bite by bite, until it started to turn, my eyes filled with tears of gratitude.

In the past, I thought that was what love looked like. Now I understand that it was called being pathetic.

This time, as the moment replayed, I looked at that ordinary little cake, decorated with the mango bits I hated most, and said coldly:

“Are you for real? Giving people your leftovers? Is that how your mother raised you?”

I had never seen such a colorful array of expressions on Zhou Mingyu’s face.

Perhaps it was the first time in his life he had met his Waterloo while flirting. With no backup plan, he could only pick up the cake and flee in embarrassment.

Watching his retreating back, I suddenly remembered a heart-to-heart we had on the eve of our decision to marry:

“Chen Ran, although I feel that women who lack maternal love are generally not suitable for marriage, you are the most perfect woman I have ever met.

“So, I still want to have a home with you and have a baby.”

At the time, I thought it was a compliment.

But as the memories flooded back, I felt no anger. Instead, a question arose:

Everyone clearly bullied me for not having a mother, but why did I have no impression of her at all?

It wasn’t that I couldn’t remember clearly or that I had forgotten-it was as if she had never existed!

If time continued to rewind, would I see her?