Chapter 2

Chapter 2

After returning to the dormitory, I was about to wash up when I suddenly noticed a string of red numbers flickering in the mirror:

13:00:00

Thinking my eyes were playing tricks on me, I reached out and wiped the glass, but the red numbers seemed to float in the reflection out of thin air, pulsing with a chillingly calm frequency.

I turned off my phone’s flashlight and saw the time displayed on the screen: 11:59 PM.

At the stroke of midnight, the time ticked over to 00:00.

My eighteenth birthday officially ended, time reset to the day before my birthday, and the mirror flashed.

I looked up, and the numbers in the mirror had abruptly changed to “12:11:29.”

It looked like a countdown, but what did these numbers actually mean?

In truth, returning to my eighteenth birthday wasn’t the first time jump.

I had realized long ago: time doesn’t rewind linearly second by second; instead, it jumps back to specific days.

These days are either ones etched deep in my memory or ones where something significant happened.

So, to prolong my inverted life, I instinctively forced myself to remember more of the past.

But for some reason, my memories were always shallow.

If it weren’t for this time reversal, I never would have discovered that I wasn’t just a people-pleaser-I also had the memory of a goldfish!

Consequently, the days quickly skipped ahead to the summer break of my freshman year of college.

I only remembered that after starting university, money was always tight.

The rewards I had received for getting into university were kept by my father; I didn’t get a single cent.

As for my tuition, I used student loans.

My father said that interest-free loans were a great deal and that he would help me pay them back after I graduated.

But later, he didn’t help me. I forgot the exact reason why, only remembering that I eventually paid them off myself using my scholarships.

Returning to this summer break, many questions surfaced in my mind.

My father was clearly a public official, so how did I manage to qualify for student loans?

My memory replayed slowly alongside the passage of time:

Oh! It turned out that back when my father got promoted and transferred to the county, he bought a house and moved the household registration, but he only moved himself, my stepmother, and her two children.

My registration had remained in our old hometown. The poverty certificate back then was something he had used his connections to obtain.

I remembered his excuse at the time:

“The land back home is valuable. There might be a demolition and relocation project in the future. When your registration gets a payout, it’ll all be your dowry.”

But up until the day I got married, there was never any sign of demolition in the old hometown.

I suddenly understood that you don’t need elaborate lies to deceive a motherless child.

A weak status and position make them naturally trust every word that comes out of an adult’s mouth.

So, how many other things had they lied to me about?

I remembered that just after the freshman finals ended, my father called. For some reason, we got into a fight.

After that, he refused to take any of my calls, eventually even turning off his phone.

I suddenly realized that the way my father treated me was exactly the same as Zhou Mingyu.

At that time, I was penniless, and the dormitory rules forbade staying over during the break.

Just as I was at my wits’ end, a flyer for a part-time tutoring job was posted on the dormitory door the next day.

Room and board included, and the pay for one month was enough to cover my living expenses for the next semester.

With a “nothing to lose” attitude, I went for the interview. To my surprise, it went incredibly smoothly.

The employer was a single mother in her forties whose daughter was about to enter her senior year of high school.

The woman was very satisfied with me. She said that because my memory of the exams was still fresh and my grades were good, I was the most cost-effective choice as a recent survivor of the system to teach a high school senior.

The girl was the same age as me but two grades behind. However, since I had started school two years earlier than normal, her life progression was actually the standard one.

There was nothing wrong with her intelligence, but in my view, she lacked a competitive drive for studying, which was why her grades never improved.

Driven by the thought that I couldn’t take their money for nothing, I poured all my exam experience into her, putting the girl through a “hellish” tutoring mode.

The days of tutoring were exhausting, but the girl was always smiling, innocent and sweet, like a child who would never grow up.

During our breaks, we talked like old friends who hadn’t seen each other in years, always having endless things to say.

I remember her saying back then:

“I want to study architectural design and travel the world. I want to go to Egypt to see the world’s earliest large-scale stone structures, and to Greece to see the classic Doric columns…

“But studying architecture is a bit expensive. Even though my mom has always supported my dreams, I don’t want her to work so hard.

“So, I’ll think about it some more.

“By the way, Chen Ran, why are you studying medicine? Is it because you like it?”

I hesitated, then answered honestly, “No.”

Back then, my father had always hoped I would stay local to attend a normal university for teacher training. He wanted me to return to the county as a teacher after graduation, as the tuition was cheap, and I could educate others while repaying my hometown.

But after the college entrance exam results came out, they were much higher than expected. My teachers felt I could go to a better school and kept urging me to reconsider. I was deeply conflicted at the time.

I only remembered that when it came time to fill out my preferences, I clearly followed my father’s decision and put the teacher training program as my first choice.

But for some reason, someone changed my preferences. In the end, I was admitted to A University Medical School.

I never looked into the matter; in fact, I had always been secretly grateful to that person.

Because at that time, I didn’t want to study to be a teacher at all. I was simply too afraid to defy my father’s decision.