Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Before the car crash happened, Chen Ming and I had been arguing the entire way.

It was our son’s birthday that day, and we had taken him to Universal Studios. As usual, everything that could go wrong did.

Chen Ming and I patiently tried to guide and accompany him, hoping he would show even a tiny bit of interest in this wonderful world, just like other children.

But throughout the entire trip, he was either staring blankly into space or screaming incessantly. He simply couldn’t stop.

Faced with one judgmental look after another, Chen Ming and I had long since become numb.

It wasn’t until lunch that things came to a head. I was at the restaurant counter ordering food while Chen Ming went to find a table; we both thought the child was with the other person.

When I brought the food to the table, we realized the boy was gone.

We contacted the staff and searched almost every inch of the park. Finally, as dusk began to fall, we found him in a stall in one of the nursing rooms.

He was clutching a small puppy in his arms, refusing to let go no matter what.

Exhausted both physically and mentally, I ignored my son’s screams and wrenched the puppy from his arms, then slapped him across the face.

My five-year-old son had been slapped for the first time.

Even if he was less sentient than a puppy since he got sick, he still knew what pain felt like.

So, he didn’t make another sound.

On the way back, the child was unusually well-behaved, no longer screaming randomly.

But Chen Ming started criticizing my actions.

“You shouldn’t have hit him.”

I replied with dead seriousness, “The thing I shouldn’t have done most was give birth to him.”

The argument escalated from there.

We used our sharpest eloquence to ruthlessly poke at each other’s sore spots.

One grievance after another, we both bitterly recounted how much we regretted this marriage.

By the end of the argument, Chen Ming fell into his usual silence.

I looked at the child in the rearview mirror and said through gritted teeth, “Sometimes, I really wish he were just a puppy.”

That’s why, when we stood on the awards podium again, Chen Ming and I took one look at each other and knew we had both been reborn.

By tacit agreement, we pulled away from each other to make a clean break.

In this life, we wouldn’t fall in love, we wouldn’t get married, and we certainly wouldn’t give birth to that sick child again.

However, almost everyone at A University knew that Zhang Yue and Chen Ming from the Law School were a match made in heaven.

On the day the freshmen reported for orientation, a scammer posing as a service center employee snuck into the school and tricked many students into signing up for phone cards.

Chen Ming and I were both victims. He demanded his rights on the spot, and I immediately jumped in to back him up.

Chen Ming was forceful and logically rigorous.

I complemented him with ‘magical attacks’-approaching from tricky angles with biting words.

The onlookers were left in awe.

And that was only the first time we met.

Later, we both joined the Debate Team. He was the first speaker, and I was the third.

We were both so proficient at ‘arguing’ that whenever the street vendors outside the school who liked to cheat on weights saw us, they would instinctively adjust their electronic scales back to normal.

In our junior year, while preparing for a debate competition, Chen Ming and I were practically inseparable.

We wrote drafts together, cross-examined each other, and pulled all-nighters in the student office.

Once, I was so exhausted I couldn’t keep my eyes open, so I pushed a few chairs together to sleep.

Chen Ming sat beside me, swatting mosquitoes away all night.

Later, our teammates started betting on who would confess first.

Chen Ming and I just smiled without saying a word.

Because we had planned a “Mischievous Kiss”:

Regardless of whether we won or lost, we would bypass the second speaker and kiss in public at the end of the competition, dazzling everyone.

But living this life again, we stood on the podium like total strangers.

Facing the cheering crowd below, I smiled calmly into the microphone. “Looking back on this journey, I’m truly grateful for Classmate Chen’s support and help. I hope our friendship lasts forever!”

A collective sigh of disappointment rose from the audience.

After a moment, Chen Ming was the first to nod and applaud, and only then did the atmosphere begin to recover.

After the competition, life proceeded according to plan.

The judicial exam, preparing to study abroad…

In our previous life, Chen Ming and I even went to the same university for our graduate studies.

We studied together in a foreign land, supporting each other as our love grew deeper and deeper.

But in this life, our relationship came to a screeching halt.

Friends and classmates would corner us every few days to ask, “What’s wrong with you two? Did you have a fight?”

“Oh, come on, what could possibly happen between you two that you can’t get over!”

“Given your history, if you two don’t end up together, no one at A University will dare to date either of you. Whoever does would be treated like a homewrecker!”

“Actually, I even dreamed about attending your wedding before!”

“A wedding is nothing! I dreamed they had a kid and I was the godmother!”

“Hahaha, I bet the child they have would be both smart and beautiful. After all, with the parents’ genes right there, it couldn’t be bad!”

…

Listening to these words, Chen Ming and I could only use smiles to hide the turmoil in our eyes.

Because we really had been married, and we really had a child.

The child was very cute; his face shape was like mine, while his features were a carbon copy of Chen Ming’s.

It was to the point that when we ran into old classmates on the street, they could tell at a glance that he was ours.

We named the child Chen Zhiye, signifying that he would know everything.

But later, we discovered that he knew nothing at all.