Chapter 1

Chapter 1

My life was destroyed the night before the National College Entrance Exam.

It was June 6th, 10:00 PM. I remember it vividly. A gale was howling outside, and the power had gone out, plunging the house into pitch-black darkness.

Suddenly, there was a knock at the door.

“Open up! Maintenance, checking the lines!”

The voice was raspy, carrying an eerie undertone.

I trembled with terror. The killers had arrived.

Before the blackout, Grandma had been busy in the kitchen preparing tomorrow’s breakfast. She insisted on steaming a batch of flower rolls for me, a symbol of rising higher with every step.

“Song Song, check again. Did you bring your admission ticket? What about your pens? Your eraser?” The little old lady kept telling me not to be nervous, yet she had checked my backpack countless times throughout the evening.

Her nagging, which I used to find annoying, would become a dream I could never regain in the future.

I hugged her tightly, burying my face in her shoulder, tears welling in my eyes.

Grandma froze, stroking my hair in confusion.

“What’s wrong? Are you nervous? Don’t put too much pressure on yourself. No matter what school our Song Song gets into, Grandma will be happy.”

Paralyzed for ten years, I have spent every waking moment regretting why I opened that door.

Through the peephole, I saw two men in uniforms, soaking wet. But the moment the door opened, a pair of large hands clamped around my throat in a death grip.

“Grandma-”

Before I could scream, they slammed me against the wall.

Hearing the commotion, Grandma grabbed a kitchen knife and came hobbling out, ready to fight them to the death.

But she was no match for murderers; a single kick sent her flying backward onto the floor.

I only found out later that these two were convicts who had been sentenced to death. They had killed a police officer and escaped from prison. The fleshy, bloated one was called Fat Kun, and the thin one was Ma Jiu.

With multiple lives already on their hands, they were cold-blooded outlaws.

Fat Kun couldn’t wait to drag me into the bedroom. After a brief loss of consciousness, I woke up to the sound of Grandma’s sobbing pleas and a piercing pain tearing through my body.

As it turned out, while they were committing their atrocity, they had tied Grandma up on the floor, forcing her to watch.

Grandma’s voice had gone hoarse from crying. She crawled on the floor, desperately kowtowing to them. “I beg you! I’ll give you all our money, everything! If you want to kill someone, kill this old woman, but please spare my granddaughter!”

The torture lasted for four agonizing hours, until they got hungry and demanded Grandma cook noodles for them.

“Oh, the big exam is tomorrow, huh? Serve us well, and maybe we’ll leave your granddaughter alive, haha.”

Grandma believed them. She waited until the two of them had eaten their fill and finished picking their teeth.

Only then, right in front of my eyes, did they use a rope to strangle her.

The little old lady’s face turned a deep, bruised purple. Her hands flailed helplessly, reaching out toward me with everything she had.

I wailed and struggled frantically. The rag in my mouth loosened, and like a mad dog, I lunged forward and bit the Fatty’s arm. Howling in pain, he grabbed a knife and hacked down at me.

Fat Kun had been a butcher by trade. He was used to hacking at the joints.

The first person to discover the crime scene was my homeroom teacher. When she didn’t see me at the testing center, she immediately came to my house to check on me.

At that time, I was lying unconscious in a pool of blood, every joint and bone in my body shattered. I was like a boneless fish.

They didn’t think I would survive the surgery.

“What a pity. She was a prime candidate for Tsinghua and Peking Universities. She ranked in the top three of the entire province in several mock exams. Admissions officers from both schools had visited her. Such a bright future, what a pity…”

Fortunately-or unfortunately-I survived, at the cost of lifelong disability.

I lost my family, my future, and my dignity.

I survived, but I was merely drawing breath in the ruins of a life.