Xia Xiaolan didn’t know if anyone was following her.

Her method was crude, but even Bai Zhenzhu didn’t know she would get off at Yueyang midway. Even if someone was following her, they wouldn’t have time to react.

Leaving the station, the cold wind blowing on her face helped cool her agitation, and her mind gradually cleared.

Was it impulse, or was she simply going with the flow?

This was a place she had long wanted to visit but kept finding excuses to avoid. Ke Yixiong’s incident had provoked her to get off midway, finally setting foot here. Following the traces of her previous life, Xia Xiaolan wandered through Yueyang’s streets and alleys.

Some places matched her memories, others differed.

Though hungry after getting off the train, Xia Xiaolan had no appetite. She walked to the staff housing area of the Yueyang Liquor Factory. In her previous life, she had lived with her aunt’s family who worked at the factory.

After her parents died, other relatives were unwilling to raise her. Her aunt’s family was slightly better off, so they took her in.

But her aunt had two children of her own, and although they never mistreated her, their care could hardly be called attentive. Xia Xialan tried not to trouble others, didn’t dare eat much at her aunt’s home, and kept her presence to a minimum. From childhood through her teenage years, she was very insecure.

She lived with her aunt’s family for ten years. Later, when the factory’s performance declined and her aunt’s two children needed schooling, supporting Xia Xiaolan became a heavy burden. Her aunt didn’t say anything, but her uncle would throw and break things at home daily. Xia Xiaolan was in her first year of high school then, so she simply moved back to her own home.

Her aunt would sometimes secretly give her living expenses, and Xia Xiaolan worked hard to earn money. The 1990s were Yueyang’s most vigorous years of reform and opening up. She worked various part-time jobs to save money for living expenses, which affected her studies. Later, she got into an ordinary university, studied a useless major, and after graduation, the state abolished the job assignment policy. Xia Xiaolan felt she had missed many opportunities in her previous life, but there weren’t many regrets to make up for. She didn’t understand why heaven had chosen her for rebirth, and into someone else’s body at that.

Her childhood experiences and youthful struggles were bitter, but she had already succeeded through her efforts.

She had a big house and nice car, and status in her career. What was there to regret except not marrying and having children?

Her only close relative was her aunt. After becoming successful, she repaid them. When the liquor factory was acquired and both her aunt and uncle were laid off, their family life became increasingly difficult. But by then, Xia Xiaolan was earning an annual salary as a middle-upper-level manager. Her salary plus year-end bonus totaled several hundred thousand yuan annually. Around 2010, before nationwide property prices soared, Yueyang’s average housing price fluctuated around 3,000 yuan per square meter. Xia Xiaolan bought two apartments in Yueyang for her aunt at once, spending about a year’s income… Yes, by then she had been out of university for 14 years and had initially established herself in the big city. Two years later, her career, built on solid foundations, shot up like a rocket. Her annual income wasn’t just salary and bonuses anymore but included company dividends, fully entering the executive ranks.

When she spent money buying those houses, her uncle’s expression was unforgettable – Xia Xiaolan still remembered it clearly.

He never expected the orphan girl they had raised for ten years would turn out far more successful than their own two children!

She had repaid their kindness for raising her. Having already achieved her revenge in her previous life, was this rebirth just to save “Xia Xiaolan’s” terrible life?

Xia Xiaolan’s mind was in chaos. When she found the staff apartment building of the Yueyang Liquor Factory following her memories, she straightened her clothes. She had already fabricated an identity as a distant relative of the Xia family.

“Sister, excuse me, does Feng Damin live in Building Seven?”

Feng Damin was her uncle’s name.

The person asked showing a confused expression. “Feng Damin?”

“Yes, do you know him? His wife is called Zeng Li, she also works at the Yueyang Liquor Factory. I’m their relative.”

Feng Damin and Zeng Li?

The middle-aged woman Xia Xiaolan had stopped and looked bewildered. “I don’t know these two people. Are you sure you have the right place?”

“Could you help me look inside?”

Perhaps moved by the anxious expression on Xia Xiaolan’s face, and people were generally more helpful back then, plus Xia Xiaolan had switched back to her Yueyang accent, the woman wasn’t very guarded and took her to Building Seven.

This was the building!

Xia Xiaolan knocked on the door from her memory, and an elderly woman with silver hair opened it:

“Who are you looking for?”

Xia Xiaolan didn’t recognize this person, and her heart sank. “Auntie, I’m looking for Feng Damin…”

The elderly woman and middle-aged woman exchanged glances – neither knew Feng Damin.

No one knew Feng Damin or Zeng Li.

Her aunt’s entire family had vanished into thin air, let alone the six-year-old orphan “Xia Xiaolan” who had lived with them.

Xia Xiaolan left the Yueyang Liquor Factory in a daze.

To verify “Feng Damin” and “Zeng Li’s” existence, she even involved the police station and went to great lengths to have the factory check their records. There was a Zeng Li at the Yueyang Liquor Factory, but she was only in her early twenties, barely two years older than Xia Xiaolan – how could she be the aunt from her previous life?

Her aunt and uncle weren’t among the factory workers.

The “Xia Xiaolan” she wanted to find was even more impossible to locate.

“Comrade, are you alright?”

Even the police officers who had accompanied her felt sympathetic. Xia Xiaolan was so beautiful – seeing such a beautiful person in distress, ordinary people couldn’t help but offer words of comfort.

Without her aunt’s family, without traces of her early-deceased birth parents’ lives, Xia Xiaolan knew she had completely parted ways with her previous life – though mentally prepared, the sense of loss and bewilderment was still overwhelming.

“I’m fine…”

The police officer looked at her – you say you’re fine, but what about those tears on your face?

She had come looking for relatives but found no one, so the police had to escort her to a guesthouse.

Xia Xiaolan lay on the bed in a daze, thinking she wouldn’t be able to sleep, but she did. She had many dreams, with memories from her previous life flashing by. In her dreams, she couldn’t distinguish which “Xia Xiaolan” she was.

The Xia Xiaolan from Dahe Village?

The Xia Xiaolan from Yueyang?

Like Zhuangzi’s butterfly dream, awakening from a great dream, she couldn’t find her past experiences, seemingly only able to grasp her current life.

When she woke in the morning, as if to prove her current self was real, she desperately wanted to talk to someone. Because the police had brought her there, the guesthouse staff agreed to let her use the phone. The long-distance call went through multiple transfers, and after a full hour of waiting, she finally heard Zhou Cheng’s voice through the receiver:

“Xiaolan?!”

Zhou Cheng was both anxious and angry. Yesterday, Bai Zhiyong’s sister had called his work unit, and Bai Zhiyong had come to see him, telling him about the Yangcheng thug “Ke Yixiong.” Zhou Cheng was also worried about Xia Xiaolan’s safety. Knowing she had boarded the train back to Shangdu, he assumed she would contact him after getting home – by timing, she should have reached Shangdu yesterday, but there had been no news.

Had she made it home safely?

He had Little Guang’s relative, who had helped before, send someone to check Grandmother Yu’s house.

Xia Xiaolan hadn’t returned to Shangdu at all!

Zhou Cheng’s mind went blank at that moment.