Chapter 57

There was a girl—the same girl she saw every day, both familiar and unfamiliar.

It was herself, or rather, the original Zhong Ning.

Only much younger, around fifteen or sixteen years old. Her features were still youthful and tender, but her expression carried a hint of gloom, as if dark clouds from the sky had descended and settled over her face.

There was the sound of crying coming from inside the villa.

For some reason, Zhong Ning had a foreboding feeling. Her gaze followed the original body as it entered the villa, passing by servants with lowered heads, stepping on a light-colored carpet. The bright lights cast down on her face.

Her complexion was as pale as paper, completely devoid of blood.

In the next instant, Zhong Ning seemed to be pulled in, shifting from a god’s-eye view to a first-person perspective, yet she clearly knew she wasn’t the original.

She felt like a consciousness trapped inside this body, watching as the younger Zhong Ning climbed the stairs and arrived at a bedroom door.

The door was slightly ajar, and the crying was coming from inside.

She knocked on the door. The crying stopped abruptly. After a while, the door opened, and a woman appeared behind it, her eyes red and swollen but with no tears on her face. She spoke softly, “It’s Little Ning. Do you need something from Mom?”

Zhong Ning was slightly stunned and stared closely at the woman before her through the original’s eyes.

Their eyes looked very similar, but the woman’s gently curved willow-leaf eyebrows softened her features significantly, making her appear gentle, like a pool of clear spring water.

Only, the redness around her eyes and her weariness made her look like a wilting flower on the verge of collapse.

“Mom…” Zhong Ning heard the body speak, felt the hesitation and heaviness in her heart, and couldn’t help but feel a bit sad herself.

The woman pulled her into her arms, gently stroking her hair. “Don’t be sad. It’s alright. Little Ning must live well in the future, okay?”

The scene shifted.

The woman lay in a bathtub, blood flowing from the wounds on her wrist, blooming into the water like drifting red silk.

A solemn funeral, grief-stricken guests—everything flashed by like a spinning lantern show, until Zhong Ning, her mother, brought back a pair of mother and daughter.

The seemingly considerate girl smiled gently and said, “I’ll get along well with my little sister.” Then she leaned in and whispered coldly in her ear, “I’ll take everything you want, because I deserve it. And you, you’ll be thrown out like a stray dog, sister.”

She was Zhong Zinuan.

A furious emotion spread through the original body’s chest, as if an entire volcano on the verge of eruption had been stuffed into her heart. The hatred and disgust were so intense that Zhong Ning could hardly breathe. In her vision, there was only Zhong Zinuan’s smug gaze and mocking smile.

Zhong Ning saw herself suddenly charge forward.

In the next second, she sat up, gasping for breath as if drowning. The extreme sensations seemed to linger in her heart. She kept recalling that rainy night, the solemn funeral, and the tired yet gentle look in the woman’s eyes.

What lingered in her mind last was Zhong Zinuan’s smug and mocking gaze.

So sensitive—she suddenly felt like an expert at reading people’s expressions, able to interpret every glance and every hidden undertone in words with ease.

After a while, she realized that these weren’t her own thoughts. They were the original body’s emotions, lingering and being conveyed to her.

When a person’s perception of emotions became too sharp, even a passing breeze could become a storm—easily breaking her roots and making her suffer endless torment from the outside world.

What a harsh and tragic thing that must be.

That dream… was it a memory of the original?

Because it was so vivid, even after waking, it had not faded in the slightest.

The original’s mother had died by suicide, on the twenty-fourth kf February.

Her heart skipped a beat. She searched the date of last year’s Lantern Festival—it had fallen exactly on February twenty-fourth. That was the unfinished sentence from Fu Nanshuang, and also the reason why the original had gotten drunk that day.

It was her mother’s death anniversary.

Zhong Ning sat on the bed as tears suddenly welled up and poured from her eyes, dropping one by one onto the quilt.

The part of her nature that longed to save those in suffering resonated deeply with the pain in the memory at that moment, making it impossible for her to control her emotions or to stop.

Tears gushed out as if they were free, and before long, her eyelids were swollen, like two walnuts.

When she wiped her tears again with a tissue, her skin stung—only then did Zhong Ning realize she had been immersed in her sorrow for too long.

The room was dimly lit. She picked up her phone and saw that it was already past ten.

Zhong Ning took a deep breath, trying hard to steady her breathing. At that moment, hunger struck her. Crying had drained her physically, and she hadn’t eaten breakfast. The intense emotional upheaval was rapidly depleting the nutrients stored from the night before.

Pulling herself out from under the covers, she went to the bathroom and looked into the mirror, muttering, “…This is a disaster.”

The person in the mirror had disheveled hair like a bird’s nest, pale lips, a weary expression, and, most importantly, those two swollen red eyes—it looked like a mosquito had taken several bites all over them, squishing her eyes into thin slits.

Her mood was still gloomy, sluggish, and lacking energy.

The original body’s memories could almost be described as a form of pollution. The sorrow and anger contained within were like a hailstorm that swept across her mind’s sunny, candy-colored cottage, smashing down the flowers, breaking the tiles, and leaving behind a wrecked mess.

After all, these memories belonged to someone else, and those emotions would eventually fade. They would only linger in Zhong Ning’s heart for a while.

It was fortunate that she still had enough joyful days ahead to rebuild that sweet little memory cottage—to restore it, maybe even make it better than before.

But for now, she couldn’t yet shake off the entanglement.

Zhong Ning walked out of the room listlessly. The chef quickly cooked a few pumpkin pancakes. The soy milk was warm, and a portion of spaghetti with tomato meat sauce was also served.

These were all quick and easy dishes to prepare, but the taste was definitely not lacking.

She wasn’t used to using a fork, so she used chopsticks to lift the noodles into her mouth. Every strand was evenly coated in the rich tomato sauce and tender minced meat, steaming hot and fragrant, greatly soothing Zhong Ning’s wounded heart.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep