Chapter 2

Summer 2013. Chen Xi was sixteen, a high school sophomore.

At the beginning of that year, Chen Xi lost her parents. Her mother was a middle school teacher, and her father was a corporate employee. On the eve of the Spring Festival, while returning to Xiping, their car collided with a truck carrying ten tons of cargo at the highway exit. Both died instantly, and overnight, Chen Xi became an orphan.

Chen Xi’s only remaining relative, her mother’s younger brother, hurriedly arranged the funeral for the couple and took Chen Xi home, assuming the responsibility of caring for her. Her aunt quarreled with her uncle many times over this, even threatening divorce at one point. Living under someone else’s roof, Chen Xi found her situation incredibly awkward.

One weekend, while Chen Xi was at home helping her aunt look after her young cousin, her uncle suddenly called to say he had forgotten a file at home. Her aunt, who was in the middle of a beauty treatment—lying on a salon bed with a face mask on—flicked a