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Later, the company Shirley and I built grew increasingly successful.
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Hardy didn’t die. He was severely injured but survived after emergency treatment. It was fitting that someone should live to pay for the sins committed by the Brook Group.
Elva went to prison. She wrote to me from there, saying that if she ever had the chance to get out, she wanted to return to the orphanage as a volunteer caring for the children. She said she hoped to spend the rest of her life atoning for what she’d done to me. At the end of her letters, she called me “sister.”
I had mixed emotions, and put those letters away.
Many children from the orphanage gathered around me: “Sister Christine, what are you looking at?”
I shook my head: “Nothing.”
Today, Shirley and I visited the orphanage and met with the director. We would establish a charitable foundation in our company’s name to help children who weren’t adopted, as well as provide ongoing support for those who were adopted but faced difficulties afterward. The sunlight was brilliant, the weather perfect. We had finally stepped into the future we’d been waiting for.
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Extra Chapter: Shirley
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She had always seen herself as friendless. In this school, the pretty ones hung out with the pretty ones, and the rich with the rich. Shirley was neither pretty nor rich, and her personality was particularly odd. She knew nobody would like someone like her, so she always existed quietly in the background.
Until a certain little girl kept seeking her out:
“Shirley, why do you wear long sleeves in this hot weather?”
you
“Shirley, you clearly have talent for dancing, so why didn’t join the performance when the dance teacher asked you to?”
So annoying. Not one of these questions could she answer. Shirley could only maintain her silence.
The little girl interpreted her silence as coldness and slunk away, only to return a few hours later:
“Shirley, can you explain conic sections to me? I’ll treat you to spicy strips!”
Shirley: “…”
Actually, the little girl’s family situation wasn’t good either. Her father worked as a security guard at the school, and her mother was a cleaner–jobs that placed them only marginally above Shirley’s family in the social hierarchy. Not to mention that at least Shirley had her grandmother who loved her, while the little girl’s parents barely paid attention to her.
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But the little girl was different from Shirley; she was likable, everyone in class adored her, and rumor had it that a rich boy from the neighboring class was pursuing her intensely.
Occasionally, Shirley would feel a spark of curiosity: “That rich kid, Gu something, I heard he likes you?”
The little girl bit her pen while working on math problems: “I don’t want the love of a jerk like him.”
In truth, they didn’t interact much, but somehow the little girl seemed to have figured out Shirley’s family situation:
“Shirley, take this money.”
The little girl herself had to save for a long time just to afford study materials. Who knows where she had scraped this money from. Shirley refused. She was poor, but her pride was fierce:
“I haven’t done anything to deserve your money. I can’t take it.”
These were really the only few conversations they ever had. Shirley focused entirely on her studies, thinking that everything would be better once she got to university. Her grades were excellent, and she had a good chance of getting into Tsinghua or Peking University, or at least a top–tier school even if she underperformed. Then she could earn money, buy medicine for her grandmother, and even visit the little girl to be friends with her.
But one month before the gaokao, the all–important college
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entrance exam that would determine her future, her father returned home with one sentence:
“Your grandmother isn’t going to make it.”
Shirley felt ice in her bones. Her father, drunk, continued mumbling to himself:
“An incurable disease, just draining money endlessly.”
“The doctor said surgery only had a thirty percent chance of success, so I said forget it.”
“Taking her home would just cost more money, so I left her in the hospital corridor.”
“That old hag, nothing but a burden…”
Shirley’s ears buzzed with noise. She gathered the last bit of money from her backpack–what she had been saving for her college tuition. She rushed toward the hospital to save her grandmother, but her father grabbed her:
“You little brat, so you’ve been hiding money?”
“When your father was being chased and beaten by debt collectors yesterday, why didn’t you bring it out then?”
Shirley struggled desperately. But she was too thin, her arms. and legs as slender as bean sprouts, flailing without strength. Her father snatched her money, then gave her the worst beating of her life:
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“You f***ing little brat, I gave you life, your very existence belongs to me.”
“Even if I beat you to death today, you’d deserve it.”
Shirley lost consciousness. When she woke up, her father had already taken the money and gone out drinking. She rushed to the hospital like a madwoman. The familiar doctor shook his head at her regretfully.
Her grandmother had passed away.
“What happened to your right arm?” the doctor noticed Shirley’s.
arm.
Shirley looked at her arm, which was bent at a very strange angle. Even a layperson could tell it was broken.
She declined the doctor’s offer to get an X–ray and stumbled home alone.
On the way, a girl stopped her. The girl wore gold–rimmed glasses and a white shirt, looking very proper and about the same age as her:
“Would you like to start over?”
The girl seemed to be saying something, but Shirley couldn’t hear clearly. Finally, the girl handed her a piece of paper with string of numbers:
a
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“If you want to start over, write your name, birthday, and address in a text message and send it to this number.”
“I can give you another chance.”
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Shirley sat on the rooftop, thinking about the girl’s words.
Start over.
What difference would starting over make? In this life, she had already tried so hard, so very hard. How could starting over make anything better?
–
Better to give the chance to someone who needed it.
So Shirley took out her phone. As class monitor, she had everyone’s information in the class roster. She found the little girl’s information. Apparently, because she refused to date that rich boy, the little girl had been confined by her parents and beaten severely. She was pitiful.
Let her start over. She had such strength–given the chance to start over, she would surely live a better life.
Shirley picked up her phone. With her right hand broken, she clumsily typed out the little girl’s information with her left hand.
Message sent successfully.
Shirley breathed a sigh of relief with overwhelming despair and
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a small blessing.
She jumped.
Then darkness.
Shirley woke up.
She remembered jumping off the building, but she woke up in bed. Many chaotic shadows lingered in her mind, unclear whether they were dreams or real experiences that had been forgollen.
It probably wasn’t real. After all, an ordinary person like her wouldn’t get the chance to be reborn like those novel protagonists. So, it must have been a dream.
The alarm rang, and Shirley got up to go to school.
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Something big happened at school today: Christine transferred to their class. Shirley vaguely remembered dreaming about this scenario. In the dream, this Christine was bullied in the bathroom, and she had stepped forward to offer her a towel, advising her to expose the bullies. But Christine had pushed her hand away:
“Expose them? That’s my brother!”
So this time, Shirley didn’t plan to interfere. She just handed her a towel and turned to leave.
But to her surprise, Christine called after her:
chapter9 “Shirley!”
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Shirley’s footsteps came to a halt.In that moment, she felt like she’d heard this voice many times in her dreams. Christine seemed to be a genuinely kind person. She invited Shirley to meals and asked Shirley to be her tutor. After two lessons, Shirley discovered that the young lady understood conic sections better than she did. Christine was clearly finding excuses to give her money while simultaneously protecting Shirley’s fragile pride. Shirley had never cried in her life, but at that moment, she felt a lump in her throat.
Thanks to Christine, Shirley not only had enough for living expenses but also managed to save quite a bit. She found a good hospital for her grandmother’s surgery, which was successful. As for her father, he mysteriously ended up in the hospital. Shirley probed Christine to see if she had anything to do with it. Christine played dumb throughout the conversation, but the smile tugging at her lips was hard to hide. Shirley was speechless–she might be quiet, but she wasn’t stupid.
Later, after Shirley’s father was discharged, he got into trouble with new creditors. His previously fractured bones were broken again, with bone fragments piercing his heart. They said there was still a chance to save him when he was found, but Shirley voluntarily signed the papers, indicating the family’s decision to withdraw treatment. She scattered her father’s ashes in a sewage ditch and hired a caretaker for her grandmother. With these two matters resolved, she fulfilled her dream of attending Tsinghua University.
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She had many things she wanted to do. For instance, when Christine mentioned wanting to start a business, Shirley hoped to become her partner.
Later, the contents of her dream gradually became clearer. Shirley remembered that Christine was the little girl from her previous life. In this life, she had indeed changed her fate. Shirley’s choice had been worthwhile.
Later, Shirley asked Christine, “In your previous life, was there anything that left a particularly deep impression on you?”
Christine looked puzzled. “Too many things. Which one are you referring to?”
Shirley said, “Not really one specific event. Actually, just a
scene.”
That day, under the not–yet–brightened sky, two girls in thin school uniforms were jogging in the early morning. They were the earliest risers in the school and also the hardest working. The long and barren adolescence felt like a winter night, with no end in sight. The short–haired, frail girl couldn’t run anymore and wanted to stop. So the other girl with long hair ran to her side, grabbed her hand, and pulled her toward the faint light ahead. The light grew brighter and brighter, about to illuminate the world.
“Will we really… both have bright futures?”
“Absolutely!”
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Now, Shirley and Christine stood hand in hand under the spotlight. Shirley thought it didn’t matter if Christine didn’t remember, because the promise had been fulfilled. They were truly standing in the future they had once longed for.
