Su Ya just wanted to live. She had sacrificed a lot just to stay alive, but she simply wanted to live.

She didn't want to die. She was only ten years old.

The stick struck her head, and Su Ya fell to the ground. Despite the pain, she continued to crawl forward.

She wanted to live.

Another blow came down, crushing her small skull.

————

Jiangcheng, March.

Winter lingered incessantly, and spring refused to come. Endless days of drizzle soaked into the bones, making it unbearable.

Lin Fan walked from the hospital to the pawnshop, drenched from head to toe. Removing her down jacket and hat, she pushed open the mahogany door and entered.

"Who are you looking for?"

"Is Mr. Jin here?" Lin Fan heard her own voice trembling weakly, gathering her courage, she called out again, "Is Mr. Jin here?"

"Oh, wait a moment."

Lin Fan stood in the empty hall, looking around. Soon, a man called Mr. Jin came out. He had the appearance of a shrewd businessman.

With a villainous look, he didn't seem like a good person.

"Is it you? What do you want?" Mr. Jin took the jade pendant she handed over and went behind the counter to examine it carefully. Lin Fan touched the kitchen knife in her bag, biting her lip.

"The jade is of poor quality and not worth much."

"How much can you offer then?"

Mr. Jin extended his hand.

"Five thousand?"

Mr. Jin nodded, and Lin Fan wiped the water off her face. The warmth from the heater made her cold legs ache even more.

"Give it back to me."

Mr. Jin didn't return the jade. "Think about it. There won't be a higher offer than mine."

His words were true, there really wouldn't be.

Lin Fan clenched her fists. "It's too low."

"Considering your circumstances, I'll add another thousand. If it's acceptable, I'll give you the money."

Lin Fan took a deep breath and raised a finger. "Ten thousand."

Mr. Jin sneered and dangled the jade in the air. "It's really not worth that much."

"Ten thousand!" Lin Fan exerted all her strength. It was her first time bargaining with someone. Her heart was pounding, and she took a step forward. "If you don't want it, give it back to me. I can sell it elsewhere."

Mr. Jin looked at her for a moment, then clicked his tongue and turned to his assistant. "Give her the money. Stubborn girl."

Lin Fan's heartbeat slowed slightly as she relaxed her fist.

The assistant handed Lin Fan ten thousand in cash. She counted it carefully, refusing the assistant's offer to use the money counter. Once she had counted it all, she stuffed it into her bag and turned to leave.

She hadn't brought an umbrella, and the rain outside was heavy. After standing in the rain for half an hour without catching a taxi, she walked to the bus stop. Fortunately, a bus bound for the city hospital arrived just as she approached, and she hurriedly got on.

The bus wasn't crowded, so Lin Fan found a seat by the window, clutching her bag to her chest and looking out the window.

Lin Fan had been unlucky from the start. Her mother had died shortly after giving birth to her. Raised by her grandmother, she lost her grandmother just before Chinese New Year. Her father brought her to Jiangcheng, but less than a month later, he went bankrupt and committed suicide by jumping off a building.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Her stepmother ran off with the money, and Lin Fan was evicted from the villa by creditors.

Lin Fan scratched her head. She might be cursed, leaning against the window and gazing at the gloomy sky outside.

As more people boarded the bus, Lin Fan got up two stops early and tapped the black-clad girl at the exit, reminding her, "Your bag isn't zipped."

The girl immediately turned around and saw her open bag, quickly zipping it up. "Thank you."

Lin Fan hugged the pillar by the exit and looked down at her shoes, not responding to the girl's thanks. Two men began to push towards the exit, glaring menacingly at Lin Fan.

"We've reached Yucai Road. Passengers getting off, please be careful..."

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Lin Fan got off the bus, and the rain had stopped, leaving the air chilly.

Two men also got off the bus and looked around, approaching Lin Fan. Lin Fan reached into her bag for the kitchen knife, pulled down her down jacket hood, and quickly walked forward.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a girl in a pink down jacket suddenly rush towards the moving bus. Lin Fan paused and shouted loudly.

Turning around to run towards the scene of the accident, a woman riding an electric bike almost collided with her. "Are you trying to get yourself killed?"

The bus didn't seem to notice hitting the girl, and it continued on its way.

Gasping for breath by the flower bed, Lin Fan quickly took out her phone to call the police, but her hand paused. Where was the girl? Had Lin Fan imagined it? Had she been taken away on the truck?

Her backpack was pulled, and Lin Fan quickly turned around, snatching back her bag and creating distance from the person behind her. "What are you doing?"

The two men were the ones who stole the bag on the bus. One of them pulled out a dagger. "What are you saying? Give me the bag, or I'll stab you!"

Before the knife could touch Lin Fan's body, her wrist suddenly throbbed with intense pain, and her knees buckled onto the concrete ground. She screamed in agony, and Lin Fan released her grip. Holding onto her bag, she backed away, and before the other man could react, Lin Fan jumped off the flower bed and ran quickly to the sidewalk, disappearing in no time.

"What just happened?"

"I don't know."

Lin Fan ran for one stop, not finding the bus and not seeing any blood on the ground. Maybe she had just imagined it.

Arriving at the hospital at noon, she paid for her father's body. She and her father had limited contact, and their relationship wasn't very deep, so she wasn't overly saddened by his death.

Taking her father's body out of the morgue, the sight was unbearable, the body was in a terrible state, quite gruesome. It was somewhat sad. Lin Fan sighed and bowed, "I'll see you off."

She rode in the corpse van to the funeral home, where her father's body shared a compartment with her. It emitted a strange odor.

Lin Fan sighed, pressing her hands against her knees, feeling a void in her stomach. She was hungry. With an uncertain future, she didn't know what to do next.

The cremation process was long and cumbersome, very troublesome.

In the waiting hall, cries filled the air, with people kneeling and sitting, crying loudly. Lin Fan's head hurt from the noisy scene.

Her phone rang, and an unread text message lay on the screen.

"Apartment for rent at No. 6 Zhongming Garden, short or long term lease available, price negotiable."

What kind of advertisement was this?

Lin Fan was about to delete it when her hand paused. She saw the phone number below and inexplicably saved it.

A person sat down in the adjacent seat, and Lin Fan instinctively moved away.

The person kept staring at her, making Lin Fan uncomfortable. She looked up. It was a man in black clothes, and he seemed surprised when their eyes met. The man had very pale skin, exuding a cold aura. "Can you see me?"

He spoke.

"Shouldn't I be able to see you?"

The man frowned and asked again, "How can you see me?"

Lin Fan felt he might have a mental problem, so she looked away, hesitating whether to call the number. She urgently needed to find a place to live.

"What's your name? How did you die?"

Lin Fan turned her head to look, and she didn't know when there were a dozen or so people sitting in the hall, all dressed in black, and they all sat quietly with their heads bowed.

Lin Fan didn't say anything, her gaze falling on her fingers, lost in thought. Her family's house had been sold by her father, and she certainly couldn't go back. The high school she had applied to hadn't responded, and now her father had died, adding insult to injury.

"I'm Xu Wenliang, from Jiangcheng, thirty-one years old. I have a very beautiful fiancée, and I love her very much." The man's voice was gentle, his tone neither high nor low, quite pleasant, but he talked too much. "We were supposed to get married at the end of the month."

"Today is the 31st." Lin Fan interrupted him. "Why aren't you getting married?"

"I didn't think you looked very young? Where are your family? No one came to see you off?"

See off? See off where?

"I have no family."

"You look very clean. Did you die of illness?"

Lin Fan only now realized the smell and frowned unhappily. "I didn't die!"

Suddenly, the hall erupted into heart-wrenching cries, and Lin Fan was startled, looking up.

The body called out to be pushed into the cremation furnace, and a beautiful woman rushed over, as if trying to stop the funeral home staff. "Wenliang! How can you leave? Wenliang, don't leave!"

"I have to go." The man stood up.

Lin Fan's back suddenly felt cold.

Wenliang? Xu Wenliang?

The woman's hands knocked over a photo on the ground, showing a handsome man with an elegant temperament, smiling gently in the photo.

Lin Fan slowly turned her head, and the man in the photo was him. Lin Fan saw a large indentation on his head, with blood flowing out.

He walked towards the body.