Chapter 1: Chapter 1 Ah Li, Close Your Eyes Chapter 1: Chapter 1 Ah Li, Close Your Eyes Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation “Lai, close your eyes.”
Han Jifeng’s voice, gentle and soothing, echoed in her ears followed by a gunshot: “Bang—!”
Tang Li jolted awake from her dream.
She sat up in bed, her face pale as death, forehead slick with cold sweat.
Clutching her throbbing head, she looked up only to see her own reflection on the LCD TV screen.
Tang Li was momentarily dazed.
Then, she threw back the covers and got out of bed.
Standing in front of the mirror, Tang Li looked at herself.
Her delicate oval face, skin white as milk, eyebrows like ink, and her sea-blue, gray-tinged wavy mid-length hair made her wan features appear even softer. She showed none of the dishevelment from a kidnapping.
As for the headache—
She gently felt the gauze on her temple.
This wasn’t a gunshot wound.
Tang Li remembered that two years after returning to the Lai Family, when she was 19, this was how she looked.
…But she was clearly 26 years old.
Realizing a certain possibility, Tang Li quickly left the bathroom.
Standing in the bedroom, she surveyed her surroundings.
Her heartbeat quickened.
This was the Lai Family’s, not the Han Family’s.
Not the place where she had spent six lonely years in an empty room after marrying Han Jifeng.
Indeed, she had been reborn seven years in the past.
Scenes from right before her death flashed through her mind.
Her half-sister, Lai Shengxia, had been kidnapped. Han Jifeng had tricked her into going as a hostage exchange because she shared a strong resemblance to Lai Shengxia, telling the kidnappers that she was the eldest daughter of Lai Wenyan and Ouyang Qian of the Lai Family.
However, after she was taken hostage, Han Jifeng actually ordered the SWAT to fire.
When the bullet pierced her skull, what imprinted on her retina was Han Jifeng’s face, calm to the point of ruthlessness.
At that moment, she finally believed that Han Jifeng had absolutely no feelings for her.
Marrying her was nothing more than because she resembled Lai Shengxia.
—Because he couldn’t have the love he felt for Lai Shengxia.
So later, when he had enough power, when Lai Shengxia got divorced and returned to the country, she, the substitute, became the annoying mosquito blood on his heart.
Tang Li suddenly wanted to laugh, yet her eyes were hot with the sting of tears.
If she was allowed to return to the past, why couldn’t it be to the time when she and her mother depended on each other in Diannan?
That year, her mother hadn’t yet died of illness, and she hadn’t gone north to search for her father.
From outside the window, the vague sound of bustling voices brought Tang Li’s wandering thoughts back.
Memories flooded in like the tide.
Tang Li recalled that the injury on her forehead now was caused by a fall down the stairs after a quarrel with Lai Wenyan and Ouyang Qian’s younger daughter, Lai Yuaner.
She had fallen and cracked her head open; Lai Yuaner had broken an arm.
In the hospital, Lai Yuaner had cried non-stop.
Because of this, Lai Wenyan had locked her in her room for self-reflection when they got home.
“Knock knock—” The sound of knocking rose.
“Miss Lailai, the birthday banquet is about to begin. The councilman asked me to inform you to go downstairs.”
Aunt Wu, the Lai Family’s housekeeper, spoke these words as she unlocked the door with her key.
She pushed open the door and immediately saw the figure sitting in front of the dressing table.
Tang Li put the comb back in the drawer, turned her head, and smiled faintly, “Dad really isn’t grounding me anymore?”
Aunt Wu was slightly stunned, not expecting Tang Li to react this way. Ever since Tang Li returned to the Lai Family, she’d left an impression of being reticent, self-deprecating, and sensitive. When had she ever smiled so radiantly, especially after getting into a fight with the second young mistress?
The lapse was momentary.
Right after, Aunt Wu returned to her usual demeanor.
She placed the beige long dress on the bed: “This is the dress the mistress prepared for Miss Lailai. The mistress said to change into it and go to the backyard by yourself; she has to accompany the old lady in entertaining the female guests and will not send someone to urge you again.”
Looking at the long dress adorned with tiny diamonds, Tang Li’s lips curved in a smile; then she looked up at Aunt Wu, “Please thank Auntie for me, I’ll go down shortly.”
Once the door closed again, Tang Li stood and approached the bedside.
On the dress lay a delicate brooch.
As for the dress, it was a coming-of-age gift custom-made by Ouyang Qian for Lai Yuaner.
Lai Yuaner loved this dress and had only worn it once on her 18th birthday party because she treasured it so.
She had never attended Lai Yuaner’s coming-of-age ceremony, so she had never seen this dress.
Despite the years, Tang Li remembered clearly that it was this very birthday banquet that exposed her in front of everyone, affirming her identity as the Lai Family’s illegitimate daughter, and spreading her reputation as a vain and dishonest person.
Tang Li closed her eyes, suppressing the turbulent emotions within her chest.
She was no longer that naïve girl who was easily swayed and would trust others at the drop of a hat.
Having been given a second chance at life, some things, she would not allow to happen again!
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