In my previous life, every attempt my family made at starting a business ended in failure.
My father drowned himself in alcohol; my mother was addicted to gambling. I was still a child, yet I was already responsible for putting food on the table for three people.
One day, my father took the last fifty yuan we had and brought me to a lottery shop. For once, he asked me,
"Xiao Ruan, which ticket do you think I should buy?"
I pointed to one at random—never expecting it to win the grand prize.
From that moment on, my father took me with him to buy lottery tickets again and again. Bit by bit, our family accumulated a considerable fortune. My father started a company, and my mother became pregnant with my younger brother.
But later, when they discovered that I was not their biological daughter, they still refused to let me leave.
Instead, they locked me in the basement and allowed their own children to torment me at will.
Eventually, my biological parents came looking for me. To my shock, my adoptive father suddenly agreed to let them take me away. I thought I was stepping into a new life—never realizing I was falling into yet another hell.
I tried to escape.
They broke my legs and sold me to an old man in the village as a bride.
When the old man died, they sold me again—this time to loan sharks, in exchange for money.
Only after I was tortured to death did I finally understand the truth.
My adoptive father sent me away because he knew I had lost my power of foresight.
The decision to break my legs and sell me to that old man was driven by the so-called "true daughter," who envied the life I had lived in her place and bribed them to do it.
Even the idea of selling me to loan sharks came from my beloved younger brother—so that I would never return to compete with him for the family inheritance.
Each of them was more vicious than the last.
Without me, would the Lu parents—who did nothing but squander their wealth—have been able to amass two hundred million in assets?
Without me, would Lu Zhe have been born safely, let alone admitted to the country's top finance program?
Overwhelming regret swallowed me whole.
When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to the year I was eight years old.