S City. A night of rain.
The storm came down in sheets, ruthless and unrelenting, as if the heavens had decided to empty themselves all at once. The streets were almost deserted; only a few hurried silhouettes moved through the downpour, heads bowed beneath umbrellas that trembled in the wind, footsteps swallowed by the roar of water on asphalt. Shopfronts that usually glittered with neon had long since gone dark. Metal shutters were drawn, lights extinguished, doors locked—every merchant eager to retreat into warmth and safety while the city drowned outside.
No one noticed the movement at the far corner of the street.
There, where a gutter overflowed and rainwater surged in dirty rivulets, an alley yawned like a wound cut into the city's flesh—narrow, unlit, and steeped in shadow. In such a night, even the faintest stirring within that darkness looked ominous, like something unclean shifting beneath the surface. A few figures hovered in the gloom, indistinct shapes against the black walls, their presence turning the alley into a place that seemed to belong to another world.
At the base of one wall, a girl sat collapsed on the wet ground.
She was drenched through, soaked so completely that her clothes clung to her skin like a second layer of misery. Rain streamed down her hair and along her cheeks, mingling with blood that had already dried in places and freshly opened again in others. Her body was a map of bruises and cuts, the kind that spoke not of a single blow but of repeated cruelty. She leaned back against the wall for support, yet even that small posture suggested exhaustion so profound it bordered on surrender—as if she no longer possessed the strength to lift her head, let alone stand.
But she did lift it.
In her eyes, pain burned into something sharper—into indignation, into fury, into a grief that refused to be quiet. Her voice, hoarse and trembling, carried an accusation like a blade.
"Xiaonan," she demanded, the anger in her words barely masking the hurt beneath, "weren't we sisters? Didn't you call me your sister? Then why… why did you poison me?"
The girl standing before her did not flinch.
Unlike the one slumped against the wall, she looked untouched by the storm. She wore a tailored blouse of an expensive brand, the fabric pristine, the cut elegant, as if she had stepped out of a glossy advertisement rather than into a filthy alley. Even the umbrella she held—angled just so—was unmistakably luxurious, its logo discreet but commanding. Rain struck the canopy and rolled away in neat pearls, never reaching her hair, never staining her collar, never disturbing the flawless composure of her face.
That face, however, held no sympathy.
It was full of contempt—cold, refined, practiced. She looked down at the injured girl as if she were regarding something unpleasant at the bottom of her shoe.
"Sisters?" she repeated, lips curling into a smile that held nothing but scorn. "Who ever said I was your sister?"
Her words fell like stones.
Then, as if she had been waiting years for the chance to say them aloud, she continued—each sentence a deliberate strike, each syllable sharpened with malice.
"Take a good look at yourself. Your face is ruined—disfigured. You barely look human anymore; you're neither one thing nor the other, not quite alive, not quite dead. Your studies are finished, your future is gone. All you do now is drink, brawl, and disgrace yourself like some worthless street stray. You're a complete wreck."
She paused, letting the rain fill the silence, letting the humiliation seep into the other girl's bones.
"And now?" she went on, voice sweet in the way poison is sweet before it kills. "The Mu family doesn't want you. Your fiancé doesn't want you. You've become something no one can bear to claim. Tell me—what value does a person like you still have? What is the point of you existing at all?"
Mu Qingyue's pupils constricted.
For a moment, the world narrowed to that alley, to the rain, to the disdainful face hovering above her. She raised her head slowly, as if the motion itself required courage. Her expression was stunned, hollowed out by disbelief, as though some final thread of hope had snapped inside her.
"So… that's it," she whispered, voice breaking. "All this time… you hated me."
Mu Xiaonan laughed.
It was not a warm laugh, not even a spontaneous one—it was the kind of laughter that sounded practiced, rehearsed in private mirrors, perfected until it could slice another person open. She bent forward, lowering herself until her lips were close to Mu Qingyue's ear. Under the cover of the pounding rain, she spoke in a voice that was almost intimate, almost tender—yet every word was an act of cruelty.
"Since you're already finished," she murmured, "I might as well tell you the truth."
Mu Qingyue went still, breath held.
Mu Xiaonan's smile widened, triumphant.
"Back then, I deliberately took the keepsake your real mother left behind," she said softly. "I used it to steal your identity. I walked into the Mu family pretending to be their lost daughter, and I became the young lady of the household—pampered, admired, adored."
Her tone carried a faint thrill, as if she were savoring each confession.
"And later," she continued, voice dropping even lower, "it was I who seduced Qin Ziqiao. I pursued him on purpose, step by step, until he chose me. Until he broke off his engagement to you."
Mu Qingyue froze.
For an instant, she could not even comprehend the words—could not shape them into meaning. Then, as understanding crashed over her, her heart seemed to seize, like a hand had closed around it and squeezed until it could barely beat.
Pain—raw and overwhelming—flooded her chest.
The rain slapped her face, cold and relentless, but it did nothing to dull the burning agony of her wounds. If anything, the icy water made everything worse, stinging open cuts, forcing bruised flesh to throb. It felt as though the sky itself had turned into a whip, lashing her again and again until every inch of her was flayed, skin splitting, blood mixing with rain.
Yet the physical pain was nothing compared to what was happening inside her.
Because Mu Qingyue and Mu Xiaonan—no, more accurately, Yin Xiaonan before she changed her surname—had once been something real to each other.
They had grown up in the same remote village, two girls tossed aside by fate. Neither had parents. Neither had a home of her own. They were the kind of children people pitied, the kind whose lives could so easily vanish without leaving a trace. Kind-hearted villagers had taken them in, fed them, given them a roof and a little education, but sympathy could never replace belonging. Their shared misfortune had drawn them together, and in that barren childhood, they had clung to each other like two seedlings growing in the same crack of earth.
They had been friends.
Not casual friends, not acquaintances who exchanged smiles, but companions who shared secrets, who shared hunger, who shared the simplest dreams—dreams that consisted of nothing more extravagant than a warm bed, a full meal, and someone who would not abandon them.
Then, one day, everything changed.
Yin Xiaonan had borrowed the jade pendant Mu Qingyue always wore—the only relic left to her by the mother she could barely remember, a token she treated as both talisman and proof that she had once been loved. Xiaonan had begged to wear it "just for fun," the way children do, and Mu Qingyue, trusting her, had handed it over without hesitation.
It was such a small act.
And it destroyed her life.
Because the Mu family—wealthy, powerful, desperate—had been searching for their missing daughter, and that pendant was the identifying keepsake tied to the child they had lost. When they saw Xiaonan wearing it, they did not question. They did not investigate carefully enough. They saw only what they wanted to see: the sign, the proof, the return of blood to their bloodline.
So they took the wrong girl.
In a single day, Yin Xiaonan was lifted out of poverty like someone plucked from mud and placed upon silk. She left the village behind, rode in a car she had never seen before, and entered a mansion where chandeliers glittered like captured stars. She went from being a discarded rural orphan to a celebrated heiress—Mu Xiaonan, the "lost" young lady brought home at last.
And Mu Qingyue—who had handed over her pendant with the innocence of trust—was left behind.
Seven years passed before the Mu family finally discovered the truth.
Seven years of Xiaonan living as someone else, laughing at banquets, studying in elite schools, wearing dresses that cost more than a village house. Seven years of Qingyue remaining in obscurity, unaware that the life meant for her had been stolen, unaware that her only connection to her mother's past had been weaponized against her.
When the Mu family realized they had taken the wrong child, they brought the real one back at last.
But by then, the damage was already done.
Mu Qingyue returned to the Mu household not as a cherished daughter but as an unwelcome disruption. She was the true bloodline, yes, but she was also a stranger—rough around the edges from her upbringing, unpolished in manners, unfamiliar with high society. The family, who had spent seven years doting on Xiaonan, did not know how to simply discard the girl they had grown to love, even if that love had been built on a lie.
And Xiaonan, skilled in sweetness, skilled in tears and timid smiles, played her role perfectly.
To Qingyue's face, she remained the affectionate "sister," warm and gentle, calling her by endearments, insisting they could be close. Behind her back, she guided every misstep. A careless word here, a social blunder there. A little provocation, a little framing, a little humiliation arranged so subtly that no one could point to it directly—yet the results always landed on Qingyue.
The Mu family's irritation grew.
They began to look at their real daughter with disappointment. With embarrassment. With distaste.
And the cruelest truth of all was this: in that house, the biological daughter's place was lower than that of the imposter.
Qingyue had swallowed that bitterness for so long it had become a constant ache—an old bruise that never healed. She hated it. She hated the way Xiaonan could act pure as white lotus petals while her roots were tangled in mud. She hated the way the family praised Xiaonan's elegance while condemning Qingyue's awkwardness, as though poverty were a moral failing rather than an accident of birth.
And now, in this alley, with rain and blood and betrayal, the final mask had fallen.
Mu Xiaonan straightened, her umbrella still perfectly angled, her posture still regal. She looked at Qingyue as if she were already dead.
Then she turned and walked toward the mouth of the alley, high heels clicking against wet ground with arrogant precision. Without even looking back, she issued a command to a cluster of men sheltering beneath a nearby overhang, waiting out the storm.
"You can begin," she said coolly. "Do what you came to do."
The men stirred at once, eager as dogs released from a leash.
They hurried into the alley, faces lit with vulgar excitement. Their laughter was ugly, their expressions obscene. One of them, hair dyed in garish colors like a parrot's plumage, craned his neck to peer at the girl on the ground.
"So this is the one Sister Nan told us to pick up?" he said with a grin.
Another snorted. "Her face is messed up. Damn, she's ugly."
A third waved a hand dismissively, as though speaking of an object rather than a person. "Ugly or not, doesn't matter. If she can still be used, she can still be used."
They closed in, the rain drowning out the sound of their boots, their breath thick with alcohol and cruelty.
"Come on," someone said, voice gleeful. "Let's take her back and have some fun."
The man with the dyed hair bent down, reaching for Mu Qingyue, fingers stretching toward her arm like claws.
In that instant, something in her snapped awake.
Perhaps it was instinct. Perhaps it was the last flare of a spirit that refused to be extinguished. Perhaps it was simply the body's refusal to die quietly. Whatever it was, Mu Qingyue surged with sudden strength. She twisted violently, wrenching herself free, and shoved at the nearest man with a force that surprised even her.
They stumbled.
She did not hesitate.
She scrambled up and ran.
She ran as if the entire world were chasing her, as if every breath might be her last. Rain hammered her back, wind tore at her hair, her injuries screamed with each movement. Blood spilled anew from reopened wounds, warm against her skin before the cold storm stole the heat away. Her vision blurred, partly from the rain, partly from dizziness, but she kept going—driven by terror, driven by rage, driven by the desperate urge to survive even if survival held no promise of comfort.
The city around her was a blur of darkness and water. Streetlights smeared into pale halos. The sound of the river grew louder as she stumbled toward it, as though some immense creature was breathing in the night.
S City's river was swollen from the storm, the current fierce and ceaseless. It rushed onward as if it had never learned the meaning of rest. When Mu Qingyue finally reached the riverbank, she doubled over, gasping, the taste of iron thick in her mouth. Her entire body shook, blood continuing to seep from cuts that the rain refused to let clot.
She lifted her head, staring at the black water churning below.
And in that moment, her mind—perhaps seeking refuge, perhaps preparing for the worst—flashed through the memories of more than twenty years, each one sharp as broken glass:
A childhood companion's hidden malice.
A biological father's cold indifference.
A stepmother's careful schemes, disguised as concern.
A fiancé's betrayal, wrapped in excuses and self-righteousness.
All of it spun through her like a storm within the storm, as relentless as the river, as unforgiving as the rain.