cold clothes

Indeed, she did travel extensively. She would spend a month in a new city, visiting its historical sites and experiencing its diverse customs and cultures. She rented cheap, simple rooms on the street; at night, the streets were brightly lit and bustling with people, and the distant skyscrapers stood tall and bright, like lighthouses on the seashore. Many times, she shed tears in the neon lights of the night, not because of sadness, but because she felt the world was vast and she was free.

She traveled while looking for work. With her qualifications, finding odd jobs was easy. She had a natural advantage in jobs that required her to be in the public eye, such as tour guide, salesperson, or waitress. She was even stopped on the street and asked if she was interested in being a cosplayer. This made her realize that her appearance should not be labeled as "mistress," "cheap," or "slutty." A girl's good looks are a gift from her parents, not something for others to gossip about.

She longed to return to that small mountain village where her family lived, but she hadn't yet been able to make up her mind to go back.

Until Mom got sick.

I don't know what this woman was thinking. She kept her breast cancer diagnosis a secret until it was in its late stages and she only had a few months left to live.

Leng Yi should have deeply resented her, but seeing her mother teetering on the edge of a cliff, it seemed that everything could be let go.

She vaguely remembered the feelings she had in the mud-brick house in the countryside when she was a child. She longed for her parents' return day and night. Whenever they came back, they would bring bags full of gifts. Their return meant a family reunion, and she was the family's darling, everyone trying to make her happy. But the last family reunion marked the permanent rupture of the family, and the culprit was this woman called "Mom." How much she resented her! She gave birth to her, yet destroyed the happy family she should have had. The child didn't understand poverty or wealth; she only felt that losing her family was like losing the whole world. She had always distanced herself from her mother, and her mother never said anything to her. Her mother only cared about what she wanted to eat, wear, and what toys and luxuries she liked. She could only provide her daughter with material things. She seemed indifferent to her own material enjoyment, always thinking of her daughter first. Now, she was even willing to risk her life—was it because her daughter had grown up and no longer needed her protection?

Thinking of this, Leng Yi suddenly felt sad. She may never understand her mother, and her mother may never understand her, but she loves her.

After her mother's death, Leng Yi immediately made a decision to her stepfather: she would give up inheriting all his property and change her surname back to "Leng," her original surname. Leng Yi was her original name; only by restoring this name could she truly be herself. Her stepfather readily agreed, though he probably didn't have much affection for his stepdaughter. Leng Yi mustered her courage and returned to her small mountain village, but before she could even dream of a family reunion, her grandparents had already passed away, and the entrance to their mud-brick house was covered in fallen leaves and dust. Her father was probably wandering in some big city, or perhaps he had already started a new family; she didn't care anymore.

Everything is gone forever; the mud-brick house has long since become a thick layer of dust in her memory. She should feel free, but her heart is empty, as empty as a kite with a broken string, having lost its starting point and its destination, as if a gust of wind could blow her away.

After graduating from university, she entered the workforce, becoming one of the many in the big city, dressed in business attire, carrying a briefcase, and hurrying about. Only after truly entering the workforce did she realize how easy it was to find part-time jobs in university. Before graduation, people treated you like a student; after graduation, you're an adult, and there's not so much care and tolerance among adults. Struggling in the harsh realities of society can completely change a person. In just a few years, she transformed from a self-conscious, unloved, withdrawn, and even somewhat naive girl into a capable, two-faced woman who was adept at faking smiles and ingratiating herself. Her boss praised her work skills but never gave her a raise; every month when she received her paycheck, Lengyi would curse her boss a thousand times in her mind. At the same time, she gradually understood her mother's obsession with money.

This city is brightly lit and bustling with various large shopping malls. You can buy whatever service you want. With the development of international logistics, you can fly all over the world, not just this city. Yesterday you were soaking in hot springs and eating tuna at the foot of Mount Fuji in Japan, and today you can fly to Iceland to see seals and the Northern Lights. Just think about where you want to go tomorrow—the world can completely open its arms to you, as long as you have money.

Money, it's all about money. Leng Yi had been rich before, a fortune her mother had acquired through moral and physical sacrifices. But when she had money, she never truly lived the life of a rich kid; most of her travel expenses came from part-time jobs. Back then, she genuinely never worried about money. She could have earned it herself, but with a large sum of money always under her belt, she had no worries. Cutting ties with her stepfather was easy; the real difficulty lay in life afterward. Going from luxury to frugality is hard. Only when you're truly penniless can you understand the true meaning of money. She used to discard designer bags worth tens of thousands of yuan like trash, but now she inevitably and painfully misses the luxuries that cost her half a year's salary.

Who doesn't like money? With money, you have freedom. Didn't she foolishly think that traveling everywhere meant freedom back in college? She thought she had escaped the shadow of her stepfather's family, but in reality, the shadow has always haunted her like a ghost because of that bank card with a huge amount of savings. Now she has truly escaped her stepfather's family, but she has lost her financial freedom. She finds it all ridiculous.

In the face of money, everyone can easily become something like a devil. Even Adam couldn't resist the temptation of the apple, let alone his descendants. She had seen many people whose faces were twisted by money, and gradually she felt that her mother wasn't so morally corrupt after all. And she needed a lot of money too; it's actually very easy for a beautiful and alluring girl to get money, and there were many disgusting snakes whispering sweet nothings in her ear, tempting her with the allure of the apple.

But she was numb and would never follow in her mother's footsteps, never! This was the only spiritual freedom she could hold onto. If she lost even this freedom, could she still be considered alive?

-

Leng Yi opened her eyes, but felt like she was still asleep.

She had just dreamt of her modern life, but upon waking, she realized it was just a dream.

But when she woke up and looked at the view above her, she couldn't tell if she was dreaming or not, because she should be locked in a dark dungeon where she shouldn't be able to see any light, nor the hanging curtains and the candles held on tall legs.

Did she time travel again? She was too badly injured in the dungeon and died, but as the protagonist, her story couldn't end so abruptly without any grandeur, so she was reborn.