A peasant girl travels through time with a hospital, rising to become an empress.

Hearing these words, Gu Xiao's heart suddenly stirred. Nie Qianqian was still young, yet she could understand this principle so clearly, while he himself had been betrayed by his own family and had experienced the ups and downs of life over the past few years before slowly seeing through this illusion.

Nie Qianqian is a person who lives life with great clarity.

He tightened his arms, holding her even closer, his chin resting on the top of her head, his tone filled with unwavering certainty: "No matter who you are, where you come from, or where you are going, I will always be by your side."

Nie Qianqian closed her eyes, her nose filled with his light scent, and her heart was filled with warmth.

The next day, Liu Yan woke up early, but her guilt was not diminished at all. She sat silently in the room without saying a word, and did not even step out of the door.

The first to knock on the door was Old Qiao. He came in carrying a steaming hot breakfast. Seeing Liu Yan's vacant and listless eyes, he pulled up a stool, crossed his legs, and sat down, getting straight to the point and offering words of comfort:

"Little Swallow, why are you so stubborn? If you talk things out, your mother-daughter relationship with Qianqian, the stability of this family, and everyone's feelings for Qianqian will not change in the slightest."

Liu Yan murmured, her voice full of melancholy: "But I always feel that if her biological parents could find her, she would definitely be living a better life than she is now, and she wouldn't have to suffer so much with me."

Old Qiao shook his head, his tone resolute: "You've gone astray. If you hadn't found her in the cave and brought her back, that child would have starved to death that very night. How could she have waited for her biological parents to come looking for her? Besides, it's unknown whether her biological parents have had an accident or will ever come looking for her again."

He pushed the breakfast towards Liu Yan and joked, "Take you and me for example, we're not related at all, but you still treat me like an elder. According to your logic, shouldn't I pack my bags and leave?"

"Mr. Qiao, that's not what I meant!" Liu Yan hurriedly shook her head, her tone becoming somewhat anxious.

Having spent so much time together, she had come to regard Old Qiao as a close relative and elder, and she took care of him willingly, never caring about blood ties.

"Isn't that settled?" Old Qiao slapped the table. "Blood ties can't feed you. The bond between mother and daughter is ordained by heaven, a connection from a past life. The fact that you found Qianqian means you were meant to be family. Why bother with such abstract things? Think about it: if Qianqian went to the provincial capital and never came back, or if something happened to her and you never saw her again, would you still care about these unimportant things?"

These words struck Liu Yan like a thunderbolt, instantly waking her up.

She had already experienced the pain of losing a daughter, and having raised Qianqian all these years, she had come to regard her as her own daughter. If she were to lose Qianqian as well, she would truly have no reason to live.

Old Qiao is right. Life is unpredictable. She should cherish her current relationship with Qianqian and the bond between mother and daughter, instead of creating trouble for herself here.

That night, she finally smiled for the first time and sincerely thanked Old Qiao: "Old Qiao, you are right and you understand everything. I will cherish every moment I spend with Qianqian and everyone else."

"Let's go out and have dinner together."

The topics at the dinner table were no different from usual. Everyone talked about Qiyue Tower's recent business and Gu Xiao's subsequent scientific expedition plans. No one mentioned the accident from last night.

Nie Qianqian genuinely didn't care, Liu Yan wanted to completely move on, while Liu Xiong and the others were afraid of being reminded of painful memories and dared not bring it up.

At first, Liu Xiong secretly observed the expressions of the mother and daughter. Seeing that they both looked normal and were not affected by what happened last night, he was completely relieved.

Last night seemed to be the night of uncovering a shocking secret, with Nie Qianqian's identity changing, but Liu Xiong felt that nothing had really changed.

Nie Qianqian is still that close niece, always smiling, with a cheerful and positive spirit.

He admired his niece's character from the bottom of his heart—what seemed like a huge upheaval to outsiders was just a small hurdle on her life's journey; once she overcame it, the road ahead would be smooth again.

After breakfast, Liu Yan and her group left Qinghe Village. Unbeknownst to them, later that evening, news spread throughout the village that both Old Lady Nie and Nie Erzhuang had passed away.

Old Mrs. Nie was old and had been unwell for the past six months, which everyone in the village knew. Her passing didn't cause much of a stir. However, the fact that Nie Erzhuang was found in an ice hole in the Qinghe River the next day truly terrified the entire village.

Everyone sighed with regret: ever since Nie Erzhuang divorced Liu Yan, the Nie family had been on a downward spiral. He drank heavily every day, became mentally unstable, and now he had fallen to his death from the ice.

Nie Erzhuang spent his days drinking heavily, his mind in a daze. Now, he has fallen into an ice hole and lost his life. Such an ending is truly lamentable.

What no one knows is that with Nie Erzhuang's passing, the secret that Nie Qianqian was not Liu Yan's biological daughter was completely buried in the dust, never to be mentioned again.

After the news spread, the villagers gossiped among themselves: "Liu Yan and Nie Qianqian are clearly lucky stars! When the Nie family kicked such lucky stars out, weren't they just inviting disaster upon themselves?"

"Previously, Nie Wenye was talented and could barely hold up the family. Now that I heard he has also left home for the provincial capital, the Nie family is completely ruined!"

A death has occurred in the village, and everyone is filled with fear.

Every household kept their doors tightly shut at night and did not go out. They repeatedly told the men and children in the family not to go to Qinghe, as Nie Erzhuang was a cautionary tale.

Big Mouth Juan kept nagging her husband, "Don't go out tonight! I know you used to be quite close to Nie Daqiang, but you absolutely must not associate with him anymore! His family has suffered a lot of bad luck, with some leaving, some dying, and others breaking up. We mustn't get involved with them!"

After hastily handling the funeral arrangements for Old Lady Nie and Nie Erzhuang, Nie Daqiang could no longer stay in the village.

The villagers looked at them with a mixture of pity, doubt, and a hint of disgust, treating them like plague gods.

Back then, the Nie family was the envy of everyone in the village, but now they've fallen into such a miserable state; on the other hand, the Liu family is thriving, and Nie Qianqian and Gu Xiao are outstanding individuals. The contrast between the two is all the more embarrassing.

Wherever Nie Daqiang went, he could feel people pointing and gossiping behind his back.

Liu Chunhua cried and made a scene at home all day, cursing Nie Erzhuang as a blind, unlucky bastard who had brought trouble to the whole family and even caused Nie Wenye to run away from home.

Nie Daqiang was already annoyed and fed up with the constant arguing, so he simply said to Liu Chunhua, "Let's go to the provincial capital to find Wenye!"

The two hit it off immediately and spent two days cleaning up all the valuables in the house, even digging out the old lady Nie's hidden stash of money.

The next day, before dawn, he quietly left Qinghe Village by the faint moonlight.

From then on, the Nie family no longer existed in Qinghe Village.