"Why is Jiaojiao taking so long? Doesn't she want to see Mom?"
As Gu Jiaojiao stepped out of her room, a voice as melodious as a lark's song reached her ears.
"Please, just a moment. Jiaojiao said she'll be right out once she's changed," Su's mother said timidly.
"It's been quite a while, hasn't it~~"
"What do you mean, 'a while'? She was unconscious for two days and two nights! Her health is already poor, and she's too fussy to let us help her change. Who knows if she's fainted in there."
The Su family's youngest sister was a firecracker, ready to go off on anyone.
'This nearly drove Sheng Xinglian insane. Why was this country bumpkin helping that slut!'
"Mom... I'm here."
"Hmph!"
The middle-aged woman on the wooden sofa turned her head aside, refusing to look at Gu Jiaojiao.
Gu Jiaojiao...
'Actually, she was calling for Su's mother; she'd already called for her several times today.'
'If she had to face the original owner's adoptive mother, Gu Jiaojiao wasn't sure she could have brought herself to say the word.'
Her adoptive mother was dressed in a white, short-sleeved Dacron blouse with a small lapel, paired with black straight-leg trousers. She carried herself with an uncommon air.
She glanced at Gu Jiaojiao, then turned away with a huff, not deigning to respond. Her eyes held both resentment and pity.
Gu Jiaojiao felt a sharp pang in her chest. She knew it was a trace of the original owner's lingering resentment.
She silently soothed the feeling within her. 'It's perfectly normal for your adoptive mother to act this way. As they say, the deeper the love, the deeper the hate.'
'Your adoptive mother doted on you and loved you for eighteen years, while her own biological daughter suffered on a farm for ten.'
'It's natural for her to feel resentful. If she hadn't loved you so deeply, she wouldn't feel so much guilt toward her real daughter.'
'This is just human nature. If your adoptive mother still loved you as she always had, without any regard for her biological daughter's feelings...'
'...then *that* would be a person who can't tell right from wrong, someone unworthy of respect.'
'Since you've already passed on, you can move on and reincarnate in peace. I hope in your next life, you'll have someone to love and cherish you.'
'If you had continued to live, your sorrow would have only grown each day, and you would have met a miserable end anyway.'
After Gu Jiaojiao finished her silent monologue, the sharp pang vanished. In that same instant, she felt her body grow much lighter.
It was as if a chronic, deep-seated illness had vanished, never to return. A feeling of relief spread through her entire body; it had now completely fused with her soul.
'Gu Jiaojiao was so moved that tears welled in her eyes. 'From now on, this body truly belongs to me, Gu Jiaojiao.''
"Little sister~ Mom isn't really angry with you, so don't cry~" It was that same lark-like voice from before.
Gu Jiaojiao followed the voice with her eyes. 'Wow! So this is the female lead from the book.' She was wearing a white dress.
At first glance, it made her appear stunningly and exquisitely beautiful.
The white was pure and clean, with no complex or fussy details, relying solely on its classic, versatile appeal.
'A bow tied at the collar further enhanced her elegant and poised demeanor. Paired with matching sandals, she looked truly beautiful!'
'But her face was another story entirely. The white powder caked on it was just like the whitewash on the Su family's walls.'
'It was a thick layer, and if you looked closely, you could even see the individual grains, as if she were afraid people wouldn't know her family was wealthy.'
"Older sister, what are you saying? It's only right for Mom to be angry with me."
Gu Jiaojiao still called her "older sister" softly. The female lead had called her "little sister" first.
'If she didn't return the address, it would be improper. Gu Jiaojiao didn't want to stand out.'
Sheng Xinglian was speechless.
'Shouldn't Gu Jiaojiao have started crying even harder after hearing that?'
'In the past, whenever she said something like that, Gu Jiaojiao would burst into tears, wailing that her mother didn't love her anymore.'
'And then the Sheng family would come to despise her even more. Why was it different this time?!'
'Could it be that getting married makes a person smarter?'
'What she hadn't expected at all was that even after marrying a cripple, this slut could still be so beautiful.'
'On anyone else, a green dress like that would look unbearably tacky. But when she wore that earthy, plain green, she looked like a forest sprite who had strayed into the mortal realm.'
Seeing Gu Jiaojiao like this reminded Sheng Xinglian of some very unpleasant memories from her past life.
'In my past life, I'd gotten into university on July 9th, 1981. After enrolling at Qingcheng University, I had a chance encounter with my third brother.'
'He said I looked a lot like his mother. After a long process of identification and confirmation, it was the autumn of 1982 before I was finally acknowledged and returned to the Sheng Family.'
'By the time I returned to the Sheng Family, Gu Jiaojiao was already married to Song Zijin, the eldest son of Qing City's top magnate, the Song Family.'
'Only later did I learn that I was the one with the marriage contract to Song Zijin; I had just been switched at birth.'
'How could I possibly accept that? Although my father pitied me and even found me a decent, talented young man...'
'But what about *me*?!'
'I had grown up on a farm for as long as I could remember, belonging to one of the "black categories" that everyone looked down upon.'
'Even after returning to the Sheng Family, I, the true heiress, didn't dare to look people in the eye. I would always walk along the edges of the room, terrified of getting in someone's way.'
'Meanwhile, the fake heiress, Gu Jiaojiao, had a top-tier family backing her. The Sheng family's second and third brothers doted on her as if she were the apple of their eye.'
'My father and eldest brother were kind to me, but it was just pity and compensation. I, who was already insecure, only grew more so after returning to the Sheng Family.'
'I married an "outstanding" man, but he was only outstanding in the eyes of others, not an outstanding husband.'
'My in-laws looked down on me for growing up on a farm. They said I reeked of the countryside, was timid and provincial, and utterly unpresentable.'
'Their disdain was written all over their faces; they only bothered to put on a pleasant expression for me when my father and eldest brother were around.'
'And because of my own resentment, my married life was utter chaos.'
'But Gu Jiaojiao, who had married into a top-tier family, was all smiles every day, bursting with happiness.'
'She even sent me gifts from time to time. Was she trying to kill me with rage?'
'In comparison, Gu Jiaojiao was like a celestial goddess, while I was more like a piece of rat shit in the mud.'
'I lived every day as if it were a year, simmering with resentment, until at a young age, I was literally angered to death by my mother-in-law.'
'Since the heavens gave me a chance to start over, allowing me to be reborn in the winter of 1979, I engineered my return to the Sheng Family two years ahead of schedule.'
'That slut Gu Jiaojiao had been raised by the Sheng Family for eighteen years, and my father and eldest brother couldn't bear to send her away.'
'I already hated Gu Jiaojiao for usurping the eighteen years of wealth and privilege that should have been mine as the true heiress.'
'Having been reborn, I hadn't wanted to make things too difficult. It would have been enough if the slut had just quietly returned to the farm to suffer.'
'But the slut was completely oblivious and was still thick as thieves with Song Zijin. Well, in this life, that slut can forget about ever marrying Song Zijin.'
'Since Gu Jiaojiao was blocking my path into a wealthy family, she couldn't blame me for being ruthless.'
'How could a slut who had been pampered since birth have ever witnessed the treachery of the human heart? She was easily frightened into a panic by me.'
'That simple, love-struck eighteen-year-old, under my guidance, did many scandalous things.'
'It made those two idiots, the Sheng family's second and third brothers, completely despise her and dote on me even more. Haha!'
'Weren't those two moronic brothers the ones who treated Gu Jiaojiao like the apple of their eye in our last life?'
'And now, in this life, they can't stand the sight of that slut Gu Jiaojiao. I'm very satisfied with that part, at least.'
'The only miscalculation was my father and eldest brother—the two people who had been kindest to me in my past life.'
'After being reborn, I assumed Dad and Eldest Brother would still be very good to me, just like in my past life.'
'But Dad and Eldest Brother were no longer as good to me as they had been... '
The more she thought about it, the angrier Sheng Xinglian became. A ferocious expression twisted her features, though it vanished in an instant.
But Gu Jiaojiao, who had been watching the female lead the entire time, saw it—an expression that looked as if Sheng Xinglian wanted to eat her flesh and drink her blood.
'What the hell!'
'Didn't the book say the female lead was a kind and lovely little fairy?'
'What kind of fairy wants to drink someone's blood?'