My sister, whom I raised, has turned evil after faking her death for three years.

The morning sunlight of the holiday squeezed through the gaps in the curtains, drawing a thin golden line on the wooden floor.

Su Qing leaned against the kitchen counter, holding a half-full glass of lemonade in her hand, her eyes fixed on the countdown numbers on her phone screen.

There are five days left until the mission ends.

One hundred and twenty hours.

She placed the cup on the counter, watched the number tick for another minute, and then heard light footsteps behind her.

Jiang Ran peeked out of the bedroom, holding her phone. The screen showed a photo of the night view of Ancheng Ancient Town. Red lanterns hung on both sides of the bluestone road, and the river reflected the lanterns, like a newly painted watercolor painting.

The holiday coincided with Jiang Ran's newly received competition scholarship, and the little guy insisted on using the money to take his sister to Ancheng next door for two days.

Su Qing would certainly not object to this.

She now only regrets that she can't stretch a day into forty-eight hours. Five days, in five more days the contract will expire, and she can count the days she can spend with Xiao Ran on one hand.

So when Jiang Ran, her eyes sparkling, held up her phone and asked if she could go to the newly opened dessert shop in Ancheng together, she nodded without hesitation.

The two of them packed their things separately.

Jiang Ran was squatting in her wardrobe, stuffing things into her backpack.

Her change of clothes were neatly rolled into small rolls and stacked at the bottom, her toiletry bag was placed in the side pocket, and then her gaze fell on the clean, lop-eared rabbit on the bedside table.

The rabbit is quite old; the fur on its ears has turned a bit white from being held so much. There's a shallow crease on its round face, which was accidentally pressed down when it was being held and slept years ago.

She stared at the rabbit for a few seconds, picked it up, and gently placed it on top of her backpack.

Su Qing leaned against the bedroom door frame, looking at her, and said with a smile that she was so old and still brought a rabbit with her when she went out.

Jiang Ran didn't turn her head, zipped up her backpack, and simply said that her sister bought it for her. Her tone was very calm, as if she were stating an unchangeable fact.

The car I called is already parked downstairs.

Jiang Ran carefully put the camera into the side pocket of her backpack. It was a new camera she had just bought, and she was determined to take lots of pictures of her older sister on this trip.

  

She looked up, about to tell her sister that they could leave, when the doorbell suddenly rang.

Su Qing was changing her shoes in the entryway when she heard the doorbell and subconsciously glanced at the ride-hailing app on her phone. The driver was still waiting downstairs. Shouldn't he have called? Is there even a door-to-door reminder service?

She opened the door, and the person standing there was clearly not a Didi driver.

Jiang Ren, dressed in a dark shirt, stood outside the door with a complex expression on his face that Su Qing had never seen before.

He seemed to want to laugh but couldn't, wanted to say something but didn't know where to begin. All his composure and roguishness had vanished completely, leaving only an overwhelming tension.

He looked at Su Qing's casual and refreshing outfit, and then at Jiang Ran carrying a bag behind her, trying to make his voice sound normal: "Su Qing, are you guys planning to go out and have some fun?"

Su Qing tightened her grip on the doorknob slightly, then nodded.

In fact, she understood the moment Jiang Ren appeared at the door.

He must have found out, found out about Jiang Ran's background, found out that the child who was stolen fifteen years ago was standing right behind her.

Jiang Ran had just finished setting up her camera when she looked up and saw the person standing at the door. The smile on her face vanished instantly, as if someone had pulled down a cold iron gate in front of her.

She ignored Jiang Ren's hesitant expression, walked forward, gently took Su Qing's wrist, walked around him, turned around and locked the door, then reached out to straighten Su Qing's crooked sun hat.

Her sister wouldn't lie to her. If it wasn't her sister who called him, then something must have gone wrong on Wu Yue's side.

But she didn't want to worry about any of that right now; she just wanted to go to Ancheng with her sister.

Jiang Ran took Su Qing's hand and turned to go downstairs, but stopped in her tracks.

A few people were still standing at the end of the corridor.

Jiang Yi stood at the very edge, her face displaying an awkward expression of wanting to laugh but unable to. She twisted the hem of her clothes back and forth, and the way she looked at Jiang Ran was completely different from usual, as if she were meeting her for the first time.

Standing beside Jiang Yi were Jiang Mingyuan, Jiang Mingchuan, Shen Ruoyun, and Cui Ying, who was standing at the very front.

Cui Ying looked thinner than when I last saw her at the school gate.

She wore a plain-colored long dress, her hair was tied back with a simple hairpin, and the fine lines at the corners of her eyes were particularly deep under the corridor lights.

Her hands hung limply at her sides, her fingers trembling slightly, and her eyes, brimming with tears, turned red the instant she saw Jiang Ran.

It's not the kind of elegant, tearful crying seen in TV dramas, but rather a mother who, fifteen years after losing her child, sees the child she thought was long gone across a corridor, yet doesn't know how to speak, how to approach, or even if the child still wants to be approached.

She took two steps forward, then stopped, and then, as if summoning all the courage she had in her life, finally stood in front of Jiang Ran.

She raised her hand, the hand that trembled slightly from years of neurasthenia, and very gently and slowly reached towards Jiang Ran's cheek, her fingertips stopping only a few centimeters from her skin, as if touching something precious and fragile.

She wanted to touch her face, to see her features, to confirm that she was real, alive, and her daughter.

Jiang Ran simply took a step back, shielding her sister behind her, then raised her head and coldly looked at the woman in front of her with reddened eyes.

Her voice held no anger, no sadness, only an unadorned coldness and detachment: "What do you want?"

Cui Ying's hand, suspended in mid-air, froze, her fingers slowly curling up before drooping limply.

She looked at her own hands, then at Jiang Ran's face, which was completely different from her baby face but clearly her own flesh and blood, filled with rejection and wariness. The corner of her mouth twitched, as if she was trying to force a smile, but the curve shattered before it could take shape.

Jiang Ran's gaze shifted from her face, then swept over Jiang Mingyuan, Jiang Mingchuan, and finally landed on Jiang Yi's face.

Jiang Yi was stunned by her gaze, and took a half step forward subconsciously, but then stopped abruptly.

She didn't know what to say... She was only told by her parents this morning that Jiang Ran was actually her cousin.

Not good friends, not good sisters, but true cousins ​​by blood.

She's a month older than Jiang Ran, so she's technically her cousin.

But now, standing in front of this good friend she's known for so many years, with whom she's bickered and joked for so long, she finds herself unable to utter a single word.

The corridor was so quiet that only the low hum of the exhaust fan could be heard.

Jiang Ran looked at the silent people and said nothing more. She simply gripped Su Qing's hand tightly, preparing to lead her around them.

"Xiao Ran," Jiang Mingyuan finally spoke.

He looked at the girl in front of him, who had grown to his shoulder height and whose features were quite similar to his wife's when she was young, and his voice was hoarse as if it had been crushed on sandpaper.

He said he was her father, and the person next to him was her mother. They had been searching for her for fifteen years. He said they didn't abandon her; she had been stolen. He said they came today to take her home.

His voice trembled as he spoke the last few words.

He thought that if the child knew about her origins, knew that she wasn't abandoned but stolen, and knew that they had been searching for her for so many years... she would at least be a little moved.

But he saw no reaction on her face.

No surprises, no tears, no questions, no grievances, nothing at all.

She stood there as if they were talking about something that had nothing to do with her.

Jiang Ran really didn't want to pay any attention to them.

She didn't care who they were, how long they had been searching, or whether they came today to take her home or for something else.

All she knew was that she and her sister could have happily gone to Ancheng. They had already called a car, packed their bags, and she had even planned how many photos she would take for her sister under the big banyan tree in the ancient town.

Then these people showed up and messed everything up.

She didn't know why her sister had been looking at her with a different gaze lately, as if trying to etch her into her bones, but she knew that whatever it was, the time she spent with her sister was precious, every minute was important, and these people were wasting their time.

She took Su Qing's hand and prepared to leave, but Jiang Mingyuan added, "I've told that taxi driver downstairs to go first."

Jiang Ran finally stopped.

She turned to look at Jiang Mingyuan, a faint smile curving her lips, devoid of any genuine joy, only a cold sarcasm as if her bottom line had been crossed.

Her voice wasn't loud, but every word sounded like it had been pulled from ice water: "What right do you have to tell us where we go?"

Jiang Mingyuan was momentarily speechless at her words, but looking into her eyes, which were exactly the same as his own when he was young, he finally sighed and spoke very softly, as if talking to a butterfly that might fly away at any moment: "Xiao Ran, can we sit down and talk calmly? Just talk, it won't take up too much of your time."

Jiang Ran responded with a sarcastic smile, her tone unhurried yet barbed: "Whether we can talk depends on whether others have the time. Surely the Jiang family doesn't even understand this basic courtesy?"

Jiang Mingyuan was completely speechless.

He could see that the child harbored a deep sense of rejection and wariness towards them. The indifference in her eyes was genuine; she wasn't being difficult or throwing a tantrum. She truly didn't care about them.

He stood before his own daughter, but didn't know what to say or what he could say.

He subconsciously turned his gaze to Su Qing, who was standing behind Jiang Ran. Su Qing's tired and anxious eyes held a father's only, final plea for help.

Su Qing understood the meaning behind his glance.

She was silent for a moment, then looked down at the hand that Jiang Ran was gripping her wrist... That hand had never let go from the beginning, its strength so great that it seemed as if she was afraid that if she let go, she would be washed away by the water.

She knew Xiao Ran didn't want to talk about it, and she understood why.

But she knew even more that if she didn't talk about it today, Xiao Ran would never face this issue.

But she didn't have time. She didn't have time to let Xiao Ran digest things slowly, little by little. She didn't have time to wait for her to be willing.

She sighed softly, took Jiang Ran's fingers in her hand, and gently rubbed her thumb against the back of her hand. Her voice was gentle yet firm: "Ran, talk to them."

Jiang Ran turned to look at her, a fleeting look of panic and resistance in her eyes.

She knew that her sister had never given up on finding her biological parents, and that her sister felt it was better for her that way.

She didn't want to talk about it, but she didn't want to put her sister in a difficult position either.

After a long silence, she finally reopened the door, stood by it, and watched as people walked into her and her sister's house one by one. Her face was expressionless, but she gripped Su Qing's hand even tighter.