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

On the morning of her birthday, Su Qing was woken up by her alarm clock.

When she opened her eyes, Jiang Ran was still nestled in her arms, breathing long and even, her hand wearing a platinum bracelet gently resting on her waist.

They stayed up very late last night. Jiang Ran was so excited that she tossed and turned and couldn't sleep. Sometimes she would raise her wrist to look at the bracelet in the moonlight, and other times she would bury her face in Su Qing's shoulder and whisper, "Sister, I like it so much." In the end, Su Qing hugged her and gently patted her back like when she was a child, and she slowly calmed down.

Su Qing didn't wake her. She quietly got out of bed and took the dress out of the closet.

Jiang Yi spent two hours choosing yesterday before finally deciding on a white dress with a cutout design on the shoulders, adorned with delicate lace trim. The hemline falls just below the knee, and the fabric is soft and light, shimmering faintly under the light.

She stood in front of the mirror for a while, simply tied her hair up, revealing the fair skin of her neck, and then adjusted the lace on her shoulders in front of the mirror, gently smoothing out every tiny wrinkle with her fingertips.

When she pushed open the bedroom door, Jiang Ran was already awake and sitting on the edge of the bed rubbing her eyes.

Hearing the door open, she looked up and froze.

The light shone down from above, falling on Su Qing, making the white skirt almost transparent, and the lace pattern on her shoulders cast delicate light and shadow on her skin.

The eyes she had looked into for seven years were now slightly curved as they gazed at her. Her lips were adorned with a touch of light lip gloss, and she stood in the doorway, backlit by the morning light, like a painting gently framed.

Jiang Ran opened her mouth, as if to say something, but it felt like something was blocking her throat.

Her heart pounded heavily in her chest, then again, so fast that it made her a little panicked.

"Sister, you look so beautiful today."

Her voice was very soft, as if she were afraid of startling something, but the light in her eyes was astonishing.

Su Qing was amused by her stunned expression, and a slight smile curved her lips. She lowered her head, tugged at her skirt, and teased her deliberately, "Aren't you usually pretty?"

"No!" Jiang Ran immediately shook her head vigorously, jumped off the bed, walked to Su Qing, looked seriously into her eyes and said, "Sister has always been beautiful, but today she is so beautiful that it's hard to look away."

Her ears turned slightly red as she said this, but her gaze did not waver at all.

Su Qing felt a little uncomfortable under her gaze, so she reached out and gently flicked her forehead, telling her to go wash up quickly, and then turned to go to the kitchen to prepare breakfast.

Jiang Ran stood there, raised her hand to touch the forehead where her sister had flicked her earlier, and then looked down at the platinum bracelet on her wrist. The jasmine flower on the tag gleamed warmly in the morning light, and the four small characters "Peace and Safety Every Year" on the back were warm from her body heat.

She pressed the bracelet to her chest, took a deep breath, and then hurried to the bathroom, not wanting to keep her sister waiting too long.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

Because her living room would feel crowded with many people, Cui Ying booked a place—a private club, a detached villa with a large garden, which is usually only open to members.

She originally wanted to bring her daughter back to the Jiang family home for her birthday, but Jiang Ran refused. So she settled for a less desirable location and chose a pretty place that wouldn't make Jiang Ran feel like her territory was being invaded.

Jiang Ran remained unmoved. In her mind, she preferred to spend her birthday at home with her sister, snuggling on the sofa watching a movie and eating cake – that was her favorite kind of birthday celebration.

  

But seeing that her sister was already wearing the dress she liked, she didn't say anything. She just quietly took her sister's hand and they got into the black car that the Jiang family had prepared earlier.

The driver was a middle-aged man in his forties, surnamed Chen. He was dressed in a sharp suit and wearing white gloves. He opened the back door of the car as soon as he saw the two of them come out of the building.

"Good morning, Miss Su."

He bowed slightly, his tone respectful and gentle.

Su Qing thanked him and, holding her skirt, sat down in the back row.

Jiang Ran got into the car from the other side and naturally moved closer to her sister.

Old Chen started the car, warming it up while glancing at the two people in the back seat through the rearview mirror.

Su Qing was bending down to help Jiang Ran straighten a small thread stuck to her skirt. Jiang Ran tilted her head and looked at her sister with a faint smile on her lips.

He smiled and said, "Miss and Miss Su have such a good relationship."

Jiang Ran politely hummed in agreement, and Su Qing also nodded towards the rearview mirror.

Then she turned her head to look out the window.

The sky was overcast and the clouds hung low, the air thick with the muggy, pre-rain smell.

The sycamore trees along the roadside were being blown about by the wind, and a few withered leaves swirled and fell onto the sidewalk, only to be swept up by the wind and carried further away.

Su Qing suddenly felt a tightness in her chest, but she attributed it to the stuffy weather and didn't think much of it.

Old Chen glanced at the rearview mirror and then looked down at his watch, his brow furrowing almost imperceptibly.

He picked up his phone, turned down the volume, and sent a voice message to the driver of the other car: "Old Wang, have you arrived yet?"

A reply came quickly, the tone anxious and helpless: "Brother Chen, there's been an accident on the main road in the north of the city. A car at the very front has hit and killed someone, and the whole road is blocked! We're stuck in the middle and can't move at all. It will take at least forty minutes to get through."

Old Chen asked if he could take a detour, and they said there were cars all around, making it difficult to even change direction.

Old Chen put down his phone and tapped his fingers lightly twice on the steering wheel.

It normally only takes twenty minutes to get from here to the East City Clubhouse. The other car is there to provide protection, but with the traffic jam so bad, it will be too late by the time they get there.

He glanced at the back seat in the rearview mirror again, where Su Qing and Jiang Ran were whispering to each other, the atmosphere relaxed and warm.

Today is the fifteenth birthday of the boss's biological daughter. Everyone in the Jiang family knows how much the boss values ​​this daughter.

He didn't want to be late on his first time driving for a young lady, ruining his boss's mood and the young lady's first impression of him.

Besides, he thought to himself, it's only a 20-minute walk, and you rarely see even an electric bike running a red light on this road, so what could possibly happen?

So he put down his phone, turned around and said to the back seat, "Miss, Miss Su, let's set off first. The other car will be a little late because of something."

Su Qing nodded without giving it much thought.

Jiang Ran simply hummed in response, her gaze remaining fixed on her sister.

The car slowly drove out of the community gate and turned onto the main road leading to the east of the city.

In the back seat, Su Qing straightened Jiang Ran's collar and fastened her and Xiao Ran's seatbelts.

She glanced at the sycamore trees outside the window, dampened by the light rain, and casually remarked that there were relatively few cars on the road today.

Driver Chen glanced at the back seat in the rearview mirror and replied with a smile, "There's been an accident on the main road and it's closed. Most of the cars are stuck there."

He said this in a relaxed tone, adding that the weather was very gloomy, and it had just rained, making the roads slippery. He said that the worst thing about this kind of weather was people not slowing down.

Su Qing didn't say anything after hearing this. Jiang Ran turned her head to look at Su Qing and asked her what the cake looked like. Her sister had been keeping it a secret since last night.

Su Qing leaned back in her seat, a smile playing on her lips. She said she couldn't give away any spoilers, but she wouldn't be disappointed.

Do you have any chocolate?

"More than that."

"Do you have any strawberries?"

"Absolutely."

"Do you have fondant?"

Seeing Jiang Ran's grinning, trying-to-get-information-from-herself look, Su Qing smiled helplessly, saying that it wouldn't be fun if Xiao Ran guessed everything.

Upon hearing this, Jiang Ran pressed for details about what was at the very top. Su Qing lowered her voice mysteriously and said that at the very top was a chocolate castle with a small flag stuck on the spire.

"Sister, you always seem to fill the entire kitchen when you make cakes," Jiang Ran couldn't help but laugh, but the anticipation in her eyes was impossible to hide. "How big is that castle? Is it edible?"

"Of course you can eat it, it's made entirely of chocolate," Su Qing corrected her seriously, "but you should take a picture first before eating it, otherwise it'll be a waste."

"Why are you taking pictures?"

"Keep it as a souvenir! This cake is so beautiful, how can you show off your sister's cooking skills if you don't take a picture?"

Jiang Ran was amused by her sister's matter-of-fact tone and laughed out loud. Her shoulders trembled slightly as she said, "Okay, then I'll take a hundred pictures."

Outside the car window, the rain gradually intensified, no longer just scattered raindrops, but fine, continuous rain threads that wove a grayish-white mist in the air.

The windshield wipers sped up a bit, and shallow puddles began to appear on the road, splashing up small sprays of water as the wheels rolled over them.

The buildings along the road became blurred in the mist, and only a few roadside trees nearby could be barely discerned, their branches and leaves swaying back and forth in the wind and rain.

The sky grew even darker. Although it was still morning, it looked like dusk was approaching. The car headlights cast two dim yellow beams through the mist.

Jiang Ran leaned back in her seat, turning her head to look at Su Qing's profile.

"Sister, after your birthday, let's go home and watch a movie together, okay?"

Su Qing turned to look at her, a smile playing on her lips, and reached out to tuck a stray strand of hair that was falling beside her face behind her ear: "Okay, you can look at whatever you want."

Just as the car passed an intersection and was about to turn, a sharp, long beep, belonging to the system, suddenly exploded deep in Su Qing's mind.

It wasn't the usual calm, data-analysis-tinged alert tone, but a deafening alarm that ripped through the silence, like a red-hot iron rod piercing her consciousness.

[Danger! Host, a heavy-duty truck is accelerating abnormally at a 30-degree angle to the right directly ahead. It is expected to collide with the right side of your vehicle in three seconds. The truck's trajectory is being adjusted abnormally, highly suggestive of intentional action.]

Su Qing suddenly looked up and, through the rain-blurred car window, saw the front of the heavy truck.

The huge, dark red front of the car, like a steel behemoth suddenly emerging from the rain, broke through the mist, broke through the air, and broke the peace that she had thought could last for another three days.

Old Chen reacted almost instantly, swerving the steering wheel sharply to the left, the tires screeching on the wet road.

But it was too late. The heavy truck seemed to have found its target, adjusting its angle on the waterlogged ground, and crashed straight into the right side of the back row.

In such a short time, Su Qing only had time to do one thing.

She unbuckled her seatbelt, turned her body to the side, and tightly embraced Jiang Ran, who hadn't had time to react.

With her back to the direction from which the impact was about to occur, she pressed Jiang Ran's head and back tightly with both hands, curling her into a small ball and protecting her against her chest, as if she wanted to stuff her back into her ribs.

Then a huge crash engulfed everything.