In a pitch-black room, a silhouette could be vaguely seen in the darkness, curled up in a corner.

Suddenly the door was opened, letting a bright ray of light into the room. The girl that was tied up in a corner seemed to react to the light, lifting up her head in the direction of the door to show her porcelain-skinned face. Her eyes squinted as if she were adjusting to the light, and her pillowy lips pursed slightly. Even though she was disheveled and her clothes were dirty, it still couldn’t hide her beauty like a diamond in the rough.

A split second later, she lowered her gaze again, hiding the indifference in her gaze.

The woman outside the door walked in, and her smile seemed extremely ominous under the lighting.

This was the eldest daughter of the Gu family, Gu Xijin. She was known far and wide for having a keen intuition in finance, and every choice that she had made on the behalf of the Gu family would bring it up to another level. In the three years she had taken over as the head of the Gu family, she was hailed by everyone in the scene as a genius that brought her family to glory from a second-rate family to one of the best in the world.

Not only that, her works of art were circulated in the art world as ones that would go down in history. All of her oil paintings were all kept as treasures in international exhibitions, and even the most talented artist in Hua Xia was infatuated with her because of her talent... She was the perfect daughter of the Gu family that countless people fawned over!

Thinking of this, Gu Xiqiao scoffed and started to laugh so hard that she almost cried.

This lady in front of her was her sister from a different mother, and they were quite close... Well at least that’s what she thought.

The day she joined the Gu family, she knew that she was an illegitimate daughter. She didn’t have Madam Gu’s favor especially when she stood out, so Gu Xiqiao continued to lower her presence as she hid behind Gu Xijin, helping her older sister step onto the heights of life.

The world only knew the eldest daughter of the Gu family, but none of them knew that all of her feats were sourced from the illegitimate daughter.

In the eyes of the general public, Gu Xiqiao was just a stupid girl that wasn’t talented in anything.

Meanwhile, Gu Xijin was widely praised as the perfect successor of the Gu family and a one-in-a-million genius.

Gu Xiqiao didn’t care about what the world thought of her. She was easily moved by acts of kindness towards her, and because Gu Xijin had always treated her well back when she first joined the family, she had always helped her sister without a single complaint.

She put in all of her blood, sweat, and tears into helping the Gu family reach the heights that it was at now, but now they were going to sacrifice her for the sake of Gu Xijin!

She was thrown away like a disposable tool!

Hilarious... How hilarious!

"Why?" Gu Xiqiao suddenly stopped laughing and fixed Gu Xijin with a questioning gaze.

What came next, however, was beyond everyone’s expectations.

The Gu family was suddenly involved in a severe financial crisis, and while the eldest miss of the Gu family tried to turn the tide, she ultimately lost to a small company without even putting up much of a fight.

This was news that truly caused the discussion around the Gu family to grow even further, and at this point everyone had realized that something was wrong. Why did the eldest daughter of the Gu Family become useless as soon as the second daughter died? Did she feed all her genius and talent to some pigs?

Soon after, proof that the eldest daughter of the Gu family had been smuggling illegal goods and bribing people in high places and even more unspeakable acts, and was punished with life imprisonment.

[The system has automatically marked this person as red, proceed with caution!]

She lowered her head, her hair covering her expression momentarily as she smiled deviously for a moment.

Her crystal clear eyes seemed to suddenly be clouded with a complex emotion, and she only squinted her eyes with a mock-smile as she raised her cup towards her half-sister. "Happy birthday, sister."

After she said so, she put down her wine cup and left.

Her tone was clear and gentle but filled with a frigid coldness, and was a far cry from her gloomy and depressed demeanor. Was this really that Gu Xiqiao?

Gu Xijin hadn’t reacted for a moment, and just let the younger girl walk out of the front door just like that.

The white-clothed young woman whispered at the bunch of rich kids, and because it had been uncommon to see such a pretty and delicate girl they immediately followed after Gu Xiqiao. Strangely enough, no matter how they walked, they couldn’t walk out of the main entrance.

Was something supernatural happening to them? A chill ran up the spines of the rich kids.

"Huh, that’s strange..." The bunch of rich kids shook their heads and only thought that they just had too much to drink, looking at the thin silhouette walk further and further away.

To not be able to get to know such a beauty was quite a shame.

Gu Xijin gripped on the wine cup until her knuckles became white as she looked at their collective expressions of disappointment. The day Gu Xiqiao was accepted into their family, she already knew that this illegitimate younger sister of hers would be trouble. That being said, she only had a pretty face, and in this world, people like her could only become playthings.

After thinking of this, Gu Xijin’s loosened her grip on the cup, but the frost in her dark gaze remained.

The young woman next to her couldn’t help making comments on the situation. "Xijin, you’re being too nice to that so-called younger sister of yours! Look at that vixen, who knows what Grandpa Gu thought when he brought her back..."

Gu Xiqiao’s origins weren’t a secret, and a lot of the people that were at the party today knew about it. She was the daughter of a porn star and was raised in the countryside. She seemed like a country bumpkin who hadn’t even learned the basics of the four arts—Music, chess, calligraphy, and painting.

"There’s nothing to be afraid of anyway, she’s just a stupid girl from the countryside. We’re going to let her know that N City is completely different than that ditch she came out of!" The young woman continued.

"..."

Yes, N City was completely different from what she imagined, and she had already learned that at the cost of her life. Gu Xiqiao smirked and looked back at the grand building with a mocking gaze, and the building was plunged into chaos.

"Xijin, what’s wrong with your clothes!"

"Ahhh!!!" A piercing scream rang out from inside of the room.

Gu Xiqiao stretched lazily and walked away with a cold expression. Making clothes tear telepathically was quite a handy skill to have if she said so herself.

The servants that saw her knew that the family had accepted an illegitimate daughter, and this young girl didn’t seem to even have any gratitude toward them. She was either gloomy or depressed every day like her pet died! They stared at her with disgusted gazes as they quickly made their way into the room.

How would they understand the difficulty of a child that appeared suddenly in a place that she didn’t belong at, and under the deliberate rejection of the family and having to deal with death threats all day, how strong would she have to be to maintain a sense of morality and survive?

Gu Xiqiao didn’t really mind the habit of the servants that sucked up to Gu Xijin and stepped on her because she was already used to it.

And so, she calmly left the suffocating building.

But still, it was unbelievable that she came back to this point in time when she first arrived at the Gu family, back when she was eighteen years old.

Gu Xiqiao stopped in her steps and raised her hands without being able to wait any further, and looking at her beautiful and slightly callused hands. She was so ecstatic that her hands had been returned to their original state that she started chuckling softly. Not everyone was this lucky, after all.

Suddenly, a piercingly bright ray of light shone in her direction.

[Warning! Danger incoming from three meters in front, please dodge in 0.01 seconds or use 1 point to buy a Dodge Card!]

A long, skidding sound of wheels screeched in the dead of night.

The driver rushed down from the car quickly, his heart raised to his throat seeing the girl on the street. He had been rushing to the airport, and he had chosen this road because this road was usually scarce with passersby. He didn’t see anyone when he turned a corner, so when the girl suddenly appeared in his field of vision he was caught off guard. He stepped on the brakes as quickly as he could but the car still bumped into her.

But he was sure that the car hadn’t been fast enough to impact her so much, and he had his headlamps turned on so brightly. She wasn’t scamming him, was she?

Legs. She was a girl from the countryside that had lived a rough life, but her adoptive mother had never neglected her and had never made her too more work than was necessary either, even giving her the chance to learn skills from the old man that lived nearby. She was considered a spoiled child by the standards of the countryside, so she felt pain from being injured so suddenly too.

But no matter how painful it was, it wouldn’t be half as painful as having her fingers mangled and trampled upon.

Gu Xiqiao’s gaze was still calm and collected as she calmly analyzed her current situation. This road that they were on belonged to the rich district, which meant that taxi drivers or suspicious vehicles wouldn’t be let in, and so she didn’t think much of getting in the car.

The moment the door closed, a strong wave of mental power pulsed in her direction, and her face immediately went pale.

She had been in the virtual space for a long time, and in her time reading the endless scrolls, she knew of some special martial arts that could hone such an ability. The mental power that attacked her at this moment was even stronger than hers that had been through two lives.

At that moment, she could only feel an unprecedented impact and a pain that threatened to tear her head open!

If this person used even one sliver more of mental power, she would definitely become an idiot from getting her mental energy damaged.

The system spirit that was hiding in the virtual space widened its eyes incredulously, before finally reacting and raising its hands in Gu Xiqiao’s direction, casting space isolation on her quickly.

As she felt the pressure on her recede like the tide, Gu Xiqiao relaxed slightly, but still kept her guard up.

The passenger on the back seat suddenly lifted his head, and his gaze seemed to pierce through the darkness towards Gu Xiqiao. The girl couldn’t feel it because of the space isolation that the system spirit cast on her.

The car arrived at the hospital quickly, and Gu Xiqiao practically scrambled down from the car in cold sweat. She was still not used to this sort of near-death experience.

The driver saw her wobble unsteadily towards the hospital, so he quickly went to help her.

After they both left, the rear window of the car rolled down to reveal a lithe silhouette.

The man was wearing a clean white shirt, his slightly upturned eyes glinting with a frigid coldness. It was hard to know what he was thinking just from his expression, but his lips were slightly pursed, and just from his side profile in the darkness, it was easy to see that he was quite handsome.

With a smooth movement of his lithe fingers, he closed the book that he had on his lap and opened the car door, stepping into the night.

Opera in her head, she gave Gu Xiqiao a pitying look. "Then you..."

Gu Xiqiao’s expression was as calm and collected as always, but she was silently organizing her thoughts. As soon as she came back to when she was eighteen, she was given an unreliable system and was hit by a car as soon as she stepped out...Was there something wrong with her luck?

She was quite caught up on this and reached to massage her temples gently.

The nurse thought for a bit and decided to continued speaking. She was a nurse in-training and still hadn’t had much experience in dealing with patients, so she decided to advise this ’lost lamb’ from her so-called justice.

But didn’t she know that her self centered sense of justice was the same as stabbing a knife into one’s heart?

Old Zhang couldn’t keep watching anymore and decided to stop the young nurse from speaking.

Before he could do anything, however, he heard a creak coming from the entrance, and a lean, tall man made his way into the room. As he walked, the room itself seemed to freeze with an invisible pressure.

The nurse felt a chill run up her spine, and she unconsciously clammed up and worked faster on cleaning the wound, before shivering and making a break for it.

Only after the door was closed did she look up at the sculpture-like silhouette.

He stood there silently, his aura so sharp that it seemed to be able to cut the air around him, giving off pressure to everyone that looked at him.

From this angle, the man had sculpted features and was quite handsome. The elegant angle of his eyebrows seemed to melt away the frost in his demeanor, highlighting a warmth to his features that made him even more alluring.

The young nurse was quite stunned, having never seen such a good-looking man in her life.

Jiang Shuxuan saw that her wound had already been treated and checked on the report that the doctors wrote on her, his thick eyebrows furrowing slightly like a single ripple on a calm lake. His gaze deep in thought but covered with a layer of frost, and even if he wasn’t angry it was hard to maintain eye contact with him.

After a while, he handed the report to Old Zhang and asked him to get the medicine from the dispensary.

Old Zhang seemed to want to contact the girl’s family because it wasn’t proper to leave such a young woman at the hospital by herself late at night, but she was quite stubborn and didn’t give him any information.

He had been worried about Mr. Jiang that had been waiting downstairs because it was his duty to send him to the airport, and it would have been hard for him to withstand the consequences of failing his mission. Now that Mr. Jiang came up by himself and didn’t seem to blame him in the slightest, he calmed down quite a bit and went to get the medicine for her.

When there was no one else left in the room, Jiang Shuxuan looked at Gu Xiqiao with a frosty gaze.

After a while, he asked, "Who are you?"

Jiang Shuxuan’s gaze was piercing, and it seemed to have the power to see into a person’s very soul.

He knew that his car hit her, but it was never in his calculations. When he was in the car, he couldn’t sense that anyone was in front of the car even with his strong sensory ability. This girl’s mental power was quite raw and strong too, to the point where even he was wary of her.

With the mental power that she had, she was leagues more talented than all of those children in his family. Perhaps those people knew that he was interested in such things, so they made this girl appear in front of him?

It wasn’t impossible, and so he couldn’t help but start to observe her and size her up.

When a cold voice rang out from above her, and Gu Xiqiao lifted her head and looked at the man that was asking her with a confused expression.

Her gaze was as innocent as a newborn child, like a clear creek in the woods.

Jiang Shuxuan didn’t know what to say all of a sudden, and coughed into his fist lightly to hide his sudden awkwardness. He felt a little guilty for suspecting a girl with such a pure gaze, and so his first impression of her was renewed. "I wanted to say that if you don’t want to go home, you can come to stay at my place for a few days."

It was quite common for children to fall out with their parents, but for such a meek and gentle child to choose to run away from her home, how terrible would it have had to been for her to make such a choice?

Gu Xiqiao raised her eyebrows and was about to refuse, before feeling a shadow envelop her along with a loss of gravity.

Before she could react, she had already been carried up princess-style easily by the man.

She raised her head a little startled, but from her gaze, she could only see his well-defined jaw. This person must have been used to having his way that he didn’t even give her a chance to refuse.

That being said, the warmth hidden in his dark orbs spoke no lies.

Gu Xiqiao pursed her lips slightly before lowering her head in defeat, hiding away her emotions.

The person in his arms was practically a light as a feather, and even a rifle was denser than she was. Jiang Shuxuan frowned as he thought about the reports he saw earlier—A weak constitution, anemia, a slight concussion, and serious wounds, wasn’t that too severe for someone for her age?

How was she treated at home?

Gu Xiqiao was still spacing out before the system sounded out in her mind.

[Ding! The system has detected that this man is a respectable young man with good intentions! He has been added into your Friend List by default.]

A friend list? As soon as she got this new skill, she immediately closed her eyes and examined this new friend list that appeared in the system space.