Chapter 1: The Door That Never Truly Opened

The wind carried the scent of old winter, biting at my skin as I stood before the towering gates of the Li family estate. My shoes, secondhand and cracked, sank slightly into the snow-covered stone path. I was eleven years old, suitcase in hand, wearing a donated coat that didn’t quite fit. Five years in the orphanage had taught me many things—how to stay invisible, how to smile when your heart is hollow, how to dream with lowered expectations.

But today, I was going home. Or so I believed.

The door creaked open. A maid peeked out and frowned.

“Who are you?”

Before I could speak, my mother appeared behind her, wrapped in a silk shawl.

“Oh. It’s you,” she said, as if she had forgotten my name.

I opened my mouth to greet her, but she turned and walked back inside.

The maid stepped aside. “Don’t bring the snow in.”

So I wiped my feet and followed.

The house was larger than I remembered. Taller ceilings, colder floors. The warmth I had imagined melted away like snow in a passing breeze.

My two sisters stood in the hallway, staring. One hid behind the other.

And then he stepped forward.

Li Wenjie.

A boy my age. Neat haircut, fresh clothes, eyes full of practiced kindness. He looked at me like I was a question he had already answered.

“This is my son now,” Father said that evening, motioning to Wenjie at the dinner table.

I sat at the far end. No one spoke to me. The rice was cold.

From the start, it was clear: I had returned, but not as a son.

Wenjie had already filled that role.

He smiled at guests, served tea with grace, and called my mother Mama with such affection that even I believed he meant it. He kissed her cheek. She laughed.

When I tried the same, she turned her face away.

“Don’t be strange.”

Wenjie was clever. He could lie like breathing. When a vase broke, he cried and said I pushed him. When pocket money went missing, he "found it" beneath my pillow. When I came home late from school, he whispered to my father that I had been sneaking around.

I stayed quiet.

In our culture, to argue with a younger brother—even if adopted—is seen as shameful.

So I watched as he became the light of the house. Praised, gifted, loved.

And I became the shadow that flickered in the corner of family photographs.

But I did not hate him. Not at first.

I worked hard in silence. I cleaned the floors before school. Cooked when the maids were away. I took up part-time jobs at night—delivering groceries, washing dishes in the back of old teahouses. I left the money under Father’s desk drawer. He never asked who gave it.

When my youngest sister fell sick, I sold the only thing I owned of value—a small jade pendant given to me by my birth grandmother. It fetched just enough for medicine. I told no one.

Wenjie, of course, brought the pills home with a proud grin and said, “I picked these up today.”

They praised him. Again.

Years passed.

One winter night, fire broke out in my younger brother’s room. I was the first to smell the smoke. I rushed in, pulled him from the flames, burned my arm trying to beat back the fire with a wet towel. Wenjie was outside, screaming for help. Tears streaming.

The next morning, the neighbors clapped him on the back.

“Such a brave young man.”

No one mentioned me. Not even when my left hand couldn’t hold chopsticks for weeks.

I graduated quietly.

On the day of my university acceptance letter arriving, my mother called me into the study. She didn’t look up from her tea.

“We’ve done enough. You’re an adult now. It’s time you find your own path.”

Disowned. Just like that.

Wenjie stood beside her, arms crossed, eyes shining with something unreadable.

“Take this as a lesson,” Father said. “Ungratefulness will only lead you to misery.”

I bowed. I packed my things. I didn’t cry.

But in my chest, something loosened. A string snapped.

For ten years, I drifted like fallen leaves. I wrote stories under a pen name—fiction about ghosts, broken families, lost children. Modest success. Enough to live.

Enough to give.

When the Li family’s company faced bankruptcy again, I sent anonymous donations. When Father needed heart surgery, the hospital received an envelope with full payment.

They never knew.

Wenjie claimed he arranged it all.

“He’s grown so responsible,” my mother posted online, beneath a smiling photo of him. “He takes care of us so well.”

I should have been numb by then. But something still ached.

I told myself it was loyalty. Maybe love.

But I realize now… it was hope.

Then came the betrayal I could not swallow.

They accused me of cyber theft. Leaking company secrets. Police knocked on my door. My name was dragged through courtrooms and news headlines. Wenjie testified against me.

I begged for a moment to explain. My father turned his back.

“You’ve always been a stain on our family.”

They cut all ties. The lawsuit dropped later, once the real culprit vanished.

But the damage was done. My landlord evicted me. My editor dropped me. I slept on rooftops and in subway stations.

And then one night, someone slipped a letter beneath my door.

I recognized the handwriting instantly.

"You should’ve died in that orphanage."

My mother.

Now, I stand at the rooftop of Building 42, overlooking a city that never cared if I lived or died.

I take out my notebook—the one I've carried since I was sixteen—and tear out the last page. I write:

"To the Li family: I never wanted your riches, only your warmth. I never asked to be praised, only to be seen. I gave what I could in silence, believing that love did not need proof. But perhaps I was wrong. I will not return in another life. This is where our thread ends."

I fold the letter carefully. Slide it into an envelope addressed to no one.

And I jump.

[End of Chapter 1]

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