Chapter 1: 1.1

The osmanthus fragrans were in full bloom in September. Luo Shuyan made her way up the stairs with her short and tiny legs. When she reached the section of stairs between the 3rd and 4th floor, she caught a whiff of a sweet smelling fragrance.

She swallowed her saliva in hunger.

The autumn weather should be in full swing in September. However, in the small city of Ning, the weather was still scorching hot. The sun was blazing at 5 in the evening, and it didn’t look like it was about to set anytime soon.

Luo Shuyan was very fair. Despite only being at the tender age of six, her beauty was undeniable. She had two adorable dimples when she smiled and she had a pair of sparkling eyes. As the saying goes, the son follows the looks of the mother, and the daughter of the father. This was certainly true in her case. Luo Shuyan’s father, Luo Tianyuan, was an extremely handsome man with an amazing body. Despite having gone through the loss of both parents, his looks withstood the test of time and grievances. Plus, there were plenty of young women going after him even though he had a child.

Although Luo Shuyan had beautiful facial features, she wasn’t as thin as the other girls in class. Oddly enough, she was on the plumper side. Thankfully, she had very fair skin. Thus, the adults would praise her for looking like a beautiful doll.

When Luo Shuyan was three years old, her paternal grandmother had once carried her in her arms and told her that she was a child who would be loved by everyone. This was because she looked exactly like the chubby and plump little kid found in New Year’s paintings. She inherited her parents’ best features; her mother’s silky fair skin and her father’s good looks.

And you may ask, how could she possibly remember or understand what her grandmother told her when she was three?

Well, that’s because she’s a time traveler. She suspected that she didn’t drink the Meng Po Soup* when she reincarnated. That was why she knew a lot as a baby; she could understand what the grown ups were saying and she found the news on the radio very familiar. When she was two, she finally realized that she must have retained some part of her memory before she reincarnated into this life. Despite not being able to remember much of her past life, the fact that she traveled back in time was already against the laws of nature.

*Meng Po Soup (孟婆汤) is a soup that wipes the memory of a person so they can reincarnate into the next life without the burdens of the previous life. The soup is served by Meng Po, the Goddess of Forgetfulness, at the Naihe Bridge, also known as the Bridge of Forgetfulness.

She started speaking fluently at the age of one. By the time she was two, she was able to recite poems. Relatives often referred to her as a child prodigy and a child goddess for being able to recite the poems after hearing them once. She felt a little guilty when she was praised because she knew that she’d heard those poems quite a few times…

She was also an understanding child. She never asked about her birth mother and neither did she dig into her father’s past.

However, adults treated her as a child. They would whisper and gossip about her mother even when she was around.

After ruling out the statements that were obviously rumors, she was able to conclude these facts about the relationship between her parents — Her mother became pregnant with her when she was 19 and when her father was 21. After her mother had given birth to her, she left her with her father, Luo Tianyuan, and went to live with her parents overseas.

Back then in the 90s, it was common for young women living in the countryside to get married and have children around this age.

However, whenever she thought about her mother who had given birth to her at the young age of 20, she couldn’t help but shake her head in disappointment at her father.

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While she was still taking a trip down memory lane, a young woman stuck her head out from her neighbor’s door. “Welcome back, Shuyan!”

There were two families living on the 4th floor. When Luo Shuyan reached the 4th floor, she didn’t go home. Instead, she carried her backpack and walked into her neighbor’s home.

The young woman who called out to her was their neighbor, Shen Qingruo.

As for Luo Shuyan, she addresses her as ‘Aunty Shen’.

Shen Qingruo promptly took her school bag and hung it aside. It was much cooler in the apartment. Her hand, which was covered in calluses, held Luo Shuyan’s plump little hand as she led her into the kitchen. “This is perfect, you’re just in time. I figured that you’ll be coming home from school soon and I took out the jelly from the fridge earlier on. Come and have some, it’s not too cold.”

The corners of Luo Shuyan’s lips drew upwards into a smile and her adorable dimples appeared. “I could smell the sweet smell of the osmanthus as soon as I entered the house. Aunty Shen, I’d like to have a huge bowl please!”

Every year during the summer, Shen Qingruo would make jelly soaked in osmanthus syrup and some homemade wine.

The jelly was handmade, so it wasn’t the usual jelly that was made from jelly powder. It tasted way better than those sold outside. The Luo father and daughter’s favorite food during the summer was jelly served with osmanthus and brown sugar syrup, with wine and raisins on the side.

Shen Qingruo smiled. She took out Luo Shuyan’s spoon from the cutlery holder and scooped her a bowl of jelly.

Luo Shuyan walked into the living room with the small bowl in hand and sat down obediently on the wooden sofa. She swallowed a spoonful at a time.

Shen Qingruo looked at the living room clock while she wiped the table. When Luo Shuyan saw this, she said, “I saw Shen Yan going into a bookshop with some friends after school. I think he’ll be back in a bit.”

Shen Qingruo smiled. “Ah, no wonder, that explains it.”

The buildings around the area are school district houses*, designed to have two apartments on each floor. However, the interior composition of the apartments were different. Shen Qingruo’s apartment consisted of two rooms and one living room. Grandma Luo used to be a elementary school teacher, so the school had given her an apartment back then. Now, her son, Luo Tianyuan, has inherited the apartment. Two years ago, he had also bought the apartment Shen Qingruo was staying in, ie. the one next to theirs.

*School district houses (学区房) are houses within a school district in China that allow students free admission to the nearest school. Students who take advantage of school district houses can enter the nearest school without exams.

Back then, the teacher who owned the apartment next to theirs was planning to move to Jing City. Ning City was a small city and most residents owned their own houses, so the rental market didn’t have a very positive outlook. The teacher was worried that the apartment would fall into disuse if no one were to live there, and considering the fact that he’d only be able to earn a little from the rental income, he decided that it’d be better to sell it off. Thus, Luo Tianyuan managed to buy the apartment next to his at an extremely low price.

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