A clap of thunder and a flash of lightning tore across the pitch-black night sky, and the person on the large pink bed jolted awake.
Forehead and back drenched in a cold sweat, Chu Yao sat up in bed. She braced herself with one hand and pressed the other to her forehead. She'd had another nightmare.
After a few moments of steadying her breath, she threw back the covers and got out of bed. She poured herself a glass of water and stood before the floor-to-ceiling windows. As Chu Yao watched the pitch-black night and the pouring rain outside, her emotions churned along with the downpour.
For others, a nightmare might be dreaming of ghosts and monsters, of being chased off a cliff, or perhaps of a loved one's death. But for her, the nightmare was that summer when she was fourteen—and that white figure growing ever more distant.
"Lu Xize."
Chu Yao murmured. 'How long has it been since I've heard that name?'
'Four years? Five years?'
'No. It's been six years and thirty-four days.'
She tilted her head back and took a large gulp of water. Chu Yao felt a surge of frustration. 'Why can I remember that day so clearly?'
'She was only fourteen then. Just fourteen. So why did it feel like the most defining moment of her entire life?'
Chu Yao closed her eyes. Honestly, she didn't want to think about that summer. There was nothing good about it.
But memory was a stubborn thing. The more you tried to forget, the more vividly it surfaced.
Chu Yao vividly remembered it all. After Lu Xize's retreating figure vanished from sight, she refused to believe it. This couldn't be the boy who had always protected her. She ran after him, all the way to the Lu Family's villa. But no matter how hard she pounded on the door, no one answered.
Only when her throat was raw from shouting did a servant from the Lu Family come out and tell her, "Miss Chu, you should go home. The young master does not want to see you."
Fourteen-year-old Chu Yao felt nothing but confusion and anger, so she left in a huff. Returning home, she had intended to do what she always did: throw herself into her father's arms for comfort.
But the sight that greeted her was of her father—the man who had always been her rock—with tears streaming down his face.
"Yaoyao, your mother and I are divorced. Don't worry, Dad will take good care of you from now on."
For the first time in her fourteen years, Chu Yao understood what it meant to be powerless.
She stared blankly at her father.
'Divorce?'
'It wasn't like she didn't know what divorce meant.'
'But why?'
'As far as Chu Yao could remember, while she and her mother weren't especially close, her parents had always gotten along well. Why would they suddenly get a divorce?'
Chu Yao remembered pressing him for answers, but her father wouldn't say more. Yet, the image of him burying his face in his hands, his head hanging low, made her understand one thing with painful clarity.
'They were divorced. Her mother didn't want her. She no longer had a mother.'
Chu Zhen Dong's business had always been successful. Even in a competitive environment like the Imperial City, the Chu Family was still counted among the elite. As a result, Chu Yao had grown up as a true princess.
Though her mother was distant, her father adored her. The food she ate, the things she used, the schools she attended—they were all the very best.
But that summer, everything seemed to change.
The boy from the Lu Family who had always protected, pampered, and spoiled her suddenly lashed out at her with cruel words. And then, the entire Lu Family vanished.
Her ever-cheerful father, who had always treasured her, suddenly seemed to age overnight. For a long stretch of that summer, Chu Yao barely saw him at all—something that would have been unthinkable before.
And her family, it seemed, began to slowly come apart at the seams that summer.