Chapter 1
Chapter 1
"It's 5:55 p.m. now, you only have five minutes."
Jiang Mingyue sat on the sofa in the reception room, her knees touching, her hands clutching her faded jeans.
She pressed her lips tightly together, not uttering a single unnecessary word: "Five minutes is enough. Mr. Han, by allowing me to appear before you, you have confirmed my bloodline, so I will get straight to the point—I need money for medical treatment."
Jiang Mingyue added, "As long as the money is right, I will only ever bear the surname Jiang for the rest of my life, and I will have absolutely no connection with the Han family."
The middle-aged man curled the corners of his mouth, revealing an appreciative look, and relaxed his posture.
These subtle expressions and movements told Jiang Mingyue that she was very close to her goal.
Han Rong pulled a card from his wallet and pushed it in front of Jiang Mingyue, but pressed down on the card as she reached for it, proposing harsh conditions: "Since it's a transaction, both parties must meet each other's conditions. This card has three million in cash, with a monthly advance limit of one million, enough for your adoptive mother's medical treatment. You can receive this money for twenty years, as compensation for your upbringing. But I have one more condition—you must relinquish your inheritance rights. If you can accept this, sign the document and put your fingerprint on it."
A document was thrown from a drawer and placed in front of Jiang Mingyue.
Jiang Mingyue knew that she had no right to refuse, and of course, she never thought of refusing.
She didn't want to be part of the Han family.
*
One day ago, in the hospital ward
Jiang Mingyue suddenly opened her eyes on the hospital bed and saw her adoptive mother curled up on the nursing bed.
My adoptive mother, who should have passed away 15 years ago.
Jiang Mingyue was so shocked that she pinched her thigh hard.
It really hurts.
Then, she rushed into the bathroom and saw her younger self in the simple mirror hanging on the wall.
Yes, it's the face of an eighteen-year-old, not a thirty-three-year-old.
***
Jiang Mingyue was the late-life daughter of a very loving couple, but her father was old and in poor health. The year he retired from teaching, he collapsed and passed away the year Jiang Mingyue graduated from elementary school.
Xiaomingyue and her mother were in a car accident on their way to the hospital.
When signing the blood transfusion consent form for Xiaomingyue, Liang Shuanglan realized that her daughter was probably not her and her husband's biological child.
Regardless of whose fault it was, it certainly wasn't the fault of the newborn baby at the time.
Liang Shuanglan did not want the unexpected events to harm Xiaomingyue, so she did not reveal any clues to Xiaomingyue.
She conducted an investigation privately.
After much effort, Liang Shuanglan discovered the truth—due to the negligence of the nurses at the birth hospital, nearly a hundred babies born within a certain period that day were all switched at birth.
Liang Shuanglan relentlessly sought out reporters to expose this medical malpractice, which led to many families finding their biological children and reuniting with their loved ones. However, due to missing or altered birth information filled out by the mothers, Liang Shuanglan herself never received any news about her biological daughter.
During her trips to perform with the cultural troupe, Liang Shuanglan never gave up searching for her biological daughter.
Although she couldn't be by Jiang Mingyue's side every day, Liang Shuanglan never treated her harshly in the slightest. She always insisted on supporting her adopted daughter to attend those expensive talent classes and did her best to create the best growth environment for her.
At the same time, her husband's death made Liang Shuanglan realize that she was getting old and might not have the chance to raise her daughter to adulthood.
She began to be frugal with her spending, choosing the cheapest options for food, clothing, housing, and transportation. Then, leveraging the connections she had built up over the years, she secured several advertisements for learning machines and health supplements for Jiang Mingyue, transforming her into a somewhat well-known children's advertising model. This ensured that even if she were to pass away immediately, her adopted daughter would still have a source of income.
Jiang Mingyue grew up happily like this until she turned eighteen.
Liang Shuanglan was diagnosed with liver cancer.
When it's discovered in the middle stage, the treatment cost may not seem like much, but due to the limitations of current medical technology, the cure rate is not as high as it would be a decade or more later, and many people will be deterred by the treatment cost.
Liang Shuanglan was already 62 years old at this time. In her search for her biological daughter, she had spent almost all her savings, except for a welfare house that was over 50 years old. Thinking about the tuition and living expenses her adopted daughter needed after being admitted to university, Liang Shuanglan gave up treatment.
She kept her illness a secret until Jiang Mingyue was hospitalized with pneumonia. While she was at the hospital with her, a doctor who came for a consultation in the respiratory department mistook her for a patient and let slip the truth to Jiang Mingyue.
Even so, Liang Shuanglan verbally agreed to let her daughter go to the doctor, but she never actually did.
By the time she was writhing in pain in bed at night, her condition was beyond cure.
In just one semester, Jiang Mingyue lost her last family member.
Afterwards, Jiang Mingyue buried her adoptive mother, continued her studies, took exams, and acted in films and television dramas. She became an overnight sensation through the period martial arts romance drama she starred in.
Then, as her fame grew, her biological parents, Han Rong and Wang Mei, came to her door, demanding that she accept a business marriage and sell her marriage for the sake of family expansion, which disgusted Jiang Mingyue.
*
Fu Qian was Jiang Mingyue's high school classmate. He fell in love with her at first sight when she entered the school. After being rejected, he used his status as a rich second-generation to pester her. Even after they went to the same city for college, he continued to harass her. Even after Jiang Mingyue entered the entertainment industry, he still pursued her relentlessly under the guise of investment and like a ghost behind her.
Fu Qian is already annoying enough, but if that's all there is to it, a romantic affair would only be proof of Jiang Mingyue's increased charm as a female star.
The real problem is that Fu Qian has a fiancée, and news of Fu Qian and his fiancée eating and shopping together from time to time makes it into gossip news, casting a shadow over Jiang Mingyue as "being kept," "being a mistress," and "being involved in other people's relationships," making her the target of gossip.
Fifteen years ago, online voices were not enough to rival traditional print media, but negative news was already quite damaging to actresses.
With both online and traditional print media attacking Jiang Mingyue, her public image was directly destroyed, and she was smeared as a shameless and despicable woman who was greedy for money, used any means to climb the ladder, and slept with every member of the film crew.
Despite her outstanding looks and excellent acting skills, Jiang Mingyue still lost her leading role in a big-budget production because her "reputation was not pure and flawless."
Finally, when Jiang Mingyue turned thirty, Fu Qian's fiancée's family, who was fond of spending money to smear Jiang Mingyue's reputation, went bankrupt due to failed investments, and the rumors surrounding Jiang Mingyue were finally exposed.
But Jiang Mingyue was no longer young. Given the fierce competition in the entertainment industry, the opportunities she lost would never come back. She could only mingle in various film and television dramas, playing charming and alluring concubines and empresses, unable to go any further.
Fu Qian's fiancée is the girl whose biological parents switched at birth with Jiang Mingyue.
In other words, Jiang Mingyue's biological parents had demanded that she sell her marriage for their own benefit, and only after failing did they allow their adopted daughter to continue pestering her.
*
The overly youthful face in the mirror made Jiang Mingyue realize that something was wrong.
In an instant, she entered a mysterious space.
The space was pitch black, seemingly endless, with only a glowing book suspended in the center of the room.
After searching around and confirming that she couldn't find an exit, Jiang Mingyue realized that the book was a clue left for her by this space.
So she stepped forward and opened the book.
*
This is a novel based on Jiang Mingyue's own experiences, but the female protagonist is not her, but Han Jialan, who was switched at birth with her.
In the novel, Han Jialan was an excellent student from a young age and had a deep relationship with her parents, but she discovered that her parents had become very strange during her first year of junior high school.
Whenever an advertisement for a learning machine appears on a local TV station, Han's mother, Wang Mei, would suddenly become depressed, and even secretly cry several times after the advertisement ended.
Then, her mother, who used to stay home on weekends to cook all sorts of delicious food for her and her father or take her out to play, began to leave home frequently. She would disappear for most of the day once she went out, and when she came back, she looked even more lost and dejected.
Six months later, even her father began to become indifferent to her.
Han Jialan believes that her poor academic performance led to the family's misfortune. She focuses all her energy on her studies and tries to find topics to chat with her mother.
As her grades gradually climbed to the top of the class, her mother finally smiled again, and her childhood sweetheart Fu Qian publicly admitted that the two were dating. This led to the already close relationship between the Han and Fu families finalizing the marriage, and her father was also able to join forces with the Fu family to expand their business empire.
However, Han Jialan still remembered her parents' strange behavior. She skipped a tutoring class to follow her mother, Wang Mei, and discovered that she was not the biological daughter of the Han family at all!
The reason her mother didn't abandon her was because she couldn't bear to part with so many years of affection, and also because their biological daughter was a female hoodlum who would fight with boys on the street, a disgrace the Han family couldn't bear.
Han Jialan knew that she would not be abandoned by her parents.
But amidst her relief, she became wary, realizing that everything she enjoyed was not unconditional, and that if she were as rude and mean as the Han family's biological daughter, she too would be abandoned.
Therefore, while working hard in her studies, Han Jialan also tried even harder to hold on to Fu Qian, whose family background was several levels better than hers, and never left his side.
Contrary to his wishes, after entering high school, Fu Qian fell in love with a girl at first sight. Disregarding Han Jialan's feelings, he broke up with her directly and then pursued her intensely.
Han Jialan, unwilling to give up, confronted the other party and was shocked to discover that the girl Fu Qian was relentlessly pursuing was actually Han's biological daughter, Jiang Mingyue.
Han Jialan was in immense pain, but her love for her parents and Fu Qian prevented her from letting go. She silently endured Fu Qian's infatuation with Jiang Mingyue. She never complained and did her best to play the role of his fiancée, taking care of Fu Qian's daily needs, accompanying Fu Qian's mother shopping, drinking tea, and socializing, thus gaining the approval of Fu Qian's parents.
Even after it was revealed that she was not the biological daughter of the Han family, Fu Qian's parents still stood firmly by her side and only recognized Han Jialan as their daughter-in-law.
Han Jialan waited for more than ten years, and finally could not bear it any longer. She exposed to the outside world that Jiang Mingyue had used any means to climb the social ladder over the years, constantly climbing into the beds of many directors and producers, and even giving birth to an illegitimate daughter whose father was unknown, which ruined Jiang Mingyue's reputation.
Fu Qian then realized that he had regarded Jiang Mingyue as an unattainable white moonlight and goddess, while she was already a piece of junk.
He was heartbroken and completely gave up on Jiang Mingyue.
Han Jialan continued to gently accept everything about Fu Qian, and finally, the clouds parted and the moon shone through.
Fu Qian understood the true meaning of love and began to pour all his passion into Han Jialan. With the blessings of both sets of parents, the two entered the hall of marriage.
At the end of the story, Jiang Mingyue attends a lavish party frequented by wealthy businessmen and dies from an overdose of illegal drugs.
Upon seeing the news, Fu Qian suddenly covered his face and burst into tears of anguish...
*
Jiang Mingyue stared speechlessly at the last page of the novel, thinking: That's it? It doesn't seem like a happy ending like "the princess and the prince lived happily ever after".
She closed the glowing novel with a look of disgust.
Without decades of schizophrenia, one couldn't have written the ramblings in this book.
Jiang Mingyue put the book back where it belonged, turned around without looking back, and prepared to continue trying to find a way out.
A frantic voice suddenly rang out from the pitch-black space: "Don't go!"
Jiang Mingyue paused for a moment, then continued to move firmly in one direction, convinced that she would eventually find a way out.
The voice cried out anxiously, "Do you remember being pushed off the building? If you don't agree to make a deal with me, you'll fall to your death the moment you land back!"
Jiang Mingyue suddenly stopped in her tracks, her face changing color.
Yes, she remembered.
Jiang Mingyue played the male lead's wicked stepmother in a fantasy drama. While the Heavenly Emperor, the two male leads who played his son, and the actors who played the Demon Prince and Demon King all became overnight sensations, the female lead, supposedly a ratings draw, was completely overshadowed by Jiang Mingyue in both looks and acting, and was ignored throughout the entire series.
The internet is flooded with videos edited by video editors, creating pairings between Empress Jiang Mingyue and numerous male actors, further boosting Jiang Mingyue's popularity.
The female lead's extreme fans broke into Jiang Mingyue's hotel room where she was staying for an event and pushed her off the 20th floor.
"This novel has no ending because the author couldn't finish it," the voice patiently explained. "The world of the novel exists in relation to reality, but to become a true parallel world, it needs at least an ending—let's make a deal. You bring this story to a perfect conclusion that no one could have imagined; and after I gain the chance to exist, I will merge the two worlds, giving you a true 'rebirth.' How about it, let's cooperate?"
Finding one's adoptive mother, regaining youth, and having unlimited possibilities for the future—it's truly an irresistible deal.
Jiang Mingyue suddenly laughed: "It's better to live a wretched life than to die a good death. Deal."
Even if the other party was lying to her, Jiang Mingyue could not return to the real world even after diligently completing the novel's ending. At least in the novel's world, she gained a new life and had a chance to make up for her regrets.
"I won't let you regret your choice." The darkness before her eyes faded, and Jiang Mingyu could still hear the words of advice from the novel world: "As a 'reward for saving the world,' I've prepared a cheat code for you. Use it wisely."
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