Volume One, Chapter 1: Rebirth and Refusal of Marriage

“Uncle, I will take good care of Qiao Qiao. From now on, as long as I’m here, no one will ever bully her.”

The familiar, resolute words startled Ye Qiao Qiao back from the brink of death.

She abruptly opened her eyes.

The environment before her, both familiar and strange, made her suddenly realize—she had been reborn!

This was her childhood home, and today was the very day Zhou Cong came to propose marriage!

Zhou Cong!

“All right, all right. You were recommended by Director Zheng, and I trust she has already assessed your character. From now on, I will entrust Qiao Qiao to you...” Marshal Ye’s voice was filled with warmth.

“Father, I won’t marry him!” Ye Qiao Qiao restrained the urge to slap Zhou Cong and interrupted Marshal Ye.

Zhou Cong, half-kneeling before her, instinctively looked up with some confusion but smiled reassuringly, “Qiao Qiao? What’s wrong? Didn’t we agree that today I’d come to propose? Are you just too nervous?”

Marshal Ye was puzzled by his daughter’s reaction but more concerned than anything else.

“I will never marry you.”

Ye Qiao Qiao lowered her gaze coldly, her words firm and resolute.

Zhou Cong stood up and reached out to take her hand. “Qiao Qiao, don’t be angry. If I’ve done something wrong—”

Before he could finish, Ye Qiao Qiao snapped her hand away with a sharp slap.

“I won’t marry anyone but definitely not you!”

Her eyes blazed with hatred and fury; she wished she could strike Zhou Cong down immediately, but she knew she had to stay calm.

“Qiao Qiao, saying that hurts me deeply,” Zhou Cong said, feeling both rejected and slighted.

“We were fine before. Why have you suddenly changed your mind?”

“Are you playing with me?” Zhou Cong frowned. Although he knew that Ye Qiao Qiao, as the daughter of a marshal, was naturally a bit spoiled and headstrong, he was taken aback by her temper and felt a twinge of displeasure.

“Ye Qiao Qiao, you should know when to throw a tantrum,” several privileged sons of military families standing behind Zhou Cong couldn’t help but criticize her.

They all began to look down on Ye Qiao Qiao.

Though she was the marshal’s daughter.

Zhou Cong, young yet a wealthy and rising star in business with assets worth hundreds of thousands and thriving stores, was a golden match. Marshal Ye held a high position but led a modest life. Marrying Zhou Cong meant a life of luxury for Ye Qiao Qiao.

No one expected her to cause such a scene before even marrying in.

They suspected she was deliberately trying to manipulate Zhou Cong.

If it weren’t for Marshal Ye’s presence, they would have spoken even more harshly.

“Ye Qiao Qiao, you said you wouldn’t marry before, but to refuse on the day of the proposal—that’s just too willful. Are you trying to bully Brother Zhou?”

Ye Qiao Qiao had quarreled with these people many times in her previous life.

Although Zhou Cong intervened afterward to make them apologize, they would soon mock and provoke her again.

Looking back, if Zhou Cong truly valued her, would these second-generation brats dare behave so insolently?

It was all deliberate—every time she suffered, Zhou Cong would soothe her gently, making her misunderstand him and fall deeper into his trap. Such cunning calculation.

“Brother Zhou has sent you so many gifts—Swiss watches, the latest mobile phones from Hong Kong, gold bracelets, and countless fashionable foreign clothes that many women in the military district courtyard can’t even wear. How come you never refused them when you received them?”

“I’m telling you, Miss Qiao Qiao, stop acting like a spoiled heiress. You should know that women who are too willful are not liked.”

Ye Qiao Qiao looked at the disdain and dislike in their eyes, their words full of blame. Hearing their accusations and labels, she laughed bitterly.

“Fine! I was going to give Zhou Cong some face, but if you insist on accusing me unfairly, don’t blame me for being blunt!”

Just as she finished speaking—

“What nonsense are you talking about? I’m her father, and I’m still here! How can you bully my daughter in front of me?” Marshal Ye’s face darkened with displeasure.

The three men immediately paled.

Marshal Ye’s stern expression shocked them back to reality. No matter how much money they made with Zhou Cong, he was still their superior’s superior.

Their dissatisfaction with Ye Qiao Qiao stemmed only from jealousy that she had a loving father in a high position.

“Xu Zhengqing, you say I shamelessly accepted many expensive gifts from Zhou Cong?” Ye Qiao Qiao retorted sarcastically. “But I’ve never accepted a single one of his gifts!”

Xu Zhengqing, one of the brats, chuckled lightly. “Ye Qiao Qiao, don’t come up with excuses. Brother Zhou personally sent you those gifts.”

“To whom did he send them?” Ye Qiao Qiao sneered.

Xu Zhengqing grew impatient. “To ‘Yaoshuang.’ Isn’t that the pen name you use when corresponding with Brother Zhou? So, you get one package under your pen name, and you want another under your real name?”

Zhou Cong looked helpless. “Qiao Qiao, we used to exchange letters all the time. I’m Zhou Zhou, not someone else.”

He was genuinely confused. They had just poured their hearts out in a letter not long ago.

“Zhou Zhou? Yaoshuang?” Ye Qiao Qiao snorted coldly. “Sorry, I am Ye Qiao Qiao—no other name. Who is Yaoshuang? I never corresponded with you under that name.”

“That’s impossible.” Zhou Cong didn’t expect her to want to erase their two-year epistolary relationship. His chest burned with anger as he stared at her with disappointment and sorrow.

It was as if she trampled on their bond.

“But I do know someone who uses the pen name Yaoshuang. Why don’t we confront her directly?” Ye Qiao Qiao said in a low voice.

Xu Zhengqing and the others were shocked and puzzled.

They glanced at Zhou Cong instinctively.

Zhou Cong was both angry and surprised. Seeing Marshal Ye’s obvious lack of objection, he realized that even if Ye Qiao Qiao was truly causing trouble today and denied being Yaoshuang, he would have to swallow his pride and placate her. He would bear the loss for today.

He gritted his teeth, swallowing his unwillingness, and vowed to rise above the need to depend on others’ favor.

“Fine, we’ll go with you for a face-to-face confrontation,” Zhou Cong said, looking at Ye Qiao Qiao. Besides the usual warmth, there was now a hidden dissatisfaction in his eyes.

“But Qiao Qiao, you can’t be willful twice after being willful once.”

Hearing his pretended magnanimity, Ye Qiao Qiao almost retched. It was the same in her previous life—Zhou Cong was the one climbing the ranks by leaning on her family.

Yet those around him thought she was the one taking advantage.

In the past, Zhou Cong used her father’s status as marshal to gain every advantage in business, making a fortune with ease.

Until he became the richest man in the country.

She had always been coddled at home, living as a pampered flower dependent on him.

But she relied on her father!

If it had ended there, it would have been bearable.

Yet as soon as Zhou Cong achieved success, he conspired with outsiders to frame her father, who died tragically in prison.

The man who gained fame and fortune by marrying her had deceived her from the start, playing a ten-year-long act before her eyes.

Back then, before he even looked at her, he had been corresponding closely for two years with Jiang Yao, the daughter of the Ye family’s housemaid, under the pen name ‘Yaoshuang.’ During those years, Jiang Yao, pretending to be the marshal’s daughter, and Zhou Cong were madly in love.

Zhou Cong’s marriage proposal today was merely because he believed Ye Qiao Qiao was ‘Yaoshuang.’

On their wedding night in the past life, Jiang Yao swallowed rat poison and died. Only after death, as a spirit following Zhou Cong, did Ye Qiao Qiao learn he knew she wasn’t ‘Yaoshuang’ all along.

Failing to marry the woman he loved, and his beloved being killed by Ye Qiao Qiao and Marshal Ye, Zhou Cong vowed to take revenge.

In the end, Ye Qiao Qiao was thrown among thugs, abused, and died.

How laughable!

From beginning to end, she and her father were innocent.

Why should they bear the blame for Jiang Yao’s suicide and be betrayed by a well-fed traitor standing atop the moral high ground?

Ye Qiao Qiao’s heart ached with rage.

Absurd.

Truly absurd.

It was all because she had been blinded by Zhou Cong’s gentle facade in her previous life, failing to see his wolfish ambition.

She wiped away her tears casually, then turned and led the group swiftly toward the servants’ quarters in the backyard.

They arrived outside Jiang Yao’s room.

Jiang Yao had been inside, quietly sorting through the letters and gifts exchanged with Zhou Cong—proofs of her love.

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door.

“Jiang Yao, it’s me, Ye Qiao Qiao.”