"Are you saying you took this child from human traffickers?"
"Yes."
"Where are the traffickers now?"
"They got away."
"Were there any other witnesses?"
"There were many people at the service area, but... everyone's gone home by now."
"So there's no evidence to prove what you're saying is true?"
The officer set down his pen.
He looked at Ye Sanqi as if he were staring at a liar.
Or worse—an irresponsible father trying to abandon a baby girl.
After all, even in this day and age, cases of rural families discarding infant girls still happened.
"Listen, comrade, child trafficking cases are rampant. It's hard for us to believe you when you're holding a baby with no clear origin."
"I'm telling the truth!"
Ye Sanqi's face flushed with desperation.
"Here's what we'll do," the officer stood up.
"Leave the child with us. We'll send her to an orphanage. You can give a detailed statement, and then you're free to go."
Leave her?
Send her to an orphanage?
Ye Sanqi glanced down at the baby in his arms.
She was fast asleep.
Her tiny fingers clutched the fabric of his shirt.
He remembered what his coworkers had said—orphanages were overcrowded.
The caretakers were stretched too thin.
Children went hungry, left cold.
His heart twisted like a needle had pierced it.
He couldn’t leave her here.
Clutching the baby, he bolted from the police station as if fleeing.
Behind him, he could almost hear the officer’s scornful scoff.
……
Ye Sanqi was utterly hopeless now.
Reporting to the police had led nowhere.
His money was dwindling fast.
Formula, diapers, cheap motels—
Every expense chipped away at what little he had left.
Panic set in.
With the baby in his arms, he wandered aimlessly through the city streets.
Skyscrapers loomed, traffic roared past.
Nowhere felt like a place he belonged.
That afternoon, rain began to fall.
Autumn rain—cold enough to bite.
Ye Sanqi took shelter under the awning of a bank.
The baby in his arms grew feverish.
She was sick.
Feeling her burning forehead, Ye Sanqi’s heart raced with fear.
He rushed into the rain, sprinting to a small clinic.
The doctor gave her a fever reducer and prescribed some medicine.
The money in his pocket dwindled further—so little left that he could hardly face Zhang Cuilan when he returned.
The rain kept pouring.
Ye Sanqi sat on the clinic’s front steps, holding the now-sleeping baby, her fever subsided.
Drenched, shivering, and starving, he stared down at her.
For the first time, a thought crept into his mind.
Abandon her.
Leave her at the hospital entrance.
Or on the doorstep of some wealthy-looking home.
That way, she might live.
With him, she’d only starve.
The thought coiled around his heart like a venomous snake.
He stood up and walked, step by step, toward the city hospital ahead.
Its entrance blazed with light.
All he had to do was set her down.
Turn away.
And it would all be over.
His hands trembled.
He looked down at her one last time.
Just then, the baby stirred awake.
She didn’t cry.
Her dark, shining eyes—round as grapes—
Fixed on him, quiet and steady.
Then, her tiny mouth curled.
She smiled.
A toothless, pure grin.
Her little hand wriggled free from the swaddle.
Somehow, it found his rough, scarred finger—and grasped it.
Ye Sanqi froze.
A warmth spread from that touch, flooding his entire body.
All his hesitation, his pain, his despair—
Crumbled before that smile.
He bent down, brushing his stubbled cheek gently against hers.
"No more running," he whispered to himself.
"Let’s go home."
……
On the bus back to Anhe County,
Ye Sanqi sat by the window again.
He wrapped his coat around the swaddled baby.
Outside, harvested fields stretched endlessly.
A narrow stream wound through them,
Glittering under the sunlight.
So small, yet unwavering,
Flowing forward without rest.
Ye Sanqi gazed at it, lost in thought.
He wasn’t an educated man.
Hadn’t read many books in his life.
But in that moment, clarity struck him.
He leaned down and murmured to the baby,
"From now on, your name is Ruoxi, alright?"
"Ye Ruoxi."
He gave her his surname.
She was his daughter now.
……
Three days later,
Ye Sanqi finally returned to the urban village in Anhe County.
His home stood at the deepest end of an alley—
A crumbling two-story house.
The wooden door creaked as he pushed it open.
Zhang Cuilan was in the courtyard, scrubbing laundry.
She froze when she saw him.
Then her eyes locked onto the bundle in his arms.
"Ye Sanqi! You’ve got some nerve!"
Zhang Cuilan flung the wet clothes aside and sprang to her feet.
Her voice was shrill, piercing.
"Knocked up some woman out there and brought the bastard home?!"
"Shut your mouth!"
Ye Sanqi roared back.
He’d never raised his voice at her like this before.
"She’s my coworker’s kid! He ran off with some woman and left her behind! I took her in out of pity!"
It was the lie he’d rehearsed the entire journey.
"Your coworker’s kid?"
Zhang Cuilan sneered.
"You expect me to believe that? Since when do people just hand over babies for free?"
"I’m not lying!"
His face burned red.
"We’ve been married all these years without a child. Haven’t you always wanted one? Now we have—"
"I wanted my own flesh and blood! Not some stray you picked up! A worthless burden!"
Her words made Ye Sanqi’s face pale, then flush again.
Holding the baby, he stepped forward.
He lifted the swaddle toward Zhang Cuilan.
"Just look at her."
His voice softened, pleading.
"Look how sweet she is."
Ye Ruoxi, disturbed by the noise, blinked awake.
Her eyes met Zhang Cuilan’s furious glare.
She didn’t cry. Didn’t fuss.
Just watched, silent and calm.
Zhang Cuilan’s curses died in her throat.
She stared at the baby.
Those dark, grape-like eyes—so clear they mirrored her own reflection.
She remembered the doctor’s diagnosis years ago.
The whispers behind her back from neighbors.
The suffocating silence of this house.
Her resolve wavered.
"Fine. We’ll keep her."
After a long pause, Zhang Cuilan spoke again.
But her tone remained icy.
"I’ll feed her. Nothing more. Don’t expect anything else from me."
"If she gets sick, if she dies—don’t come crying to me."
"And every cent you earn goes to me. Not a penny less."
Ye Sanqi exhaled in relief.
He knew this was her final concession.
"Alright," he agreed.
"Whatever you say."
……
Jingzhou.
Li Xiujian ended a call.
A cold smirk tugged at his lips.
His men had reported everything—including how they’d pressured the man who rescued the baby girl to back off, leaving no loose ends.
"Clean up the trail," was all he said.
He didn’t care where the baby girl was sold.
Nor did he care who picked her up.
All he wanted was for her to vanish from every official record.
That way, twenty years later,
when he placed this piece back on the board,
it would have the greatest impact.
As for that nosy construction worker,
Li Xiujian didn’t even spare him a second thought.
Just an ant.
Incapable of stirring even a ripple.
m back to his original world. In the end, he realized he had overthought things. [Hey, why is Shen Manni, the female lead, acting strange? Shouldn't she be fawning over the male lead at this point?] [Zhou Qiaoqiao, are you sick? Weren't you supposed to break off your engagement today?] [Damn it! An Youyi, please do your job as an undercover agent and sell my information to the protagonist, you idiot!] ... At this moment, Xu Mo himself didn't know that these female leads had already heard his inner thoughts. Then they decided not to play by the rules. Xu Mo: Please respect my profession as the big villain!
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
with countless casualties. As a top-tier gamer, Liu Xuan volunteered to join the fight, intending to dominate with his skills, but instead he obtained the hidden class: [Pacifist]. Unable to attack. Unable to use active skills. Fortunately, with each level gained, he acquired a new passive skill. And so, armed with a body full of passives, Liu Xuan slaughtered his way through the battlefield of ten thousand races! [You attacked Liu Xuan] [You gained the debuffs: 'Poison', 'Fear', 'Burning', 'Bleeding', 'Freeze', 'Silence', etc.] [Your attack speed has been reduced by 99%] [Your armor and magic resistance have been reduced by 99%] Warriors of the Ten Thousand Races: How the hell am I supposed to fight this?!
