Chapter 1: Can I Pay with a Button?

Bai Zhinuo was startled awake by the sound of chains.

A thin silver chain ran from the bedpost down to her slender wrist.

It was snowing outside the floor-to-ceiling window.

Cold pale light filtered through the gap in the curtains and fell across her bare ankle.

The moment she moved, a pair of hands wrapped around her waist.

Warm and familiar, they pulled her body back into the softness behind her.

“Awake?”

Shen Qingci’s voice sounded beside her ear.

Her warm, sweet breath brushed through Bai Zhinuo’s hair with every word.

Restless fingers were already slipping under the hem of her pajamas, tracing slow circles against her waist.

Bai Zhinuo’s body went soft without her permission.

Her small hand pressed down on Shen Qingci’s, flustered.

“S-Sis… I just woke up. Can we…”

“No can do, Nuonuo. That option doesn’t exist.”

Her soft plea was cut off before she could finish.

Shen Qingci’s hand moved from her waist to her chin, tilting it up gently, forcing her to turn and meet her eyes.

Those wine-red eyes were right there, reflecting Bai Zhinuo’s face.

Sleepy, but still pretty and cute.

Bai Zhinuo’s lashes trembled.

She stopped talking.

Shen Qingci didn’t get mad.

She just lowered her head and pressed a light kiss to the corner of her mouth.

Her tongue teased open Bai Zhinuo’s lightly closed lips and found a trace of mint from the night before.

Only then did she curl her lips in satisfaction.

She pulled Bai Zhinuo fully into her arms, her chin resting on top of her head.

Her voice was soft beyond belief.

“Nuonuo belongs to big sis. There’s no running away…”

Shen Qingci’s fingers combed through Bai Zhinuo’s white hair splayed across the pillow, brushing over the silver clasp she had fastened with her own hands.

“You’re mine. Understand?”

Bai Zhinuo finally closed her eyes and obediently buried her face in Shen Qingci’s neck.

“Want to?”

“Mmm… Can Nuonuo get a little more rest this time? I… mmph~”

Before she could finish, Shen Qingci had already turned over and pressed the little one beneath her.

Her warm lips sealed the cherry mouth that was still trying to negotiate.

“Big sis will let Nuonuo rest. Lying under big sis counts as resting too~”

The silver chain clinked like wind chimes.

The embrace was warm.

In the midst of the tenderness, Bai Zhinuo would remember the choice she made back then.

The tail end of September swept over the grayish-white walls of Chengnan Academy, pinning the last of the summer heat to the rubber track.

Bai Zhinuo crouched beside the row of abandoned bicycle sheds behind the teaching building.

A burning sour ache churned in her stomach.

She hadn’t eaten a single bite in two whole days.

The hard steamed bun from two mornings ago had been split in half, stretched into two days of meals.

Yesterday, she had only drunk two cups of free hot water from the drinking fountain in the teaching building.

The water was warm, but it couldn’t fill her stomach.

She stared at an ant crawling through a crack in the ground.

Only one question was in her head.

Can you eat ants?

Bai Zhinuo pressed her face into her knees.

The cuffs of her school uniform were already frayed.

Her stomach felt like an invisible hand was wringing it over and over.

Her spine went numb.

The faint silhouettes of her ancestors flickered before her eyes.

She dragged her weak body forward, eyes locked on the ground, hoping to find a coin no one wanted.

For her, instant noodles were already a state banquet.

Ordinary meals were delicacies she didn’t dare to long for.

Bai Zhinuo sniffed.

The aroma of braised pork drifted from the cafeteria.

This wind was so mean.

It had to blow right at her.

Right when she was at her worst, it reminded her how nice other people’s lives were.

The steaming bowls of food she had seen through the glass window when she passed the cafeteria at noon floated before her eyes again.

Braised pork, three and a half yuan a portion.

Tomatoes and eggs, two yuan.

Rice, fifty cents, as much as you can eat.

Three and a half yuan could buy meat.

But…

Bai Zhinuo searched every pocket and the inner compartment of her backpack.

All she found were three ten-cent coins and a button.

Back then, standing at the cafeteria entrance, she had stared at that button for several seconds and seriously considered asking the counter lady if they accepted buttons as money.

Luckily, the cafeteria lady didn’t have telepathy, or she probably would have swept Bai Zhinuo out with her ladle.

She went hungry for most of the day, sitting on the ground behind the bike shed, reducing her activity to save energy.

But her temperature still dropped bit by bit, and her head grew dizzier.

Until the faint sound of footsteps reached her ears.

Someone was coming.

Bai Zhinuo instinctively shrank back, hiding herself in the shadow of the shed.

The footsteps got closer.

More than one person.

“Shen Qingci, do you really think you’re still something special?”

Bai Zhinuo looked through the crack in the shed.

Four people.

Three girls stood in front, of varying heights, dressed in gaudy outfits.

One glance told you they were trashy street girls.

The three of them, all different sizes, stood in a row, like a pretty subpar human wall.

The one they had backed into the corner was a girl in the blue-and-white uniform of Chengnan Academy.

She wasn’t short at all, could even be called tall.

But she was stooped now, her collar pulled out of shape, revealing a delicate collarbone.

Shen Qingci.

Bai Zhinuo knew that name.

Or rather, nobody at Chengnan Academy probably didn’t know it.

The Shen family was a famous rich family in the city, and she herself was drop-dead gorgeous.

On the first day of school, someone had posted a photo of her taken on the sly to the school’s self-media forum.

The title was “There’s a Beautiful Girl Among the Freshmen.”

The post had stacked over two hundred floors that day.

Logically, a rich and pretty miss like her should be the brightest person on campus.

But Shen Qingci wasn’t.

In the two months she’d been here, she had been bullied the whole time.

Bai Zhinuo didn’t know the reason and didn’t care to find out.

She could barely keep herself alive.

Where would she get the energy to worry about someone else?

All she knew was that Shen Qingci had a softness that made people want to bully her.

A tall, cool beauty who seemed aloof, yet so quiet, like a ball of cotton.

Anyone could grab a handful, and she wouldn’t even resist.

Like now.

A mean-faced girl was holding Shen Qingci by the collar, pressing her against the wall.

She wasn’t fighting.

She was obviously taller than any of the three.

But she just leaned against the wall, eyes down, silently enduring.

Not a word.

Bai Zhinuo saw dirty footprints on Shen Qingci’s uniform skirt.

Her expensive white canvas shoes had been trampled gray.

The left shoelace had come undone, dragging on the ground.

“I’m talking to you! Are you f*cking deaf?”

The girl holding her collar wore a thick layer of makeup.

Her voice was sharp and nasty.

“Last time I told you to do my homework, what did you say? You said to do it yourself? Hah. Shen Qingci, have you forgotten your place?”

Shen Qingci didn’t speak.

She raised her eyes to look at Zhao Min.

Her eyes were dull and dim.

No warmth, no emotion.

Zhao Min was stunned for a second, then got even angrier.

She raised a hand and slapped her.

“Still baring your teeth? Who are you making that face at? You’ve got some nerve!”

A crisp sound echoed through the narrow space behind the bike shed.

Bai Zhinuo closed her eyes out of instinct.

The sudden slap triggered a shock response in her.

It was as if the slap had hit her own face from a distance.

When she opened her eyes again, Shen Qingci’s face was already turned to the side.

A red mark had risen on her left cheek.

The corner of her mouth seemed to have been bumped against her teeth, and a trace of bright red blood seeped out.

But she didn’t cry or make a sound.

She didn’t even raise a hand to block the second slap.

She just stood there, dazed.

The other two girls laughed.

They didn’t join in, but they didn’t leave either.

They stood there enjoying the show.

Bai Zhinuo looked away, burying her face in her knees again.

She didn’t want to watch.

Watching too much would do her no good.

When the weak pity the weak, both of them only end up worse off.

The sounds by her ear continued.

Bai Zhinuo squeezed her eyes shut, trying her best not to pay attention to the violence happening so close.

It wasn’t until she was hungry enough to lose her senses, and she planned to crawl back to the classroom to get another cup of water, or maybe try a taste of ant, that those horrible sounds finally stopped.

The footsteps faded.

The laughter scattered into the wind.

Bai Zhinuo lifted her face, supporting herself on the shed’s pillar as she slowly stood up.

Her legs had gone numb from squatting.

She bent over to rub her knees.

Her gaze unconsciously fell on the figure not far away on the ground.

Shen Qingci was still standing there.

She hadn’t left, hadn’t moved.

She was just leaning against the wall, like a discarded rag doll.

The footprints on her uniform skirt were still there.

The loose shoelace was still untied.

The red mark on her cheek had swollen, and the blood at the corner of her mouth had dried into a dark brown.

She tilted her head, quietly looking at her shoes.

Bai Zhinuo froze for a moment.

Her instinct was to leave.

She didn’t want Shen Qingci to see her.

She didn’t want to have anything to do with that person.

Even a starved camel is bigger than a horse.

They were people from two different worlds.

One was a rich daughter who had fallen on hard times.

The other was a total beggar.

They shouldn’t have any intersection.

But the moment she turned, Shen Qingci, who had been standing woodenly, suddenly raised her eyes.

Her gaze regained its light, and it landed straight on Bai Zhinuo.

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