My annual salary is eight million yuan, yet my cousin suddenly messaged me in the family group chat asking how much I earn each month.
The message arrived during that narrow hour of the evening when the office finally went quiet, but the work had not stopped.
The glass walls reflected rows of city lights, and the contract on my desk still carried the faint smell of fresh ink.
I had been reading the same paragraph three times when the family group chat began flashing.
Chu Min had tagged me directly.
“Nian Nian, how much do you earn every month now? Beijing salaries must be high, right?”
There were no greetings before it.
No question about whether I had eaten.
No small kindness to soften the hook.
Just the question, dropped in front of every relative like bait in a pond.
In my old life, that kind of message would have made me laugh and answer honestly.
In this life, I watched it until the little cursor blinked back at me.
Then I typed, “Four thousand five hundred yuan a month. Barely scraping by in Beijing.”
I sent it before I could feel anything tender.
Then I put my phone face down and returned to the contract.
Doanh Thach Technology Company had just completed its Series C funding round.
The company valuation had reached 3.2 billion yuan.
As co-founder and Vice President of Technology, the shares registered under my name were now worth more than one hundred million yuan.
My annual salary alone was eight million yuan.
On paper, I was the sort of person my relatives liked to quote when they wanted to boast.
In practice, I had learnt that wealth spoken aloud in the wrong family did not become pride.
It became public property.
I had learnt that by dying.
In my previous life, the first time I received a proper year-end bonus, I rang Mum at once.
I still remember the bright foolish happiness in my own voice.
I told her the number.
I told her because I wanted her to feel safe.
I told her because every tired year before that had been held together by the promise that one day I would make life easier for both of us.
Mum told my eldest aunt.
My eldest aunt told Chu Min.
Chu Min told the village before the money had even settled in my account.
After that, they came as if my success had unlocked a door.
At first, the requests were dressed up properly.
A little help for a cousin who had lost work.
A temporary place to sleep while someone found their footing.
A small loan for a family emergency.
A recommendation for a job, even though the person had no experience and no intention of learning.
Then the manners thinned.
They stayed in my flat without asking when they would leave.
They opened my cupboards.
They complained about my food.
They used my skincare, my towels, my chargers, my quiet.
If I objected, they looked wounded.
If I refused, they called Mum.
If Mum cried, I paid.
That was how five years disappeared.
Not in one dramatic betrayal, but in a thousand small withdrawals.
Sixty thousand yuan to Chu Yang that never came back.
Deposits for people who lost interest after two weeks.
Shopping money for relatives who accused me of showing off if I hesitated.
A holiday coat for Chu Min, because she had said I was too grand to care about family now.
I gave and gave, and every gift became proof that I could give more.
A greedy person does not remember your kindness as kindness.
They remember it as precedent.
By the end, my ex-boyfriend knew exactly where to press.
He spoke gently, patiently, almost sadly.
He said family conflict was affecting my judgement.
He said I needed to move shares around for protection.
He said Chu Min could help settle the paperwork because she understood what relatives were like.
I signed because I was exhausted.
I signed because I was still trying to be loved by people who measured love in access.
I signed away everything that mattered.
The day I stepped from the twenty-third floor, Chu Min was on social media wearing the mink coat I had bought her.
She was smiling in Sanya, one hand lifted against the sun.
The caption said she was finally living beautifully.
Then I opened my eyes.
I was twenty-eight again.
The office was younger.
My hands were unscarred by old signatures.
My bank accounts were intact.
My company shares had not been touched.
My relatives had not yet learnt how far they could push me.
The first thing I did was stop telling the truth to people who used truth as a handle.
So when Chu Min asked about my salary, I became poor in one sentence.
Four thousand five hundred yuan a month.
Barely scraping by.
The group chat went quiet for less than a minute.
Then came the little reactions.
An aunt sent a sigh.
Someone said Beijing was too difficult.
Someone else said girls should not work themselves to death in big cities.
Chu Min sent a smiling emoji.
I knew that smile.
It meant calculation had begun.
My phone lit up again before I finished the next clause of the contract.
This time it was a voice message from my eldest aunt, sixty seconds exactly.
I did not need to open it to know the shape of what was inside.
Still, I pressed play.
“Nian Nian, your cousin said you only earn a little over four thousand yuan a month in Beijing? That is too little. But you live alone, don’t you? One person cannot spend much. Chu Yang has just left his factory job, and his wife is not working either. Why not let them go to Beijing to start a new life? They can stay with you for a while and save rent. Family should help family.”
There it was.
Not a request.
A decision pretending to be a request.
I listened to the whole minute because I wanted to hear every familiar note in it.
The pity at the start.
The arithmetic in the middle.
The moral rope at the end.
Then I left the family group chat.
I did not announce it.
I did not argue.
I simply pressed the button and watched the chatter vanish.
Two minutes later, Mum called.
“Su Nian!” she said as soon as I answered. “Your eldest aunt just rang me. She says Chu Yang and his wife are coming to Beijing tomorrow. They are bringing the child, and your eldest aunt is coming as well.”
Her voice was full of worry.
Not surprise.
Worry.
That hurt more than it should have, because it meant she already understood what kind of people they were.
“You need to think of something,” she said. “Last time your cousin went to Beijing, he stayed at your grandmother’s place for half a year and still did not go home.”
I looked at my reflection in the window.
The woman looking back at me seemed calm.
Too calm, perhaps.
“Mum,” I said, “I know.”
“Know what? They have already bought train tickets. They will arrive at Beijing South Station tomorrow afternoon.”
In my previous life, that sentence had sent me into a panic.
I had rushed home after work and cleaned until midnight.
I had stripped my bed and given my eldest aunt the master bedroom.
I had folded my own blanket onto the sofa like a guest in my own flat.
Chu Yang and Liu Fang had stayed eight months.
They had eaten everything.
They had criticised everything.
They had let their child draw on my wall and then laughed when I looked upset.
Before they left, they borrowed 60,000 yuan and promised to return it before the Spring Festival.
They never did.
I was dead before the debt was even mentioned again.
This time, I did not stand up.
I did not start packing.
I did not ask Mum to plead with them.
“Let them come,” I said.
The silence on the other end was long enough for the office lights to hum.
“Nian Nian,” Mum whispered, “are you running a fever?”
“No.”
“Then why would you say that?”
“Because avoiding them only makes them louder,” I said. “You should come too.”
“Me? What for?”
“To see whether your daughter is doing well.”
I hung up before she could ask the question neither of us was ready to answer.
For a while, I sat with my hand on the phone.
Then I opened my shopping app and ordered a new set of living room sofas.
Not for comfort.
Not for hospitality.
For witnesses.
The next morning, I walked into the office with a coffee I did not want.
The lobby smelled of polished stone and early air conditioning.
People nodded as I passed, and I nodded back, the way I always did.
At my desk, Lu Yan was reviewing documents.
He had been with the company through every terrifying stage of its growth.
He had seen me sleep on office chairs, eat instant noodles beside server logs, and argue with investors until my throat went hoarse.
He knew better than most people what the company had cost me.
He also knew when not to ask questions.
“The investors were very satisfied with your plan last night,” he said, handing me a file. “The contract can be signed next week.”
I took the file.
The cover was smooth beneath my fingers.
For one second, I thought of the documents I had signed in my previous life.
Then I put it down unopened.
“Lu Yan, I need two days off.”
He looked up.
“You have never taken leave.”
“My family is coming.”
His expression changed very slightly.
Not curiosity.
Recognition.
He had heard enough late-night phone calls, enough clipped apologies, enough of my mother’s trembling voice through thin office walls.
“All right,” he said.
He signed the approval.
No lecture.
No questions.
Just a signature, neat and clean.
Before I left the company, I went down to the underground car park.
My black Range Rover stood on level B2.
It was worth over 1.3 million yuan.
In my previous life, Chu Min had discovered it after following me downstairs one morning.
She had taken photos beside it from three angles.
Then she had posted, “My cousin is finally useful.”
Everyone in the family had seen it.
By evening, three more relatives had asked to borrow money.
I stood beside the car for a moment now, looking at my own reflection in the dark window.
Then I walked away.
Outside, I opened a ride-hailing app and ordered an ordinary car.
The kind no one would photograph.
The kind that told exactly the story I wanted them to believe.
While I waited, the family group chat updated again.
Although I had left it, Chu Min sent me a private screenshot.
In it, she had written to everyone, “Nian Nian will pick us up tomorrow. She is in Beijing after all. Even if she does not earn much, she knows the way.”
Then she sent me a message directly.
“Nian Nian! Your cousin arrives tomorrow. Remember to pick her up at the station. First time in Beijing, don’t let her get lost~”
The smiling emoji at the end was exactly the same as before.
Not similar.
Exactly the same.
My chest tightened, not with fear, but with the strange coldness of seeing a trap you had once died inside.
I replied, “Yes.”
One word.
Nothing for her to quote.
Nothing for her to twist.
The following afternoon, I dressed carefully in the opposite direction of wealth.
A plain sweatshirt.
Old trainers.
A canvas bag with a worn strap.
No earrings.
No watch.
No handbag with a logo.
I even put my company phone in the bottom of the bag and carried an older one in my hand.
A lie should be tidy if it is going to save your life.
Beijing South Station was crowded enough to swallow whole families and spit them out in confusion.
People streamed from the exit dragging suitcases, boxes, paper bags, sleepy children, and the sour impatience of travel.
The announcements echoed overhead.
The floor shone under hard light.
I stood near the pick-up area and waited.
I saw my eldest aunt first.
Wang Guilan was leading the way with a huge sack of pineapples, as though fruit could excuse any amount of intrusion.
Behind her came Chu Yang, pushing a stroller with one hand and carrying a bag with the other.
Liu Fang walked beside him with the baby in her arms and two more fruit bags cutting red marks into her fingers.
They looked tired.
They also looked satisfied.
People who arrive without being invited often carry that expression.
Then I saw the person who should not have been there.
Chu Min.
For a moment, the station noise seemed to press flat around me.
She wore careful make-up, a light coat, and the small pleased smile of someone who expected to be entertained.
In my previous life, she had arrived later.
After the house was open.
After the food was bought.
After she had confirmed I was useful.
This time, she had come at the beginning.
Good, I thought.
Better to gather the audience early.
“Nian Nian!” my eldest aunt shouted from several metres away.
People turned.
She did not lower her voice.
“A year since we last saw you, and you have not grown any prettier. Look at those clothes. Are you really earning no money?”
A few strangers glanced over, then away again with the embarrassed politeness people reserve for other people’s family scenes.
In my previous life, I would have flushed.
I would have laughed too quickly.
I would have said the journey must have been tiring and tried to smooth the air with my own discomfort.
This time, I bent down and lifted the sack of pineapples.
It was heavier than it looked.
The rough fibres bit into my palm.
“Auntie,” I said, “let’s go. The car is waiting outside.”
“Car?” Chu Yang said immediately. “What car?”
“Ride-hailing,” I replied.
Chu Min came close and linked her arm through mine before I could step aside.
Her perfume was sharp and sweet.
Her eyes travelled over my sweatshirt, my trainers, my canvas bag, and my empty wrist.
She did not miss a thing.
“A taxi?” she said.
Her voice was light, but she pitched it just high enough for the others to hear.
“Nian Nian, you only earn four thousand five hundred a month. Taking a taxi in Beijing is expensive. Why don’t we take the subway?”
There it was again.
Concern as a knife with a clean handle.
My eldest aunt clicked her tongue at once.
“Young people do not know how to live properly. No savings, still wasting money.”
Chu Yang laughed.
“If she spends like this, no wonder she is poor.”
Liu Fang shifted the baby to her other arm and looked at me with that small, assessing pity that had once made me feel ashamed of my own success.
I looked at Chu Min’s painted face.
In my last life, I had spent years trying to prove I was not selfish.
This time, I had no interest in proving anything.
“The car is already here,” I said. “It would be rude to cancel.”
That small sentence annoyed them more than anger would have.
Politeness leaves greedy people nowhere elegant to stand.
Chu Min’s smile twitched.
“You are still so particular,” she said. “Even when you have no money.”
I did not answer.
I led them towards the pick-up area.
The driver helped load the suitcases, the stroller, and the pineapple sack into the boot with visible regret.
My eldest aunt got into the back seat first, claiming she was older and needed to sit comfortably.
Chu Min squeezed in beside me.
Chu Yang and Liu Fang argued quietly about the baby seat until I said, “We can order another car if needed.”
That shut them up.
They did not like my spending money, but they liked being inconvenienced even less.
As the car pulled away from the station, Chu Min leaned close enough to see my phone.
“Where do you live now?” she asked. “Still renting?”
“Yes.”
“How many rooms?”
“Enough.”
“Enough for all of us?”
I turned to look out of the window.
The driver’s eyes flicked up to the rear-view mirror.
He could hear everything.
Good.
“For a short visit,” I said.
My eldest aunt immediately said, “Family does not count days.”
“Rent does,” I replied.
The car went quiet.
Not silent, exactly.
There was the baby breathing, the traffic outside, the faint click of Chu Min’s nails against her phone case.
But the family conversation stopped moving.
In that pause, my phone vibrated.
Mum.
I let it ring once before answering.
“Nian Nian,” she said, her voice unsteady. “I am in Beijing.”
Chu Min’s head turned sharply.
I kept my face calm.
“Already?”
“I came early,” Mum said. “I thought your aunt might make things difficult. I went to the address she said you were living at.”
Of course she had.
In my previous life, my relatives had shared my address as if it belonged to them.
In this life, I had given them an old one.
A rented flat I had kept for one final month.
Empty except for a new sofa, basic household things, and the small camera I had installed that morning.
“And?” I asked.
Mum lowered her voice.
“The guard said there is no tenant called Su Nian in that block now. But he recognised your photo from the company car entry records at another building. Daughter, what is going on?”
Chu Min’s fingers tightened around her phone.
My eldest aunt stopped rustling in her bag.
Mum swallowed audibly.
“Someone from your office called while I was standing there,” she said. “He asked whether Vice President Su had arrived safely.”
The car seemed to shrink around us.
Chu Yang leaned forward.
“Vice President?” he said.
I looked down at my old trainers and smiled.
Not happily.
Precisely.
“Mum,” I said, “wait for me there.”
“Nian Nian,” she whispered, “have you been hiding something from us?”
I did not answer at once.
I let the question sit in the car between all of us.
Let Chu Min hear it.
Let my eldest aunt taste it.
Let Chu Yang begin counting again, not taxis this time, but what he thought he might have missed.
Then I said, “Yes.”
The baby began to cry.
Liu Fang bounced the child nervously, but her eyes were on me.
My eldest aunt forced a laugh.
“What nonsense. Office people call anyone Vice President these days. Titles are cheap.”
“Some titles are,” I said.
Chu Min stared at me.
For the first time since the station, she looked unsure.
That was the first honest thing I had seen on her face.
The car turned off the main road.
We were getting closer to the old rented flat.
Not my home.
Not my real life.
The stage.
My phone vibrated again.
This time it was Lu Yan.
I answered on speaker before Chu Min could pretend not to listen.
His voice came through clear and formal.
“Vice President Su, the investor contract has been delivered to your residence for signature. Security has received it. Also, the bank called to confirm whether you authorised any family member to enquire about your assets. We told them no.”
No one moved.
Even the driver stopped glancing in the mirror.
My eldest aunt’s mouth opened, then closed.
Chu Yang stared at me as if I had changed shape in the seat beside him.
Chu Min’s face lost colour beneath the make-up.
I said, “Thank you. Keep the authorisation record.”
“Already done,” Lu Yan said.
I ended the call.
The silence after it was not empty.
It was crowded with every calculation they had made since they boarded the train.
At last, Chu Min spoke.
Her voice was softer now.
“Nian Nian, why would your bank mention family?”
I looked at her hand.
The same hand that had once held my old share documents.
The same cousin who had once smiled in my coat on holiday after my death.
“That is what I would like to know,” I said.
The car stopped outside the rented building.
Rain had begun to spot the pavement, thin and grey.
The driver opened the boot.
No one reached for the luggage.
My eldest aunt suddenly clutched the pineapple sack as if it could defend her.
Chu Yang cleared his throat.
“Nian Nian, we are family. If you are doing well, you should have told us. We only came because we worried about you.”
There it was.
The turn.
From pity to entitlement in under one minute.
I stepped out of the car and opened my old canvas bag.
Inside was the spare key to the rented flat, a printed ride-hailing receipt, my leave approval form, and one folded copy of the message where Chu Min had told everyone I was poor enough to be useful but local enough to provide housing.
I held the paper in my hand.
Chu Min saw it.
Her eyes widened.
“Why did you print that?” she asked.
I smiled at her in the drizzle.
“Because people forget what they say when money appears.”
Mum was already waiting near the entrance.
Her coat was damp at the shoulders.
Her eyes moved from my relatives to me, then to the paper in my hand.
She looked frightened, but not of me.
For once, she looked frightened for me in the right direction.
My eldest aunt hurried forward.
“Sister, you came at the right time. Your daughter has been lying to the family. She is clearly rich and still let us worry.”
Mum did not answer.
She kept looking at me.
“Nian Nian,” she said quietly, “tell me the truth.”
I could have told her everything.
The company.
The shares.
The other life.
The fall.
The coat in Sanya.
But some truths are too large to hand over in a doorway.
So I gave her the only truth she needed first.
“Mum,” I said, “I am not poor.”
Her eyes filled immediately.
My eldest aunt’s expression sharpened with triumph, as if my sentence had proven her right to take whatever she wanted.
I saw it happen.
The old hunger came back into their faces.
Faster than shame.
Faster than love.
Chu Yang even smiled.
“Then this is simple,” he said. “We can all stay somewhere better. You should have said so earlier.”
I turned to him.
The rain tapped lightly against the plastic fruit bags.
The baby hiccupped in Liu Fang’s arms.
Chu Min watched me with a warning in her eyes, as if she still believed she could steer this.
“No,” I said.
One word again.
The same shape as my message the day before.
But this one landed differently.
My eldest aunt blinked.
“What do you mean, no?”
“I mean you may visit for one evening,” I said. “You may sit on the sofa I bought yesterday. You may drink water if you are thirsty. Then you will take your luggage and find your own hotel.”
Chu Yang’s face darkened.
“We came all this way.”
“You bought tickets without asking.”
“We are family.”
“Family does not move into someone’s home by announcement.”
The doorway went very still.
A neighbour came out, saw the suitcases, and slowed down just enough to listen without admitting it.
The driver had not left either.
He was pretending to check the boot.
Witnesses, I thought.
At last.
My eldest aunt turned to Mum.
“Are you hearing this? Your daughter has money now and looks down on her own blood.”
Mum’s lips trembled.
In the old life, this was where she would cry.
This was where I would fold.
This was where all of them would watch me choose peace over myself.
But Mum looked at my face, then at the paper in my hand, then at the suitcases crowded around the entrance.
Something in her changed.
Small, but real.
“Eldest sister,” she said, voice shaking, “Nian Nian did not invite you to live with her.”
My aunt stared at her.
So did I.
Mum had never said anything like that before.
The sentence was not loud.
It did not need to be.
For the first time, someone other than me had drawn the line.
Chu Min recovered fastest.
She stepped forward, smiling again, though her eyes were hard.
“Nian Nian, why make this ugly? We only teased you at the station. You cannot take every little thing seriously. Besides, if you are really Vice President, surely helping Chu Yang find work is nothing to you.”
There it was.
The second door.
Housing first.
Work next.
Money after that.
A whole future trying to rebuild itself.
I took out my phone.
Chu Min’s smile faded.
“What are you doing?”
“Checking the recording,” I said.
My eldest aunt shouted, “What recording?”
I looked at the camera above the entrance.
Then at the phone in my hand.
Then at every face that had come to Beijing expecting to find a tired, guilty woman with a sofa to surrender.
“The one that starts at the station,” I said. “And the one that starts here.”
Liu Fang went pale.
Chu Yang stepped back as if the pavement had shifted.
Mum covered her mouth.
Chu Min’s expression changed completely.
No smile.
No sweetness.
Only fear, naked and quick.
And that was when I knew.
The bank call had not been random.
Someone had already tried to ask about my assets.
Someone standing in front of me had moved earlier than in my previous life.
The game had not merely restarted.
It had sped up.
My phone vibrated once more.
A message from Lu Yan appeared on the screen.
“We found the caller name used in the bank enquiry. It matches a family contact. Do not be alone with them.”
I looked up slowly.
Chu Min was staring at my phone.
And for the first time in two lifetimes, she looked as though she had just realised I was not the one trapped anymore.