I bought myself a gorgeous urn. I excitedly imagined myself turning into ash and lying inside it. I couldn't wait, so I swallowed a whole bottle of sleeping pills. Just as I was full of anticipation, ready to say goodbye to this world, a call from an unknown number interrupted me: "Is this Miss Lin? I want the urn you just bought. I need it urgently. Name your price." I looked at the empty pill bottle and laughed in anger: "What a coincidence, are you dying today too?" "How about this? Whoever kicks the bucket first gets it?" "But I should be faster than you." "If we die at the same time, mixing our ashes together works too." Silence on the other end for a moment, then: "...Deal." Chapter 1 Today is a good day to die. Before I go, I plan to treat myself. I never lived like a princess, so I might as well be extravagant in death, right? So I walked into a funeral home and picked out a super shiny, blinged-out urn. It was the complete opposite of my dull, gray life. The sales girl tapped her finger on the sample urn. "Full payment or installments?" Wow, insulting me even now. Who the hell buys an urn on installment? "Full payment," I said firmly, slapping my credit card on the counter. "Sign the contract now." The sales girl looked at me like I was crazy. The moment the card swiped, my phone buzzed. Caller ID: "Third Brother." I rolled my eyes and picked up. Before he could speak, I cut in: "Not lending money, not giving gifts, not buying a house, don't need insurance, won't like, share, or comment on your posts..." He interrupted through gritted teeth: "Lin Yang, just... go die!" Then he hung up. I raised an eyebrow at the phone. Thanks for the invitation, already working on it. Walking out of the funeral home, I took a deep breath and pulled a bottle of sleeping pills from my bag. The doctor said the brain tumor pressing on my nerves would make the end excruciatingly painful. Better to... The phone rang again. Unknown number. Why does everyone want to interrupt my death?! "Hello?" I answered impatiently. The voice on the other end was confident: "Is this Miss Lin? I want the urn you just bought. I need it urgently. Name your price." ??? I laughed in anger, chewing on the pills resentfully. "...Coincidence much? You dying today too?" ...Silence on the other end for a moment. When he spoke again, he was suddenly polite: "Miss Lin, I'm Gu Yan. This urn is really important to me." Gu Yan? The Gu Group heir who's all over the financial news? I almost choked on the pills. "Is CEO Gu terminally ill too?" I looked at the empty bottle and explained, "This really isn't about money." I added fuel to the fire: "How about this? Whoever kicks the bucket first gets it?" Gu Yan's tone suddenly turned smug: "Then it's definitely me. I'm already cutting my wrists." I wasn't convinced: "Impossible. I should be faster. I just took the pills. If you want to beat me, you better hurry up." "Where are you?" Gu Yan's voice suddenly tightened. I thought I heard a kitchen knife drop. "I'll send someone over right now." He's in a rush? Where did this sudden competitive spirit come from? "Don't waste your energy." "I've been unlucky since I was a kid. Suicide is the one thing I'll definitely be faster at..." Before I could finish, a sharp pain exploded in my temples. Before losing consciousness completely, I used my last bit of strength to call my mom, planning to say goodbye. The moment it connected, everything went black. When I woke up, the first thing I saw was a handsome, angular face. "Awake? I'm Gu Yan." I blinked. "I'm not dead?" "Stomach pumped." He handed me a cup of water. "Doctor said you swallowed over three hundred pills. Almost died from overeating." My phone vibrated. I glanced at a voice message from my third brother in the family group chat. I played it on speaker. His furious voice echoed through the ward: "Lin Yang, are you done yet? Ningning is getting married tomorrow, and you pick now to pull this stunt?" Gu Yan raised an eyebrow slightly. I replied calmly. [Yangyang Not Late: Yes.] As soon as I sent it, the system notification popped up: "Dad left the group chat." A moment later: "Mom left the group chat," "Second Brother left the group chat," "Eldest Brother left the group chat." ...I stared silently at the (1) behind the group name. "Brilliant." Gu Yan suddenly started clapping. "More exciting than our board meetings." Chapter 2 I finally took a good look at this legendary financial tycoon. He was young and handsome, just unnaturally pale. He pulled a document from his briefcase: "About the urn..." "No deal," I said firmly. "That's the last bit of dignity I'm giving myself." "One hundred million," he said lightly. "Deal!" Before I could speak, someone answered for me. The ward door burst open, and my mother rushed in, smelling of perfume. Her eyes landed on Gu Yan, and her face changed instantly: "Gu... CEO Gu? Why are you here?" Gu Yan stood up calmly: "I came to visit my fiancée." My mother and I widened our eyes simultaneously. Mother pointed at me, stuttering. "Fi... fiancée?" "Her?" I pointed at myself, trembling: Me? Gu Yan kept a straight face: "Yes. We both liked the same urn and plan to mix our ashes together after we die in a couple of days." I almost choked on my own spit. The day after my stomach was pumped, I was lying in bed studying my brain CT scan. I looked up to see Gu Yan standing at the door with a fruit basket. He had swapped his suit for casual wear, looking much more approachable—if you ignored the three suited bodyguards behind him. "CEO Gu." I pointed at the fruit basket. "Are you visiting a patient or making an offering?" Gu Yan put the basket on the nightstand: "Heard you like strawberries." I froze. ...I'm allergic to strawberries. The door slammed open. Third Brother, Lu Zichen, stormed in smelling of alcohol, followed by my parents and—Lu Ningning in her wedding dress. "Lin Yang!" Third Brother ripped the IV tube from my hand. "You f*cking—" His roar cut off abruptly as Gu Yan's bodyguards pinned him against the wall. The room went dead silent. I looked down at the blood beading on my hand and suddenly found it hilarious. This is my family. Even when I'm dying, they have to yell at me first. Mother reacted first, pointing a trembling finger at the CT scan: "Is this true?" Father snatched the medical record, flipping through it loudly: "Impossible! Last week she was still—" Third Brother broke free from the bodyguards, grabbed my CT scan, and smashed it against the wall, voice shaking: "How can this be? Lin Yang, you're lying about this now?!" "Zichen!" Father shouted, then turned to me, voice suddenly terrifyingly gentle, "Yangyang, Dad knows a brain specialist. We'll transfer you, right now..." I shrank back. "No need. I've already hired the best medical experts from the Gu Group for her." Everyone's eyes shot to Gu Yan. He stood calmly by my bed, like a dutiful fiancé: "After all, Lin Yang is my responsibility now." Third Brother froze, then sneered, "Buddy, who are you?" Gu Yan slowly pulled a photo from his jacket pocket and held it up to Third Brother: "Recognize this?" In the photo, a tiny me and a tiny Gu Yan stood in an amusement park. I was holding cotton candy, and he looked disgusted while wiping sugar off my face. The whole family was stunned. Including me. My family was "escorted" out of the ward. The last to leave was Lu Ningning. She looked back at me, lips trembling, saying something I couldn't hear. After the door closed, I collapsed on the bed. "When... when did this happen?" I stammered. "Last night." "Tech department stayed up all night photoshopping it," Gu Yan said with a shrug. I stared wide-eyed: "You... why?" Gu Yan took an apple from the basket and started peeling it: "Just didn't like what I saw." I took the apple and took a bite: "So what's your illness?" Gu Yan paused: "Who said I was sick?" "If you're not sick, why buy an urn?" "Collecting." I almost choked on the apple: "CEO Gu, unique hobby you got there?" Gu Yan sighed, suddenly unbuttoning his shirt to reveal a small scar on his chest: "Heart surgery last year." I stared at the scar: "So...?" "So I'm half dead too," he said casually. "Sharing an urn with you isn't a bad deal." My nose suddenly tingled, and I quickly looked down to gnaw on the apple to hide it. "By the way." Gu Yan pulled a black card from his pocket and placed it on the pillow. "Medical expenses." I stared at the card and laughed: "CEO Gu, is this you being my sugar daddy?" "Consider it an investment," he said calmly. "I'm betting on your design talent." "What design talent?" "Designing the urn." He pointed to a folder. "My condition is, leave a QR code. Scanning it shows our photo." I burst out laughing: "And then what? 'Congratulations, you've scanned a pair of doomed lovebirds'?" Gu Yan actually nodded: "Could work." We both laughed together. Chapter 3 Gu Yan's heart condition was serious. How serious? Let's put it this way. My death was a countdown; Gu Yan's death could happen any second. "Mahjong! Full flush, kong on the river!" I pushed my tiles down. A wail erupted from the nurses in the ward. "Miss Lin! This is the ICU, not a casino!" the head nurse yelled. Gu Yan calmly pulled out a black card: "Damage compensation." Gu Yan's bodyguards were shaking with suppressed laughter. One accidentally knocked over the IV stand, pulling off Gu Yan's ECG leads. "Beep—" The heart monitor flatlined instantly. "CEO Gu!" The bodyguards panicked. I didn't even look up as I shuffled the tiles: "Don't panic. He pulled this trick yesterday to skip rounds." Gu Yan slowly reconnected the leads, and the heartbeat curve returned. He winked at me: "Fast learner." The sight of the head nurse fleeing made me laugh until my IV tube shook. "Again?" he asked. I looked at the clock: "One more round, then radiation therapy." "Coming back after?" "Yeah. I can play while on the drip. Just hang the bottle on the mahjong table leg." Gu Yan laughed, and he looked kind of good doing it. Suddenly his face changed, and he clutched his chest and collapsed. "Gu Yan?!" On the third day after Gu Yan's heart attack, I invented a new therapy—using mahjong tiles to spell out ECG patterns. "Look, sinus rhythm." Professor Zhang, Gu Yan's doctor, stood at the door, dropping his clipboard: "Miss Lin, do you know where the psychiatric department is?" "Yep," I said without looking up. "Borrowed a deck of cards from their rec room last week to play 'Guess Who Dies First' with Gu Yan." Professor Zhang looked like he'd seen a ghost. Gu Yan smiled weakly: "Professor, she's just... expressing concern in a special way." "Special?" Professor Zhang pointed at the abstract art on the wall made of CT scans. "She turned your MRI into Starry Night!" I puffed out my chest proudly: "Van Gogh would be proud!" Professor Zhang stormed off. Gu Yan looked at the ceiling and suddenly said: "When I was a kid, my hospital room was never this lively." I stopped arranging tiles: "Why?" "Sick kids in the Gu family are weaknesses," he said lightly. "The board questions your eligibility to inherit." I imagined little Gu Yan lying in a hospital bed surrounded by suits pointing fingers, and suddenly got angry: "Damn it! I'll go paint your headquarters Hello Kitty right now!" Gu Yan laughed until he coughed: "I'd be disowned." "Even better," I handed him an oxygen mask. "Be my henchman. I'll treat you to spicy food and good drinks." "With your savings?" He raised an eyebrow. "You maxed out your credit card for an urn." "Hey!" I threw a pillow at him. "Who are you looking down on? I'm at least—" The door opened. Lu Ningning stood there with a fruit basket, eyes red like a rabbit: "Sis... can I come in?" My face fell instantly: "Wrong room. Your sister is in obstetrics." Lu Ningning's tears fell. "I... I came to apologize." She rushed over and knelt: "Sis! I really know I was wrong! I peeked at your diary and found out what you went through all those years..." My blood ran cold. Chapter 4 That diary from when I was fifteen recorded every unbearable memory from the seven years I was trafficked. And the reason I was kidnapped was to protect my sister. All these years, I thought no one but me remembered. Lu Ningning tremblingly pulled out a stack of papers: "I... I found everyone you mentioned... the orphanage worker has been arrested, and that..." I snatched the papers. On top was a police report receipt. Dated the day I was diagnosed. "Why?" My throat was dry. "Don't you hate me most?" Lu Ningning cried, makeup running: "How could I hate you? I just wanted your attention, but you always..." Gu Yan suddenly sat up: "Lin Yang, you look pale." Of course I was. Memories I deliberately buried came crashing back—the worker's belt, fighting dogs for food, the dark storage room... These bloody wounds never disappeared. They were reefs hidden under the skin, aching in every moment I felt unloved. "Get out." I pointed at the door. "Everyone out." Lu Ningning wanted to say more but was dragged out by Gu Yan's bodyguards. After the room quieted, I realized I was clutching the papers tightly. "Want to talk?" Gu Yan asked softly. "About what? How I was abused for seven years? How I was locked in a cage like livestock to be picked? How I was sold three times?" My smile was uglier than crying. "Or how I came back to find this family never accepted me?" Gu Yan listened quietly, then said: "I was kidnapped when I was ten." I looked up sharply. "My uncle hired them," he said calmly, like telling someone else's story. "They locked me in a basement, one cup of water a day, to force my dad to sign over shares." My throat tightened: "Then?" "Then I escaped, went straight to the shareholder meeting." He twitched his lips. "Appeared in the conference room covered in blood, exposed my uncle right there." "So your heart..." "Root of the problem from back then," he glossed over it. "My point is, pain doesn't need comparison. Your pain isn't less important just because mine was worse." "And some scars look like defects, but who says they can't be art from another angle?" My nose stung, and I looked down, pretending to organize papers: "CEO Gu, your chicken soup is a bit salty." Gu Yan smiled and pulled a folder from the nightstand: "Speaking of which, I have a proposal." Inside was a "Patient Alliance Special Action Plan," detailing how to use our remaining time: Establish the Brat Foundation, treating unreliable parents. Teach every kid in the hospital to weave bracelets from IV tubes. Perform death metal at the Gu Group annual meeting. Send a box of screaming chickens to everyone who bullied us. Family Crematorium (Total destruction of toxic family). "This..." I flipped through the plan. "When did you make this?" "While you were snoring last night." He handed me a pen. "Sign?" The plan was like a light suddenly turning on. I realized living doesn't have to be waiting for death. It can be blowing up years of grievances into fireworks before the finish line. I signed my name with a flourish: "Happy cooperation, partner." Gu Yan picked up the call button: "Nurse, we need two glasses of champagne." "Alcohol is prohibited!" the head nurse roared over the speaker. "Then two bottles of saline," I added. "Vintage '82."
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