"Out for a night run."

"A night run? I'll accompany you. Hold on a second while I go swap into a pair of athletic shoes."

"There's really no need for that."

"There absolutely is a need. It's already pitch black out here. What on earth are we supposed to do if you cross paths with some unhinged pervert?"

I...

Fine then.

23

Following the passing of our driver's elderly mother, his father's physical health suddenly took a drastic turn for the worse.

Consequently, he was forced to request a protracted leave of absence, rendering him temporarily incapable of reporting for duty.

The J family routinely maintained a staff of three full-time drivers.

One was exclusively assigned to Uncle Joseph.

Another operated solely for Auntie Judith.

And the final individual shouldered the responsibility of chauffeuring Julian and me to and from our academic campuses.

Barely a couple of days passed before the replacement driver officially reported for duty.

However.

The exact instant my eyes locked onto that honest, good-natured face, I froze dead in my tracks.

This middle-aged man was someone I had encountered previously.

In my past life, when Chloe was officially welcomed back into the household.

Due to my presence, she would throw violent tantrums inside the mansion practically every single day.

Left with no other alternative, his mother eventually proposed that I vacate the residence.

As I prepared to depart, his mother wired a sum of money to my account, an amount fully sufficient to cover my rent and living expenses throughout the entirety of my senior year of high school.

Yet the exact instant my footsteps crossed beyond the borders of the estate, I found my path completely blocked by Chloe.

She glared at me with an expression of absolute, unbridled disdain.

"Clara, can you possibly be any more shameless? Our family has already bankrolled your entire upbringing, yet you actually have the absolute audacity to accept my mother's money?"

"If I were in your pathetic shoes, I wouldn't touch a single cent of it even if it meant turning to the streets."

"Have a shred of dignity and return my mother's funds this instant."

Chloe subjected me to a blistering torrent of verbal abuse.

In the very next instant, she violently snatched my smartphone right out of my palms, forcibly executing a digital transfer to drain every single cent from my account.

Late that night.

I was left pushing a heavy suitcase along the deserted streets, wandering aimlessly in the dead of night.

Just as my mind was locked in a agonizing debate over whether I should swallow my pride to borrow funds from a classmate.

A sleek luxury vehicle glided to a halt directly in front of my path. The middle-aged driver rolled down the window, asked a couple of brief questions, thrust fifty thousand dollars into my hands, and subsequently drove away into the night without a single moment of hesitation.

I was left standing on the pavement in absolute, stunned bewilderment.

Fortunately, that kind stranger had left a contact number behind.

Three months later, when Christian officially brought me back into the household.

My primary focus centered on immediately returning that sum to the driver, yet his voice crackled through the receiver assuring me that it wasn't necessary.

Following that conversation, he never once accepted another call from my number.

For the longest time, I genuinely believed that I had simply been graced by the intervention of some miraculous guardian angel.

To think that this exact man was actually an employee of the J family.

Could it be that the financial assistance in my past life had actually originated from the members of the J family?

Yet, during my previous existence, I possessed absolutely zero familiarity with anyone from the J family.

To this very day, I remained utterly incapable of comprehending why Julian had adamantly offered to bankroll my entire higher education in the United Kingdom during my past life.

Following my firm rejection of his offer, he had gone so far as to board a flight back from Britain just to personally convince me.

Naturally.

A fleeting suspicion had crossed my mind previously—could he possibly harbor romantic feelings toward me?

Yet the notion was entirely too far-fetched and unbelievable.

Because from early childhood all the way into maturity, the two of us barely possessed any interaction whatsoever.

To my mind, Julian's identity could be entirely summed up in two simple bullet points:

Christian's classmate.

A random neighbor from the same luxury estate.

Furthermore, Julian hardly fit the profile of someone who...

How should I put it?

The type of guy who would fall victim to love at first sight, subsequently transforming into a fiercely devoted, unyielding lover whose soul was entirely bound to a single woman.

In any case, he definitely didn't seem like the type to engage in such pure, old-school romance.

As the sole heir to the massive J family fortune, he possessed astronomical wealth, sharp brows, starry eyes, an imposing height, and the elite status of an international student.

He was swathed in an abundance of dazzling halos that could easily qualify him to serve as the male lead in a sweeping romance novel.

In my previous life, during my marriage to Christian.

Julian happened to be residing domestically, arriving alongside several childhood companions to attend my wedding ceremony.

He was instantaneously targeted by Chloe's predatory romantic interests.

Chloe had subsequently subjected him to a relentless, suffocating pursuit that stretched on for quite some time.

It was only after realizing that Julian harbored an absolute, icy lack of interest toward her that she finally desisted.

Could a guy like Julian truly fall for someone like me—someone who hadn't even exchanged a handful of complete sentences with him throughout our entire upbringings?

This wasn't a fictional novel.

It was flatly impossible.

Consequently, I swiftly dismissed the far-fetched theory from my mind.

Yeah.

Regardless of the underlying truth, crossing paths with this kind driver once more filled my heart with a genuine sense of warmth.

The man shared the surname Wu, and he wasn't a local, rumored to hail from a neighboring province.

Perhaps stemming from the profound karmic bond shared in our previous existence.

I found his presence exceptionally comforting and familiar.

24

In the blink of an eye, the chaotic first year of high school drew to a definitive close for Sera and me.

Concurrently, Julian faced the monumentally critical milestone of the national college entrance examinations.

Deviating drastically from the trajectory of my previous life, he bypassed the choice to pursue a degree in Business Administration in the United Kingdom in this timeline.

Instead, he elected to enroll in an elite domestic institution to pursue a degree in Finance.

By an absolute twist of fate, that exact university happened to be the alma mater of my past life.

Christian's life trajectory remained entirely unyielding; he proceeded abroad to attend the exact same British institution as before.

However, this time around, Chloe accompanied his departure across the ocean.

Word had it that the family had utilized their immense influence to secure her enrollment within an elite boarding school in the UK, allowing her to commence her studies immediately upon arrival.

Mrs. Catherine had discretely sought Sera's input, inquiring gently if she possessed any desire to pursue her education in Britain as well.

Sera declined the offer outright.

And the family chose not to force the issue further.

Two years later, Sera and I officially completed our high school educations.

I elected to return to the alma mater of my past life, albeit declaring an entirely different academic concentration—Software Engineering.

Consequently, Julian and I transformed into bonafide university alumni.

Sera's chosen institution was situated within the boundaries of the exact same city, separated from us by a relatively short distance.

During my sophomore year, Julian commenced his professional apprenticeship within the corporate ranks of the J corporation.

By the time my senior year rolled around and it was time for me to secure an internship, he had already ascended to the rank of Product Manager.

As the old adage goes, having a powerful ally within the court makes climbing the ranks an absolute breeze.

Naturally, I smoothly transitioned into the corporate structure of the J corporation, landing squarely within the exact department overseen by Julian.

I had completely latched onto his massive professional coattails.

The workload was remarkably light, the financial compensation was exceptionally handsome, overtime demands were virtually non-existent, and I could casually hitch a ride inside Julian's massive Mercedes G-Wagon to commute to the office day after day.

The arrangement left Sera absolutely burning with envy.

Driven by a noble, lofty ambition forged during her early childhood years, she had committed herself to a grueling, continuous master's-to-doctoral track in Clinical Medicine.

Her daily existence dissolved into a ceaseless mountain of medical texts, an endless barrage of examinations, and infinite laboratory experiments, frequently requiring her to board public transit buses to serve her time inside the confines of the hospital.