Please Call 1996

[Song Wanjun x Jiang Qizhou]

Song Wanjun lost both her parents at an early age and grew up dependent on others. It made her honest and meek. So when her aunt's family pressured her to quit school and marry for money to pay for her cousin's education, she meekly agreed.

On a winter night in 1996, the night before her wedding, an unfamiliar contact appeared on Song Wanjun's phone.

The person sent her money, with more zeros than she could count.

Overwhelmed, Song Wanjun called and asked if they were trying to scam her.

A gentle, cultured woman's voice came from the other end. She sounded to be in her early thirties.

"Good girl, this is for your tuition and living expenses. Use it without worry. If it isn't enough, come ask me for more."

That rich?

Song Wanjun asked in bewilderment, "Are you my mom?"

There was a brief silence before the woman laughed. "I suppose I could be."

Staring at the huge sum on her phone, Song Wanjun, who had always been honest and obedient, did something daring for once.

That night, she ran away from her aunt's house and cut ties with her awful relatives for good.

Thanks to her rich mom's money, Song Wanjun not only got the chance to continue her education, but also a small house of her own.

Her rich mom also seemed to know everything before it happened.

She said Hong Kong would return to China in 1997, and the following year, it did.

She told Song Wanjun to buy a lottery ticket, and it won her several thousand yuan.

Of course, her rich mom was also very strict. On the second day after Song Wanjun returned to high school, she made her sign up for classes in Muay Thai, kickboxing, and sanda.

Thanks to those skills, one night Song Wanjun saved a girl who was about to be sexually assaulted and knocked the attacker out with one punch.

The police later told her that the man was the culprit behind a series of sexual assaults, and they had been tracking him for a long time. Song Wanjun had played a vital part in his arrest.

After that, Song Wanjun became famous at Liling High School and earned the nickname "Queen of Liling."

She had been practically invisible before, but now she had plenty of female friends.

However, Song Wanjun's happiness didn't last long. Her abysmal grades in math and science left her reeling.

She was terribly unbalanced in her studies, and had never even passed math. She confided in her rich mom.

Her rich mom said, "Go find Jiang Qizhou. He's first in the whole grade in math and science."

That aloof beauty who had been at the top of the grade for years, so far ahead that no one could hope to catch up?

Song Wanjun and Jiang Qizhou had never had any connection at all. Even though she'd secretly had a crush on him for ages, she'd never told anyone.

Jiang Qizhou wasn't like other boys. He wore hearing aids all the time and a school uniform washed nearly white. He kept to himself, like a solitary, cold wolf, and seemed impossible to approach.

Her rich mom seemed to see right through her feelings. "Do this... follow my instructions, and I guarantee he'll tutor you."

The next afternoon, Song Wanjun stalked Jiang Qizhou, following him and watching him from the shadows.

Her behavior was so sinister that it even scared off the thugs in a dark alley who had planned to bully Jiang Qizhou and extort protection money from him.

At last, she cornered the boy, put on a fierce expression, and... handed him a bag of lopsided homemade cookies.

"J-Jiang, would you like some cookies? Could you tutor me in math?"

Jiang Qizhou had taken off his hearing aids, ready to fight. "...What?"

Song Wanjun didn't know that her rich mom was actually herself, ten years in the future.

Ten years from now, Song Wanjun would be a police officer.

She had three deep regrets.

1. Her younger self had been so meek and timid that she had married without thinking and failed to get into her dream university. Even after she later escaped from the mountain village and got into police academy through her own efforts, she'd already lost too many years.

2. In her senior year of high school, a schoolmate had died in the girls' restroom. When her body was found, she had no clothes on. The case became unsolved, and ten years later, the killer was still at large.

3. The boy she'd had a crush on, the top student in their grade, later became a genius criminal who struck terror into everyone's hearts. She was the one who arrested him. It was then that she learned of the painful school years and countless wounds hidden beneath his hearing aids. When he was young and trapped in the depths of despair, no one had reached out to help him.

After an accident, Song Wanjun came across the old phone she'd used in high school and discovered that she could use it to contact her younger self.

This time, Song Wanjun swore to change everything.

She would raise her younger self all over again, and save her young friends and the person she loved.

Theme: A woman must stand on her own two feet to build a world that belongs to her alone.