It's Hard to Turn Back

1. "Child, can you really not see how Yan feels? Can't you... can't you keep her by your side?" The old woman leaned against the headboard, her expression almost pleading.

At her words, a trace of impatience crossed the young man's handsome, aloof face. He straightened his black suit and patted the old woman with his long, sharply defined fingers.

"Get some rest. I'll make it up to Yan in another way." Then he stood and left.

Later, the old woman passed away. After the funeral, the house grew quiet again. On a rainy autumn night, beneath the magnolia tree, Ji Suye held out a check. Xia Yan didn't take it. Instead, she did the most humiliating and most regrettable thing of her life.

With trembling hands, she grabbed his coat and confessed her feelings.

2. The person Ji Suye had set his sights on returned from Germany. He approved of her credentials and her abilities, but he couldn't understand why the more he saw of her, the more he disliked her. The intelligence he'd once admired now seemed like cruelty, and her competence came across as coldness.

He must have been ill.

Otherwise, he wouldn't keep seeing Xia Yan's face in the courtyard and hearing her voice.

Again and again, he remembered the things Xia Yan had said to him that night beneath the magnolia tree, as she clutched his coat.

3. "You have a rotten conscience. You wouldn't have made it big and moved into a villa if it weren't for him. The rich man's come all this way. Go say hello. Maybe he'll have some good work for you."

"Move. You're in the way."

Xia Yan sidestepped her childhood friend, who was trying to take advantage of her, pushed open the glass door, and entered the flower-filled courtyard.

She accepted the compensation he offered and left that very night. She'd cared for the old woman at the Ji family home to repay their kindness from her childhood. A bird's filial affection for its parents asks for no reward. But he had paid her according to the highest rate for domestic help, so she took the money and they were even.

Now, she didn't want to see his face or hear his voice again.

Theme: Live earnestly and dare to pursue what you want!