1 Back to The Past

Hai City.

The temperature was still considerably cold in the early spring of March. A girl who stood in front of a recycling bin in the city center's alley caught the attention of passing pedestrians.

She wore a casual sky blue knitted cardigan with a pure white joshi kōsei1 pleated skirt. Her outfit revealed her long legs; so fair, it was as though they glistened.

The girl looked very beautiful. Her naturally curly black hair was put up in a bun. Her downcast eyes were akin to the eyes of a deer, and her eyelashes were long and dense. She emitted an aura of nobleness that did not fit in the current era.

The female boss who collected the scraps put down the steelyard balance in her hand and fetched a couple of crumpled loose change from the fanny pack around her waist. "Miss, the total's five yuan and seventy cents!"

Fu Ting cherished that small amount of money and held them in her hand. She furrowed her extraordinary beautiful eyebrows and softly asked, "Why is it this little? I've spent hours picking them up... I've picked up almost all nearby plastic bottles."

"You don't know anything, Miss. I'm giving you a better bargain now. Four softer drinking bottles like Ice Dew2 are worth ten cents, and three Coke bottles are worth ten cents. They're originally two for ten or fifteen cents. I've given you a better price." The female boss then gave Fu Ting a once-over and commented, "Well, Miss, you're well dressed. You don't look like a child from a poor family, either. How can your family let you out to collect recyclables?"

The female boss was not the only one curious; the nearby pedestrians looked at Fu Ting strangely, too.

This was an era where people could only afford to care if they had enough food. The commoners would not spend much effort on keeping their image—how they dressed and looked. Thus, they were dully dressed.

Fu Ting's pinkish and delicate look made her look like Miss Millionaire who knew nothing about worldly sufferings.

...

True enough, Fu Ting was not from this era. She had time-traveled from twenty years in the future. 

She was the daughter of Fu Pei—a famous male superstar in movies—and had lived a prosperous life since childhood.

Unfortunately, someone had maliciously exposed scandals about Fu Pei. Within one night, Fu Pei, the most well-renowned and perfect man in the country, turned into a scrambling street rat that everyone hated.

Before Fu Pei could clear his name, he was diagnosed with a terminal illness and passed away.

Fu Ting lost her only family, but she was not defeated. She was certain that someone had framed her father, and she would not let her father's reputation continue to tarnish even after his death.

She had spent three years to find the culprit and rectify her father's reputation. Just as she had found some clues, she accidentally fell into a river and drowned to death.

Perhaps God could not bear to see the heart-wrenching tragedies that Fu Pei and Fu Ting met. As a result, Fu Ting was reborn to the time when her father was just a student.

This was a crazy way of operating the world! Even the TV series would not invent a story like this!

Her father, Fu Pei, was only eighteen years old at this time and was in his senior year in Hai City High School3. He was not the powerful man in the showbiz like his future self, and she was not the rich young lady who could spend as she pleased.

She did not even have money for food. Without much of a choice, she had to pick up scraps that could fund her travel expenses to find Fu Pei.

Fu Ting inhaled and her fair nose became reddish. "Give me thirty cents more to make it six bucks. Six is an auspicious number; you'll have a smooth life ahead."

The girl clasped her hands together to form a request gesture. Her fingers were slender, and her finger joints were in good shape. They looked like a pure green jade that was displayed in a delicate display window.

Everyone liked beautiful things. The female boss could not help but sympathize with her and gave her the extra thirty cents.

Fu Ting thanked the female boss, and it was only then she saw today's date on the calendar from the corner of her eye.

Fu Pei had the habit of writing in a diary and Fu Ting had gone through her father's diary many times after his passing. She remembered something. This was the day Fu Pei got locked up in a juvenile prison and was left with a criminal record due to a fight with a group of gangsters. Fu Pei's scandals that were exposed in the future included this incident as well.

God gave her a chance to reincarnate into this timeline; she must prevent the calamities that happened in her father's past.

Without another second wasted, Fu Ting turned around, ran to the roadside to get a taxi, and told the driver an address. 

...

Fu Ting arrived at the amusement arcade next to Hai City High School. She recalled Fu Pei had written in the diary that this was where the brawl with the gangsters occurred.

Fu Ting was not sure if the amusement arcade before her was the right one. However, she knew that this amusement arcade was specially opened for students. The students who came here were mostly the students from Hai City High School.

Fu Ting held onto a passing boy's shoulder and said, "Hello, friend. Is Fu Pei around here?"

The boy was mesmerized by Fu Ting's beauty, but the very mention of Fu Pei's name shifted his obsessive demeanor into the look of horror. 

"No, I-I don't know..." He turned around and ran away right after. It was as though a ghost was chasing him.

"..."

Fu Ting's beautiful eyebrows furrowed. She had asked others, but everyone avoided her as though they were avoiding a poisonous snake when they heard Fu Pei's name.

Fu Ting knew her father had a bad temper and often carried a stern face that could make the neighbor's child cry, but she did not expect him to be treated like a beast that everyone feared.

Had Fu Pei been so prominent since he was young? He was already acting like the most popular actor.

As she scratched her head in confusion, she heard a shy girl confessing in front of her, "Classmate F-Fu Pei, I like you!"

Fu Ting followed the voice and looked to that side. She first noticed that a girl was facing an alley by the arcade's door with a love letter at hand, and five to six people who wore aviator glasses, floral shirts, and bell-bottoms walked out of the arcade. The way these young men dressed in this era was a fashion statement.

Fu Pei—the person the girl was confessing to—was indeed a fashionable man in the center of the group.

He wore a well-washed school uniform set that showed signs of decolorizing with the zipper half fastened. The top two buttons in his undershirt were unfastened.

Fu Pei was a lean and tall teenager. His face was graced with sharp features and had a very striking appearance. His black hair was tousled, and his ink-black eyes were like the haze in a winter morning.

He held a cigarette between his index finger and middle finger. As he unconsciously flicked the cigarette ash, his collar became slightly crooked, and it revealed his cool white complexion and fine collarbone.

There was not much difference between this twenty-years-younger Fu Pei and the twenty-years-older Fu Pei in the future, However, he looked naive at this moment. He had not looked like he was abused by society yet… Oooh! She meant looking steady and mature through the thick and thin experienced in society.