The world was spinning. Or maybe she was spinning. Su Yiling couldn't tell anymore.
The rain had turned vicious by the time she reached the bridge overpass, sheets of water making it impossible to see more than a few meters ahead. Her hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly her knuckles had gone white, but she couldn't seem to slow down. Couldn't think past the roaring in her head.
I'm not sorry.
The words echoed, bouncing around her skull like bullets ricocheting off metal. Her cousin's satisfied smile burned behind her eyelids every time she blinked.
The truck came out of nowhere.
One moment she was driving through the storm, the next there was a wall of steel and screaming metal and then,
Nothing.
Thud.
Su Yiling jerked awake, her cheek stinging from where it had been pressed against something hard. Wooden. A desk?
She blinked, trying to focus. Her eyes felt heavy, like she'd been sleeping for days. The familiar scent of dust and teenage cologne filled her nostrils, mixed with the lingering smell of cafeteria lunch. Around her, voices buzzed in conversation, young voices, excited and carefree in a way that seemed foreign now.
This wasn't right. She should be... where should she be?
Her vision cleared slowly, revealing rows of identical desks filled with students in navy blue uniforms. A blackboard at the front displayed complex mathematical equations in neat white chalk. The afternoon sunlight streamed through tall windows, casting everything in a golden glow that felt impossibly warm after the cold rain she remembered.
"Miss Su, if you're quite finished with your nap, perhaps you'd like to join us for the remainder of the review session?"
The voice belonged to Mr. Chen, her old calculus teacher. But that was impossible. Mr. Chen had retired years ago, sometime after she'd graduated. She remembered attending his farewell party, remembered giving a speech about how he'd helped her get into university.
Su Yiling sat up slowly, her hand going to her cheek where a piece of paper had left its imprint. Around her, classmates snickered softly. Liu Wei turned in his seat to grin at her, his face exactly as young and unblemished as it had been when they were eighteen.
Eighteen.
The thought hit her like ice water. She looked down at her hands, smooth and unlined, with short nails painted in the pale pink her mother had always insisted was "appropriate for young ladies." These weren't her hands. Or rather, they were, but from a lifetime ago.
Her school bag sat beside her desk, covered in the anime stickers she'd been embarrassed about later but had loved desperately at eighteen. Next to it, her phone, an old model she'd upgraded from years ago, buzzed with a text message.
Don't forget we're studying together tonight for the entrance exams! - Xiaoli
College entrance examinations. The words sent a chill down her spine that had nothing to do with the air conditioning.
"Su Yiling?" Mr. Chen's voice cut through her growing panic. "Are you feeling alright? You look pale."
She opened her mouth to respond, but no words came out. This had to be a dream. Some kind of fever-induced hallucination brought on by trauma. Maybe she was in a hospital somewhere, unconscious, and her mind was playing tricks on her.
That's when Song Hao decided to make his grand entrance.
He burst through the classroom door like he owned the place, his uniform tie loosened and his hair perfectly tousled in that effortless way that had made half the girls in school swoon. He was carrying a basketball under one arm and wearing that cocky grin that had gotten him out of trouble more times than anyone could count.
"Sorry I'm late, Mr. Chen," he called out, not sounding sorry at all. "Coach kept us overtime."
As he made his way to his seat, he knocked into Su Yiling's desk with his hip, the same careless bump that had annoyed her every day for three years of high school. Her water bottle toppled over, spilling across her notes exactly like it had.
But this time, instead of just feeling annoyed, Su Yiling felt like the world had tilted off its axis.
Because Song Hao was supposed to be married now. Living in Beijing with his wife and their twin daughters. She'd seen the photos on social media just last month, him teaching the girls to ride bicycles in some park, all of them laughing under cherry blossom trees.
"Oops," he said, reaching over to help clean up the mess. "Sorry, Su. You know how clumsy I get."
His hand brushed hers as he handed her some tissues, and she felt the shock of it all the way to her bones. This wasn't a dream. Dreams didn't have textures this real, didn't carry the weight of actual physical contact.
She was eighteen again. Somehow, impossibly, she was eighteen.
Su Yiling stood up so abruptly that her chair scraped against the floor, drawing more stares from her classmates. "I need... excuse me."
She didn't wait for permission before bolting from the classroom, ignoring Mr. Chen's concerned calls behind her. Her feet carried her down the familiar hallways lined with motivational posters and academic achievement awards, past the trophy case where her own debate team victories were still displayed.
The girls' restroom on the second floor had always been her refuge during school. She pushed through the door and immediately went to the mirror above the sinks.
The face looking back at her was like seeing a ghost.
Eighteen-year-old Su Yiling stared back with wide, uncertain eyes. Her skin was smooth and unblemished, free of the fine lines that had started appearing around her eyes in recent years. Her hair fell in the same shoulder-length cut she'd worn throughout high school, before she'd grown it longer to look more mature for job interviews.
She looked exactly as she had during the most stressful year of her academic life, the year that would determine which university she attended and which path her future would take.
With shaking hands, she turned on the cold water and splashed it on her face. The shock of it was real. Completely, undeniably real.
"This isn't possible," she whispered to her reflection. But even as she said it, memories were flooding back. Not just memories of high school, but everything that came after. University, meeting Fu Yao, and the years of relationship that led to the betrayal before her death.
Last night was also somehow years in the future.
She gripped the edge of the sink until her knuckles went white again, trying to process the impossible. If this were real, if she really had somehow been given a second chance, then she would have advance knowledge of everything that was going to happen. Every mistake she would make, every person who would disappoint her, every choice that would lead her down the wrong path.
Su Meilin was probably in class right now, two grades below, still playing the innocent cousin who looked up to her with those deceptively sweet eyes. Fu Yao was likely in university already, just beginning the internship that would eventually make him successful enough to attract her attention.
And here she was, given the chance to change everything.
She thought of the promise she'd made to herself in those final moments before the truck hit. The vow that had burned in her chest even as the world went dark around her. She'd sworn that if she ever got another chance, any chance at all, she would never again let anyone make her feel small or worthless.
She would never again trust the wrong people with her heart.
Su Yiling straightened up, water still dripping from her chin as she studied her young face in the mirror. Eighteen years old, with the whole world spread out before her like an unmarked map.
This time, she would choose a different path entirely.
But first, she needed to figure out exactly when she was. What day, what month, and how much time did she have before the college entrance examinations that would set everything in motion.