Jianglai still remembered the day his wife was laid to rest. The funeral was sparsely attended, the quiet stillness almost lonely.

Standing before the grave, Jianglai—the last pillar holding his shattered family together—kept his tears locked behind trembling eyelids. Silent droplets fell, but he refused to sob openly. Others depended on him. Grief could wait for solitude; breaking down now would only worry them.

His in-laws. His wife’s underage sister. Most of all, their toddler daughter just learning to walk. All needed him to stay strong.

“Brother-in-law… you won’t abandon us too, will you…?”

Yingyu Chi’s voice cracked with tears. Since her sister’s death, she’d wept until her eyes swelled shut, drowning in sorrow. Jianglai ached to hug her—this sister he and his wife had both loved—but his raised hand trembled too violently to touch her. She’d grown so thin from skipping meals; even a light brush might make her sway and collapse.

“Never,” he choked out, fists clenched tight to stifle his sobs. “I’ll always be your family. That will never change.”

He’d never imagined life without his wife. Not since high school. One moment she’d been beside him; the next, gone forever. In that void, suicide had flickered in his mind—a fleeting escape from unbearable pain. But who would raise their daughter? How would she survive motherless?

Jianglai’s tear-filled gaze dropped to his daughter Jiang Leyi, clutching his sleeve. Leyi was the only one not crying. Her silence screamed louder than wails, her hollow eyes fixed on her mother’s name carved in stone.

“Mama won’t come back?”

Leyi didn’t grasp death—only that Mama was gone forever. A loss too vast for her small voice to name.

Jianglai swallowed hard, his voice raw as he stroked his daughter’s hair. How could he answer that innocent question? She might forget this day, but the wound of a missing mother would scar her forever. That moment, he vowed to love her twice as fiercely.

Yet he’d failed. Supporting both sets of parents, funding Yingyu’s tuition, and giving Leyi a better life than he’d had—all consumed him. To provide, he’d sacrificed time with his daughter. Work became his shield. Slowly, their bond frayed. Now, they’d never even shared a proper conversation.

———

———

Even after becoming a woman, Jianglai rarely slept soundly. Tonight was no different. Waking with a pounding hangover, she winced at the stale alcohol clinging to her skin. Returning home like this? Leyi would recoil before she even explained the impossible transformation.

She pushed herself up from bed, hating the frailty of this new body. Sometimes, her own limbs felt like strangers—too weak to even hold herself upright. *This is my life now*, she thought bitterly. A reality too horrifying to rationalize, yet undeniably real.

How would Leyi react when she learned her father was now a woman? To avoid being cast out, Jianglai needed an ally. Leyi had always been closer to her aunt anyway. After his wife’s death, he’d taken Yingyu in to keep Leyi company through childhood. While he worked late nights, it was Yingyu who waited on the couch with warm meals. He owed her more than gratitude—he owed her his daughter’s sanity.

Jianglai typed and deleted messages on her phone. Words couldn’t explain this. She needed to see Yingyu face-to-face. A hotel room, then—somewhere private if Yingyu reacted badly.

She didn’t realize how a vague text, a hotel address, and a room number might look to others.

On the other end, Yingyu Chi froze at her screen:

[*Urgent matter. Can you meet me at this hotel? Don’t tell Leyi.*]

*Why a hotel?* Yingyu’s heart raced. *And why hide it from Leyi?* A wild hope flared—*Has my stubborn brother-in-law finally come to his senses?*