That Bitter Winter, He Changed His Name for Love

Shao Enci walked alone along the frozen riverbank, his thin figure a heartbreaking sight. All he wanted was to die, to bring his painful life to an end.

That day, Lu Xiaoxiao happened to be cycling home after buying a roasted sweet potato when she spotted his lonely back by the river from afar. Without a second thought, she tossed her bicycle by the roadside, hurried through the snow, and wrapped her arms tightly around the slender boy's waist from behind, urging him anxiously:

"Classmate, please don't do anything foolish."

She was still young and innocent then, and assumed he was upset about his studies. She deliberately softened her voice to comfort him. "It doesn't matter if your grades aren't good. I've always held first place in our grade, so I can tutor you from now on."

The despondent boy felt something scalding hot and squishy pressing against him from behind. His face darkened, and he growled at her, "Let go!"

"I won't!" The little girl tightened her grip and used all her strength to drag him back from the icy bank. Panting, she urged, "If you get a zero on a test, you can take it again. But if your life ends here, you'll never get another chance."

The boy was sick to death of her noisy chatter. He said icily, "Something on you is burning me."

Lu Xiaoxiao looked down and saw that the warm roasted sweet potato in her pocket had long since been squashed out of shape, collapsing into a lump of mash. An idea struck her, and she immediately put on a pitiful, aggrieved expression. "I saved up my pocket money for ages to buy this, and it got squashed because I was saving you. You have to pay me back."

"I won't. You brought it on yourself by meddling in other people's business." The boy was bristling with hostility, but he truly couldn't handle this mischievous girl.

The little girl clung to him like an octopus and stubbornly declared, "I don't care. You have to pay me back with a sweet potato before you can go and die."

Shao Enci: "..."

He didn't dare use force to break free of the girl clinging to him for fear of hurting her. At last, he sighed helplessly and said coldly, "I won't kill myself. Satisfied?"

The moment he finished speaking, the little girl let go of him. She tipped up her face, her eyes curving as two cute dimples appeared. "That's more like it. You still have a long road ahead of you. At the very least, wait until you've married and had children and completed your life's tasks before you think about life and death again."

The boy slowly turned around. He hadn't finished growing yet and was only half a head taller than her.

He looked at the meddlesome girl. She wore a red down jacket, her hair in pigtails with straight bangs. Her large eyes had double eyelids, and her delicate, pretty features made her look like a doll who had stepped out of a New Year painting.

His pupils trembled slightly, as though something were flowing deep in his heart.

The girl studied him too. The boy had deep-set, cool eyes and exceptionally fine features, but she was too young to understand what being handsome meant. She only vaguely thought he looked fair and good-looking.

Her gaze fell on his thin coat, and her delicate brows knitted. Her concern was pure and frank. "You're wearing so little. Aren't you cold?"

In all his years, the boy starved of love had never heard a word of concern from his parents. Instead, he had heard one from a little girl he had never met. The words he had longed to hear for so many years had finally been spoken by someone.

In an instant, his eyes grew wet, and his lips pulled into a bitter, self-mocking smile.

Because of her, a ray of light for this world was kindled again in the heart of the boy who had been intent on dying.

Before they parted, he asked, "Little New Year doll, what's your name?"

Lu Xiaoxiao climbed onto her bicycle and looked back, waving at him with a sweet smile. "I'm going to get into Peking University. When you get in too and we become schoolmates, I'll tell you my name."

From that day on, Shao Enci never went back to his mother.

He trudged on foot through two days of wind and snow, his frail body carrying him all the way to the gates of the Shao Family's old residence. He dropped to his knees on the cold stone steps and quietly begged his grandfather and father to take him in.

He knelt there for an entire night. Just as his strength gave out and his consciousness began to fade, a pair of men's leather shoes stopped before him.

The newcomer looked only a year or two younger than him. He wore an expensive, impeccably tailored suit, and an innate indifference and arrogance marked his features as he looked down at the boy kneeling on the ground.

"So you're the bastard Father's ex-wife left outside the family?" Shao Chengke swept an indifferent glance over him and sneered.

Only then did Shao Enci understand why his father had never come to see him. As it turned out, he had a new family too. The Shao Family already had a legitimate heir; there had never been a place for him.

From the shadows, Shao Old Master quietly watched the confrontation at the brothers' first meeting. Their every word and action would influence his choice of heir.

Shao Enci suppressed the resentment in his heart and reined in his sharpness. With restraint, he said, "I'm not a bastard. I'm your older brother."

At that moment, Shao Old Master felt disappointed in Shao Chengke, whom he had carefully raised from childhood. When he had named him "Chengke," he had hoped he would carry on the family's traditions, grow up gentle and kind, and be sensible and reasonable.

Yet despite enjoying the honor of being the Shao Family's eldest grandson, he was narrow-minded. He spoke harshly to belittle his older half-brother, without the slightest capacity to accept others.

After his grandfather acknowledged him, everything that had once belonged to Shao Enci came back to him.

He changed the shameful name he had borne for twelve years and named himself "Enci."

When Shao Old Master asked why he had changed his name, he answered truthfully, "On the day of the first snow, I was going to jump into a lake and end my life, but a girl saved me. She gave me a reason to go on living. And you, Grandpa, gave me a second life. I'll never forget the people who helped me."

Shao Old Master's eyes filled with gratification, and he nodded repeatedly. "Good boy. Grandpa was right about you after all."

At thirteen, Shao Enci went to study in the United States, where he met Qiu Boye, the first good friend of his life.

At fifteen, when Shao Old Master fell seriously ill and was bedridden, he immediately put aside his studies, returned to China, and transferred to a high school there.

In the hospital ward, Shao Enci stayed at his bedside every day, caring for him attentively. The old man would look at him and often shed tears of regret, feeling guilty for having heartlessly abandoned him all those years ago and for not bringing him back under the Shao Family's protection sooner.

"Xiao Ci, I've found the little girl who saved you back then. She's studying at Jingzhou Affiliated Middle School now. I've already spoken to the school, so you can transfer straight into her class."

Shao Enci's eyes reddened at once. He gripped the old man's withered hand tightly, his voice hoarse and trembling. "Thank you, Grandpa."

The old man knew he didn't have much time left. The last thing he could do to make it up to him was to arrange his estate in advance, placing the full inheritance rights to the Guanghuan Group in Shao Enci's hands so he could take charge of the group after graduating from university.

The old man had even paved the way for Shao Enci's future. He knew his grandson's future wife would surely be the girl who had saved him, so he added a special exception to the family rules:

[All members of the Shao Family must marry a match of equal standing. The sole exception is the heir, Shao Enci, who may marry as his heart desires, without being bound by family background.]

On the day Shao Old Master passed away, the boy who had always been unbreakably strong shed tears. He knelt in the mourning hall of the ancestral home, keeping vigil beside the coffin for five days and five nights.

The only family member in the world who had cherished him was gone.