Amid all the bustle, winter arrived.
This was Qin Yan's first winter since coming to the Fu Family.
When she woke up, the world outside was already blanketed in white.
The room was warm. Wearing fluffy little white socks, Qin Yan lay against the window, watching the heavy snow falling outside.
A bone-deep fear of the snow's cold made her a little afraid, and her face looked paler than usual.
The little girl, as soft and round as a rice-flour dumpling, looked pitiful with her deathly pale face and her big eyes gazing unfocused at the world outside.
"Don't be afraid, little one. We just won't go outside."
Meimei knew about Qin Yan's circumstances.
When the little one had lived with her adoptive parents, she had been made to work in thin clothes even in winter.
She had been so small and thin, yet even while shivering from the cold, she had still had to feed the chickens and ducks and do the laundry.
If she did a poor job, they would twist her ears, beat her, and curse at her.
If Qin Yan hadn't been so tough, and if Blind Granny and the other villagers hadn't secretly helped her, she really would have died in that remote mountain village.
In theory, since she was still young, her memories of the past would gradually fade with time.
But memories that cut so deeply would stay even with a young child. Even if her mind forgot, her body would remember.
"I'm not afraid."
Qin Yan said it softly to herself, and to Meimei.
In truth, even her voice trembled a little, and tears pooled in her big eyes.
"What's wrong?"
At some point, Fu Yunting had come in. He crouched down and gathered Qin Yan's tiny body into his arms.
As