The Treasure with a Second Chance

Su Ting's grandmother was the one who raised her. When she was old enough to understand that her family was unusual, her grandmother explained bits and pieces of her parent's story with a heavy heart. When she was finished, Grandma Su looked at the lost child in her arms and pinched her cheeks.

"Xiao Tingting, don't worry. Grandma will give you a treasure."

The little girl's big eyes widened. She may not be able to comprehend the complexities of her parents' past, but she knew the treasure was a good thing. Her questions of why she didn't have a mommy or daddy to take her to school like the other kids were forgotten. Her big black eyes sparkled and her round cheeks squished into a smile. "Twesure?"

Grandma Su smiled and nodded. "When you wake up on your 10th birthday you will have little fairies on your ears. They will give you another chance to right what's wronged you." Grandma Su's eyes slowly filled with tears, "Oh, my little dear. Your father fell for a girl born with an ill body. If only I could help them change it, you would have no need to shed your tears. Oh, my little treasure." Grandma Su coddled the child in her arms and mumbled to herself for a long time that day. In the warm embrace, her head slowly patted by a kind hand the child fell asleep. But she never forgot her grandmother's words.

On the eve of her 10th birthday, years later, she went to bed full of nervous excitement. She was awoken by a scream. The day she'd longed for had finally come but the fairy she'd looked forward to had been forgotten in lieu of her grandmother's sudden death. It wasn't until many days later when she looked at her swallow face that she noticed her grandmother's beloved jade earrings in her ears.

Somehow, she felt it was all the fault of the earrings. She had been so caught up in her own excitement she hadn't paid any attention to her grandmother. If she'd paid a little more attention or given her a goodnight kiss as she used to as a child, maybe she would have noticed something wrong. She could have rushed her to the hospital. In the end, the doctors still did not find a reason for Grandma Su's death. One said it was of old age, another from a heart attack but in reality, they just couldn't find the cause. If she'd paid more attention and gotten to it earlier she may have been able to save the person who loved her most in this world.

Su Ting curled her fingers around the earrings and pulled. She pulled and tugged and twisted until she was bloody, but she could not remove the earrings. Even tearing them out did not work. They would not move from the center of her lobule. She stared at the blood on her hands. The unreasonable idea had hardened into a fact in her mind. Her grandmother's death was because of these mysterious earrings. They'd caused her death. And she'd looked forward to it all this time.

She sat on the floor and leaned against the wall.

Memories of her grandmother caressing her ears with a despondent look on her face came to mind. Her grandmother loved to sit on the outside bench swing and stare at the trees. The old wooden swing gently swayed her back and forth in the clear autumn wind. Grandmother Su's wrinkled eyes aged as she stared. One hand raised to rest on her neck, her pinky glazing the warm jade stud. Her long skirt fluttering in the wind and hair occasionally brushing her face all went unnoticed. Only her deep and sorrowful eyes staring out drew the onlooker's attention.

Su Ting remembered losing track of time whenever she saw her grandmother like this. She would look from afar, not daring to disturb until something shook her out of it. Afterward, she would forget what she had been doing and looking at. As if she'd never seen her grandmother at all.

All those moments came flooding back in as she sat there on the bathroom floor. Tears ran down her cheeks. A few days after she turned 10--what should have been the most exciting moment of her life--had become the darkest place in the recesses of her memories.

…

Numerous thoughts ran through Su Ting's mind. She remembered her grandmother's death when she was young, she remembered her rebellion to live in the forest, she remembered when she saved the young master of the Chen family in the forest and their parents agreed to an engagement, she remembered the look on her sister's face when she told her how she was pregnant with her fiance's child, she remembered the pain in the fire that consumed her, and her mother's wretched screams after she died. Her fingers fell from her bare ears. She stood upright and took a deep breath.

"Grandmother gave her life to give me this second chance. I will get revenge on my sister, and I will give back as much as my mother gave to me.

"In the past, I refused to log in to any game because I hated her. But I was too stubborn. I can see now that this was the only way she could see me grow up.

"She appeared before the fire had even gone out. That means she was probably always watching me. She never gave me up for herself. Father and I were wrong. I must hear from her herself what her intentions had been. I never gave her the chance in the past. Now, I will go to her."

She blushed a bit after her declaration. It was the first time she called 'mother'.

Su Ting has always refused her mother's invitations and messages. Total immersion did not mean all contact was lost with the outside world. One could enter the game to meet up or pass messages through certain social networks to the outside world. In fact, one of the reasons Su Ting had holed herself up and away from technology so tightly was to avoid her mother's one-sided messages and invitations. In fact, she never even gave her mother a chance. She would send her congratulations and a gift when Su Ting accomplished something. Or she would send her regular pocket money.

Su Ting actually had a thick face. Although she refused to accept her mother, the forest land was bought and cleared by Xiao Yin, and she lived off the pocket money Xiao Yin and Su Caicheng sent monthly. It was more than enough to live a comfortable life. Looking back at it now she felt ashamed of herself.

"First things first." She turned to her calendar to check the date. She counted out the years, "Let's see… I'm 18 years old." Her eyes widened, "Oh crap!" She confirmed the day and the month then grabbed a jacket and rushed out of the house.