She Doesn't Exist

Gu Chuyin turned around abruptly.

The light in her eyes disappeared, and her gaze became calm.

It was the young man she had seen at the school gate yesterday.

"Why are you looking for Gu Chuyin? And how did you know she's modeling here?" The man leaned against the wall, his dark eyes staring at her, a faint smile on his lips.

His handsome face was enough to make anyone swoon.

Gu Chuyin stared at him warily.

Though he looked young, his dark eyes seemed to see through everything. It was an unsettling feeling.

"I must have been mistaken," she said, not meeting his gaze. She turned to leave.

As she walked down the stairs, she noticed people in the mall staring at her in surprise. She frowned and stopped.

A man was following her, not too close, not too far.

"I said I was mistaken. Do you have any more questions?" she asked.

"Rumor has it that there's a girl in Jiang City High School who's fat, ugly, and loves to daydream. Is that you?" Lu Xiu laughed, his smile warm and pleasing, like the sun in March.

But Gu Chuyin's face darkened.

She suddenly felt the urge to practice the judo and taekwondo she had learned for seven years.

When she didn't answer, Lu Xiu lowered his voice and stepped closer. "You are Gu Chuyin, right? Then who are you looking for here?"

Her emotions flickered in her eyes for a moment before settling back to calmness.

She never expected that the owner of this body had such a well-known reputation.

It's true that bad news travels fast.

With a slight raise of her eyebrows, she sneered, "I just wanted to try my luck as a model. After all, this mall only has one male model and is in need of a female one. I believe I'm qualified for the job."

"You? As a model?"

At that moment, Lu Xiu's smile widened, as if he had heard a funny joke.

Although he didn't mean to mock her, it was hard to ignore the look on Gu Chuyin's face.

She turned and walked away without hesitation.

This time, Lu Xiu didn't follow.

---

After leaving the mall, Gu Chuyin walked for a while and returned to the old alleyway.

She was familiar with the environment as she walked deeper into the alley.

"Auntie, is there a girl named Gu Chuyin living on the second floor? She's just twenty years old."

The tailor stopped her sewing and looked at her, shaking her head. "I haven't heard of her."

"She lives on the second floor and often comes here to repair her shoes."

"Girl, I really haven't seen the person you're talking about."

Gu Chuyin stood at the end of the alley, looking at the familiar environment and people, but she felt a sense of unfamiliarity in her heart.

This was where she had lived for most of her previous life, so why was there no trace of her existence left?

None of the people she used to know remembered her, as if she had never appeared in this world.

At that moment, an elderly scavenger dragging a few pieces of paper came back from the alley.

The old woman was in her sixties, with dry hair mixed with a little silver.

Her thin and weak body was hunched over as she walked slowly toward them, step by step.

"Grandma."

She couldn't help but call out.

"Ah." The old woman looked up and carefully examined Gu Chuyin for a long time with her cloudy eyes but couldn't recognize her. She asked in confusion, "Who are you?"

Yes, even the grandma who picked her up and raised her didn't remember her.

Everything in the previous life was still the same, except for her.

Grandma left Gu Chuyin some food.

It was still the familiar small house, dim and somewhat damp, with a faint musty smell in the room.

Back then, after she made money from her company, she took Grandma away from here.

"Grandma has been living alone. My son got married and moved out with his family. If you have nothing to do in the future, come and sit with Grandma." Grandma said while cooking a bowl of eggs with sweet wine for Gu Chuyin.

The eggs were something she couldn't bear to eat herself.

After they were cooked, she brought them to the small table and went back to cleaning up the waste paper she had collected today.

Gu Chuyin went over to help tidy up.

"You should eat while it's hot. These things are easy to get your hands dirty, don't do it," Grandma said anxiously.

"It's okay. I used to collect waste paper often."

She smiled and stacked a pile of waste paper together, planning to tie it up with a rope.

As her gaze shifted, Gu Chuyin's eyes suddenly stopped on a bold black newspaper headline.

She took out the newspaper and checked the date, it was from the past few days.

"Jiang City Racing Competition is coming, with a prize of ten thousand yuan!"

This headline caught Gu Chuyin's attention.

Ten thousand yuan was not a small amount of money in this era.

If she could win this prize, her situation would not be so difficult, and her laboratory could be put into use as soon as possible…

Thinking of this, Gu Chuyin's eyes lit up.

---

In the afternoon, before leaving Grandma's house, Gu Chuyin left fifty yuan under the egg bowl.

Then, she went directly to the address on the newspaper, intending to register for the competition.

The registration address was on the east side of Jiang City.

When Gu Chuyin arrived, she saw a racing motorcycle shop.

The shop was very large, with various types of racing motorcycles parked inside, and even the roadside outside was lined with two rows of them.

At first glance, the various styles and colors were dazzling.

Seeing such a large-scale shop, she even felt like she had returned to her previous life.

Back then, when she picked out racing motorcycles, she was also overwhelmed like this.

However, at that time, the shop owner personally received her and introduced the models, so she didn't have to worry about anything.

A salesperson in his twenties walked out.

His gaze first landed on Gu Chuyin, and when he saw that her clothes were a bit old, his attitude turned indifferent.

"The racing motorcycles here all start at four digits. What price range are you looking at?"

"I'm not buying a bike. I'm here to sign up for the racing competition," Gu Chuyin said.

Knowing that securing a spot was the most important thing now, she didn't pay much attention to the salesman's attitude.

The young salesman's mouth twitched with disbelief as he stared at her, his tone rising slightly. "You? Aren't you like 500 pounds? Are you sure you won't crush the bike?"

Hearing the commotion, other employees in the dealership were also drawn over, totaling more than ten people. Their eyes glanced at Gu Chuyin, and some of them began whispering.

The salesman laughed loudly. "This chubby girl wants to participate in a racing competition? Look at her—she can barely walk, and she wants to ride a racing motorcycle? I wonder who gave her the courage!"

Instantly, a deafening roar of laughter erupted.

Gu Chuyin's face turned cold. She said, word by word, "So signing up for the racing competition was just a lie, and mocking people was the real intention. Is this the style of your dealership?"

As she spoke, a figure leaned against the window on the second floor of the racing venue, watching the entire scene unfold.