Chapter 1

In the early 1990s,

Posters on the walls of beauty salons featured the King of Pop, Guo, with his 3-7 parted hair and a bright red bat shirt, smiling. The speakers outside the shops were playing a loop of the new song by the King of Cool, Liu: "The Legend of the Hungry Wolf."

The streets were bustling with people, and the food stalls emitted a mix of the spicy and sour aroma of rice noodles and the fragrance of fried sesame balls. The sounds of "The boss of Jiangnan Leather Factory has fled" and "One yuan can't buy you a loss, can't buy you a cheat" blared from the loudspeakers, one after another. Red banners hung under the tiled houses, bearing the words "Good luck in the Year of the Monkey, Happy New Year."

However, today, people's attention was focused on a piece of news on the second page of the "XX Business News." The headline of this news immediately caught countless eyes, and in today's internet lingo, it would have instantly trended.

The headline was just six characters long: Virgin Girl Pregnant and Gives Birth!!

Fortunately, the editor had not completely abandoned their principles, and the following content explained the situation in detail.

It was about a young girl who neither went swimming nor stayed out overnight. Initially, she just felt her period was irregular and didn't take it seriously. She fainted multiple times in class, but no issues were found during the head examinations, so she was sent home to rest.

One evening, her mother discovered that the girl had opened the fridge to eat raw meat, and her belly was rapidly growing. This led to the suspicion of pregnancy. When they went to the hospital for a check-up, it was confirmed that she was still a virgin (an interview with the head of the gynecology department at a reputable tertiary hospital was attached).

People who saw the report had various reactions. Some marveled at the strangeness, others dismissed it as a lie, believing the girl had an improper lifestyle and had bribed the doctor to lie. Some outright condemned the editor for fabricating a story, tarnishing the reputation of a prestigious provincial newspaper.

However, no one knew that a week later, the journalist responsible for the report committed suicide by jumping from a building without any warning. A month later, the gynecologist who was interviewed accidentally pricked herself with a needle during surgery, leading to a severe infection and her death.

Before she died, she had mentioned to someone that the girl was very strange. She didn't cry or fuss during childbirth but smiled eerily throughout. The most bizarre part was what she gave birth to, which was a......

The girl herself aged rapidly that summer, as if withering, and eventually disappeared mysteriously.

Six months later, a baby was left at the doorstep of the local orphanage. Inside the baby's swaddling clothes was 10,000 yuan and a note. The note had only three characters, which should have been the baby's name:

Fang Lin Yan......