Soul Returns to Hong Kong: From Tailor Shop to Richest Woman

When Lin Ying came out of Boya College, she was holding two things: a ten-A results sheet and a Form 6 science preference form.

Lin Lanying was already waiting under the shade of a tree outside the school gate. As soon as she saw her daughter come out, she immediately went up to her and asked, "How was it?"

Lin Ying handed over the report card: "Ten A's".

Lin Lanying saw the ten bold "A"s on the report card, neatly arranged on the white paper: "Good! Good! Mommy knew that a brain like yours would never fail in the exam room!"

She folded the report card and put it in her bag.

"I'll go home first; I need to call Professor Smith." Lin Ying also wanted to share this good news with her advisor.

"Right, right, right! Business comes first!" Lin Lanying immediately realized, "Cambridge is the real issue, let's go home!"

Back in her spacious 19th-floor apartment in Taikoo Shing, Lin Ying went straight to the sofa in the living room and picked up the phone. She dialed an overseas number to England, and the call was only answered after being transferred twice.

"Hello?" It was Professor Smith's voice on the other end of the phone.

"Professor Smith, it's me, Lynn."

"Lynn! The Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination (HKCEE) results are out?!"

"It's out, ten As!"

"Good! Very good! Lynn, I knew you would never let me down! Ten As! That's enough! Mail me copies of your transcript and the recommendation letter from Liberal Arts immediately; I'll go to the department today and urge them to expedite your special application process!"

"What about the £10,000 deposit?"

"Transfer the money to the designated account at Cambridge Finance Office as soon as possible! That's your ticket to skip the queue and directly enter the foundation program." Smith said, then added, "Lynn, I know Hong Kong will go crazy over this result soon. If the media interviews you, remember: don't say anything out of line! Don't talk about politics! Don't take any stance! Just talk about your studies, understand?"

"I understand." Lin Ying glanced at Lin Lanying, who was listening intently beside her.

After hanging up the phone, Lin Lanying eagerly asked, "What did the professor say?"

"The grades are good enough, let's get started." Lin Ying pulled out a piece of paper and wrote down Cambridge's account information. "Mommy, ten thousand pounds, it needs to be wired today."

"No problem! It's only a few hundred thousand Hong Kong dollars. Mommy will go to the bank to queue up right now!" Lin Lanying didn't hesitate at all, turned around and went into the master bedroom to get her documents and purse.

He Dazhu had just come out of the kitchen carrying a bowl of soup when he asked, "Wife, do you want me to come with you?"

"Keep an eye on your soup, don't burn it! This is for Ah Ying to improve her brain function!" Lin Lanying put on her shoes and rushed out the door.

As evening fell, a remittance receipt for ten thousand pounds, stamped with a red seal, was neatly placed on Lin Ying's desk.

Lin Ying knew that the gates to the world's top academic and financial circles had finally been fully opened.

But the trouble came sooner than she had anticipated.

The outstanding achievement of 10 As, coupled with being nominated by the Hong Kong Education Department as a candidate for "Hong Kong's Top Ten Outstanding Youths", and the rumors of "Professor Smith's endorsement and Cambridge University opening a special pathway", these explosive news items could not be kept secret within the Education Department.

Just one day later, the entire Hong Kong media swarmed around the iron gates of Boya College.

Radio stations, television stations, and major newspapers all came. The principal couldn't withstand the pressure and had to arrange a group interview in a small conference room at the school.

At 2 p.m., as soon as the door to the small conference room was opened, the flashbulbs instantly turned the room into daylight.

Lin Ying, wearing her Boya school uniform, pulled out a chair and sat down in the blinding white light. To her left sat her homeroom teacher, Li Heng, and to her right sat Lin Lanying, while lawyer Shen Yanwen, dressed in a suit and carrying a briefcase, sat behind her.

"Lin Ying! Congratulations on getting ten As!" The male reporter from the major newspaper sitting at the front exclaimed excitedly. "We've reviewed your file and found your experience to be nothing short of legendary! We heard that you had cognitive impairment until you were nine years old, and that you only suddenly regained consciousness after a ritual performed by a sorceress in the New Territories." Is that true?

As soon as the question was raised, everyone fell silent. This kind of comeback story with a touch of superstition is a favorite plot point for Hong Kong citizens.

Just as Lin Lanying was about to start cursing, Lin Ying patted her mother.

"I respect the beliefs of my elders in my family." Lin Ying looked at the camera. "But the reason I was able to get ten A's today is because I derived all the question types to the extreme. Gods won't help me with the physics test. I don't rely on legends for exams."

A female reporter from a nearby weekly magazine immediately grabbed the microphone: "So after you sobered up, you didn't even attend a regular primary school, and you skipped grades to get into São Paulo to study in fourth grade? You studied there for a year and then went on to sixth grade, and then entered Boya College with full A grades? Didn't you find any of that difficult?"

"It's exhausting, so I use all the time others spend playing to do practice tests." Lin Ying neither played the victim nor pretended to be profound. "Time is the most precious thing in Hong Kong, and following the routine is too slow."

"But Lin!" another reporter continued, "There have been rumors that you earned all the money for your studies yourself! You were the core screenwriter for several of Hong Kong's biggest blockbuster films in the past two years, including 'Death by Light,' 'The Gambling King,' 'The Magic Academy Exchange Student,' 'The Bell Rings,' 'The New Territories Riches,' and even the recent period drama 'Qin Pass,' which raked in over 100 million at the box office?!"

As soon as these words were uttered, all the reporters rushed forward to confront him. A sixteen-year-old student with ten A's was not only a test-taking machine, but also the mastermind behind several blockbuster films that grossed tens of millions or even hundreds of millions of yuan?

As soon as the question was posed, Shen Yanwen interrupted, "Dear reporters, please ask questions regarding commercial contracts based on publicly available information. My client will not respond to any undisclosed pseudonyms or unclassified commercial contracts! If anyone publishes unverified rumors, a lawyer's letter will be sent to your newspaper tomorrow."

The reporters persisted: "So do you admit that 'The New Territories Wealth Creation Story' and 'Qin Guan' were written by you? We heard that you even brought along relatives from the Lam Family Village in the New Territories to invest, making them all incredibly wealthy?"

"I admit it." Lin Ying nodded frankly, neither taking credit nor avoiding the topic. "I wrote the script, but the money from making the movie came from the clan elders pooling their money and taking on the risks, as well as the hard work and execution of everyone in the crew. I only earn the money I deserve for my intellectual labor, nothing more."

"And Cambridge!" a reporter shouted, voicing the question everyone was most eager to hear. "The news is you've been exceptionally admitted to Cambridge University! You'll be the first student from Hong Kong to go directly to Cambridge without completing Form 7!"

"Let me correct you." Lin Ying looked at the reporter seriously. "It's not a special admission. I just received early application and bridging qualifications. After Form Six, I still have to go to the UK to participate in rigorous interviews and mathematics subject exams. I hope the media won't use terms like 'special admission' to overpraise me."

The one-hour interview was abruptly cut short by the school.

The next day, the whole of Hong Kong was in an uproar.

Even though Lin Ying had already denied the rumors in person, the headlines of major newspapers still used the most exaggerated fonts to frantically create a goddess-like image for her.

Sixteen-year-old prodigy with ten A's! A nine-year comeback after being mentally challenged, Cambridge offers her a place!

Hong Kong's most talented screenwriter! Her scripts have supported an entire village and earned her a ticket to Cambridge!

"Lam Wing: The Child of Every Parent's Dream in Hong Kong!"

Public opinion in Hong Kong was ignited; parents who had worked themselves to the bone to buy a house, seeing the determined girl in the school uniform in the newspaper, wished they could stick the newspaper on their own walls.

In the spacious 19th-floor apartment of Taikoo Shing, the two landline phones kept ringing incessantly.

Some wanted to interview Lin Ying, some wanted to pay a lot of money to buy her script, and some tutoring centers even wanted to pay an exorbitant price to have Lin Ying's name used for enrollment.

"It's so noisy!" Lin Lanying said irritably, pulling out the phone line, and the living room instantly became quiet.

Lin Qian had just returned from Wan Chai Boys' School today and exclaimed, "Big sister! You don't know, today our head of the grade was holding a newspaper and telling us over the loudspeaker to learn from you! Those rich kids in our class who are usually so arrogant were lining up to ask me if I was your younger brother! It was so awesome!"

Lin Yue, sitting to the side, nodded repeatedly: "Our homeroom teacher said that in the future, the Boya School History Museum will definitely dedicate a page to you!"

Only Lin Ying, dressed in casual clothes, sat on the sofa, holding a newspaper that praised her to the skies, looking unhappy.

"Big sister, you've become a Hong Kong idol, why aren't you happy?" Lin Qian asked, puzzled.

"I'm being hyped up too much." Lin Ying threw the newspaper on the coffee table. "A deification campaign is never a good thing. They're shaping me into a flawless genius so they can find an opportunity to crush me and gain even more traffic later."

Lin Lanying was already a little worried: "Aying, what should we do? Did Attorney Shen say we should ask him to step in and calm things down?"

"The attention from the film and television industry and ordinary citizens will dissipate after a while, and those people can't hurt me."