Su Qiao fell.
With a thud, she hit the ground, her hands and knees aching painfully.
She slowly got up, her mind dizzy, momentarily not sure of what had just happened.
She tried to take a few steps forward, then looked around. By chance, when she turned her head, her gaze froze on the courtyard wall behind her.
On the wall, in neat, elegant handwriting, was a line of red slogans: “Resolutely Follow the Path of Political Team Building!”
The slogan hadn’t been there long; its color was still bright and eye-catching.
Staring at the words, Su Qiao’s mind buzzed with confusion.
She remembered writing that slogan.
Back in high school, one time when she returned home to visit, the village branch secretary, Jin Guiyou, had insisted she write it because her handwriting was beautiful. The slogan had been placed on the outer wall of her eldest uncle’s house.
But that had been twenty years ago, how could she be seeing it now?
She remembered just having received the highest industry award, the Golden Feather Award. On her way back home from the ceremony, she had been planning to share the good news with her younger brother.
Brother? Xiao Peng?!
Thinking of her brother, Su Qiao’s heart suddenly ached sharply.
Then she remembered!
She had indeed just returned from a business trip, only to hear upon landing that her younger brother, Su Peng, had jumped to his death. When she rushed home, all she found were police tape, officers, and earth stained with her brother’s blood.
In her memory, she had fainted on the spot, but why was she awake here now?
“Xiao Peng! Peng Peng!”
Her heart twisted in pain at the thought of her brother, tears streaming uncontrollably, a ripping, heart-wrenching ache overwhelming her.
She frantically searched, trying to make sense of the situation.
At that moment, a sharp pain shot through her head, and a flood of memories flashed through her mind like slides.
Finally, she understood exactly when, and where, she was.
This was 1981, when she was seventeen.
The reason she was here, the reason she had just taken that fall, was because she had been trying to escape, she had just jumped down from the wall!
By this time, Su Qiao’s father had already been dead for over a year, having died while trying to save someone. She and her three younger siblings had been taken in separately by her eldest uncle and her aunt.
She and her two younger brothers lived with her eldest uncle, while her sister Su Lan stayed with her aunt.
At this moment, it was the day she had been tricked back by her eldest uncle’s wife, under the pretense that her younger brother was sick.
Even after twenty years, Su Qiao remembered clearly that it was May, just a few days before the preliminary exams for the college entrance test.
It was only after being tricked back by her eldest uncle’s wife that she learned: while she was preparing for the exams, her uncle’s family had arranged a marriage for her without consulting her, completing all the necessary formalities.
Now they called her back because the groom’s family was holding an engagement banquet, and she was required to attend.
Su Qiao was underage and obviously could not legally get a marriage certificate. But in rural villages at that time, once the formalities were completed, just one more ritual could effectively count as a marriage.
That was why her eldest uncle’s wife had tricked her back, to force her to go through that final ritual.
Su Qiao was absolutely unwilling. After repeated attempts to persuade her failed, her eldest uncle’s wife lost her temper.
Together with her daughter-in-law, they locked Su Qiao in the room, insisting that even if they had to tie her up, they would take her to her future husband’s house.
In her previous life, after this happened, Su Qiao, with the help of her cousin Su Xiaona, had escaped through a window she secretly opened and climbed over the wall back to school.
Looking down at the ground beneath her feet and at the village that became more familiar as the morning sun rose, Su Qiao’s heart raced, she knew she had truly returned, back twenty years in time.
She didn’t know why she had suddenly come back, and she didn’t have time to think about it. At this moment, she was ecstatic!
She knew she had returned before her younger siblings’ accidents had happened!
That meant she had the chance to correct the mistakes she had made and change the fate that had doomed her family to ruin.
In her previous life, Su Qiao had escaped from this house and avoided the forced marriage.
Fearing that her eldest uncle’s wife and the others would pursue her, after returning to school she had gone directly to her homeroom teacher and tearfully explained the situation at home. Because she was a top student with potential to enter university, the school took the matter very seriously.
Knowing that her family might try to harass her with lies, the school leadership personally instructed the gatekeepers: until the preliminary exams were over, anyone asking for Su Qiao should be told she hadn’t returned to school, even if it was her family.
At that time, there was less than a week until the preliminary exams, and everyone agreed that nothing was more important than preparing for university.
Who could have imagined that just that one week, and that one decision, would make Su Qiao regretful for the rest of her life?
After the preliminary exams ended, Su Qiao began asking villagers about what had happened at home.
It was only then that she learned that while she had been escaping back to school, her little sister Su Lan had been abducted by human traffickers. The family had searched everywhere but never found her.
Her two younger brothers, furious, grabbed whatever they could and went after her aunt’s son, Li Zhuang, to settle the score.
The three of them ended up in a fierce fight.
But the three half-grown kids didn’t have much control over their strength. Li Zhuang slashed a long cut across Su Peng’s face with a dart he was holding, from the left eye down to the corner of the right lip, splitting his face in two.
The wound was deep, tearing open skin and flesh. The little boy was completely disfigured from that one strike.
Seeing his brother injured, Su Wei was enraged!
He grabbed a stone and smashed it repeatedly on the back of Li Zhuang’s head, splitting it open on the spot.
Although Li Zhuang didn’t die immediately, those blows left him in a vegetative state, never to wake up again.
All of this, though it sounds long, actually happened within just a few days.
By the time Su Qiao had learned the truth and rushed home in a frenzy, everything had already been decided, irreversible.
Her little sister Su Lan had been taken by the traffickers, never to be heard from again.
Her older brother Su Wei had been handed over to the police by her aunt’s family. At that time, a strict crackdown was underway, and the verdict came quickly: death sentence. Because he was underage, it was later commuted to a suspended death sentence.
But Su Wei was only fourteen. He couldn’t bear the despair, and he didn’t want to burden his sister with more responsibility. A year later, he quietly committed suicide in prison.
Her younger brother Su Peng had suffered such severe injuries, but because their cousin Li Zhuang was critically ill, no one paid attention to him. After only a few days in the hospital, he was dragged back by their eldest uncle’s family and left in a small room to fend for himself.
When Su Qiao finally rushed back and got him proper medical care, they barely managed to save his life.
His facial injuries were irreparable, and due to prolonged high fever, he suffered brain damage that left him permanently deaf in both ears.
Eventually, after long-term depression, he jumped to his death.
Tracing it all back, the root of this disaster was her little sister Su Lan being abducted by traffickers.
Now that she had the chance to change everything, Su Qiao had no intention of running back to school.
For her, nothing in the world was more important than rescuing her little sister.
She turned and started heading east toward her aunt’s house in the village, determined to bring her sister back immediately.
But she had barely taken a few steps when she ran straight into her second cousin, Su Xiaowu, who was returning home for breakfast.
“Xiao Qiao, why are you up so early? What are you heading off to do at this hour?”
Su Xiaowu, still looking half-asleep, froze for a moment when he saw Su Qiao. Then he suddenly realized what was going on and stared at her in disbelief. “You ran out from home?!”
Su Qiao didn’t answer him. She dodged around him and took off running forward!
But with her thin arms and legs, and having just taken a fall, there was no way she could outrun her tall, strong cousin. After just a few steps, he caught her with one grab.
“Where do you think you’re going? What are you trying to do?!” Su Xiaowu yanked her arm and scolded her in a low voice.
Su Qiao struggled desperately, but his grip was like iron, she couldn’t break free at all.
Panicking, Su Qiao raised her voice and shouted at the top of her lungs, “Help! Su Changfu is selling his niece for money! Help! Somebody save me!”
Her voice sounded especially jarring in the quiet morning village, and very quickly the sound of doors opening came from several nearby courtyards.
“Shut up! What nonsense are you shouting?!”
Su Xiaowu clearly didn’t expect his usually quiet, well-behaved cousin to yell like this, and he was so angry he was nearly beside himself.
He reached out to cover Su Qiao’s mouth.
“Let go! Let go of me! Help! Su Xiaowu is beating me, someone save me!” Su Qiao dodged frantically, screaming even more sharply.
Her cries finally drew even more people.
Before long, a courtyard gate not far away flew open, and Su Qiao’s eldest aunt, Wang Lanxiang, came rushing out in a fluster.
“Oh heavens, that damned girl, when did she run out? She was still in the room when I got up this morning!”
Seeing his mother come out, Su Xiaowu visibly relaxed.
Still covering Su Qiao’s mouth with one hand, he complained in a low voice, “How would I know? Just get her back inside first, don’t let people laugh at us!”
At his words, Wang Lanxiang finally noticed that people were standing in the neighboring courtyards, pointing and whispering, clearly watching what was happening at their house.
She ground her teeth in anger, then quickly raised her voice to smooth things over. “You stubborn girl, what’s the big deal about asking you to take two days off? Is it really worth making such a fuss at home? Your uncle and I are doing this for who, if not for your own good?”
Shouting loudly as she spoke, she and her son together dragged Su Qiao back into the house, pulling and yanking her along.
Once inside, Wang Lanxiang slammed the door shut with a loud bang, grabbed a broom standing nearby, and swung it hard down onto Su Qiao.
“I’ll teach you to run! I’ll teach you to run! You’re old enough not to know what’s good for you? Would your uncle and I ever harm you? So shameless, you won’t behave unless you get a beating!”