I don’t know who that person is, his surname is…
The rooster crowed three times, yang energy rose, life stirred.
Outside, the sky had already brightened. Three days had passed, and today was the fourth—a new day.
Since accepting this child last night, Chen Jue had abandoned all his lifelong materialist beliefs.
He could even recall the opening lines from miscellaneous studies of traditional Chinese medicine.
Chen Jue climbed off the kang and leaned against the wall for a moment, making sure his head was completely fine.
He had been suffering from a mild concussion these past few days.
Chen Jue deduced the reason for the original owner’s coma: likely malnutrition during pregnancy, leading to low blood sugar upon standing, dizziness, and falling into the river. The river wasn’t deep, so the back of the head struck a rock.
Perhaps because it happened in water, the blow wasn’t fatal—only a brief loss of consciousness led to drowning.
Then, due to oxygen deprivation, he himself had entered this body.
Three days had passed, and the original owner hadn’t returned. That meant he wasn’t coming back.
Leaning against the wall, Chen Jue walked step by step toward the outside. The swelling on the back of his head had subsided; aside from some lingering pain, he no longer felt dizzy.
Chen Jue pulled open the door latch and pushed open the heavy wooden door, which creaked loudly. Then, he gazed upon the tranquil scenery of a small mountain village.
Although he had ventured out during Uncle Liu’s absence over the past two days, each time the mountain view left him awestruck.
The sun hadn’t risen yet, and the surroundings were embraced by mountains on three sides.
Blue mist layered upon emerald greenery, with heavy fog obscuring the distant towering peaks. Yet, even the air here was enough to invigorate the spirit.
If he were here as a tourist, he’d have to praise it as a wonderful place—plucking chrysanthemums by the eastern fence, leisurely gazing at the southern mountains.
But now, as he was to live here, Chen Jue looked around and felt as though he were dwelling in a desolate wilderness.
It had likely rained recently, as stubborn weeds had already sprouted in the courtyard, growing tenaciously—much like the waist-high, barren grassland stretching behind this yard.
Chen Jue glanced at the wild grassland to the north of the courtyard, then at the scattered villagers’ homes far to the east, separated from his own yard. He concluded that he must be an outsider in the village, isolated here at a distance.
Aside from weeds, his home also had trees.
Chen Jue sighed as he looked at the two large trees in the courtyard. Being at the foot of the mountain, trees were abundant. The previous homeowner likely lacked a place to hang laundry, so they had enclosed two trees within the yard.
One was a hazel tree, tall and imposing, estimated to be over ten meters high. Getting fruit from it in the future would probably be quite an effort.
Most importantly, the leaves on the upper branches were out of reach.
That meant one less option for toilet paper.
Thinking of toilet paper, Chen Jue coughed and looked at the other tree. He didn’t recognize this one, only knowing its leaves worked quite well for wiping—about the size of a child’s palm. Though the backs were fuzzy, the fronts were usable and somewhat resilient, far better than bamboo strips for the purpose.
The tree wasn’t tall—a crooked-neck tree, thick and sturdy with many branches. The rooster that had been squatting on one of those branches, crowing “cock-a-doodle-doo” at midnight, pecked at a flower spike before turning its head and locking eyes with Chen Jue.
It showed no fear, not even blinking, like a Daoist priest with feathers in his hair, steadfastly guarding his post.
Chen Jue stared back at it for a while, then said, “No need to look. Your original owner is gone now. I’m the one who survived.
Three days have passed. I waited for him to return for three days.
But he didn’t come back.”
The big rooster, of course, couldn't understand what he was saying. It flapped its wings and flew to another branch.
Chen Jue stopped talking nonsense to it and went to the water vat to fetch water to wash his face.
The reflection in the water vat was still him, looking much like he did after pulling a 48-hour surgery shift in the modern world—only now, he resembled a ghost even more, with a pale face, lifeless eyes, and disheveled hair.
His appearance was exactly the same, except for the long hair. Long hair meant this wasn't his original body.
He had transmigrated into this person who shared his name and looks.
Chen Jue simply accepted this transmigrated identity.
After hastily washing his face, he tied his hair up with a white hemp rope. It wasn't a mourning band for himself—he just hadn't learned how to use a wooden hairpin in the past few days. With so much hair, he had no idea how the original owner had managed to secure it all with just one pin.
Once his hair was tied up, he moved the medicinal herbs from the house out to dry. Over the past two days, Chen Jue had taken advantage of Uncle Liu's absence to turn and sun them, as among them were several herbs used for inducing abortions.
The original owner had been an herb gatherer. After marrying Huo Lin, the owner of this stone house, they didn't have much farmland, so they continued their previous way of life—Huo Lin hunted, and he gathered herbs.
These herbs had likely piled up because no one had been around to sell them after Huo Lin was conscripted for labor service. There were many varieties, which included several types of herbs used for abortions.
The moment Chen Jue first saw these herbs, he had set them aside separately to dry.
According to his usual way of handling things, he should have taken them as soon as he found them, while the fetus was still small and easiest to abort before three months. But he hadn't.
Perhaps it was because he felt guilty over failing to save a child earlier, and the nightmares he had at night were a reflection of his psychological state.
There was another, more important reason: he thought this was all a dream, and once he woke up, he would return to his previous world.
Even though going back meant he was already dead.
After all, he had spent thirty years learning materialism, and such beliefs couldn't be changed overnight.
If this were a dream, he wouldn't do anything to this body.
Now, three days had passed. No matter how weak the human body was, three days was a recovery period—at least his mind was clear now. He could no longer deceive himself by calling it a dream.
If described in the terms of idealist Daoism, his soul had settled into place over these three days, and there was no going back.
The big rooster on the tree stared back at him. Chen Jue repeated to it, "He's not coming back."
The rooster turned its head away upon hearing his words, its plump comb trembling twice, looking quite spirited.
Chen Jue looked at its comb and thought to himself: once he stopped having nightmares, he would slit its throat. For crowing before the sun even rose, he would give it a real-life demonstration of "killing the donkey after it's done its job."
He would teach it what cruel reality meant.
He was a little hungry and wanted to eat meat.
The only other living creature in the yard was a hen.
These were his only two chickens.
It wasn't that this big rooster believed in monogamy—the other chicken had already ended up in his stomach.
During the three days he lay on the kang, Uncle Liu, the neighbor living below his house, came to take care of him. Hearing from the doctor that he was pregnant and needed to strengthen his nutrition and rest, Uncle Liu took it upon himself to kill the other hen for him to eat.
This body had likely been malnourished for a long time. That one hen had merely restored some of his strength.
His stomach still growled with hunger, craving meat.
But he couldn’t eat those two chickens now—once they were gone, they’d be gone for good. He needed to earn money.
Chen Jue rolled up his sleeves in the morning light and began processing the medicinal herbs. He needed to keep himself busy, doing the work the original owner used to do.
Processing the herbs he’d dug up, slicing and drying them by type—this was a task he could handle.
Because Director Zhou had once forced him to help her sort medicinal herbs.
Director Zhou was a traditional Chinese medicine practitioner. Originally, she shouldn’t have needed to handle these herbs herself—modern TCM roles were clearly defined, and those who diagnosed by pulse didn’t necessarily need to know how to dispense or prepare medicine.
But back then, he had been abroad, studying only Western medicine, fixated on the scalpel. When he returned to China, he couldn’t even recognize traditional Chinese herbs.
So Dean Zhou resumed her old ways, forcing him to go through the entire process—from pulse diagnosis to identifying herbs and preparing them.
Back then, Chen Jue hadn’t taken these herbs seriously. It wasn’t that he didn’t remember the TCM knowledge Dean Zhou had instilled in him through constant exposure, nor was he unaware of the power of traditional Chinese medicine.
There was a saying: "TCM treats the root, Western medicine treats the symptoms." Though this statement was too absolute, it wasn’t without reason that TCM excelled in internal regulation.
But at the time, he was obsessed with Western medicine, wholly devoted to mastering the scalpel, so he never properly studied TCM. As a result, he now remembered only the basics.
He hadn’t learned Director Zhou’s skills well, and now he could only think of her in vain.
After closing the small herb cutter, Chen Jue leaned on the handle and lifted his head.
Perhaps due to the emotional instability of pregnancy, his mood fluctuated intensely, and his vision blurred for a while before he could clearly see the azure sky.
Over the past few days, his thoughts had been consumed by the consequences of his death—how his demise would utterly destroy the reputation of Zhonghai Hospital.
The endless rumors played in his mind like a revolving lantern, as vivid as yesterday.
#They say he was a genius, cold-blooded by nature, looking down on everyone, never sympathizing with patients. Now, with two lives lost, it’s a major failure.#
#Dean Chen is truly unlucky. Chen Jue was just an abandoned child he adopted out of pity back then, and now he’s dragged him down. Don’t forget, the largest shareholder of this hospital is the Huo Group—this isn’t something Dean Chen can handle.#
#I always said Chen Jue would mess up sooner or later. Becoming the director of cardiothoracic surgery at such a young age was bound to be unreliable. Now he’s finally slipped up.#
#A 30-year-old director of cardiothoracic surgery—the first in history, right? Even for a genius, that’s just too absurd.#
#With Dean Chen as his father, what couldn’t Chen Jue achieve? If he hadn’t died, he might’ve taken the dean’s position in a few years.#
#What right does Chen Jue, an adopted child, have?#
What right?
Chen Jue looked up at the sky. These negative comments weren’t figments of his imagination—he never indulged in wishful thinking. They were all things he had actually experienced.
As Dean Chen’s son, ever since he became the director of cardiothoracic surgery at 29, these rumors had followed him relentlessly. Now that he was dead, with two lives lost, the comments would only grow harsher, not soften out of pity for his death.
Chen Jue sliced a handful of bitter kudzu root stems before taking a short break.
Over the past three days, aside from dwelling on the failed surgery, he had been consumed by these rumors, which wrapped tightly around his thoughts.
He hadn’t dared to imagine how devastated Dean Chen and Director Zhou would be upon hearing the news of his death.
The old burying the young.
It was something he couldn’t bear to think about.
He was rarely home, spending little time with Dean Chen and Director Zhou. Even when he was home, he never properly expressed his feelings—otherwise, Dean Chen wouldn’t have signed him up for psychology classes.
Now, he knew regret.
Chen Jue stood up, spreading the cut herbs evenly in the bamboo basket, just as he had done years ago when drying them for Director Zhou. As he worked, he murmured softly, "Dad, you always told me to respect life—to respect their arrival and their departure. Birth, aging, sickness, and death are natural laws. So, you must be able to accept my death too, right?"
Chen Jue knew his words were cruel, so he paused for a moment before continuing, "Dean Chen, I’m sorry. Director Zhou has a weak heart and shouldn’t get too emotional. Please help comfort her. Tell Director Zhou… tell Mom that there will be better children than me. You two don’t need to grieve. Adopt someone who can bring you joy in your old age, someone who can carry on your legacy. That way…"
"Mom, I was wrong."
Chen Jue whispered to the shelves full of medicinal herbs after another pause.
When he was home, he rarely called Dean Chen "Dad" or Director Zhou "Mom," always addressing them as "Dean Chen" and "Director Zhou." Now, when he wanted to call them that, they could no longer hear him.
Chen Jue thought he regretted it. All those years, he had focused only on inheriting their legacy, never truly bringing them joy in their old age.
Chen Jue gave a bitter smile. Not only had he failed to bring them joy, but as a homosexual, he hadn’t given Dean Chen and Director Zhou any descendants. Now, they were left to mourn their child in their old age, with no one to care for them in their final years.
He now felt like a cold-hearted person.
He was an orphan abandoned at birth in a hospital, taken in by Dean Chen and his wife.
Perhaps because he was abandoned, he never grew close to others.
Apart from not disappointing Dean Chen and Director Zhou in medicine, he had failed in everything else. He hadn’t been a good son to them.
Even though Director Zhou and Dean Chen had treated him well, pouring all their efforts into raising him, he had always kept a distance from them deep down.
Perhaps he was afraid of being abandoned again.
But now, it wasn’t Dean Chen and Director Zhou abandoning him—it was him abandoning them.
Only at the moment of death did he realize his regret—regret for never showing them the affection of a devoted son.
If only there were a pill for regret, but there wasn’t.
Chen Jue whispered to the rising sun, "Dad, Mom, I’m sorry. I was unfilial. I will live well in this world, so don’t worry about me.
Oh, and I’m married in this world, though I don’t know who that person is. His surname is… Huo."
As he uttered the last word, his brow unconsciously furrowed.
The surname felt difficult to say.
It wasn’t that the surname Huo was bad—it was just that the person who brought him immense pressure and psychological resistance happened to share that surname, tainting it for him.
Chen Jue paused, speechless.
The child he had killed was surnamed Huo.
If there was such a thing as karma in this world, was this it?
Author’s Note:
None.