March.
In Jinshan Bay, a coastal village in the south of Shen City, spring seemed to have arrived late this year. The wind was strong, and the temperature was low.
In a room obscured by curtains, a woman lay on the bed with a bandage wrapped around her forehead. Two girls, who looked similar and were about three years old, were huddled in the corner, eyes wide with terror, continuously trembling and weeping.
Han Xiaorui felt a sharp pain in her forehead, drifting in and out of consciousness, feeling dazed and delirious. Amidst this, she vaguely heard voices speaking in deliberately suppressed tones.
“Jianming, Xiaoli is about to give birth; you need to get the divorce over with quickly.”
The young man sitting on the sofa, Yang Jianming, had wheat-colored skin, single eyelids, and a fairly handsome appearance. “Mom, I want a divorce soon, too, but Xiaorui won’t agree.”
The middle-aged woman who had just urged her son to divorce, Zhang Xiufang, had a slightly chubby face with high cheekbones and heavily drawn eyebrows, which gave her expression an air of meanness.
“If she won’t divorce, just beat her. Beat her three times a day, nine times in three days.”
“Enough nonsense!” Yang Zhigang, a tall, robust middle-aged man with dark skin, spoke up with a scolding tone. He looked at his only son, Yang Jianming, with disappointment. “This is Jianming’s fault; why beat Xiaorui? Regardless of anything else, Xiaorui bore two children for Jianming.”
Zhang Xiufang rolled her eyes, her gaze filled with disdain, her heart long dissatisfied. Back then, her son could clearly have found an excellent local bride, but this Han Xiaorui had shamelessly insisted on marrying her son, going so far as to become pregnant before marriage. If she had given birth to two clever, spirited grandsons, she might have thought more highly of Han Xiaorui. But instead, this Han Xiaorui had given birth to two little girls, and on top of that, they were “fools.”
“Look at what Han Xiaorui gave birth to! They are almost four years old, and the two little girls can’t even talk. They are absolute little idiots.”
“Even if they can’t talk, they are still our granddaughters.” Yang Zhigang rubbed his hands; they were his own flesh and blood, and he couldn’t bear it. However, his son had acted recklessly and gotten involved with Zhang Lili. This Zhang Lili happened to be a distant relative from his wife’s side of the family. Zhang Xiufang had never liked the sharp-tongued and strong-willed Han Xiaorui from out of town, and now that she had a “new daughter-in-law,” she spent every day inciting her son to divorce.
Zhang Xiufang glared at her husband, Yang Zhigang. “If you don’t divorce, Xiaoli will get an abortion. I took her to get it checked—it’s a boy.”
When Yang Zhigang heard this, his straight spine slumped. Deep in his eyes, he struggled and hesitated, but eventually, it all dissolved into a long sigh.
“Jianming, divorce isn’t just about going to the Civil Affairs Bureau to swap a red certificate for a green one; that doesn’t solve the problem.”
“You have children. Even if you cannot remain a married couple, the children are your bond; this can never be severed for the rest of your lives.”
Zhang Xiufang glanced at the bedroom, filled with extreme annoyance toward the two granddaughters who couldn’t speak. “Han Xiaorui treasures those children so much; once you divorce, she will definitely insist on child custody. Let’s pretend we want the children, too. In order to get them, Han Xiaorui will have to give up fighting for any assets.”
“Bang!” Yang Zhigang, livid, slammed the table hard. “If a person lacks conscience and morality, they will face retribution.”
Yang Zhigang owned a large fishing boat, and before every voyage, he would pray to the gods; he believed in karma. Three years ago, when his granddaughters were born, he had gone to the hospital to visit them instead of going out to sea, which allowed him to avoid a shipwreck. He was the only survivor from that fishing boat; it was his two granddaughters who had saved his life.
Yang Jianming did not want to face those two mute daughters; he felt mocked wherever he went. Ever since the children were born, Han Xiaorui had seemed like a completely different person—not only was she thin and haggard with messy hair, but she would also fly into rages and act like a madwoman at the slightest provocation. He also wanted a divorce from the bottom of his heart, and furthermore, he preferred the young Zhang Lili.
“Dad, then what do you suggest I do?” Yang Jianming scratched his head.
Han Xiaorui was awakened by the noise outside. Hearing the conversation, she pinched herself hard several times. The pain made her face contort! A flood of memories surged into her mind, causing her pupils to constrict and her heart to race.
She had actually returned from the tenth year of the apocalypse to 1985. In the apocalypse, due to the greenhouse effect, the thinning of the atmosphere, and the melting of the polar ice caps, almost all cities on Earth had been submerged by the ocean. To adapt to the harsh environment, many animals and plants had constantly mutated. Han Xiaorui had awakened a water-element superpower, allowing her to breathe freely underwater, perceive whether marine flora and fauna were toxic, and possess exceptional fishing and harvesting abilities. While fishing at sea, she had encountered a storm where lightning flashed and thunder roared; the rain seemed to connect the sky with the rising sea. A massive wave had crashed down, sweeping her into a whirlpool resembling a black hole, and she had lost consciousness.
Watching the children shivering beside the bed with tear-stained faces, Han Xiaorui quickly pieced together the current situation based on the body’s memories and the conversation outside. She now had two children who suffered from autism. The original host, upon learning of her husband’s infidelity, had cried, slammed into a wall, and passed away. Han Xiaorui’s soul had entered the body of this woman with the same name. Since she was borrowing this body to live, she would fulfill its obligations.
She took two lollipops and handed them to her two daughters. “Don’t be afraid, Mom isn’t going anywhere. You two eat the candy first, I’ll be back in a moment.” Han Xiaorui kissed the children on the forehead, gently soothing them.
Han Xiaorui opened the door and appeared in the living room, causing the three members of the Yang family to freeze in surprise.
“Yang Jianming, we married out of free love and with beautiful aspirations. I even gave up finishing my university degree to take care of the two children.”
“You cheated, you despise your two daughters for embarrassing you, and you want to escape your responsibilities as a father and get a divorce.”
“I will grant you your wish, but we need to make it clear how this divorce will go. Just now, your mother said she would leave the children to me, and also demanded that I leave with nothing.”
“If you people plot against me like this, I will report you for domestic violence and go to the Women’s Federation to charge you with child abandonment. Let’s see if you can still keep your job at the university.”
Han Xiaorui was not the original host, who was so distraught she had died. Yang Jianming looked at the thin, haggard Han Xiaorui with complex emotions, not knowing what to say.
It was the father-in-law, Yang Zhigang, who glared at his son and then looked at his daughter-in-law with guilt. “Xiaorui, it is Jianming who has failed you, and it is our Yang family that has failed you. I have a suggestion: Jianming is trash, but Pingping and An’an still need you.”
“As long as you don’t leave the children, I will have this house transferred to your name, and I will give you two hundred yuan a month for living expenses.”
Zhang Xiufang panicked and kicked Yang Zhigang hard. They could have divorced without spending a single cent!
“Stop kicking; I know what you mean. You despise those two granddaughters who can’t speak, but I don’t—my heart aches for them.”
“If I didn’t have to go out to sea, I would never have left the two granddaughters entirely to Xiaorui. I am even less at ease leaving them with you; it is better for Xiaorui to raise them.”