Humans have five senses.
Sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch.
When someone loses consciousness after nearly drowning, which of the five senses is the first to return?
Qin Yuan now knew the answer—hearing.
At that moment, she had only just regained consciousness. Her eyelids felt impossibly heavy, as though they weighed a thousand pounds, and no matter how hard she tried, she could barely open them. Even her fingers seemed as if they no longer belonged to her. When she tried to bend them, she couldn’t even figure out how to make her body obey.
But she could hear.
Someone was wailing outside, crying so hard that her voice had gone hoarse.
“…Qin Yuan, you wretched girl! Why wasn’t it you who died? Give me back my son! My poor son! He was my only son! What am I supposed to do now?!”
” Ming Shuangfeng, give me back my son! You vile woman! A vile woman gave birth to a vile daughter! You killed my son! I swear, I’m not done with your Qin family!”
“Qin Yuan, stop pretending to be dead! Get out here! My son is gone because of you, so you should come to my house and work like an ox or a horse, serving me for the rest of your life! Qin Yuan, get out here!”
“No, Qin Yuan alone isn’t enough! Ming Shuangfeng, both your daughter and your son must serve me for the rest of their lives! You’re all worthless! One life isn’t enough to repay my son’s life—it’ll take two! Get out here!”
“My poor son! Why did you have to save her? What is Qin Yuan worth? She wasn’t worth saving! My son, I don’t want you to die! Where are you? Come back to me!”
The wailing grew louder and louder, filled with such intense grief and hatred that everyone who heard it felt suffocated.
Soon, several others joined in, cursing along with her.
“Exactly! The Qin family are outsiders. Qin Yuan is just some insignificant girl. Was she really worth the finest young man in our clan risking his life to save?”
“Of course not! Junsheng’s vanished without a trace, dead or alive. How are his mother and younger sister supposed to survive now?”
“Ah, Junsheng must be dead. He sacrificed himself to save someone. That makes him a great hero, doesn’t it? A martyr!”
“What good is being called a hero when he’s already dead? And what’s wrong with Ming Shuangfeng? Junsheng’s mother has been crying out here for so long. Why hasn’t she come out and apologized to the Xia family?”
“That’s right. Qin Yuan might still be sick, but Ming Shuangfeng should come out. Why don’t we drag her out and make her kneel before Junsheng’s mother to apologize?”
“Drag her out!”
“I’ll pound on the door! Ming Shuangfeng, you shameless woman! Come out! Kneel and kowtow!”
It was unbearably noisy.
And the commotion only grew louder.
The crowd was furious, worked into a frenzy, as though they wouldn’t stop until someone paid the price.
Amid the deafening uproar, Qin Yuan’s eyes suddenly snapped open.
She remembered.
She remembered everything!
So all those images that had been flashing through her mind moments ago hadn’t been dreams.
They were real!
She had already lived an entire lifetime.
In her previous life, her entire future had begun to crumble on this very day, amid these same vicious curses.
This time, she would never allow herself to repeat the same mistakes!
Summoning every ounce of strength she had, Qin Yuan called weakly toward the shadow standing by the window.
“Mom!”
Her voice was faint and hoarse, but the figure by the window immediately spun around and rushed to her bedside.
“Ah Yuan, you’re awake? Thank goodness! My Ah Yuan, you’re finally awake!”
Another figure hurried over from the doorway and grabbed Qin Yuan’s hand.
“Sis! Sis, you’re finally awake!”
Qin Yuan struggled to keep her eyes open.
It seemed to take forever before her vision finally came into focus.
She stared intently at the two people beside her bed.
One was her mother, Ming Shuangfeng. She was only forty years old, yet half her hair had already turned gray.
The other was her younger brother, Qin Wang, only fourteen years old and so thin that he was practically skin and bones.
How wonderful.
As long as they were alive, that was all that mattered.
Being given the chance to live again was truly wonderful.
In her previous life, not long after Qin Yuan nearly drowned and was rescued, her younger brother mysteriously disappeared.
Her mother was later struck and killed by a vehicle while searching for him.
A perfectly good family had fallen apart just like that.
And everything had begun with what happened yesterday.
Yesterday was January 28, 1977.
The commune had called to inform her that the Admission Notice for Worker-Peasant-Soldier University Students, which had been delayed for nearly half a year for various reasons, had finally been issued. She was told to collect it personally from the county’s Bureau of Culture and Education.
The journey was long, and she didn’t own a bicycle. By the time she started making her way home, it was already dark.
Afraid that her mother would worry, she took a shortcut across the frozen river.
But she fell through a hole in the ice.
No matter how desperately she struggled, she couldn’t climb out.
She screamed for help, but icy water kept flooding into her nose and mouth. The cold was so intense that her mind quickly became numb.
In less than two minutes, her consciousness had already begun to fade, and her body slowly sank beneath the water.
She thought she was going to die.
But just then, a powerful force suddenly yanked her by the hair.
Her scalp tightened painfully.
She could even feel the faint warmth of a finger brushing against her neck, rekindling her desperate hope of survival.
At the same time, a deep, urgent voice sounded beside her ear.
“Hold on! Don’t fall asleep! Hurry, climb up!”
Qin Yuan wanted to climb up too!
But she was so cold that she was barely conscious. Her arms and legs refused to obey her.
The person gripping her hair had only managed to stop her from sinking farther. Buoyancy tilted her face slightly upward, but that was all.
Using the last remnants of her consciousness, Qin Yuan forced herself to keep her eyes open.
At that moment, it was the only part of her body she could still control.
A dim yellow beam from what seemed to be a flashlight swayed through the darkness.
Yet that faint light gave her an overwhelming sense of hope.
Through it, she vaguely saw a figure struggling on the frozen surface.
The person was trying desperately to pull her out.
Twice, he slipped and nearly fell into the ice hole himself.
Yet he never let go.
He continued straining with all his might to drag her upward.
“What a good person…”
That was Qin Yuan’s final thought.
Unfortunately, she truly had no strength left.
Her eyelids were so heavy.
Soon, the freezing darkness swallowed her completely, and she lost consciousness…
When she woke again, it was now.
She could only lie there listening to the vicious curses outside, almost as though they were the background music to the miserable life she had endured in her previous lifetime.
How tragically fitting.
At the thought, Qin Yuan slowly closed her eyes.
She was exhausted.
Her body was weak, and her consciousness remained unstable.
But she knew she couldn’t simply lie there and wait for disaster to strike.
Feeling around blindly, she found her mother’s and younger brother’s hands and held them, gathering what little strength she had left.
After a long while, Qin Yuan opened her eyes again.
This time, determination shone within them.
“Mom, Little Wang, don’t be afraid. As long as we get through today, we’ll be fine. No matter what the people outside say, don’t argue with them, don’t admit to anything, and don’t make them any promises.
“And one more thing—call the police!”
Ming Shuangfeng tightened her grip around her daughter’s hand, her voice trembling.
“Call the police? No one in our village has ever called the police before. Whenever there’s a dispute, the Xia clan handles it themselves. Calling the police would mean making an enemy of the entire Xia clan. Who would help us then?
“Besides… Junsheng only ended up like this because he was trying to save you… Ah Yuan, we’re the ones in the wrong today. If we call the police, they’ll only hate us even more.
“Forget it, Ah Yuan. As long as you’re alive, I don’t care if they make me kneel. Even if they want me to work like an ox or a horse for them, I’ll do it…”
Ming Shuangfeng broke down in tears.
Outside, the pounding on the door grew increasingly violent, as though the mob intended to tear the entire house apart.
The oppressive sound was enough to make anyone’s heart tremble.
Qin Yuan helplessly closed her eyes for a moment.
In her previous life, her mother’s kindness had given her endless warmth.
But her mother’s weakness had also brought her endless suffering.
It had taken Qin Yuan an entire lifetime to understand one thing:
Kindness without the strength to defend oneself was not only useless in this world—it often invited disaster.
The pounding grew faster and more violent.
There was no longer enough time to explain everything.
Qin Yuan remembered clearly that in her previous life, more than a dozen people had eventually broken into their home and dragged her mother outside.
By the time they let her return, everything had already been decided.
Qin Yuan hurriedly nudged Qin Wang.
“Little Wang, trust me! Just because no one has ever called the police before doesn’t mean it won’t work.
“Go call the county Public Security Bureau. Don’t tell them it’s a dispute between neighbors. Don’t mention someone trying to rescue another person. Tell them there’s been a murder and someone has died. Make it sound as serious as possible!
“Tell them to send two groups. One group needs to come here and protect us. The other needs to go to the river and secure the scene.
“Tell them the hole in the ice was deliberately smashed open and that several people fell into the river!”
She paused briefly before urging him anxiously,
“Go! Hurry!
“If the front door is blocked, use the back door. If they’ve blocked that too, climb over the wall!
“Once you reach the brigade headquarters, beg them to let you use the telephone. Tell them that if they refuse, they’ll be standing by and letting people die!
“Go! Hurry!”