Hu Yinglian’s shout stunned everyone in the room.
Xia Kunshan hurried forward.
After getting a clear look at the man lying on the bed, his face filled with surprise as well. “That’s definitely not Xia Junsheng. I’ve never seen this young man before. He’s not from our village at all!”
The team leader leaned over for a closer look and repeatedly shook his head. “What a mess! That’s obviously not Xia Junsheng!”
Hu Yinglian instantly panicked.
Her expression shifted again and again, her eyes filled with confusion and fear.
Suddenly, she spun around and grabbed Qin Yuan tightly by the front of her clothes, wailing at the top of her lungs.
“That’s not Junsheng! Junsheng is dead! Junsheng really is dead! Qin Yuan, my Junsheng is really dead! You have to compensate me! Give me back my son! If you don’t compensate me, what am I supposed to do…?”
As she cried and screamed, her body gradually went limp.
The shock had apparently been too much for her, and she actually fainted on the spot!
Qin Yuan saw everything clearly.
Hu Yinglian’s grief and worry were genuine this time. The anguish in her hysterical cries couldn’t possibly be faked.
And that reaction finally completed the puzzle in Qin Yuan’s mind.
Most likely, the family had plotted from the very beginning to frame her. Once she fell into the water, Xia Junsheng was supposed to hide somewhere and pretend to be dead. But something must have gone wrong, leaving Hu Yinglian and her daughter temporarily unable to contact him.
They had been utterly convinced that the person rescued from the river would be Xia Junsheng.
Now that they had discovered it wasn’t him—and after seeing the terrible condition of the man who had actually been pulled from the river—they were genuinely starting to panic.
The others had no idea what was really going on. They simply assumed Hu Yinglian had fainted from worrying about her son, so they crowded around her, calling her name and pinching the area beneath her nose to revive her.
The clinic descended into chaos.
No one noticed that Qin Yuan’s gaze had become fixed on the floor beside the hospital bed.
A hair tie lay there quietly.
It was mostly white, with a thin strand of bright yellow wrapped around the middle. It was so small and inconspicuous that no one else would have given it a second glance.
But Qin Yuan recognized it immediately.
She had personally wrapped white woolen thread around that hair tie, and she used it to tie her hair every single day.
Yesterday, just as usual, she had tied it around the end of her braid.
Ordinary girls avoided wearing white in their hair and rarely used yellow either.
But Qin Yuan wore those colors because she was mourning her father.
According to the customs of Qin Yuan’s hometown in Jiangnan, a daughter was supposed to wear pure white for the first six months after her father’s death. Only after six months could she switch entirely to yellow, symbolizing that the mourning period was gradually coming to an end.
But Qin Yuan couldn’t bear to let go of her father.
Even after six months had passed, she had only wrapped one thin strand of yellow around the white woolen thread as a way of remembering him.
No one else within ten li would use such a distinctive combination of colors.
This hair tie was hers.
She was absolutely certain.
Qin Yuan’s heart suddenly clenched.
It felt as though an invisible hand had seized her internal organs and squeezed them viciously, leaving her unable to breathe.
Ignoring the chaos around her, she walked over step by step and bent down to pick up the hair tie.
The instant her fingertips touched it, memories surged through her mind.
The bone-chilling cold of the hole in the ice.
The large hand that had grabbed her hair.
And that deep voice beside her ear saying—
“Hold on.”
Everything came flooding back with such vivid clarity that it felt as though it had happened only moments ago.
Qin Yuan clenched the hair tie tightly until her knuckles turned white.
With unsteady steps, she walked into the outer room and looked at the doctor from the forestry station.
Even her voice trembled.
“Comrade, where did this hair tie come from?”
Doctor Qiao was busy disinfecting a needle. He glanced at the hair tie and casually replied,
“Oh, that? We took it from the hand of the injured comrade in the back room. When the night patrol brought him here early yesterday morning, his entire body was practically frozen stiff, but his hand was gripping that hair tie so tightly it was as if his life depended on it.
“It took us quite a bit of effort to pry his fingers open and remove it. We just left it there afterward. Where did you find it? Don’t take it away carelessly. It might be something very important to him.”
Boom—
It was as though an explosion went off inside Qin Yuan’s mind.
Every doubt, every uncertainty, every emotion she had desperately suppressed shattered at once.
It was him.
It really was him.
It had never been Xia Junsheng.
The person who had saved her in her previous life was this man.
And in this life, it was still him.
The man who had disregarded his own safety in the freezing wind and used every ounce of his strength to drag her out of the hole in the ice was the complete stranger lying unconscious and severely injured on that bed.
And she had been deceived by the Xia family for an entire lifetime!
Believing that nothing could ever outweigh the debt of having one’s life saved, she had married her enemy.
She had served her enemy.
She had been grateful to her enemy.
All while forgetting the man who had truly saved her life, never even knowing whether he had lived or died.
He had nearly frozen to death in that river because he saved her.
His entire body was covered in injuries. He was unconscious and didn’t even have a proper piece of warm clothing to protect him from the cold.
Meanwhile, that bastard Xia Junsheng had stripped off his clothes and stolen the credit for saving her.
Then, wearing the title of her lifesaving benefactor, he had shamelessly enjoyed her devotion and sacrifices for an entire lifetime!
Overwhelming grief, guilt, and fury surged into Qin Yuan’s eyes all at once.
She bit down hard on her lip, refusing to let herself cry aloud.
But her tears still fell onto the hair tie, leaving small damp marks behind.
It was him.
The man she had searched for across two lifetimes had been right here all along.
He was lying right in front of her, barely clinging to life, still bearing the wounds from the desperate struggle he had endured to save her.
With unsteady steps, Qin Yuan returned to the inner room and gazed at the unconscious man on the bed.
A sliver of sunlight streamed through the small window at the side of the room and fell across his pale yet handsome face.
He lay there silently.
So still that the sight of him made her heart ache.
Qin Yuan stared at him, repeating the same words over and over in her heart.
Thank you.
Thank you for saving me.
This time, I’ll be the one to save you.
This time, I will never let you suffer for nothing again.
Everything they owe you…
I’ll make them repay it all, little by little!
Qin Yuan was still overwhelmed by the shock of finally finding her true lifesaving benefactor and paid no attention to what was happening around her.
The next second, Xia Min suddenly rushed forward and shoved her hard.
“Qin Yuan! Where’s my brother? Where did my brother go? Is he really dead?!”
The force of the shove sent Qin Yuan crashing into the doorframe.
A sharp pain shot through her back, but she seemed completely unaware of it.
Without hesitation, Qin Yuan raised her hand and slapped Xia Min hard across the face.
Her voice was as cold as ice.
“Get lost! Whether your brother is dead or alive has nothing to do with me! I’ve already told you—your brother wasn’t the one who saved me! I saw my rescuer’s face with my own eyes. I could never mistake him for someone else!
“Don’t even think about extorting me again! Just because someone heard Xia Junsheng’s voice doesn’t mean he was the one who saved me!
“And I’ll tell you something else right now. I suspect Xia Junsheng was the one who pushed me into that hole in the ice! He wasn’t trying to save me—he was trying to kill me!
“If you keep harassing me, I’ll report this to the Public Security Bureau immediately! I’ll have you arrested—and your entire family too!”
Qin Yuan had never been this fierce before.
Nor had she ever stood her ground so forcefully.
Everyone present stared at her in shock.
Xia Min stood frozen in place, one hand covering her slapped cheek.
Everything had completely deviated from her carefully laid plans.
She was so panicked and helpless that she even forgot to cry.
On the other side of the room, Hu Yinglian had just been revived. She staggered to her feet and pointed a filthy finger at Qin Yuan as she shrieked,
“Nonsense! Our Junsheng disappeared because he was trying to save you! If this man isn’t Junsheng, then Junsheng must be dead! You have to compensate us! You’ve already signed the agreement! You can’t go back on your word!
“Even if we can’t find Junsheng, you still have to marry into our family! And you have to compensate us with money too! Give me money!”
Qin Yuan pulled the agreement from her pocket and snapped it open right in front of Hu Yinglian’s face.
Her eyes were filled with fierce hostility.
“Open your old eyes and read it carefully!
“It clearly says that I, Qin Yuan, will marry the person who saved me!
“Xia Junsheng wasn’t the one who saved me, so no matter how much you try to force me, it won’t work!
“You want money?
“Then tell Xia Junsheng to come out and confront me himself!
“Come on!”
??Qin Yuan: Whoever saved me is the man I’ll marry.
?Little Puppy Wang: (Unconscious, still clutching the hair tie) You should’ve said so earlier! If this is our token of love, I’d better hold on tight!