How dare she speak like that?!
Weren’t they discussing how she should repay the debt of having her life saved? Qin Yuan was the one who had been rescued, yet she actually had the nerve to mock the victim’s family?
Hu Yinglian was dumbfounded.
Qin Yuan’s reaction was completely different from what she had expected.
At a time like this, shouldn’t Qin Yuan, who had always been gentle and obedient, be crying as she dropped to her knees and begged for forgiveness?
Yet now, she was calmly ridiculing them.
What… what on earth was she doing?
The other women standing nearby were equally stunned. They exchanged glances, momentarily at a loss for words.
Had Qin Yuan fallen into the river and frozen her brain? How could she say such things to the mother of the man who had saved her life?
And what did she mean by someone bullying her? Who had plotted against her?
They were merely speaking up for the family of the hero who had saved her life. How had these warmhearted people suddenly become villains in her mouth?!
This was intolerable!
Auntie Mao was the first to step forward, pointing a finger at Qin Yuan.
“Qin Yuan, what kind of attitude is this? Xia Junsheng died because he saved you, yet you still have the nerve to say such heartless things! You’re even smiling! Do you have no conscience at all?”
Qin Yuan didn’t look at Auntie Mao.
Her fingertips gently rubbed against the cold blade of the scissors in her hand. The chill seeped through her fingers and spread into her heart, while her mind repeatedly replayed the final few seconds in that hole in the ice—
The person who had desperately tried to pull her out.
The finger that had briefly touched hers and passed a trace of warmth to her.
And that figure who had slipped on the ice, only to struggle back to his feet and desperately make his way toward her again.
Again and again, Qin Yuan replayed those moments in her mind, piecing together the blurry fragments of her memory.
The more she thought about it, the more absurd everything seemed.
In the end, a low laugh actually escaped her lips.
There wasn’t the slightest trace of joy in that laugh. There was only bone-deep sorrow and mockery, sending an inexplicable chill down the spines of everyone present.
“That’s right. I’m laughing.”
Qin Yuan finally raised her eyes and stared directly at Auntie Mao, a cold glint flashing in her gaze.
“Because I think you’re hilarious, Auntie Mao. Tell me, did you personally see Xia Junsheng save me? Or did you personally see Xia Junsheng die? If you saw neither, then what gives you the right to stand here shouting that I should repay him with my life? If you can make things up however you please, then so can I!”
This time, Qin Yuan raised a finger and pointed at Auntie Mao.
“Listen carefully. I’m telling everyone here today that Auntie Mao was the one who pushed me into the hole in the ice! When she realized I hadn’t died, she immediately rushed to my house to accuse me of wrongdoing. She’s acting this way because she feels guilty after failing to murder me!”
“W-What are you talking about?!”
Auntie Mao’s face instantly changed with fright.
She might have a loud voice and a habit of meddling in other people’s affairs, but accusing her of pushing someone into a hole in the ice?
She immediately felt that this wasn’t something anyone should even joke about.
Auntie Mao began to panic, her words turning into stammers.
“D-Don’t talk nonsense! Th-This has absolutely nothing to do with me! I-I only came out of my house after I heard Xia Junsheng shouting for help, yelling that someone had fallen into the water! Everyone else was the same, weren’t they?”
Auntie Mao looked around desperately, seeking agreement from the others. She was terrified that someone might actually believe Qin Yuan’s accusation, so she hurriedly tried to explain herself.
“Isn’t that right? Isn’t it? We all came out at that time, didn’t we? Then we went to the river and saw you, Qin Yuan, lying there soaking wet. But Junsheng was nowhere to be found!
“His padded jacket and trousers were the only things left on the ice. It was the middle of a freezing winter night, and there was nothing else around. If Junsheng hadn’t taken off his padded clothes, gone into the water to save you, and then sunk beneath the ice himself, what else could have happened? Huh?
“How am I making anything up? What exactly are you doubting now? Are you saying that all of us—everyone here—joined together to deceive you? Is that what you’re suggesting?”
Indeed.
What was Qin Yuan doubting?
In her previous life, Qin Yuan had never once suspected that there was anything wrong with what had happened.
Because from beginning to end, everyone in the village had said that Xia Junsheng was the one who saved her.
Everyone said they had heard Xia Junsheng shouting for help, yelling that someone had fallen into the water.
Everyone had seen the padded jacket and trousers left behind on the ice—clothes that unmistakably belonged to Xia Junsheng.
There had been no one else around.
Nothing else, either.
In the dead of winter, the area surrounding the hole in the ice was extremely slippery, making it nearly impossible to pull someone out from above. The best option was to remove one’s thick padded clothes, enter the water, and push the drowning person back onto the ice.
And after pushing the person to safety, if the rescuer had managed to climb out as well, there was no way he would have left without putting his clothes back on.
The wind by the river was so bitterly cold that it could practically freeze a person solid. Without proper clothing, no one could endure it for even three minutes.
It was even less likely that he would simply leave.
His home, where he had lived his entire life, was right beside the river. After rescuing someone and becoming completely soaked, where could he possibly have gone?
So when everyone saw the pile of abandoned clothes, they came to only one conclusion—
Xia Junsheng must have managed to push Qin Yuan out of the water before losing his strength and sinking beneath the ice himself.
In her previous life, Qin Yuan had believed them.
She had believed them completely.
So when Hu Yinglian demanded that the Qin family repay Xia Junsheng’s life with Qin Yuan’s, she had agreed.
That very afternoon, under the supervision of the clan elder, Qin Yuan had endured a high fever while holding Xia Junsheng’s memorial tablet in her arms. Dressed entirely in mourning white, she had taken one step and kowtowed once, repeating the humiliating ritual all the way to the Xia family home.
And just like that, she had married into the Xia family—
as the wife of a dead man.
But who could have imagined that only one month later, Xia Junsheng—the man the entire village had declared dead, the man Qin Yuan had worshiped as her savior—would make a spectacular return?
Ha.
What a surprise.
Who could have possibly expected that?
Whenever Qin Yuan remembered the scene of Xia Junsheng returning home in her previous life, mockery surged through her heart like a raging tide, threatening to drown her.
How utterly absurd!
Everyone said Xia Junsheng had saved her, so she accepted that Xia Junsheng had saved her.
Everyone said Xia Junsheng was dead, so she accepted that Xia Junsheng was dead.
Everyone said she owed Xia Junsheng her life, so she gave them her life.
For everyone else in the village, the entire incident had merely been a spectacle. They gathered around, watched the commotion, said a few words, and then turned around and forgot all about it.
Only she, Qin Yuan, had been forced onto the Xia family’s chopping block.
She alone had become the sacrifice in this ridiculous farce.
On this very day in her previous life, she had been burning with fever and barely conscious, yet she had still kowtowed to Hu Yinglian.
She had knelt before generations of Xia family ancestors and confessed her guilt.
She had apologized a hundred times.
They told her that she had caused Xia Junsheng’s death.
That she had killed the finest young man in the entire Xia clan.
They told her that for the rest of her life, she was only allowed to live with grief and guilt.
She wasn’t allowed even the slightest happiness.
She wasn’t allowed to smile.
Those were the rules accepted by the entire village.
That was the sin she was expected to carry for the rest of her life.
And that…
had only been the beginning.
What came afterward was the true torture—a slow, merciless execution carried out in full view of everyone.
Her mother-in-law, Hu Yinglian, tormented her endlessly.
Her sister-in-law, Xia Min, took whatever she wanted from her without restraint.
And everyone in the village branded Qin Yuan a “jinx” and a “murderer,” crushing her beneath those labels until she could neither raise her head nor breathe freely.
Anyone who passed her could spit at her.
Her status in the village had been lower than that of a dog.
Even after Xia Junsheng eventually returned, nothing improved.
Because Xia Junsheng had suffered severe frostbite, he came back as nothing more than an invalid whom Qin Yuan was expected to serve.
The villagers’ contempt for her didn’t lessen.
Instead, it became even worse.
After all, the dead would gradually be forgotten.
But the sick would receive sympathy for years.
Whenever someone saw Xia Junsheng sitting around unable to work, no one looked down on him. Instead, they would sigh and say,
“Ah, what a pity. It’s all because he saved that damned Qin Yuan. Such a fine young man, and now he can’t do anything anymore.”
And so, in her previous life, Qin Yuan hadn’t even lived to see forty.
That endless despair and torment had slowly dragged her to her grave.
Yet when she died, Xia Junsheng—the “savior” praised by the entire village—was still alive and well.
So was Hu Yinglian, the woman who had once demanded that Qin Yuan repay her son with her life.
They had lived comfortably.
They had prospered.
And they hadn’t felt the slightest bit guilty.
So tell her—
What was she doubting now?
Everything.
She doubted every single damn thing.