The fingertips were icy cold, yet the grip allowed no resistance.
Su Wantang lifted her head and met Su Wanrou’s eyes, which carried a gentle smile. In the morning mist, her elder sister wore that faded floral blouse, washed so many times its colors had nearly disappeared. Her hair was neatly combed, every strand in place. She looked so clean and pristine, as though she had stepped straight out of a painting.
But Su Wantang saw it—
The smile never reached her eyes.
Deep within her pupils lay a cold, calculating scrutiny.
“Out washing vegetables by the river this early?” Su Wanrou released her hand, her gaze sweeping over Su Wantang’s pale face. “Why do you look so terrible? Didn’t sleep well last night?”
“N-No, it’s nothing.” Su Wantang lowered her head, avoiding her gaze. “Just caught a bit of a chill.”
“A chill?” Su Wanrou’s eyes dropped to the hand covering her stomach, then shifted to the dark circles faintly visible beneath her eyes. “It doesn’t look like that. Were you throwing up just now?”
Su Wantang’s heart nearly stopped.
How did she know? Had she been watching from behind all along?
“I…” Her voice came out dry and strained. “Maybe I ate something bad yesterday…”
“Something bad?” Su Wanrou took a step closer.
The morning fog drifted between them. The faint scent of soapberry from Su Wanrou’s body floated over—
Almost identical to Su Wantang’s own scent, yet she could still tell the subtle difference.
Her sister used soapberry bought from the supply cooperative, carrying a sharp industrial smell. Hers was homemade by their mother, mixed with wood ash and carrying a rough earthy scent.
“We all ate the same food yesterday. Me, Mom, you, and Dad. None of us are sick. So how come you’re the only one who got food poisoning?” Su Wanrou asked softly.
Su Wantang’s hands tightened around the basket until they trembled.
She remembered a month ago at the clinic. Su Wanrou had used this same gentle but relentless tone while questioning the miraculous healing of Lu Zhanye’s wounds.
Back then, she had managed to lie about a “folk remedy.”
But now?
How was she supposed to explain morning sickness?
“Maybe… I’m just weak.” Su Wantang heard her own voice shrink to a whisper. “You know I’ve always been frail since I was little…”
“Being weak doesn’t make you dry-heave for no reason.” Su Wanrou interrupted, her tone still gentle. “Little sister, could it be that you…”
Before she finished, she suddenly reached out and brushed a finger lightly across Su Wantang’s collar.
Startled, Su Wantang jerked backward. Several wild vegetables spilled from the basket and fell onto the wet riverbank.
“Your collar was dirty.” Su Wanrou withdrew her hand, holding up a dried leaf between her fingers. Her smile was flawless. “Look how nervous you are. It’s not like your sister is going to eat you.”
Yet the way she stared at that leaf sent chills down Su Wantang’s spine.
That leaf…
Where had it come from?
She hadn’t gone anywhere near trees last night.
Unless…
Unless it had gotten stuck to her when she hid in the outhouse vomiting this morning and brushed against the cobwebs in the corner.
Su Wanrou was observing her.
Watching every tiny detail.
“Come on.” Su Wanrou suddenly turned away. “I’ll take you to see the village doctor.”
“N-No need!” Su Wantang blurted out. Her voice came out so shrill that even she startled herself. “I’m really fine. I’ll just go home and rest…”
“Rest?” Su Wanrou looked back. The morning mist softened her profile, making her appear especially gentle. But her words made Su Wantang feel as if she had fallen into an ice pit.
“Little sister, those symptoms look very familiar to me.”
She paused, then said slowly:
“They’re exactly the kind of reactions a pregnant woman would have.”
The river breeze seemed to stop.
Su Wantang felt all the blood rush to her head. Her ears rang.
She opened her mouth, wanting to deny it, to scream, to argue—
But something clogged her throat. No sound came out.
She could only stare at Su Wanrou.
And Su Wanrou stared back.
At last, a crack appeared in those gentle eyes, revealing the cold, turbulent undercurrent hidden beneath.
“In my previous life…” Su Wanrou murmured, so quietly that only the two of them could hear. “This was when you got pregnant too.”
Su Wantang’s pupils contracted sharply.
Previous life.
Her sister had actually said it.
“Zhao Jianguo’s child.” Su Wanrou tugged at the corner of her mouth. The expression looked uglier than crying. “You secretly got involved with him and became pregnant. Then you forced him to marry you. But he turned around and got engaged to me instead. You stood at the village entrance crying with your swollen belly, and in the end…”
She didn’t finish.
But Su Wantang knew exactly what “in the end” meant.
When the system had first bound itself to her, its cold mechanical voice had recited her fate:
‘Accidental pregnancy. Abandoned. Dies in childbirth.’
“This lifetime,” Su Wanrou continued, stepping closer. The distance between them was so small they could feel each other’s breathing. “Zhao Jianguo has been much closer to me. You never even had the chance to get near him. So this morning sickness of yours…”
Her gaze swept over Su Wantang before finally settling on her still-flat stomach.
“Whose is it?”
Three simple words.
Yet they struck Su Wantang’s heart like three heavy hammers.
Instinctively she stepped backward. Her heel sank into the muddy riverbank. The cold, slippery sensation made her shiver.
She couldn’t tell her.
Absolutely couldn’t.
“S-Sister, what nonsense are you talking about…” Her voice trembled. “I don’t even have a boyfriend. How could I possibly…? You must be remembering wrong. Previous lives and all that—it’s just superstition…”
“Superstition?” Su Wanrou laughed softly, the sound both light and chilling. “Then how do you explain Lu Zhanye’s wounds healing overnight? How do you explain him vanishing when the drug should have taken effect, only to be found at the threshing ground the next morning with his wounds already scabbed over?”
With every sentence she spoke, she took a step forward.
Su Wantang took a step back.
The two advanced and retreated across the riverbank like participants in a silent duel.
“And another thing.” Su Wanrou stopped and pulled a small oil-paper packet from her clothes.
It was the very packet she had once claimed contained a “miracle medicine.”
“I looked into this drug.” She held it up. “It’s called Spring Wind Intoxication. When a man takes it, he loses his senses and can think of nothing except sex. But if a woman takes it…”
She unfolded the packet.
It was empty.
“What happens if a woman takes it?” Su Wanrou stared at her without blinking. “Little sister, do you know?”
Su Wantang shook her head frantically.
“I don’t know… I really don’t know anything…”
“You don’t know?” Su Wanrou brought the empty packet right up to her nose. “Then smell it. Does the scent seem familiar?”
Su Wantang instinctively leaned back.
Too late.
A faint, sickly-sweet fragrance slipped into her nostrils—
The exact same scent that had lingered on Lu Zhanye that night at the threshing ground, mixed with blood and desire.
“I originally planned to use this drug that night.” Su Wanrou’s voice dropped low, like a snake hissing. “I calculated the timing perfectly. Once Lu Zhanye’s drug took effect, I would go find him. But when I arrived at the threshing ground, he was already gone.”
She stared at Su Wantang’s increasingly pale face.
“Later, I finally figured it out—the drug had been switched. Replaced with a version of Spring Wind Intoxication made specifically for women. And that night, the only person who had the opportunity to get near the drug…”