"Zhou Yi, wake up! Something terrible has happened."
In his daze, he heard someone calling him. It sounded like his mother’s voice.
"Get up quickly! Your second uncle just called. He said your grandfather is dying."
"Grandfather?" he thought. "Wait, hasn’t my grandfather been dead for over twenty years?"
Zhou Yi jolted awake and opened his eyes.
"Where am I? Why does this look so familiar?" he wondered.
White and green walls, an old-fashioned wardrobe and sewing machine, and a giant world map hung on the wall. He was lying on a single wire-mesh bed. A large cassette radio sat at the head of the bed, the tape inside spinning with a faint HISS.
Ren Xianqi’s voice drifted softly from the speakers.
"You are always too soft-hearted..."
He thought, "Isn’t this... isn’t this the steel mill dormitory I lived in as a kid? Wasn’t it demolished over a decade ago? What’s going on?"
Zhou Yi sat up abruptly.
"Mom?" he called out in disbelief. The person speaking to him was actually his mother, but she looked middle-aged.
His mother glared at him. "Stop dawdling. Your father is so anxious he’s about to blow a gasket."
"Mom, is it really you?" Zhou Yi couldn’t help but ask again.
His mother immediately furrowed her brows. "Did you sleep your brains out, child?"
As she spoke, she reached out and felt his forehead. Zhou Yi felt a familiar warmth.
He thought, "I’m not dreaming!"
"You don’t have a fever," his mother muttered, pulling her hand back. "Hurry up, or we’ll be too late to see your grandfather one last time."
Listening to his mother’s words, Zhou Yi looked at the familiar surroundings and then down at his young, robust body.
He wondered if he had been reborn. "Grandfather’s last moments... Could it be 1997?" he thought.
Zhou Yi stood up and rushed out the door. In the steel mill’s dormitory buildings, every apartment was packed tightly together, sharing a long exterior balcony.
Everything was exactly as he remembered. The space outside Uncle Li’s door on the left was still piled high with clutter, and the windows of Uncle Gu’s place on the right were still plastered with layer upon layer of newspaper. Even the flickering frequency of the balcony lightbulb, caused by the unstable electrical current, was a familiar sight.
Further away, the low-rise buildings faintly revealed their familiar silhouettes against the pitch-black night, dotted with only a few scattered lights.
He thought, "The nights of ’97 are so quiet."
Just as he was overwhelmed with emotion, a gust of cold wind blew past, making him shiver involuntarily. But immediately, a wave of warmth enveloped him as a coat was draped over his shoulders.
"You child, you’re a police officer now. How can you still be so careless? What if you catch a cold?"
His mother’s voice instantly brought tears to his eyes. It was at this moment that he truly felt it—he had genuinely returned to 1997.
Both of Zhou Yi’s parents were workers at the steel mill. However, he hadn’t followed in their footsteps; instead, he became a police officer. Though he started as a lowly beat cop, his hard work eventually earned him a spot as a detective, and he even made his way into the Provincial City’s criminal investigation squad.
That was until the day he accompanied a captain younger than himself on a case. During the pursuit, the captain’s aggressive actions resulted in the accidental death of the suspect. As a result, an experienced veteran detective was reduced to being Old Zhou, the guy whose sole job was filing paperwork.
Stuck all day in a records room piled high with mountains of case files, he remained as diligent as ever, yet no one paid him any mind. Occasionally, when he gathered for drinks with his old buddies, they would claim to envy him for not having to brave the wind and rain, saying he could coast to a peaceful retirement. But those were just empty pleasantries. After saying them, everyone would force a dry laugh and go back to drinking.
In the blink of an eye, eight years passed. Those eight years gradually ground away all his sharp edges. But to his utter surprise, on the day of his fiftieth birthday, he opened his eyes to find he had been reborn twenty-seven years in the past.
In the dark of the night, Zhou Yi rode a heavy-duty vintage bicycle. Ahead of him was another bike, with his father pedaling and his mother riding on the back.
Zhou Yi was still a bit dazed about his rebirth, but the profound sense of reality brought by everyone and everything around him slowly allowed him to accept the truth.
Since leaving the house, his father had maintained a solemn expression, remaining completely silent as he pedaled furiously.
His mother tried to comfort him. "Don’t worry. Good people are rewarded. Your dad will be fine."
The chilling night wind cleared Zhou Yi’s mind significantly, bringing back memories of the night his grandfather passed away.
His grandfather had three sons and one daughter. His father was the eldest, while his third uncle had ventured down to the Southern regions during the economic reform era. Because his second uncle had inherited their grandfather’s position as a safety inspector at the steel mill, it was agreed that he would take on the responsibility of caring for the old man in his twilight years. The other three children only needed to chip in a little for groceries each month.
Zhou Yi remembered that when he and his parents had rushed to his second uncle’s house back then, his grandfather was already semi-conscious in bed. He was exhaling more than he was inhaling. It took a whole group of people surrounding him and calling his name for ages before he finally opened his eyes for a brief glance. The adults all murmured that his grandfather’s time was up.
Afterward, the siblings gathered in the outer room to discuss funeral arrangements. Zhou Yi was the eldest of the grandchildren, and he had suggested taking his grandfather to the hospital. However, his second aunt flatly rejected the idea. She claimed that his grandfather wasn’t sick—his time had simply come, and this was how many old folks passed on. She also snapped that as a junior, it wasn’t his place to speak.
By midnight, his grandfather had drawn his last breath. The entire room erupted into loud, sorrowful wailing.
His second uncle, crying all the while, produced a will, claiming it had been drawn up by his grandfather while he was still alive. The main stipulation of the will was that his grandfather’s steel mill-allocated apartment and bankbooks were all left to the "filial" second uncle and second aunt who had cared for him in his final days.
His aunt was the first to jump up, pointing right at his second uncle’s nose and accusing him of forging the will. His second aunt shrieked back, cursing his aunt as an outsider since she had married off, declaring she had no right to a say. Consequently, the crying morphed into endless bickering.
"Dad, how was my grandfather’s health before this? Did he have any underlying conditions?"
"No, your grandfather was in great health. He just had slightly high blood pressure," his silent father finally spoke up.
"Then why is he suddenly dying?"
Back then, he had been too young to think deeply about the situation. But now that he had been reborn, the well-honed instincts of a battle-tested detective forced him to question everything.
They soon arrived at his second uncle’s house. His aunt’s family had also just gotten there.
"How is he?" his father asked hurriedly.
His aunt’s eyes turned red, and she shook her head.
Seeing his father shudder and immediately sprint toward the inner room, Zhou Yi followed.
"Oh, you two made it." His second aunt walked out of another room, her face remarkably calm.
"What happened? Dad was perfectly fine. How could he suddenly be dying?" his mother asked.
His second aunt immediately raised her voice. "How should I know? I feed him and house him, but I can’t control whether he breathes his last! Isn’t that right, Zhou Yi?"
Since childhood, Zhou Yi had never liked this second aunt. Her face always bore a bitter, mean-spirited expression, and she was both shrewish and selfish. Besides, what did she mean by "feed him and house him"? The apartment they currently lived in belonged to his grandfather. Before his second uncle took over his grandfather’s job, their family didn’t even have a proper place to live.
However, Zhou Yi had no patience for what anyone else was saying right now. Entering the house, he made a beeline for his grandfather’s room. His second uncle was keeping watch by the bed, but the man was simply too spineless, obeying his wife in absolutely everything.
"Grandfather, it’s Yi. I came to see you."
Zhou Yi called out softly. He never expected to see the grandfather who loved him most again after so many years, and his eyes instantly grew moist.
On the bed, his grandfather’s eyes were squeezed shut, his breathing incredibly shallow. Zhou Yi gripped his grandfather’s hand tightly, his heart a tangled mess of conflicting emotions.
Many years ago, the scene had been exactly like this. To have to experience it all over again was truly cruel.
He wondered, "Did God allow me to be reborn just so I could suffer through this agonizing separation once more?"
Zhou Yi couldn’t help but raise his hand to wipe away a tear that was about to fall.
Suddenly, he noticed some dried, scabbed blood inside his grandfather’s left nostril.
"Second Uncle, what happened to my grandfather’s nose?"
His second uncle leaned in for a look and dismissively replied, "Oh, he had a nosebleed. I wiped it for him."
"When did it bleed?"
"Just... about half an hour ago."
Zhou Yi furrowed his brows tightly. He had his second uncle fetch a flashlight and began checking his grandfather’s pupils.
Turning back around, he asked, "Second Uncle, did Grandfather take a fall today?"
"Ah." His second uncle froze for a moment before immediately denying it. "No, he didn’t."
"Are you sure?" Zhou Yi was highly suspicious, but more than that, he was tense and uneasy.
"Did he vomit at all? Or complain about being dizzy, or anything like that?"
"W-wife!" his second uncle called out in a panic.
"What is it? Did Dad breathe his last?" his second aunt asked as she pushed the door open and barged in.
"Well, Zhou Yi is asking if Dad took a fall today," his second uncle said, his eyes darting evasively. "I mean, nothing happened after I got back. You were home during the day—did you notice anything?"
His second aunt rolled her eyes.
"I’m not the Zhou Family’s nanny. How am I supposed to know if the old man fell while taking a stroll outside?
"What, am I supposed to shadow him all day? Did I sell my life to the Zhou Family?
"Or are you suspecting me of harming my own father-in-law?
"Fine then, Zhou Yi! Arrest me and interrogate me! You’re a police officer, aren’t you!"
Seeing his second aunt growing increasingly agitated, the people in the outer room hurried inside. Zhou Yi’s mother immediately tried to smooth things over.
"That’s not what Zhou Yi meant. He’s just concerned about his grandfather’s health."
But to everyone’s utter shock, Zhou Yi suddenly declared loudly, "No, that’s exactly what I meant!"
"You! Do you have any respect for your elders!" His second aunt’s eyes bulged as she pointed at Zhou Yi, roaring in exasperation.
The room immediately descended into chaos, but Zhou Yi spoke with icy calm.
"According to criminal law, if a person intentionally conceals facts, resulting in someone’s death due to a lack of timely medical treatment, they may be suspected of committing the crime of causing death by negligence.
"For minor circumstances, the penalty is a fixed-term imprisonment of under three years.
"For serious circumstances, the penalty is a fixed-term imprisonment of three to seven years."
His second aunt, who was furiously searching for a broom to hit him with, immediately stumbled upon hearing those words and nearly fell.
Fortunately, she slapped a hand down onto the table behind her for support, saving herself from a tumble.
However, a large porcelain bowl on the table fell to the floor with a loud CLATTER.
It shattered into pieces.