A Madwoman Comes to the Village
Su Qing’s days had fallen into a steady, fulfilling rhythm.
By day, she studied medicine with Shen Henian. In the afternoons, she treated villagers and built ties across the brigade. At night, she quietly sorted through the supplies in her spiritual space. Every few days, she slipped over to the black market to sell stock.
In half a month, her savings had crossed the five-hundred-yuan mark.
Five hundred yuan. In rural 1976, that was nothing short of a fortune. Most families here earned barely seventy or eighty yuan in an entire year. Su Qing had earned six years’ worth of their wages in just two weeks.
No one knew, of course. To everyone else, she was still the slender, quiet Comrade Su, the educated youth who helped with minor ailments using “her family’s old herbal knowledge.” She just looked a little healthier—rosier cheeks, softer skin, brighter energy—enough to make every other girl in the compound seethe with envy.
Her bond with Lu Zhanye was also shifting in strange ways. Or rather, he was drawing closer, on his own terms.
He showed up every two days or so, with the most outlandish excuses.
“Military district inspection—come with me.”
“Write down that herbal prescription you mentioned last time.”
“Your master’s hut is falling apart—I’ll send men to repair it.”
Every time, he’d wear that stony, official face, march her straight to his jeep, and drive her out to some quiet stretch of road—then fall silent. Then the headaches would hit. Then he’d pull her close.
The pattern had repeated seven times now; Su Qing could recite every step in her sleep. The only change was how long he held on, how slowly he let go, how his hands wandered a little further each time.
The first time, he’d simply curled his arms politely around her waist. By the third, one hand rested at her waist while the other tangled gently in the hair at the nape of her neck. By the fifth, his thumb traced slow, idle circles against her side. And the seventh time—
He buried his nose in the crook of her neck, his lips brushing the curve of her collarbone, his voice thick and low.
“Your scent… it’s fainter today than last time.”
Su Qing blinked. “I took a bath—”
“Then don’t wash it all away.”
“…”
This man was getting more and more impossible to read. Yet she had to admit—every time he held her, her heart did beat a little faster than normal. Just a physical reaction, she told herself. Nothing more. For the eighth time.
One afternoon, after finishing an acupuncture session for Aunt Li at the east end of the village, Su Qing spotted a crowd gathered at the gate. Voices rose and fell, loud and restless.
She would have kept walking—until a sharp, frantic cry cut through the noise.
“Swapped! They’ve all been swapped!”
Su Qing stopped.
In the center of the crowd stood a dishevelled woman in her fifties, barefoot, ragged clothes hanging loose, skin caked with dirt. Her eyes were glazed—until they weren’t. For split seconds, clarity flashed through them like lightning cutting through fog.
“Swapped! All swapped!” She clapped her hands and spun in circles, chanting the same phrase over and over. “That baby isn’t hers! Never was! It belongs to someone else—swapped!”
The villagers watched with weary familiarity.
“Aunt Zhou’s having another turn.”
“Someone go move her along—don’t let her scare the children.”
“She’s been like this for nearly twenty years—only ever rambles on about the same things.”
Su Qing lingered at the edge of the crowd, watching the woman. Her pulse quickened—not from fear.
Because as the madwoman turned, her gaze swept over Su Qing. Just for an instant. But in that instant, the glazed look vanished. Her eyes sharpened, as if a lamp had been lit in murky water. She stared straight at Su Qing, lips trembling, whispering something too soft for anyone else to hear.
Su Qing heard it anyway—her hearing, sharpened by the spiritual spring, caught every murmur within thirty meters.
“The mole… that mole…”
Then the woman thrust a finger straight at her, screaming until her voice cracked:
“It’s her! It’s her! That baby—she has the red mole!”
The crowd stirred, every head turning toward Su Qing.
She stood perfectly still, her face calm. But her right hand drifted unconsciously to her collarbone.
There, hidden beneath her clothes, was a red mole. A birthmark she’d had since birth. Her parents had never paid it any mind.
Now—after twenty years of madness—this woman had spotted it at first glance.
Swapped. Not her baby. Red mole.
Su Qing’s pupils narrowed. She remembered something she’d heard moments before her death in her past life—two people whispering about “a mix-up.” Back then, she’d thought her mind was playing tricks.
Now she knew she hadn’t been mistaken.
The villagers soon dragged the struggling woman away, her cries of “swapped” and “red mole” fading into the distance. The crowd dispersed, returning to their chores. No one took the ravings of a madwoman seriously.
Su Qing stayed where she stood.
She thought of Aunt Zhou. What had happened twenty years ago? What had she seen? Why had she lost her mind? Was she truly mad—or had someone driven her to it?
She glanced toward the southwest corner of the village, where Aunt Zhou lived in a straw hut even more dilapidated than Shen Henian’s shed.
She didn’t rush over. Not yet. If this really tied to her origins, it was no mere tale from a deranged old woman. It was an eighteen-year secret. A stolen baby. A truth even Su Jianguo might know—and had fought to bury.
Su Qing’s gaze darkened. She touched the jade pendant at her throat. It grew warm against her skin, as if echoing her own turmoil.
“Easy,” she whispered. “One step at a time. The truth won’t run away.”
That night, Su Qing stayed awake long after everyone else had fallen asleep. She pulled on her coat and slipped quietly out of the compound.
The moon hung high, casting silver light over the packed earth like a layer of frost. She followed the narrow path to the southwest corner.
Aunt Zhou’s hut had no fence, only a lopsided wooden door standing half-open. A faint glow of oil lamp light seeped through the cracks.
Su Qing waited outside a moment, then crouched low to peer inside.
Aunt Zhou sat huddled on the dirt floor, knees pulled to her chest, muttering—not shouting, but soft, broken whispers, as if speaking to a ghost.
“I’m sorry… I’m so sorry… I couldn’t stop them…”
“Such a tiny baby… so small…”
“They swapped her… I saw it… I saw everything…”
“I dared not speak… they said they’d kill me if I told…”
“I’m sorry…”
Su Qing’s fingers tightened on the doorframe. In the moonlight, she saw what the woman held in her arms: a scrap of old cotton cloth, faded thin, frayed at the edges, folded with perfect care. The same swaddling cloth she’d clutched for twenty years.
Su Qing drew a slow breath. She did not step inside. Not now. Aunt Zhou was too fragile—pressing her now would only drive her further away. She needed more answers. Who were “they”? Who had swapped the baby? Who had threatened to silence her?
She turned back toward the compound. Halfway home, she paused.
Behind the same twisted tree she’d seen before—another shadow. Gray coat, face obscured. But this time, she caught one detail: pinned to the left cuff, a tiny metal badge. The moonlight was too faint to make it out clearly—but the shape was unmistakable.
A five-pointed star.
Su Qing kept walking, her pace unchanged. She slipped back into bed, pulled the quilt tight, and closed her eyes, her mind racing.
The watcher wore a star badge—not something any ordinary villager would carry. It was military insignia.
Soldiers were watching her. Was it Lu Zhanye’s protection? Or someone else entirely?
Su Qing rolled onto her side. Whoever they were—she was not afraid. She had her gifts, her medicine, a commander who could no longer stay away, and a master physician who knew secrets no one else remembered. She was no longer the helpless girl she’d been in her past life.
This time—whoever crossed her, she would overturn their whole game.
Meanwhile, thousands of miles away in the capital.
In a study glowing with soft lamplight, an elderly man with thinning gray hair sat behind a rosewood desk, holding a crumpled letter. The paper was yellowed, the handwriting shaky, the ink cheap and faded.
“A letter from Shen Henian…” He adjusted his reading glasses and read every line carefully. When he finished, his hand trembled slightly.
“Send someone in.”
A middle-aged man in a Zhongshan suit stepped through the door. “Sir?”
“Find someone for me,” the old man said, his voice steady but bright with suppressed urgency. “An educated youth at Xiangyang Brigade, Northwest Hongqi Commune. Her name is Su Qing.”
“Pull every record—birth papers, household registration, anything you can find.”
He paused, then pulled a faded photograph from his desk drawer and set it on the wood.
It showed a young woman in a sixties floral qipao, smiling softly, her eyes curving at the corners. She looked exactly like Su Qing—carved from the same mould.
The old man’s finger brushed the woman’s face. His voice cracked.
“And see if she is connected to this woman.”
The assistant glanced at the photo, then at his superior’s expression, and his blood ran cold. He’d seen that picture before—on the desk for thirty years.
The woman in the photo was the only person the old man had ever loved. She’d died in an accident twenty years prior, leaving behind a newborn daughter—who had vanished without a trace.
For twenty years, they’d found nothing. Until now.
“Yes, sir. I’ll start immediately.”
As he turned to leave, a faint, ragged sigh drifted from the study.
“If it really is her… my granddaughter…”
The door clicked shut.
Outside, the capital sky stretched thick with stars. And one light, bright and steady, seemed to shine straight toward the northwest.