“Stop hitting him… I beg you, stop…”
A woman’s pleading voice drifted to her ears. When Ye Qingyan opened her eyes, she found herself shielded in someone’s embrace.
A sharp, searing pain throbbed across her forehead. She lifted a hand to touch it—sure enough, her fingers came away wet with blood.
Frowning slightly, she turned to look at the middle-aged man still striking at them. Though she had yet to grasp what was happening, instinct took over: she grabbed a low wooden stool beside her and swung it hard against the man’s arm.
The man yelped in pain, stumbling backward as he shouted curses: “You ungrateful, worthless girl! How dare you raise a hand against your own father?! I’ll beat you to death today!”
Just then, Ye Qinghui returned from work. At a glance, he saw Ye Xingcai raising a firewood stick, ready to strike his wife and younger sister.
“Father! What do you think you’re doing?! Why are you hitting them again?!”
Ye Qinghui rushed over at once, seized Ye Xingcai, and wrenched the stick from his grip.
“Qinghui, let go of me!” Ye Xingcai shoved him, struggling to retrieve the stick. “Let go! I’ll teach this girl a lesson today! Shameless little wretch! Her reputation is already ruined—if someone is still willing to marry her, she ought to be grateful! Instead, she puts on sour faces, threatens to end her life, and refuses to go through with it!”
Ye Qinghui’s chest heaved with rage. He had hoped the village women’s gossip was untrue—but his father really meant to marry his sister off to a simpleton!
Even a tiger does not eat its cubs! How could any father bear to cast his own daughter into such misery? If this man were not his father, Ye Qinghui would have struck him down right then and there.
Taking a deep breath to steady his fury, he said firmly: “Father, if Qingyan has no wish to marry, I shall provide for her all her life. Do not force her into a marriage she does not want.”
As the father and son argued, Ye Qingyan pieced together the truth of her situation. She had transmigrated into a novel—a story set in the 1970s—and taken the place of a minor character fated to a tragic end.
Realization settled in, and she turned immediately to the woman shielding her. “How are you?” Seeing Ji Qiuyun covered in bruises, her heart ached sharply. “Mother… let me take you to the clinic.”
The word “Mother” had slipped out naturally. Ye Qingyan had grown up in an orphanage, never knowing a mother’s love—yet in this moment, she understood exactly what it meant: to throw aside all fear for the sake of one’s child.
Ji Qiuyun’s lips trembled weakly. “Qingyan… do not worry… I am fine… no need for the clinic…” The effort of speaking seemed to drain her last strength. Her eyelids grew heavy, and she slipped into unconsciousness.
“Mother! Mother!” Ye Qingyan turned to Ye Qinghui and cried out: “Brother! She has fainted! We must get her to the clinic at once!”
“I will fetch Uncle Lin and his donkey cart!” Ye Qinghui rushed out the door.
Ye Xingcai did not so much as glance at his collapsed wife. He turned back into the room, climbed onto the heated kang, and began smoking a water pipe. If his daughter refused to marry the Du family’s simpleton, he would never get the three hundred yuan betrothal money. The thought gnawed at him. He shot Ye Qingyan a look, his eyes hard with malice. No one would stand between him and that money. If she would not agree willingly—he had ways of making her!
Moments later, Ye Qinghui hurried back. He lifted Ji Qiuyun gently into his arms. “Qingyan, Uncle Lin is waiting outside. Let us go.”
“Brother, go ahead. I will be right behind you.”
“Hurry then.” Ye Qinghui nodded and carried their mother out to the cart.
Ye Qingyan strode to the woodshed. She moved several bundles of firewood in the southwest corner, pried up a stone slab beneath it, and reached into a small, rat-sized hollow behind it. Her fingers brushed a rusted iron box—Ye Xingcai’s hidden savings.
She knew exactly where it was, thanks to her memory of the original story. Without it, they would have no way to pay for medical care. She flipped open the box: inside lay a little over twenty yuan, plus ration coupons for grain, sugar, and pastries. She slipped everything into her pocket, replaced the box and the slab, and stepped outside.
Ye Qinghui peered anxiously toward the house. When she emerged, he asked: “Qingyan, what were you doing in there?”
“Uncle Lin, please make haste—my mother needs a doctor immediately.” She spoke to the driver first, then drew close to her brother and whispered: “I took the money he hid.”
Ye Qinghui’s eyes went wide. “You dare?! Are you not afraid he will beat you worse?” Then he frowned. “Wait—how did you even know where he kept it?”
She shrugged. “That matters not. If I did not take it, who would pay for Mother’s treatment? Do you have money?”
Every coin in the household was held by their father. Ye Xingcai’s stash had been hoarded over years—and Ye Qinghui had nothing. He shook his head. “No… I have none.”
“Then I had no choice.” She said quietly. “Besides—he is the one who beat her like this.”
As the donkey cart rumbled toward town, Ye Qingyan gazed up at the gray sky and sighed silently.
Orphaned since infancy, she had risen through sheer grit to become a senior executive at a multinational firm—with a home, a car, and security of her own. Then disaster struck: while driving through mountain roads on vacation, she swerved to avoid a motorcycle, lost control… and plunged off a cliff.
She closed her eyes briefly, then opened them again. This is her life now. She shared this body with a girl of the same name, fated to ruin. There was no going back—only moving forward.
In the original story, this Ye Qingyan had been seeing a young man named Huo Wenzhou, a city youth sent to work in the countryside. They were all but betrothed—until her cousin Ye Yao began visiting Huo Wenzhou in her name, and the two secretly became lovers.
When Ye Qingyan confronted them, Ye Yao turned the accusation around: she called Ye Qingyan shameless, for lusting after her own cousin’s fiancé. The story spread—and Ye Qingyan’s name was dragged through the mud.
Ashamed of the village’s whispers, Ye Xingcai decided to marry her off quickly—to anyone who would take her. That was how this beating began.
Ji Qiuyun was a good mother—bruised and battered time and again, yet always stepping between her husband and her daughter. Ye Qinghui was a good brother—ready to fight anyone who dared come with a proposal. Yet for all their struggles, the original Ye Qingyan met a wretched end.
Ye Qinghui killed a man in a fight, was arrested, and sentenced to death. Ji Qiuyun was beaten half to death, bedridden with grief, forced to watch her daughter married off to a simpleton. Life in the Du household was torture: dawn-to-dusk labor, endless chores, and nightly abuse at the hands of her husband. Her body wasted away. One rainy morning, she was found drowned in the village well. Everyone said it was a tragic accident.
Ye Qingyan pressed a hand to her chest, her breath catching at the memory of that suffocating despair. Accident? She thought not.
She lifted her chin, her eyes hardening with resolve. Not this time. Now that I am here—I will not let history repeat itself.