In the winter of 1949, the light of New China had not yet completely dispelled the darkness lingering in the corners. A new order had stepped onto the stage, while the old order was unwilling to withdraw. On a desolate road of fleeing refugees, starving civilians encountered bandits blocking their way.
A beautiful and decisive woman pushed two children down a steep slope, covered them with dry grass, and warned them desperately, “No matter what you hear, you must not make a single sound. Wait until dawn. When dawn comes, the bad people will run away. Only then can you crawl out!”
The brave woman ran in another direction, drawing the bandits away.
The bandits’ target had been the woman all along, but they had not expected her to be so fierce. After one of the villains had his eyeball gouged out by her, he screamed miserably. The hand gripping the sickle flailed wildly and sliced open the woman’s neck.
“Damn bitch. Even when dying she had to take one of our brothers with her. Her corpse won’t be spared either—carry it back, strip it naked, and hang it up. Only then will the hatred in my heart be relieved.”
“Lao Wu, you go back first to treat your wound. The rest of you come with me to find those two little brats. We took the employer’s money—there can’t be a single head missing.”
Just as the inhuman bandits were about to find the children’s hiding place, Jiang Zhen was slashing at mutated animals with a cold weapon while rushing toward the mirage-like scene ahead.
According to legend, if one could leap into the mirage before it disappeared, they could leave the apocalypse. Jiang Zhen had actually lived long enough to see this legend come true.
The bandits had already found the children and were raising their slaughtering blades. Behind her, the claws of a mutated beast had already reached the back of Jiang Zhen’s neck. The mirage hung suspended over the edge of the cliff. Without hesitation, she jumped.
Either she would fall to her death, or she would jump into the world within the mirage. Either way was better than being eaten into a pile of bones by the mutated beast behind her.
……
“Mom, you can’t ever abandon us again.” Jiang Tang hugged Jiang Zhen’s neck, crying so hard she could barely speak.
Jiang Zhao clutched Jiang Zhen’s arm tightly. “Mom, I won’t make you angry again. If we die, we’ll die together.”
“All right. I heard what you said. Mom just hit her head earlier, and a lot of things aren’t clear in my mind. Let me rest for a while.”
The two children immediately fell silent. They did not even dare cry out loud, wiping away their tears silently with their hands, afraid of making their mother unhappy.
Steadying her mind, Jiang Zhen sorted through the memories of the woman who had been swallowed by the ground collapse. She had passed through the mirage and arrived here. She had only managed to grab the woman’s hand as she fell into the pit, but she had not been able to pull her up. However, she had read the woman’s memories and gained a comprehensive understanding of this world and the woman’s life.
This world had previously gone through a long period of turmoil and had only just achieved unification and liberation. The woman had come to Qingcheng to seek refuge with her husband. According to the bandits, the woman had been murdered by hired killers.
From the memories she had read, the woman had a long-lost twin sister. Jiang Zhen was not sure whether that sister was herself, but she and the dead woman looked extremely alike. Before coming to find the children, she had changed into the clothes from the cloth bundle the woman left behind and braided her hair the same way. In their extreme panic, the two children had not noticed the difference.
In addition, the woman had been unusually strict with the children when she was alive and had not been gentle with them. The children feared her greatly, so at this moment Jiang Zhen’s words carried unquestioned authority.
There were also identification papers, a household registration certificate, and travel documents in the bundle, all under the name Jiang Zhen. The surname was the same, the name sounded the same, and their appearances were nearly identical. Jiang Zhen’s heart trembled. She had been taken in and raised by the base orphanage. On the swaddling cloth she had been wrapped in, the name “Jiang Zhen” had been embroidered with needle and thread—that was how she got her name.
But now she could no longer use the name Jiang Zhen. From now on, she would be “Jiang Zhen,” the one whose documents carried a legal identity.
……
Before long, soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army who had come to suppress the bandits arrived, rescuing the panicked refugees. They took out the dry rations they carried and distributed them.
“Don’t rush. There’s enough. Everyone eat slowly.”
Jiang Zhen accepted the sweet potato handed to her by the soldier and immediately put it in her mouth and bit into it. Before coming here, she had not eaten for several days. This sweet potato tasted like the most delicious thing in the world—crisp and sweet. As she gnawed on it, she broke the second sweet potato handed to her in half and passed it to the two children, telling them to eat.
Gu Liancheng handed her a third one and opened his canteen for her. “Don’t rush. There’s more. Drink some water first.”
Jiang Zhen almost snatched the canteen from the soldier’s hand and gulped down half of it straight from the mouth of the flask. The water here was far too sweet. She could not help it—tears rolled from the corners of her eyes.
After thanking him, Jiang Zhen gave the canteen to the two children to drink. The two children were clearly not thirsty and stopped after one sip. Jiang Zhen then swallowed the remaining half of the water herself. As she returned the canteen, she memorized the soldier’s appearance.
“My name is Jiang Zhen. Thank you.”
Jiang Zhen? Was it this “Zhen”? Gu Liancheng remembered this young and beautiful woman who had been moved to tears by a sweet potato and a canteen of water.
“The ferry crossing is ahead. Follow this road forward. After you cross the river, there’s a garrison there where you can settle down,” Gu Liancheng said, pointing out the direction for them before turning to follow the main force suppressing the bandits.
……
“The ferry overturned. I heard there were even children from Liberation Army families on board. The troops have come to salvage them, but with such rapid currents, I’m afraid they won’t even be able to find the bodies.”
“Let’s keep looking. Four children and one woman. I heard that woman fled here to find her husband, only to discover that he had already married into another family here. Now he’s crying a couple of fake tears—what’s the use of that?”
At this moment, Jiang Zhen was inside her personal space beneath the water, along with four children. Two of them were the children of the woman whose identity she had taken over; they both had the surname Jiang.
The other two were young passengers from the same boat, named Gu Pan and Gu Hui, a pair of twins. They were children from the Liberation Army family compound at the garrison. By coincidence they had boarded the same boat, and when they saw the boatman, they had even called out, “Why isn’t it the uncle who rowed yesterday?” At that moment Jiang Zhen had taken note of the boatman.
When the boat reached the middle of the river, the boatman suddenly exerted force and overturned the small wooden boat before diving underwater to escape. Jiang Zhen could not swim, but she had her space. At the instant the boat capsized, she grabbed the boatman and read his memories.
Each time she used her memory-reading ability, the other person would die. From the boatman’s memories, she saw the face of the woman who had hired the killer. The tone with which she instructed the boatman to kill was as indifferent as if she were telling him to slaughter a chicken or a duck.
The boatman had asked, “What if there are other passengers on the boat?”
“Then they can only blame their bad luck for sharing a boat with Jiang Zhen.”
The moment she read the memory, the boatman lost his breath. At the same time, the two children of the woman whose identity she had taken over absolutely had to be saved. The two children from the same boat were equally innocent, so Jiang Zhen pulled all four of them into her space together.
……
“Auntie Jiang, our secret little space is so amazing! Can I come in again tomorrow? I want to raise my two little chicks here.”
Gu Pan was like a curious baby, exploring the space everywhere. In truth, the space was not very large: a sixty-square-meter wooden house, with more than a hundred square meters of open ground outside, a well, and a small pond. Jiang Zhen had not expected the space to come with her.
Children had difficulty keeping secrets. Jiang Zhen took out four secret beans from the space and told the four children to eat them.
“This is called the ‘keep-your-mouth-sealed bean.’ Once you eat it, you won’t be able to tell the secret of the space.”
Gu Hui was obedient and swallowed the bean in one gulp.
Gu Pan covered her mouth. “Auntie Jiang, I won’t tell anyone. I don’t want to eat it.”
Jiang Zhen smiled. The children in this world were so innocent—perhaps because their environment was too good. They actually thought they could negotiate.
“That’s fine if you don’t eat it. I’ll erase this part of your memory. You’ll just be a little bit more foolish. It won’t affect anything.”
Gu Pan did not want to lose such precious memories. If she forgot, Auntie Jiang definitely wouldn’t play with her anymore. She immediately swallowed the secret bean in one gulp.
Jiang Zhao was especially worried. “Mom, how do you have such a space?”
The children were simple; whatever she said, they would believe. Jiang Zhen said, “After we encountered the bandits and barely escaped, this space appeared. The situation on the ferry was urgent, so the only way to save the four of you was to use the space. Otherwise Mom wouldn’t have taken it out.”
Jiang Zhao immediately nodded, fed one secret bean to his younger sister, and ate one himself.
The space had a time limit. They could not stay inside longer than the allotted time each time. Jiang Zhen let the space drift farther away with the current, soaked the children’s clothes with water, and walked downstream with them for a while until they encountered the Liberation Army soldiers searching and salvaging.
“They’ve been found! Over here! All five are alive!”
……
“Jiang Zhen, a lot of emergency cases just came in. Hurry and help!”
“Coming.”
Jiang Zhen walked out of the pediatric infusion hall and ran with the others to the emergency ward. More than a dozen injured soldiers were rushed in. Jiang Zhen was assigned to the soldiers with external wounds to suture them.
Her expression was relaxed and her technique skilled. In a short while, seven or eight soldiers’ wounds had been disinfected, stitched, and bandaged.
Gu Jiaoxia took a moment to glance at the stitching. It was both fast and beautifully done, and she could not help nodding secretly.
That day, the team that went to suppress the bandits rescued a group of refugees. The last ferry at the crossing had capsized, but fortunately the only adult on board, Jiang Zhen, saved the two children of her younger brother’s family.
To repay the favor, she temporarily arranged for Jiang Zhen, who had nowhere to go, to stay at the hospital.
Taking Jiang Zhen in as a temporary worker and providing her and the two children with a dormitory room was no longer something anyone could question, considering Jiang Zhen’s superb and skilled suturing ability.
The batch of injured soldiers brought down today had been fighting bandits. Fortunately there were no major casualties. The soldier with the most serious injury had already passed the dangerous stage.
Thankfully her younger brother Gu Liancheng had not been injured. He had just come off the battlefield suppressing bandits and had to hurry to get married.
At the mention of that suffocating marriage, Gu Jiaoxia did not even want to attend. She had long sworn that if her second brother refused to break off the engagement and insisted on fulfilling the marriage contract, she would no longer acknowledge him.
The more she thought about it, the angrier she became. The angrier she became, the more she noticed that there were hardly any nurses left in the department. They must all be hiding in the restroom gossiping about someone’s family affairs.
Today her younger brother was getting married, and the bride was even the younger sister of Jiang Zhen’s ex-husband’s wife. With such a huge piece of gossip, they must definitely be talking about it.
……
“Did you hear? Our head nurse wanted to introduce Doctor Qi from obstetrics to Nurse Jiang Zhen, but Doctor Qi refused.”
“Nurse Jiang is beautiful, but she’s divorced and has two children. Her ex-husband is also Doctor Qi’s colleague. Our head nurse is thinking too fancifully.”
“But I still hope Jiang Zhen can stay in the hospital. Our department is already short of nurses. Even adding one more person isn’t enough.”
“Our obstetrics department is also short of staff. She should come to obstetrics…”
“If she goes to obstetrics, wouldn’t she be working with her ex-husband? That won’t do. It’s better for her to stay in pediatrics.”
“You all have been in the restroom far too long. Why aren’t you back yet!”
Gu Jiaoxia came to drag them back to duty. When she heard the young nurses gossiping about Jiang Zhen’s private affairs behind her back, she immediately interrupted them with a stern reprimand.
The young nurses scattered like a flock of birds. Gu Jiaoxia thought about her second brother Gu Liancheng, stood there dazed for a moment, and muttered to herself, “He’s getting married. I can’t really not go. I should ask for leave and go over for a while.”
……
After a while, once Gu Jiaoxia—who had taken her in—left, Jiang Zhen came out from the stall.
She turned on the faucet and splashed water on her face, calmly recalling the unbelievable experiences of the past few days.
On the day she arrived, she encountered bandits. While fleeing, she ran into the Liberation Army suppressing bandits. When crossing the river, the boatman overturned the ferry. She immediately knew that among the family her children’s father had married into, there was someone who did not want to see her alive.
Jiang Zhen had been taught since childhood that survival belonged to the fittest. At the hospital she immediately noticed the opportunity to stay. They were short of medical staff. She was not a doctor, but her surgical bandaging was faster than the best nurse here, so she successfully stayed to help.
Without a household registration, she had no way to remain here permanently. But there was one method—find a man, go on a blind date, get married, and her household registration could be settled. Jiang Zhen seriously considered Gu Jiaoxia’s suggestion in her heart.
After finishing the night shift under the morning sun, she returned to the hospital family building. The building she lived in was decorated with lights and colors. Gu Jiaoxia’s second brother, Gu Liancheng, was about to marry his new bride, who lived in this very building.
The groom was a battalion-level officer at the garrison, young and promising, with a bright future. It should have been a joyful occasion, yet the bride-to-be was acting as if she had lost her mind and refused to step outside.
“I won’t marry him. I refuse to marry Gu Liancheng. I want to cancel the engagement!”