The head of the family, Old Man Fang, lay helplessly on the kang, his wrinkled old face filled with pain. “It’s me. I’m the one who should die.”
Fang’s fourth son, who was kneeling on the ground, burst into tears. “Dad, Mom, it’s my fault. I shouldn’t have thought about getting married.”
Not far from him, on the other side of the earthen kang, sat an old woman dressed in a grayish-brown cotton-padded jacket, wiping away her tears every now and then.
Hearing what her fourth son said, Liu-shi immediately burst into tears. “That’s right, it’s your fault. Why did you have to get married when everything was fine?”
Fang’s fourth son was dumbfounded. He could hardly believe that his mother had become such an unreasonable old woman.
Wasn’t he the one who had insisted on getting married? Wasn’t it him?
What was so good about getting married anyway? It would just mean having another person come home to compete with him for food.
The family was already poor, and he would even have to split his bed, quilt, and other things in half with someone else. If his parents hadn’t insisted that he was old enough to carry on the family line, did they really think he was eager to get married?
Just to scrape together the bride price for him, his father had deliberately gone far away into the deep mountains to see if he could find something valuable, only to accidentally fall and break his leg.
If he hadn’t happened to run into a hunter from a neighboring village, Old Man Fang would have ended up in a far worse state than merely lying here with a broken leg.
Hiring a doctor, setting his leg, and buying medicine all required money. If he wasn’t treated quickly, the old man might not even survive.
And the marriage that had already been arranged for Fang’s fourth son couldn’t fall through either. Leaving aside the fact that they couldn’t ruin the girl’s reputation, if the marriage failed this time, it would be difficult for him to find a wife again in the future.
No one had expected that, in the end, his mother would come up with such a solution.
Fang’s mother had taken it upon herself to arrange a marriage for their youngest daughter. Her intended husband was none other than the only scholar in their village.
The only downside was that the scholar was rather unlucky. He had been in poor health and sickly ever since he was a child.
And now, he was lying in bed, on the verge of dying from his illness.
For some reason, the scholar’s mother, the old Mrs. Li, had heard that the Fang family’s daughter had an auspicious birth chart that would bring prosperity to her husband, and she was willing to offer eight taels of silver as the bride price.
The old Mrs. Li of the Li family hadn’t tried to hide anything, either. She had directly told the Fang family that once their youngest daughter married into the family, she would be expected to serve as a bride to bring her dying husband good fortune.
The other members of the Fang family might still have thought it was a good marriage, but Fang Qingqing felt that her parents were trying to sell her off.
Unable to think things through, she had hanged herself in the middle of the night yesterday!
If Fang’s mother hadn’t woken up to use the toilet and discovered her, quickly getting her down and saving her, she would have already lost her daughter by now.
Though it couldn’t really be considered that she had been saved. At the time, her daughter had been completely unconscious. After finally making it to dawn, her eldest son went to fetch a doctor.
The doctor prescribed some medicine, but said that the girl was in very poor condition. If she still couldn’t wake up by tomorrow, then she was afraid that…
Unable to even bring herself to blink, Liu-shi had stayed by her daughter’s bedside the entire time, but the girl hadn’t opened her eyes even once throughout the whole day.
The more Liu-shi thought about it, the more heartbroken she became. She pointed at her fourth son’s nose and cursed:
“It’s all because of you. All of this trouble happened because of you.
“My poor daughter! I raised her with so much difficulty, caring for her day and night until she finally grew up, and she blossomed into such a beautiful young woman.
“Throughout the surrounding villages, who has ever seen her without praising her?
“If it weren’t for you, you good-for-nothing brat, would I have arranged such a marriage for her?
“And now your sister is lying on the kang, her life hanging in the balance, while you, you good-for-nothing brat, are still only thinking about getting married. You heartless wretch…”
Just cursing him wasn’t enough to vent her anger. Liu-shi immediately began beating her fourth son with all her strength.
She was genuinely putting force into every blow. After all, Liu-shi had worked in the fields alongside her husband for all these years, so she had quite a bit of strength in her hands.
As a result, Fang’s fourth son suffered terribly, yet he didn’t dare dodge a single blow.
After beating and cursing him, Liu-shi knew that things had already reached this point. She wiped away her tears with her sleeve and walked toward the side room.
She lifted the thick curtain covering the doorway, revealing a young girl lying on the earthen kang directly opposite the door.
She had delicate features, with gracefully curved willow-leaf eyebrows, a slightly upturned nose, and cherry-like lips.
Not to mention the entire village—even after going to town, it would be difficult to find a girl prettier than her daughter.
But at this moment, the young girl lay there motionless, her face pale and her appearance haggard. Seeing her, Liu-shi couldn’t stop the tears from falling again.
“Qingqing, it’s not that your mother is heartless. I simply have no other choice. Besides, the fortune-teller said that your birth charts are extremely compatible. If you marry him and serve as his bride to bring him good fortune, it will definitely work.
“When the time comes, you’ll be a scholar’s wife. Besides, that boy from the Li family is good at his studies. You’ll have good days ahead if you follow him.”
This was merely what Liu-shi had calculated in her heart. Naturally, she couldn’t openly say such things outside and could only go along with the Li family’s explanation that the marriage was to bring good fortune to their dying son.
Who would have thought that silly girl would actually take it seriously? After being goaded by a few people, she suddenly became unable to think things through.
From yesterday until now, Liu-shi had barely closed her eyes. At most, she had only dozed off against the wall for a while.
Even when she dozed, she couldn’t rest peacefully. Every so often, she would open her eyes to check on her daughter.
Unfortunately, every time, all she was met with was immense disappointment.
Fang Qingqing was the youngest daughter born to Old Man Fang and his wife. When Liu-shi gave birth to her, she was already over forty, and her eldest son had already married and had children of his own.
Liu-shi had originally given up hope, thinking that she would spend the rest of her life with only four troublesome sons. She had never expected to eventually have a little daughter, her precious “little cotton-padded jacket.” Because of this, she had even specially gone to the temple on the back mountain to offer one tael of incense money to the Bodhisattva.
It was easy to imagine how cherished Fang Qingqing was as the youngest daughter of the family. Whether it was Old Man Fang, Liu-shi, or even her several older brothers, they all doted on her dearly.
Dawn was almost upon them, yet the two elders were still immersed in their sorrow. Fang’s second, third, and fourth sons all turned to look at their eldest brother.
Seeing that their little sister was in such poor condition, if their parents couldn’t take charge, wouldn’t Fang’s eldest son have to become the one responsible for handling everything?
But when it came to preparing for their sister’s funeral, Fang’s eldest son simply couldn’t bring himself to say the words.
His wife was also wiping away her tears. Her younger sister-in-law had been born after she gave birth to her eldest son. At that time, her mother-in-law was already old and had little breast milk, so she could practically be said to have raised her younger sister-in-law herself.
As for their relationship, although it couldn’t compare to that between the girl and her own parents, it was still very deep. Thus, Fang’s eldest daughter-in-law also found it difficult to bear the pain in her heart and went to the side room next door.
The moment she looked at her younger sister-in-law lying on the kang, the little girl who had been unconscious there for an entire day and night suddenly opened her eyes.
The Fang family erupted into joyful cheers, but they had no idea that although their precious daughter still looked the same on the outside, she had already become a completely different person on the inside.
Fang Qingqing had merely gone outside to throw away some trash when she encountered a robber. In an unexpected turn of events, she was stabbed while trying to save a little boy.
At the moment she closed her eyes, Fang Qingqing felt extremely unwilling to accept it. Although she didn’t regret saving that child, she didn’t want to die just like this either.
She was still young and had never been in love. She had only been working at her company for three months and had just become a permanent employee. Her career was just beginning to take off, and her journey through life had only just started. How could it end like this—
【Dear, do you want to continue living? Come with me. I will let you create a miracle and gain a new life.】
Just as Fang Qingqing’s consciousness was becoming hazy, a voice suddenly appeared in her mind. She hadn’t even figured out what was happening.
But human instinct naturally made her want to continue living, so she immediately treated this sudden voice as a lifeline.