Everyone in the village knew that Fatty was a fool, and he also knew that no matter what he said, she wouldn't understand—it was like playing a lute to a cow.
He just wanted that tiny bit of satisfaction that came from saying it out loud.
Feeling like there was still a lingering stench on his fingers, he wiped them disdainfully on his clothes. Without sparing another glance at the faint flicker of something struggling in the depths of Fatty's muddled eyes, he sullenly took the wild hawthorns from his bag and flung them all away, not keeping a single one. Then he bent down, carefully picking up the scattered books from the ground, brushing off the dust before putting them back into his schoolbag, gave a cold snort, and strode off toward the village without looking back.
He had just stepped onto the embankment when a muffled "plop!" suddenly sounded behind him, like something heavy falling into the water.
His footsteps froze, and his heart sank heavily.
Immediately afterward, the panicked shouts of the villagers rang out from behind him:
"It's bad! Fatty's given up—she's jumped into the pond to kill herself!"
…
Beneath the old pagoda tree in the courtyard, Sun Shi had rolled up her sleeves, revealing two thin, sinewy arms as she squatted by a large wooden tub, scrubbing clothes with her head down.
There were over a dozen mouths to feed in the Yang family, and aside from a few elderly and young ones, the rest were all out working in the fields. The clothes were thick and hard to wash, shaking them out would release pounds of caked yellow mud. The moment they were soaked in water, the whole tub turned into a pot of muddy soup.
Normally, Sun Shi would carry the laundry to the pond at the entrance of the village to wash. The water there flowed freely, coming down from Sleeping Ox Mountain behind the village and running eastward. She could also take the opportunity to wash the vegetables for lunch.
But today was different. Ever since Qing'er had been pulled out of the pond yesterday afternoon, after pinching her philtrum and force-feeding her ginger water, they had barely snatched her life back—but the person wasn't doing well.
Just last night, she developed a high fever and babbled nonsense for most of the night. She and Qing'er's father hadn't slept a wink, staying by her bedside. At dawn, Qing'er's father had gone into the village to find the old Chinese doctor, Grandpa Fu, only to hear that Grandpa Fu had gone to a town thirty miles away the previous evening. After discussing it together, they both felt this illness couldn't be delayed.
So Qing'er's father went to talk with Grandpa, borrowed the family's only ox cart, and rushed to town to get medicine.
The past few days had been busy with the autumn harvest, and all the able-bodied men in the family had been sent to the fields to harvest rice. Normally, she should've been there helping too.
But with Qing'er this sick, she really couldn't be at ease, so she pleaded with Qing'er's grandmother to let her stay home to take care of household chores. That entire morning, she had swept the courtyard, cleaned the pigsty, washed the pots and bowls in the kitchen, fed the chickens, ducks, and the pig in the backyard, and now she was scrubbing all the family's dirty clothes in the courtyard.
Several times that morning, she'd gone into the house to check on Qing'er, feeling her forehead each time, feeding her a few sips of tea. The child had been burning up like a stove all morning.
Absentmindedly, Sun Shi wrung out the water from the clothes in her hands and flung them into a bamboo basket beside her. She casually grabbed another garment from the nearby pile of dirty laundry and threw it into the tub to scrub.
Her thin, sallow face was full of worry. From time to time, she would glance up at the sun that was already high overhead, straining her ears for the sound of the ox cartwheels in the front yard. The trip from Changping Village to Qingshui Town was over thirty miles round trip. Qing'er's father had been gone for nearly two hours now—shouldn't he be back soon?
Finishing up the last of the washing, Sun Shi stood up, wiped her wet hands carelessly on her clothes, then hurriedly turned and headed toward the west wing of the house.
…
When Yang Ruoqing woke up, her entire body was aching, and her head buzzed incessantly.
She had just completed an A-level mission and was on her way back aboard a helicopter.
It had been her final mission in her career as a special agent—delivering an antique painting and calligraphy scroll to an underground auction house in Las Vegas.
With this mission completed, her career as a special agent would have ended with a perfect full stop.
But over the Pacific Ocean, the helicopter encountered severe convective weather. In the moment of the crash, she vaguely remembered seeing a streak of green light shoot out from that scroll, burrowing into her body.
She had fallen into the sea, the icy seawater surging in from all directions…
She struggled in the water, trying to grab hold of a piece of airplane wreckage floating nearby. Finally, her head broke through the surface, and fresh air rushed into her lungs, causing her to cough violently. Her entire body jolted upright.
The sudden flood of light stung her eyes with a sharp ache.
She squinted slightly, and only after the discomfort faded did she slowly open her eyes.
What greeted her sight was a low, dilapidated house. The roof was thatched with straw, and the mud-plastered walls were already cracked. There wasn't a single decent piece of furniture inside. Against one corner stood a faded wardrobe, on the chipped table sat a teapot, along with two clay teacups—both chipped as well. The only stool was missing a leg, crudely propped up with a few bricks underneath.
The ground inside the room was uneven, damp, and clammy. A musty, moldy odor mixed with the acrid smell of urine from a chamber pot by the bed filled the room, making her stomach churn.
No icy seawater. No airplane wreckage. What the hell was this rundown, uninhabitable place?
Could it be… she'd been drifting on the sea and was rescued by a kind-hearted fisherman?
But… this was the 21st century! Looking across the whole world, even among African tribes, you wouldn't find such a wretched living environment, would you?
Her gaze shifted to a wooden door nearby, with slivers of light filtering through the cracks of its broken panels. She lifted the damp, patchwork quilt covering her body, planning to get out of bed and ask someone at the door what was going on. Just as she moved, her eyes caught sight of a pair of cloth shoes at the bedside, their original color impossible to distinguish, with two holes worn through at the toes.
She shook her head slightly. Shoes are still better than going barefoot, she thought. But as she stretched her feet toward the shoes, something utterly unbelievable happened—
The plump, slightly swollen feet before her eyes were not hers.
She was born with a pair of small, delicate feet, fair and jade-like, exquisitely shaped. Even her toenails were adorable, healthy, and pink like tiny seashells.
But the feet in front of her—rough, thick, with toenails that looked like they hadn't been trimmed in weeks, black grime packed underneath, and two of the nails were even cracked and lifted.
Then she noticed—her hands weren't hers either.
She was a special agent, one of the world's top assassins. Years of intense training had left thick calluses on her fingertips. Yet as a perfectionist about hands, she always kept the rest of her hands meticulously maintained—fair, smooth, and flawless.
But the hands before her now—short, stubby fingers, swollen like radishes soaked in water, vulgar and unsightly.
Reaching up to feel her face, she could tell by touch alone—this wasn't her original face either.
What the hell was going on?
Who was she?
Who am I?
Where on earth is this?
Just then, in the dim, silent room, the old door suddenly creaked open a crack, enough for a person to squeeze through. In the next moment, a figure hurriedly pushed their way inside from outside.
(End of chapter