When Chi Huaijin opened her eyes, the world seemed blurry.
Or maybe, she thought numbly, it was she who was weeping, her consciousness floating somewhere between life and death, her mind foggy, her chest hollow, and her body felt strangely light.
The first thing she heard was the sound of a man crying.
It was not loud, nor broken, but low and choked, as though every sob had been swallowed halfway down the throat, trying to restrain itself but failing miserably. The sound made her temples ache. It was so rare, so foreign, so jarring to her ears that it felt like her very soul trembled in confusion.
'A man's voice?'
Her lashes fluttered weakly. The dim light filtering through her eyelids turned golden-red, and the smell of warm medicine and wood smoke brushed against her nose.
Her mind was blank for a long, suspended moment.
'I… died, didn't I?'
She remembered the rumbling of the mountain, the roaring wind, the earth giving way beneath her feet. She remembered falling, falling endlessly into the abyss with rain and dust in her hair, her backpack tearing open, the sky splitting above her. She remembered the instant of weightlessness, and the thought that had crossed her mind as the darkness swallowed her whole:
So this is it… I guess I'm going to see you again, Father.
But the sound she was hearing now wasn't death.
It was the sound of someone crying their heart out while sitting beside her.
And that trembling, hoarse voice that had always been her earliest memory and her final wish—
"...Huaijin… Huaijin, please… don't scare Daddy like this… okay?"
Her heart stopped.
That voice.
It couldn't be...
Her eyes flew open, and for a moment, the entire world seemed to spin. The ceiling was old-fashioned, pale beige with wooden beams running across, sunlight filtering through a half-drawn curtain. Her vision swam, blurred by tears that came without warning. She blinked rapidly, trying to make sense of where she was, of what she was seeing.
And then she saw him.
Sitting beside her bed, his shoulders were trembling, with his face buried in his hands, was a man she had not seen for years, not since he died in her last life.
Her father.
Chi Yuanfeng.
The man whose laughter once filled their small apartment, whose voice had guided her through her earliest memories of school and home, whose eyes had always been gentle even when life turned cruel. The man who had once thrown himself into the path of an oncoming disaster to save her life.
Yet here he was. sitting beside her as he was crying.
Her father, the proud, elegant man who had faced down debt collectors and snide relatives with unyielding calm, was now crying like a helpless child.
Was it a deja vu she was having as her last consciousness before her death?
If it's so, she didn't want to lose out on this little time. She wanted to make up for what she couldn't back then.
"Dad…" Her voice came out hoarse, small, almost a whisper.
He froze.
Slowly, he lifted his head.
His face, the one that had been blurred in her memory by time and pain, was suddenly vivid and heartbreakingly real. His features were younger than she remembered, softer, untouched by the lines of exhaustion that had marred his face in her first life. His eyes were red, rimmed with tears, his long lashes trembling slightly as he stared at her.
"Huaijin?" His voice cracked.
She blinked; her eyes remained dazed. The words caught in her throat.
"Daddy…?"
In an instant, he lunged forward and gathered her into his arms.
The sudden warmth, the solid weight of his body, the scent of soap and medicine, it was all so real that it hurt. He clutched her so tightly she could hardly breathe, one hand trembling as it caressed her back, the other pressing her head into his shoulder.
"Thank heavens… thank heavens…" His voice was rough and shaking. "I thought I lost you, sweetheart… You scared me to death…"
Her small frame was trembling uncontrollably. She couldn't stop the tears that welled up, hot and unending, as she buried her face in the crook of his neck. His shirt was damp with tears, sweat, or medicine; she couldn't tell. All she knew was that his heartbeat was strong, steady, alive.
Alive.
He was alive.
Her father, the man who had died to protect her, was alive and sitting before her once again.
Her mind reeled. She wanted to ask so many questions, to shout, to laugh, to cry harder. But the emotions tangled together, choking her throat until all that came out was a broken sob.
"I thought I… lost you," she whispered. "I thought you… You were gone…"
He gently loosened his hold, leaning back just enough to look at her. His eyes softened, his hand brushing her cheek with infinite care.
"Gone? What are you saying, silly girl?" He smiled faintly, though tears still shone in his eyes. "How could I leave you alone? You just fainted from the fever, that's all. I was so scared… You were burning up, talking nonsense, calling for me…"
Fever?
Chi Huaijin's mind blanked for a moment. Fever?
That didn't make sense. She had died, hadn't she? The landslide, the cold, the darkness, all of it had been too vivid to be a dream.
But when she looked around, the pieces began to fall into place.
The room wasn't her shabby apartment from her adulthood. It wasn't the sterile hospital room where she had once watched her father's last breath.
It was her old bedroom.
The wallpaper was soft green with tiny peach blossom patterns; it was the same one her father had pasted for her himself when she was six. The wooden bookshelf in the corner, filled with fairytale books, the small porcelain lamp shaped like a rabbit, all of it was there.
Her breath hitched.
'No… this can't be…'