Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Arriving in Time, Saving Eldest Sister’s Family At four in the morning, the sky was beginning to grow faintly light. Zhang Qibao finally reached Wang Family Village. The entire village was deathly quiet. There were no voices, nor even the glow of cooking fires. It was like a dead city buried beneath the rain. Zhang Qibao could hardly believe he had managed to walk that far. His legs had long since stopped obeying him. But all along the way, his heart had been pounding violently, seized by an abnormal sense of panic. “When something feels wrong, it really is wrong.” Zhang Qibao had always firmly believed that saying. That panicked feeling—and the image he had conjured of Eldest Sister’s face covered in blood—had supported him as he dragged himself forward one step at a time toward her home. At last, he reached Wang Jianguo’s house. Zhang Qibao pounded on the door twice, but no one opened it. “Sis! Eldest Sister!” Zhang Qibao shouted with all his strength. The house remained deathly silent. Zhang Qibao’s heart began to sink. He could wait no longer, and shoved the door open with all his might. The instant the door opened, the scene before him nearly scared him out of his wits. Wang Jianguo’s sleeves were covered in blood, and he was holding a knife, preparing to chop off Zhang Dapan’s head. “Stop!” Zhang Qibao’s legs gave way, and he fell to his knees with a thud. At the noise, Wang Jianguo seemed to be dragged out of a dream. He still held the knife aloft, staring at Zhang Qibao in the doorway with a deathly expression. “Eldest Sister’s Husband, I’ve brought you food.” Zhang Qibao stared fixedly at the knife in Wang Jianguo’s hand. He slowly lowered the bamboo basket behind him. Using his body and the basket as cover, he focused his thoughts and began taking things out of his Magical Space. First came milk powder. “Eldest Sister’s Husband, look, this is milk powder. I’ll make some for Niuniu and Jiujiu right now. They won’t die. They’ll both survive.” Zhang Qibao nervously swallowed, quickly mixed the milk powder with Spirit Spring Water, then staggered to the head of the bed. He picked up three-year-old Wang Jiujiu and desperately poured the milk into her mouth. Wang Jiujiu’s mouth was full of blood. Zhang Qibao’s heart rose and fell with anxiety. He touched her chest. It was flat, with no rise or fall. He did not know whether she could still be saved. Having been reborn once, he was willing to kneel and beg that the Spirit Spring Water in his Magical Space possessed the power to bring the dead back to life. Zhang Qibao tried several different positions as he fed her. Perhaps the heavens had heard his prayers. At last, little Wang Jiujiu began swallowing the milk in small mouthfuls. Wang Jianguo, who had been staring at Zhang Qibao, froze completely. That morning, he had already felt Niuniu and Jiujiu’s noses. Neither of them had been breathing. They had both been dead. And yet Jiujiu was drinking milk. The milk in the bottle was visibly decreasing. Wang Jianguo finally lowered the knife in his hand. He stared at the bottle in Zhang Qibao’s hand as though it were the last strand of straw that could save his life, his eyes filled with humble desperation. It was like a person who had reached the end of the road and fallen into an abyss suddenly seeing the only rope that could pull him back to shore. Zhang Qibao fed Wang Jiujiu an entire bottle of milk powder before stopping. He exhaled heavily, mixed another bottle with Spirit Spring Water, and then picked up fourteen-year-old Wang Niuniu. Fourteen-year-old Wang Niuniu was actually lighter than eight-year-old Zhang Zhendong. Zhang Qibao soon discovered that Wang Niuniu’s condition was even worse than Wang Jiujiu’s. Her body had already begun to turn cold. There was nothing else Zhang Qibao could do. He unscrewed the bottle and began feeding the milk powder into Wang Niuniu’s mouth, mouth to mouth. He did not know whether he could save Niuniu. He was simply treating a dead horse as though it were still alive. Thank heaven. Several minutes later, the Spirit Spring Water finally took effect. Wang Niuniu’s chest rose sharply, and faint breaths began to pass through her nose. Zhang Qibao felt as though all the strength had drained from his body, but he knew it was not yet time to stop. He mixed another bottle of milk powder and once again placed the bottle in Wang Niuniu’s mouth. This time, Wang Niuniu finally began sucking on her own. As he watched the milk in the bottle miraculously decrease once more, Zhang Qibao finally slumped against the foot of the wall like a puddle of mud. Breathing faintly, Zhang Qibao shifted his gaze toward Wang Jianguo. Wang Jianguo had already put down the knife. He was struggling to stand, supporting himself against the wall as he climbed toward the bed. After resting for a moment, Zhang Qibao’s head was no longer quite so dizzy, and his vision was no longer so dark. His body was still weak, but he had long since stopped caring about himself. Zhang Qibao left Wang Jianguo alone and staggered toward Zhang Dapan, who lay unconscious in the corner of the kang bed. Zhang Dapan was only forty years old, yet large patches of her hair had already turned gray. Her face was painfully gaunt, her cheekbones jutting starkly beneath her skin, and her eye sockets sunken into two dark hollows. Her whole body looked like a dried reed stalk. Zhang Qibao lifted Zhang Dapan from the floor and let her lean against his chest. She was far too light. Zhang Qibao felt that Zhang Dapan could not even weigh eighty pounds. His heart hurt with a fine, needlelike pain. In his previous life, how had he been able to eat the relief grain meant to save Eldest Sister’s entire family with such peace of mind, remaining unmoved by their deaths? He had not even come to Wang Family Village to take a look. He had even thought that Eldest Sister had died violently, and that it would be frightening to see. Fortunately, in this life, it was not too late. His two nieces were still alive. Eldest Sister still had a faint breath. Zhang Qibao mixed another bottle of milk powder, pried open his sister’s mouth, and slowly poured the milk into it while softly calling, “Eldest Sister, wake up. Eldest Sister, wake up quickly. Look at me. It’s Qibao!” The sweet milk powder finally roused Zhang Dapan, who had nearly fallen into a complete coma. She swallowed greedily, almost instinctively, and her eyes slowly opened. “Sis, Eldest Sister! You’re awake.” Zhang Qibao looked at Zhang Dapan in delighted surprise. The siblings had reunited after two lifetimes apart. Like a little bird that had finally found its mother, Zhang Qibao buried his entire head in Zhang Dapan’s embrace. Zhang Dapan felt as though she had been trapped in a dark dream. She had kept sinking, sinking deeper and deeper. Just as she was about to reach the bottom, she heard her little brother calling to her. Then she stopped. She could not die. She still had a little brother to raise. She struggled with all her might, and suddenly, a sweet, fragrant cloud lifted her up. It was so warm, so sweet, so comfortable. When she opened her eyes, she saw the Qibao of her family—her only little brother. For a moment, Zhang Dapan was dazed. Why was Qibao here? Hadn’t she sent all the relief grain from her household to him? Could it be that he had already eaten it all? Zhang Dapan’s heart trembled. She wanted to help her little brother too, but there truly was not a single grain of food left in the house. Both her daughters were nearly starving to death. Zhang Dapan finally remembered her two daughters. She turned her gaze away from her little brother and instinctively looked toward the head of the bed. Only then did Zhang Dapan finally understand what she had done. Their village had been the first to receive relief grain. She had been so worried about her little brother’s family that she went to his home as soon as she collected the grain. Then her sister-in-law had kept all of it. She had wanted to get some of it back, but she was afraid that her sister-in-law and little brother would quarrel. So she had wandered home in a daze, only remembering once she arrived that her own family was nearly out of food as well. She had not dared face her husband, whose eyes were red with fury, or her two pitiful daughters. She could only stubbornly insist that if relief grain could be distributed once, it could be distributed a second time. Besides, she and her husband and daughters were accustomed to hunger. Going without food for a few more days would not matter. Her little brother was the only root of the Zhang family. She could not abandon him. It was not that Zhang Dapan did not love her daughters. She had simply grown accustomed to giving every good thing first to her only little brother. She was used to putting everyone—including her own daughters—behind her little brother, Zhang Qibao. On the bloodstained kang bed, Wang Niuniu was still asleep, but she was breathing now, and the rise and fall of her chest was clearly visible. Three-year-old Wang Jiujiu had already slowly opened her eyes. Wang Jianguo’s hands trembled as he touched one daughter, then the other. Alive. Warm. The forty-year-old man had witnessed the deaths of both his daughters with his own eyes without shedding a tear. Now that both daughters had miraculously survived, he could no longer hold back. He covered his face and began sobbing. Hearing Wang Jianguo’s cries, Zhang Qibao felt inexplicably heartsick. He took a milk candy from his Magical Space and walked over to Wang Jianguo. Before Wang Jianguo could react, Zhang Qibao slipped it into his mouth. “Eldest Sister’s Husband, have this for now.” In his previous life, Zhang Qibao had thought his Eldest Sister’s Husband was nothing short of a murderous madman. But after being reborn, Zhang Qibao could understand the madness that had overtaken Wang Jianguo before his death. Zhang Qibao did not know whether Eldest Sister’s Husband and Eldest Sister could return to the way they had been before. But he knew that he could not do nothing. Zhang Qibao began placing food on the kang bed piece by piece. “Eldest Sister’s Husband, look. This is ten pounds of rice, and another ten pounds of flour. There’s also a pound of pork and a pound of brown sugar. I braved the heavy rain and traded for them at the black market. There are a lot of people in my family, and the relief grain Eldest Sister brought us has already been eaten. We can only make up for it with these things…” Zhang Qibao’s tone was frank. He did not mention the horrifying scene he had witnessed upon entering the house. He merely calmly laid out the facts. “Eldest Sister’s Husband, Eldest Sister was thoughtless to bring the relief grain back to her maiden family. She was worried about me, and I was worried about her. She brought us relief grain and saved my entire family’s lives. Since I managed to trade for these things at the black market, of course I would think of your family as well…” Wang Jianguo did not look at Zhang Qibao. He simply stared in disbelief at the food spread across the kang bed. There was even meat. And it was polished rice and fine flour. Wang Jianguo’s mouth began salivating uncontrollably. As though his stomach had heard the call of food, it began churning and twisting in agony. “No! No, take it back!” When Zhang Dapan saw so much food, and even meat, her first reaction was that it belonged to her little brother’s family. It was food that her little brother ought to eat. How could her family eat her little brother’s food? “We won’t eat it. Once the rain lets up a little, I’ll go up the mountain and strip bark from the trees and look for grass and leaves. We won’t starve to death,” Zhang Dapan said anxiously. “Take all of this back and save it for your own family. Your Wanwan is delicate, and there are five children at home. That’s so many mouths to feed…” Zhang Qibao wished he could cover his Eldest Sister’s mouth. Honestly, what a godlike opponent—and what a pig of a teammate. Eldest Sister’s deep-rooted way of thinking could not be changed overnight. When he thought about the tragedy that had befallen Eldest Sister’s family in his previous life, Zhang Qibao wanted to kneel before Wang Jianguo. He was the one who had benefited from all this. He had no right to stand before the victim. Zhang Qibao did not feel ashamed or humbled. He was the one who had gained from it, Eldest Sister was the one who had done wrong, and the only truly innocent victims were Wang Jianguo and his two daughters.