Chapter Four: A Nighttime Conversation

After Wen Yu returned home from work, Yu Qian trailed behind her like a little shadow. She sat by the stove watching as Wen Yu cooked, kept her gaze fixed on her mother with every bite at the dinner table, and even stared as Wen Yu washed the dishes. When Wen Yu went to take a bath, Yu Qian brought over a small stool and sat outside the bathroom door to wait.

“Qian Qian, why are you staring at me all the time? Go take your bath,” Wen Yu said gently after coming out and seeing her daughter sitting obediently.

“Mama, I want to sleep with you tonight.”

“All right. Is your homework on the desk? I need to check it.”

“Yes,” Yu Qian replied, then picked up her clothes and went to bathe.

Wen Yu had intended to check her daughter’s homework and then help her bathe, but Yu Qian had already gone into the bathroom to wash herself. She found Yu Qian’s reaction a bit odd, but didn’t dwell on it and simply waited for her daughter to come out.

When she returned to the bedroom, Wen Yu was leaning against the bed, reviewing Yu Qian’s homework.

Climbing onto the bed, Yu Qian hugged her mother, gazing at her face, which looked even younger than in her memory. Thinking of how her mother would eventually leave her again, Yu Qian couldn’t help but start to cry.

“Sweetheart, what’s wrong? Did Grandpa scold you at home?” Wen Yu wiped away her tears as she asked.

“Mama, Grandpa didn’t scold me.” Yu Qian buried her face in the blanket, wiped her tears away, then answered with a nasal voice, “Mama, do you believe in immortals?”

Wen Yu was amused. “There are no such things as immortals in this world—just superstition.”

“Mama, do you believe me?” After struggling for a long time over whether to tell her mother about being reborn, Yu Qian finally asked.

The air went still. Wen Yu said nothing, and Yu Qian didn’t dare utter another word.

“If you want me to believe you, you have to tell me—who are you?” After a long silence, Wen Yu spoke. “Though children from poor families grow up fast, and Qian Qian is very independent, I still know what my daughter should be like at this age. You ask me if I believe in immortals, then if I believe in you—so are you really my daughter?”

“Mama!” Yu Qian looked at her mother in astonishment, never expecting that in just a few hours after work her mother would notice something was wrong. If Wen Yu hadn’t been paying close and careful attention, she wouldn’t have picked up on it so quickly.

Just thinking about this, her tears started to fall again. She hugged her mother tightly and sobbed, “Mama, I missed you so much!”

She cried until she hiccuped. Only after she calmed down did she answer her mother’s serious gaze, “Mama, I am your daughter—but I’m from fifteen years in the future.”

Wen Yu’s hand trembled as she pulled Yu Qian up.

Gripping the edge of her clothes, Yu Qian carefully chose her words.

“I… had an accident before, fell into the Yin River. While I was drowning, I was thinking that you only have me—if I’m gone, what would you do? When I woke up, it was morning and you were calling me to get up. Later, after you left for work, someone wearing ancient robes—very beautiful—stood by my bed and said I’d been a good person in my past life, so as a reward, I was sent back in time.”

Her story was half true, half false. She had really drowned and really been reborn, but she didn’t say why she’d fallen into the water; the person in ancient dress was made up. The despair of her previous life was something she would keep to herself.

“What about your father? Why didn’t you mention him?” Wen Yu’s voice was hoarse.

Yu Qian pressed her lips together and answered, “When I fell into the river, Dad had already been gone for almost a year.”

“How did it happen?”

“He fell from a building at the construction site and hit his head.”

Wen Yu held her daughter close, saying nothing.

“Mama, aren’t you going to ask me anything else?”

After a moment’s silence, she fixed her eyes on Yu Qian and asked in a low voice, “Fine. Which university did you get into? What major? You’d be graduating at twenty-three—how’s your job? Are you seeing anyone?”

Yu Qian felt like crying again—she should have known better than to ask that question. But she obediently replied, “I studied directing in an arts program at a vocational college. After graduation, I worked as a telemarketer. I don’t have a boyfriend.”

She’d gone twenty-three years without ever having been in a relationship. Now that she’d been reborn, besides the pressing issue of her parents’ longevity, her studies, career, and love life all needed to be put on her agenda. But there was still the issue of her maternal relatives.

“Mama, Uncle and the others aren’t good people!”

Seeing her daughter’s face full of anger, Wen Yu was momentarily stunned, not understanding why she suddenly brought up her family. “What happened?”

“They’re greedy! After Dad was gone, for the compensation money, they nearly got you killed and even tried to sell me to human traffickers!” She didn’t say that her mother had actually been killed, but she did reveal that she’d almost been sold off.

Yu Qian knew that when it came to her mother’s family, Wen Yu was, to put it nicely, dutiful; to put it bluntly, foolishly filial. She might not care about her own suffering, but if it involved her daughter, she would erupt. After all, a mother’s love makes her strong.

When Wen Yu heard her daughter say she’d almost been sold, she nearly fainted from the shock. When she finally recovered, her face was dark as thunder.

Previously, she’d still harbored doubts about her daughter’s claim of being from fifteen years in the future, but now all uncertainty vanished. She had lived with her own family for twenty years—how could she not know what her parents and brothers were like? Her upbringing had just made her unable to act against them.

But even the most foolishly filial person will harden when it comes to their own child. “When it’s cloudy, I’ll call your father back. We’ll deal with your uncle and the rest. Now that you’re back, live well—Mama doesn’t want you to live with hatred.”

“Mama, when you call Dad back, don’t let him go to the construction site anymore. It’s really dangerous, I don’t want anything to happen to him again.”

“Mm, Mama will discuss it with your father. Now sleep. No matter what, you’re still just an eight-year-old girl—don’t worry so much.” Wen Yu tucked the blanket around her daughter, switched the fan from constant to oscillating, then turned off the light and lay down beside her.

Moonlight filtered through the thin curtains, casting a gentle glow in the room. Neither mother nor daughter could fall asleep, each turning to her own side, lost in thought.

Wen Yu pondered her daughter’s words and also what her husband could do if he stopped working at construction sites.

Yu Qian took out her iPhone 7 and waved it in front of her mother. When Wen Yu didn’t react, she realized that only she could see this phone—no one else could. She unlocked it, opened her wallet, and looked at the more than a million in her account. She wondered if she could withdraw the money, but she didn’t have a bank card, nor did her parents; they only used passbooks. She stared blankly at the Marrow Cleansing Pill and the Destiny Brush in her inventory, wanting to try taking out the pill, but she was afraid the effects would be too dramatic and scare her mother.

Fuxi had already told her in a private message what the Marrow Cleansing Pill did: cleanse the meridians, strengthen the body, detoxify, and beautify. It couldn’t reshape spiritual roots or grant immortality like the pills in fantasy novels, but for ordinary people, it was already extremely powerful. Who doesn’t want to be healthy and free from illness? Who, as a girl, doesn’t want beauty and a good figure?

She decided to wait until daylight to try the Marrow Cleansing Pill and figure out what the Destiny Brush did. Turning off her phone, she closed her eyes and went to sleep.

Children have limited energy, and after such an emotionally turbulent day, she quickly fell asleep.

When she woke up again, Wen Yu was already up, making breakfast in the kitchen.

“Good morning, Mama!” Yu Qian changed her clothes and hurried to the kitchen, watching eagerly.

“Good morning. Later, I’ll go to your uncle’s house to call your dad and then head to work. You haven’t finished your homework—remember to do it,” Wen Yu said, dark circles beneath her eyes betraying a sleepless night.