novelraw Chapter 213: Past and Present Lives
Chapter 213: Past and Present Lives
"Don’t you especially like those social figures? You really admire those social bosses. How about I find you a disco to keep watch over?" Qian said to Chen Zilong.
Chen Zilong immediately took a begging posture. "I give up, sis, can’t I just study hard?"
Qian gave a snort. Thinking back, in the past life, Chen had already caused countless troubles, resulting in her marrying a scumbag and unable to divorce. In this life, after she disciplined him once, he became honest and didn’t make any trouble.
She directed him to move the luggage upstairs.
"Where did mom go?"
"She went to the village for a meeting. Sis, recently a lot of people have been measuring around our house and the surroundings with tools. What’s going on?"
Someone’s measuring with tools?
Qian slightly sorted out her thoughts, her eyes suddenly widened!
"Sis, what’s really going on? I heard it might be the relocation office, but we’ve been shouting for so long, and they’ve measured several times, yet there’s no movement. This time is like a mere thunderous boom with no rain—Sis?"
Chen Zilong watched as the calm Qian suddenly became emotionally stirred. She strode over to the desk calendar, flipped through it repeatedly, then closed her eyes, seemingly trying to recall something.
"Sis?" Chen Zilong looked at Qian in confusion.
Qian, with her eyes closed, suddenly opened them. She pushed past Chen Zilong and walked briskly outside.
"Sis, where are you going?"
"Going out to handle something, might come back later."
Chen Zilong shrugged, "She’s off to find Lang, isn’t she? Can’t wait to go just after coming back..."
Qian wasn’t actually going to find Yu Minglang.
Seeing the desk calendar, she suddenly thought of something extremely important to her.
On this day in her past life, she returned home covered in bruises from the scumbag’s domestic violence, seeking her maiden family’s help to divorce.
Back then, the village was also having a meeting, but it was not Jia Xiufang representing the family, it was Chen Lin. Qian waited at home for him for so long, and when Chen Lin came back with a joyful face and heard she wanted a divorce, he drove her away without a second word.
At first, Qian didn’t understand why her father was so eager to drive her out. As she walked out, she heard the neighbors gathering with joyful expressions discussing, and only then did she know that this area was really going to be demolished.
House, money, the family could get a lot.
Chen Lin hid the college acceptance letter to save money for his son. After marriage, when Qian discovered the scumbag was gay and wanted a divorce, Chen Lin refused, because he wanted to take money from the scumbag to clean up his son’s mess. But even after the family got money from the demolition, Chen Lin still wouldn’t let Qian divorce, simply to prevent her from taking a share of the family property.
If the cold and violent marriage with the scumbag had already left Qian physically and mentally exhausted, Chen Lin’s attitude was the last straw that broke the camel’s back. Seeing no way out, Qian ultimately chose to end her life on this day.
Walking the road she did back then, towards the place where she jumped into the river.
Qian’s expression grew colder.
Those things from the past life were a great humiliation to her.
She couldn’t imagine how she had been so cowardly then, why she couldn’t be like she is now, if she really wanted to die, she should have at least taken a gas tank and blown up the scumbag and scumbag father with her.
That was truly her purest years. Before this day in her past life, she had never thought of harming anyone, yet no one spared her.
The river had frozen over, with only a hole in the very center, not sure if it was made by a fisherman or someone doing laundry. This place wasn’t far from the urban village. If a family had a seriously ill elderly member, according to custom, they would bring clothes to wash in the river.
Returning to the familiar place, Qian stood by the river looking at that hole, with a cold smile at the corner of her mouth, her eyes filled with frost.
While treating others, she often used phrases like embracing the wounded child within, but she didn’t want to embrace her own wounded child. Even standing here, what she thought of was that cowards shouldn’t live well.
If she hadn’t jumped in her past life, hadn’t met the person who saved her, changed her mind, and altered her fate, she might have already died in these cold waters.
Even though she knew her thoughts were extreme, she didn’t want to change. The kind child in her heart might have long since frozen to death in this lake.
Who is born a calculating person without scruples?
But the environment forced people, pressed her to transform into who she is now. Should she thank Chen Lin and the scumbag?
Thinking back to these people now made Qian feel disgusted. She didn’t come here today to disgust herself. She was waiting.
Waiting for the person who saved her in the past life.
She wanted to know who saved her, who changed her fate.
In the past life, after that person saved her, she was so cold her vision blurred, her consciousness drifted. He sent her to the hospital and stayed with her talking for a while. His words helped Qian come to her senses about many things and laid the foundation for her current personality.
In fact, Qian couldn’t remember what that person looked like or what exactly he said, only a vague sense at best.
She had analyzed professionally, with such a good memory, how could she forget her benefactor’s appearance, concluding that it might be an avoidance response post-trauma. She viewed her most painful and vulnerable period as life’s disgrace, instinctively avoiding thinking about it, which included blocking out her benefactor’s appearance.
Post-trauma might induce two reactions; some would hold that period tightly in their hearts, causing "flashbacks" in normal life, constantly inserting those terrifying memories, leading to reality distortion, hallucinations, dissociative disorders. Qian, on the contrary, blocked that period out. She always wanted to recall it to help herself face past difficulties.
But so far, she hadn’t found a therapist capable of treating her. She was somewhat like Mr. Yu, both belonging to the type that’s extremely hard to hypnotize, with too strong willpower, possessing the most formidable anti-therapy ability. Letting Qian find a therapist, she would know what the other would say as soon as they opened their mouth.
No one was more professionally competent than her, which was the tragedy of a therapist’s own untreated illness.
Thinking that in a few more minutes, she could see her benefactor, facing the fragility of her past life, Qian was slightly excited.
If she resolved this part, perhaps her compulsive handwashing might ease a bit.
There was still some time difference before the river-jumping time from her past life, so Qian stood by the river and waited.
Some people were setting up stalls by the riverside, as it happened to be the entrance to a park, and many children came to play during the holiday.
A girl who looked like a student came over, trying to sell Qian a card with a string attached.
"Sis, I’m a student working part-time, would you buy a wish card and tie it to the tree? It can bring you a year’s good luck."
Qian looked behind her at a pine tree with a few cards tied sparsely, swaying in the wind.
It seemed similar in the past life; back then, with a heart like dead ashes, she bought one, picked up the pen to write, but her mind was blank, tying a blank card to the tree. It was because of this thing that deepened her resolve to seek death.
Because she didn’t know what hope she had left to live on.