Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Gu Xiqiao rubbed her temples as she reached over and accepted the child from the middle-aged woman. Her expression was calm and collected as every motion of hers could become a work of art, and her temperament and aura that stood out like a sore thumb in the passenger car caused the middle-aged woman to look at her as her last hope.
Gu Xiqiao didn’t speak, already arriving at a conclusion when she saw the cherry pit beside their seat.
She swiped away all of the snacks on the table in front of her before setting the young boy down, one hand pressed on his back and sending a flow of lively chi into him that made its way to his stomach.
Of course, she still took out two gold needles and pricked them into the boy’s head to not arouse any suspicion, and after she plucked them out again, she pinched the boy’s chubby cheek gently.
The boy woke up blearily, along with a weak: “Mommy…”
Many of the onlookers gasped in surprise, and their gazes immediately became fervent as they went up and asked Gu Xiqiao about their condition upon seeing such a miracle.
The middle-aged woman hugged the young boy tightly as her lips trembled from residual fear. “My angel, you’re finally awake!”
She cried for a while before she bowed down and thanked Gu Xiqiao again and again, and Gu Xiqiao tried to think of a way to stop her from thanking her until the next day. “Uhm, you should go get some water for him, he’s probably still feeling a little sick from eating a cherry pit just now.”
“Okay!” Upon hearing this, the middle-aged woman immediately wiped away her tears and went to the front of the carriage to get water for the boy.
At that moment, Gu Xiqiao was still being pestered by the crowd, so she could only explain, “No, my little brother had eaten a cherry pit once before, so I coincidentally knew what to do!”
Upon hearing this, they nodded and left, leaving her to breathe a sigh of relief before she looked down and her eyes came into contact with a pair of beady ones. “Big Sister, you’re so awesome!”
“Call me Aunt.” Gu Xiqiao squinted at him.
“Oh.” The boy that was around four years old adjusted his position in her arms a little, his chubby cheeks and baby fat especially cute as he looked at Gu Xiqiao, not even blinking. “Big Sister, am I heavy?”
“You’re not that heavy.” Gu Xiqiao reached into her bag and pulled out a pack of chips from her inventory, before ripping it open and handing it to him. “Eat this. Remember to call me Aunt, okay?”
“The aunties that I know don’t look like you do.” The boy accepted the pack of chips, and he started munching on them obediently.
Gu Xiqiao took the chance to take out her phone, scrolling, and scanning through the long blocks of text that Yao Jiamu messaged her before shutting down her phone again without a reply. “There are aunties that look like me too.”
The boy looked at her curiously, before grabbing the pack of chips with his small hands. “Okay, but my mommy says that I’ll become stupid if I eat this.”
“Then don’t eat it.” Gu Xiqiao tapped open a game on her phone and handed it to the boy, and the young child put down the chips and tapped at the screen, swiping at it a few times before he died on the first level. He didn’t give up and started tapping and swiping again and again, but he kept dying, and Gu Xiqiao wordlessly took the phone and stuffed the bag of chips back into his hands.
“Eat, Datou.”
“Thank you, Big Sister!” The boy accepted the chips and started munching on them again.
Seeing that he had completely disregarded what she said about calling her that again, she sighed softly and conceded. “Fine, fine, big sister it is.”
A deep chuckle sounded from beside her, and with her sixth sense, Gu Xiqiao knew that he was definitely laughing at her, so she glanced over, seeing a handsome young man in expensive-looking clothes.
Gu Xiqiao’s gaze only lingered for a second before turning back to the boy, while the young man rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
The train quickly got to the next station where she got off the train together with Datou and his mother, but since their destinations were different—They were going further upstate, while Gu Xiqiao was going to Baixing Village, so they went their separate ways.
After getting off the train, Gu Xiqiao didn’t rush to get on a bus to go to the village just yet. She didn’t bring any luggage with her when she left N City because she put all the things she needed in her inventory, so she went around buying luggage in nearby stores. She didn’t want anyone questioning her on why she had so much food and clothes when she didn’t bring any luggage to the village in the first place.
After she bought the luggage, she went to somewhere where no one was and transferred some items from the inventory to the luggage. She closed the lid and grabbed the handle, and while it was a little heavy, it wasn’t much of a problem for her.
Gu Xiqiao carried the luggage boxes as she made her way to the closest bus station. She got there quickly by foot, the weight of the luggage not affecting her in the slightest.
The last had just left from the station, so there weren’t many passengers on the one she was on, and when she got onto the bus, she even heard an old man wearing a straw hat grumbling to himself about how he should have walked faster so that he could have got onto the bus from earlier.
All of the residents in Ping’an District had more of an accent and their Chinese was not as fluent as city-folk, and it had been many years since she heard the familiar accent and slang that only made her feel like she was home.
“We have arrived at Ermao Store!” The bus slowed down as the female conductor shouted by the entrance of the bus.
The familiar name immediately caught Gu Xiqiao’s attention, and she stood up and walked out of the bus.
Ermao Store was a convenience store that was placed right at the entrance to the village and was the place where the residents of the village bought their daily groceries from every day. If what they wanted wasn’t available, they would have to get on a bus and go to the town together to stock up on their needed items.
Gu Xiqiao got off the bus and walked on the crossroad leading into the village that was lined with weeds and bushes. Baixing Village was placed in a basin area that was surrounded by mountains, and there were only around twenty families in the small village. That being said, it was quite close to the villages nearby, so it wouldn’t be a rare sight to see four people from different villages sit down at a table for mahjong.
There were quite a few people on the roads, and they all greeted Gu Xiqiao merrily when they saw her. To them, she only left for three months, but to her, she hadn’t stepped into this place for an extraordinarily long amount of time.
When she came back to this village in her past life, it was on the year she was currently in, but by then, the village had already been cleared out, its buildings were torn down. When she asked, she was only told that the villagers had moved away, but to where, she wasn’t told.
This was why she rushed here as soon as she had the chance to, and thank goodness she did.
Her objective was a small house in the center of the village. It was a modest-looking house, with two floors and white paint brushed on the walls. This was the home of Yu Man, her adoptive mother.
Yu Man was a talented woman and was a barefoot doctor that lived in this small village. Whenever anyone was sick, she would heal them, but she passed away due to brain hemorrhage so suddenly that she didn’t even have the chance to see a doctor.
With a flicker of intent, a bunch of keys appeared in her hand.
She distinctly remembered locking up the dark green metal gates herself with a large lock, but now, the lock was gone.
Gu Xiqiao raised her eyebrows slightly, already sensing the people inside the house. Did they pick open her lock? How brave!
She stood there in front of the gates, her porcelain fingers resting on the gates as she was about to push them open, but they opened by themselves.
The person that opened the door was a young lady in a Bohemian-styled dress. She had curly and light-colored hair, and she looked alluring and stylish, and it was clear that she was different from the girls that were born and raised in this village.
Seeing Gu Xiqiao, she was stunned for a moment upon seeing someone that didn’t lose to her in the looks department in front of her.
“Who are you?” The girl raised her chin proudly as she looked at her, leaning on the gate as she did.
Who was she?
Gu Xiqiao scoffed, but a surge of rage had already started forming in her heart. She didn’t want to waste any of her words on this girl, so she only waved her hand in front of her, and the girl stumbled to the back, almost falling on the ground as she did.
There was a man in the yard that was looking at a map, and upon hearing the exclamations of the young lady, he looked up to see Gu Xiqiao’s icy cold visage. At the moment she looked over at him, she looked like an icy, wrathful goddess, and for a moment, he could hear his own heartbeat in his ears.
Seeing this, the girl’s brows furrowed together and she shouted, “What, have you never seen a woman before? Why did you just let her in? Let’s see how you can explain this to Young Master Tang!”
“Cough…” The man coughed awkwardly, knowing that he had embarrassed himself. “Let me go ask her why she’s here?”
“What other reason would there be?” The girl scoffed. “She’s another one of those shameless women here for Young Master Tang, no doubt!”
She didn’t control the volume of her voice, so the man reflexively looked towards the direction of the house. Subconsciously, he felt that this girl wasn’t such a person, but he couldn’t find any other reason why she would be here. It was already a common event that the girls of this village knocked on their doors to see Tang Qinghong.
“Alright, could you pipe down a little? I’ll go look.” The man glanced at the girl, before walking into the house.
There were two floors in the building, with two rooms that he and the girl lived in, while Tang Qinghong occupied one of the two rooms on the second floor. They didn’t go up to the second floor a lot, but now the unknown girl made her way up there.
The remaining room on the second floor was locked, and the village chief didn’t agree to let them go on the second floor or even touch that door, and if it weren’t for the mayor’s help, Tang Qinghong would probably not even be able to stay in the extra room on the second floor.
The man walked up the stairs to see the unknown girl stand there before walking towards the locked door, and before he could stop her, she took out a bunch of keys from her pocket.
He was stunned for a moment. Was she the owner of this house?
Gu Xiqiao walked into the room and looked around and the familiar and worn furnishings. These were all bought and arranged by Yu Man, who had treated her like her own daughter even though she was adopted.
Why… Could she not have been reborn at least a month earlier?
She would probably be able to save Yu Man then, wouldn’t she?
[Beauty Qiao, please don’t be too sad. Life and death are dictated by fate after all, and she’s in a better place now!]
“I know.” Gu Xiqiao breathed somewhat shakily, a little overwhelmed by her current emotions. “I was just sad because I had never even brought her out of this village because I thought we still had a lot of time, but I never expected hers to be so short.”
After a while, she opened the doors again, seeing the two strangers standing outside.
Gu Xiqiao looked at them with an emotionless gaze, before she spoke, “Why are you living in my house?”
The other girl was going to retort, before the man clamped a hand over her mouth as he bowed his head slightly, not daring to meet Gu Xiqiao’s gaze. “We’re sorry for intruding…”
Just now, he had still been guessing why this girl was here, but now he couldn’t even speak.
“You have ten minutes.” Gu Xiqiao nonchalantly tucked a strand of hair behind her ear as she spoke, her tone dismissive and cold as if she were an empress talking with a peasant. “Get out of my house!”
The man opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, he was stopped by a sudden exclamation.
“Little Gu, you’re back!” The person that spoke was a young lady with a long, tidy dress and her hair tied up in a bun on her head. She had a bright smile on her face as she looked at Gu Xiqiao. “I didn’t believe Uncle Daniu when he said that he saw you, so my mom told me to come here to check! You haven’t eaten yet, right? Come to my place!”
All three pairs of eyes looked downstairs, and a certain curly-haired girl squinted hers in distaste as she saw the newcomer’s traditional and old-fashioned clothing.
