A multitude of questions sent Lu Jingqiu into a bit of a panic. She shone her flashlight around, and upon seeing a crooked jujube tree, horror flooded her eyes.
This place was a perpetual nightmare from her previous life.
Back then, Xia Lin had come to tell her she was going to marry Gao Shu. Jingqiu couldn't accept this reality, nor did she want to give up so easily, so she staged her own disappearance in the mountains to make Gao Shu worry about her.
But fate had other plans. After running up the mountain, she regretted her decision as she ventured too deep and got lost. Wandering in circles, she couldn't find the path down and had no choice but to sit under the crooked tree and wait to be found.
To be located quickly, she flashed her torchlight toward the distance, hoping to signal them. Unfortunately, instead of Gao Shu and the others, she attracted men from a neighboring village who had come to steal trees at night. Seeing a lone and pretty educated youth like herself, they harbored evil intentions.
That night, her calls for help went unheard by the heavens and the earth alike. She was brutally violated.
It was also during this time that she missed the telegram from her father and the last chance to see her mother. This led to a rift between her and Father Lu.
The man she'd pursued for years married someone else. Her body desecrated, her mother's passing—in the face of these multiple blows, she became silent and withdrawn. Her mental health even broke down at one point, causing her to miss the college entrance exams that year.
Within one or two years, all the other educated youths had left after passing their exams. As a woman with no connections left in the village, she couldn't avoid being harassed by idle men.
It was later when Gao Shu and Father Lu came to Ten-miles Village that they found out about their daughter's suffering over the years. Gao Shu adamantly brought her home. Back home, seeing Xia Lin and Gao Shu flaunt their love every day only aggravated her condition. Eventually, her father had no choice but to send her to a sanatorium, hoping for a turn for the better.
But what no one knew was that Lu Jingqiu had endured the darkest decade of her life, ten years that could turn a sane person mad.
When your family is around, it's heaven; when they're gone, it's hell. There, the doctors and nurses treated her like an imbecile. The least disobedience elicited electroshocks until she complied.
Any resistance was met with abuse and humiliation. She often received spoiled food, once leading to gastritis, and within six months, she'd wasted away to skin and bones.
Every time her family visited, the doctors said her wasting was due to her refusal to eat. No matter how she explained, her father and aunt never believed her.
It wasn't until after Father Lu's accident, when she begged her aunt, that she was finally discharged. After some time to recover, she gradually resumed a normal life.
Thankful to the heavens, she had arrived at the very place her nightmare began.
Escape? No, she intended to redeem herself.
Lu Jingqiu calmed down at the thought of what was to come.
She stood up with her flashlight, searching the area until she found a sharp stick to hold.
Then, she picked up a few rocks the size of fists and placed them in her pockets, hidden in a concealed spot.
She shone her flashlight on her wristwatch - it was already past nine in the evening.
It was around this time.
"There definitely was someone here just now; where did they go?"
Jingqiu had been hiding for no more than five minutes when a dark figure approached from behind the tree.
"Are you looking for me?"
"Hey, is that a girl? Hehe." Before the man could see clearly, Lu Jingqiu viciously smashed a rock onto his head from behind.
"Ah, you witch, where are you from? How dare you hit me?" The man said, clutching his head, staggering a few steps, and about to find something to retaliate against Lu Jingqiu.
Unfortunately for him, Jingqiu didn't give him a chance, driving the sharpest end of the branch into the man's thigh. Pain forced a loud cry from him, "Ah, you wench, I have no quarrel with you, why hit me?"
"No grudges, huh, our grudges couldn't be more serious. What are you doing here in the middle of the night? Don't tell me you're planning to harm a young girl."
"I'm not, I came to chop wood?"
"Stealing wood, you mean."
"I didn't steal anything."
Lu Jingqiu had no interest in hearing his excuses, and once again she jabbed with the fork, this time nearly hitting the man's vitals. The man shuddered in fear, no longer caring about the pain.
Ignoring his pain, he grabbed the branch from Lu Jingqiu's hand and stood up, "Damn it, if I don't give you a lesson today, I wouldn't be doing justice to my injuries."
Even though Lu Jingqiu was prepared, she couldn't match a man's strength. As the man was about to take her branch away, Lu Jingqiu clenched her body and with one foot, kicked directly between his legs.
The man howled in pain, clutching his crotch as he knelt on the ground.
"Wang Fugui, right? Today I'll ruin you, you filthy man. Let's see how you'll harass women after this."
"You, who are you? How do you know what I was planning, grandmother, I was wrong, please let me go."
"Grandmother here is the Mountain Goddess, sent from the heavens to punish you, Wang Fugui. I know all about the female comrades you've hurt before, and today you'll face your retribution."
"Grandmother, I won't dare again, I won't dare, please spare me. I've only slept with the widows in our village a few times and normally do some petty theft. I came to chop wood today just to sell it to the lumber mill for a little spending money, please spare me, I won't dare to do it again."
Lu Jingqiu certainly didn't believe his nonsense. Recalling her own "previous life", her hatred intensified. Seizing a stone, she raised it to smash onto the man.
Seeing that begging for mercy was useless, the man tiptoed and limped towards the back mountain. Lu Jingqiu, who had harbored a lifetime of resentment, couldn't possibly let him go.
Armed with branches and stones, she chased after him. Before she could strike, she heard a faint "swish" followed by a piteous, long wail that grew distant.
Lu Jingqiu shone her flashlight down and saw a very steep slope. The fall wouldn't kill him, but he would be severely injured.
Seeing no movement from below for a long time, she realized that the man's chances were slim. At that moment, Lu Jingqiu's tense heart suddenly collapsed, and, disregarding her image, she slumped to the ground and began to cry loudly.
....
"Jingqiu, how are you feeling? Is your head still dizzy?"
At that moment, Lu Jingqiu, who was unconscious, suddenly sat up, closing her eyes, staggering as she got up from the ground.
The weather in mid-June was fickle, clear one moment, and cloudy the next, directing the harvesters with clarity. The sunlight was still dazzling, shining in every corner, making it difficult to breathe. The people of Ten-miles Village were busy harvesting day and night without rest, as the village chief said there would be heavy rain every year around this time.
They had to gather the grain into the storehouse before the rain came.
Lu Jingqiu came back very late that night. By the time she returned to the Educated Youth Spot, everyone in the girls' dormitory was asleep.
Her disappearance had gone unnoticed, just as in her "previous life".
Even if she came back disheveled in the early morning, nobody cared.
She had actually thought about playing missing to get Gao Shu's attention, which was ridiculous.
She couldn't imagine her last wish before death had come true. She thought it must be that even heaven felt sorry for her, giving her a chance to start over. After that day, she developed a fever, which only gradually got better after three or four days.
During those three or four days, she lived in turmoil, lying in bed sometimes excited, sometimes panicked.
Excited that she had been reborn, panicked about what had happened to that man.