Chapter 14

Han Changfeng found himself at a loss with this clever and decisive young man. He sighed, “I hope you use your intelligence for good.”

Qin Yan sneered, “And who are you to me? Whether I’m good or evil has nothing to do with you. If I really break the law, you can arrest me, right? But for now, shouldn’t you be going after the real criminals? Stop wasting your time on me.”

Seeing the guilty look on the nanny’s face, Han Changfeng realized she was an accomplice. Since Qin Yan was paralyzed and couldn’t move easily, it was she who must have put the money back.

Jiang Ruan couldn’t meet the officer’s eyes. In a fluster, she said, “The bus is here. We have to go.”

With her strength, she easily lifted the wheelchair onto the bus. Qin Yan had felt awkward at first, but by now he had grown used to it.

Initially, when Qin Yan had told her to return the money, he wondered if Jiang Ruan, in her simplicity, would think he was too devious. Yet, without hesitation, she ran off to do it. When he asked her to count the money in a way that would get noticed, she did so without even questioning why.

Suddenly, Qin Yan asked, “Jiang Ruan, do you think I’m a bad person?”

“Are you talking about putting the money back in Mu Xuehui’s bag?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Qin Yan replied. “A good student would’ve reported it to the teacher. Only someone like me—a bad student—would think of revenge.”

Jiang Ruan responded, “I don’t know if it’s good or bad, but you feed me, pay me, and you don’t yell at me. If that makes you bad, then I’ll be bad with you.”

Qin Yan laughed, “I’m not trying to teach you to be bad.”

He didn’t want Jiang Ruan, innocent and naive as she was, to follow his lead into wrongdoing. “Anyway, don’t think you can get away with things. Look at Mu Xuehui—she tried to frame someone. Even if the law doesn’t catch up with her right away, someone else will.”

Jiang Ruan was very obedient, so Qin Yan decided to ask her a favor. “Jiang Ruan, would you be willing to help me with something?”

“Of course, brother. Just tell me what you need,” she said.

There was a small restaurant up ahead, owned by Qin Yan’s family. After getting permission to study from home, instead of returning to his house, he had Jiang Ruan take him there. Without questioning, she did as he asked—first convincing his mother to leave the restaurant, and then bringing Qin Yan in.

In his previous life, before his father returned home, a woman came to the restaurant to thank his mother. She had thanked his father for supporting her and her two children financially for many years. She went into great detail, even mentioning how his father had come over to fix her lightbulbs, and how she had wiped the sweat from his forehead.

But what she didn’t say was that she had tried to wipe his father’s sweat, but he had refused, and never went back after that. She also failed to mention that after her husband had died on duty, several of his colleagues—including Qin Yan’s father—had each contributed ten yuan a month to support her children until they grew up.

In his past life, this incident was a major factor in his parents’ divorce. Back then, Qin Yan hadn’t been able to prevent it. But with Jiang Ruan around, Mu Xuehui’s schemes had already failed multiple times, giving him hope that things could be different now.

Even if his parents were destined to divorce, he didn’t want them to separate with misunderstandings.

Soon, a plump woman in her thirties, accompanied by two young children, arrived at the restaurant. The country had just opened up its economy at the end of last year. Previously, people only earned fixed wages. This woman had no job, but after her husband’s death, she had managed to stay well-fed and cared for. That was thanks to the money Qin Yan’s father and his colleagues had saved to support her, but she didn’t show any gratitude. Instead, she had tried to come between his parents and marry his father.

The woman, Shen Yuzhen, saw a boy in a wheelchair at the door. He looked strikingly similar to Chief Qin. She had heard that Chief Qin’s only son had been paralyzed, shut in at home, and wasting away.

But the calm and healthy-looking boy before her couldn’t possibly be him, could it?

She walked past Qin Yan and asked the restaurant staff, “Hello, is Boss Miao here?”

Qin Yan chuckled, “My mom’s out. I’m her son. You can talk to me.”

Realizing he was indeed Chief Qin’s son, Shen Yuzhen quickly recovered from the awkwardness. She took out a set of clothes and a pair of cloth shoes and said, “After my husband passed, your father has taken care of us. He said he likes handmade shoes with stitched soles. Since I heard he’s coming home soon, I made a pair of shoes and a set of clothes to express my gratitude.”

What kind of nonsense was that? Who was she to know what kind of shoes his father liked to wear?

She had the audacity to show up at the restaurant and embarrass his mother in front of the staff. Even the waitstaff looked at her with disdain.

Qin Yan wanted to make sure she was humiliated. He unfolded the dark blue Zhongshan suit and the black cloth shoes, then said, “Since you’re giving these to my father, they’re now ours. But too bad—my father only wears the clothes and shoes my mom buys him. He doesn’t need things from other women. Alright, I’ve received them. Now leave, and don’t bring anything next time. It’d be a waste if we have to throw them out.”

He tossed the clothes and shoes into a nearby trash can as if they were garbage. He even had the waiter dump the leftover food scraps on top of them, ruining the clothes completely with grease and stains that couldn’t be washed out.

Embarrassed and red-faced, the woman fled with her children.

Qin Yan didn’t want Mu Xuehui to realize too soon that he had also been reborn. So he instructed Jiang Ruan to ask his mother to accompany her to Mu Xuehui’s house to demand justice. This would make Mu Xuehui think that it was her own actions that had caused a chain reaction, leading to the “butterfly effect.” She wouldn’t suspect that Qin Yan was also reborn.

…

Following Qin Yan’s instructions, Jiang Ruan asked Aunt Miao to go with her to Mu Xuehui’s house.

Mu Xuehui’s father, Mu Yongwang, was a surgeon at the city hospital. He was a timid man, often bullied at work by his superiors and stuck in a rut. Recently, his wife had been caught cheating with her childhood sweetheart, leading to a divorce. Now, just after the dust had settled, a former patient had come knocking at his door with a housekeeper to demand justice.

“Earlier today at school, something happened, and even the police got involved. Ruan Ruan was too scared to say anything there, but she came home and told me the truth. During PE class, she saw Xuehui take the donation money meant for the class and put it in her own lunch bag. Ruan Ruan, being simple-minded, got angry and put the money into Xuehui’s school bag. While she didn’t confess at school, and though the school has already issued a punishment for Xuehui, I still think it’s fair. Xuehui made the first mistake, so she deserves the punishment.”

“Xuehui has always been a good kid, but this time, she seems to have lost her way. I suspect she might have a crush on my son, Qin Yan. But Qin Yan is already paralyzed, and we don’t want to hold up a good girl like her, especially with the college entrance exams coming up. We definitely don’t want to cause you any more trouble, Doctor Mu. So, I was thinking, instead of taking this to the police, let’s handle this within our families. We can discipline our own children and help them focus on their exams. What do you think?”

This explanation made sense of the incident that had occurred at school today.

Mu Yongwang was filled with shame. Not long ago, Xuehui’s homeroom teacher had approached him, saying that Xuehui was involved in a premature romance—and not just with anyone, but with a paralyzed delinquent. It had already been a blow to his pride.

Now, the motive for the theft and the framing lined up perfectly with that earlier incident, leaving no room for doubt in Mu Yongwang’s mind.

The stolen 95 yuan wasn’t even kept for herself; instead, it had been placed in Xuehui’s bag. Clearly, there had to be a motive. Now, the motive was clear: Xuehui had tried to create an opportunity to get rid of the nanny, but had fallen into her own trap. She wasn’t wronged.

Such a family scandal couldn’t be allowed to reach the police again. Mu Yongwang apologized repeatedly, promising to strictly discipline Xuehui and to make sure she didn’t approach Qin Yan again before the exams.

…

After school, Mu Xuehui went to visit her stepmother’s small restaurant. She wasn’t her stepmother yet, but she would be in the future.

She saw Qin Yan throw the clothes and shoes that Shen Yuzhen had made for his father into the trash. What was going on? Mu Xuehui couldn’t figure it out, even after thinking about it all the way home.

When she got home, she saw her father sitting in the living room, his face dark with anger—most likely because of the incident at school.

In a panic, Mu Xuehui quickly explained, “Dad, I was framed! You have to believe me!”

“I believe you. I know you were framed,” he replied.

“Thank you, Dad, for believing me.”

But just as she finished speaking, her father slapped her hard across the face.

Glaring at her with fury, he said, “You got framed, but didn’t you know why? Your mother cheated on me, and now you’re stealing money—and for a man, no less! You framed someone, and Qin Yan’s mother brought their nanny to our home to demand justice. You’ve disgraced me completely! If I had known this, I would’ve let you stay with your mother after the divorce. I’m warning you: don’t go near Qin Yan before the exams.”

Reborn with a second chance, things should’ve been going better. But instead, everything had gone wrong. Holding her face, Mu Xuehui didn’t dare talk back. She knew where she had gone wrong—it was the nanny. In her previous life, there had been no nanny.

…

Since he no longer needed to go to school, Qin Yan studied at home. The first semester of senior year had already finished, and the second semester was all about review, so studying at home was just as good.

In his past life, he hadn’t studied seriously, and his grades had been below average. But recently, something had changed—his mind felt clearer than ever before. He could suddenly understand every problem and remember every key point, even recalling which teacher had taught it, whether it was in the morning or the afternoon.

He tried taking a practice test and found that he could solve every problem.

But so what? He was still a cripple. Even if he took the college entrance exams, was he going to attend university in a wheelchair?

“Brother Qin Yan, stop daydreaming and get back to studying,” the nanny’s voice interrupted his thoughts.

She was soaking his feet in a bath of Chinese medicinal herbs. Before, she would massage his legs while he slept. Now, she did it openly.

Qin Yan said, “Don’t waste your effort. My legs will never recover.”

For the past half month, Jiang Ruan had been using her special ability to treat Qin Yan. She believed that with persistence, he would recover. Now, she was combining the treatment with herbal baths and massages to give a logical explanation for his eventual recovery.

The warm steam from the foot bath spread through his legs and body, covering the heat generated by her ability during the treatment. So every day, Jiang Ruan soaked his feet in the herbal bath, massaged his legs, and used her power to heal him.

Jiang Ruan said, “This herbal bath recipe was something I learned from an old man in the countryside who used to live in a cowshed. He said that even a cripple could walk again if they soaked in it for half a year or a year. Let’s give it a try! If you can walk again, you’ll be able to go to college.”

How could that be possible? If modern medicine couldn’t cure him, how could a folk remedy work? It didn’t make any scientific sense.

Qin Yan replied, “Don’t give people false hope.”

Jiang Ruan pressed harder on his calf. “Can you feel this?”

“No,” he said.

She moved her hands a little higher. “How about now?”

Growing impatient, Qin Yan said, “Stop trying.”

“And here?” Jiang Ruan’s hands continued to move higher.

She was getting close to his upper thigh, and certain areas were definitely active. Furious, Qin Yan snapped, “Jiang Ruan, do you have any shame?”

Jiang Ruan pouted. She thought of him as a patient, while he saw her as a scoundrel.