Chapter 1: Is it a dream or rebirth?

[This story is set in an alternate world. All content is fictional. Any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental.]

“Mrs. Luo, are you really going to donate your organs? Chief Luo will be here any moment please hold on just a little longer.”

Jiang Mingyue’s pupils gradually lost focus, her consciousness beginning to fade. She seemed to see her daughter floating in the air, smiling and waving at her.

Is it almost time?

A faint bitter smile appeared at the corner of her lips.

“Sign it. I hope my organs can be left to those who truly need them.

“And one more thing please call me Ms. Jiang.”

From today onward, she would no longer be Mrs. Luo.

On the nightstand lay two papers: an organ donation application form and a divorce agreement.

She was already over fifty.

A doomed marriage at last, it was time to end it.

For more than thirty years of marriage, she had sacrificed everything for this man: she gave up her admission to medical school, married him, washed clothes and cooked, served his whole family in every detail, worked hard her entire life, and completely exhausted herself. Yet he remained unmoved.

She had stubbornly believed that even a stone could be warmed with enough time.

But until the very end, he had chosen countless times to stand by that woman’s side.

A tear of regret slipped from the corner of her eye. With trembling hands, she weakly signed her name on the body donation form, slowly closed her eyes, and was wheeled into the operating room.

Luo Mingzhong, I once thought of you as my salvation. But in the end, you were the path to hell.

The mountains are high, the roads are long.

From this day forward, we part ways forever never to cross again…

A sharp pain throbbed in her chest, right where her heart beat.

Murmured voices echoed in her ears. Stinging pain radiated from her injured wrist. Her head was heavy, muddled, aching.

Her heavy eyelids slowly opened. Above her was a glaring white light bulb, the air filled with the sharp smell of disinfectant.

By her hospital bed, a little girl saw her finally wake up, rushed over, clutched her arm, and sobbed in a soft childish voice:

“Mom, you finally woke up… Wuwuwu… Xiaoxue missed you so much.”

Jiang Mingyue slowly turned her head to look at the soft little girl, her mind dazed.

Hadn’t she died after donating her organs?

Why was she here?

Where was this?

What on earth had happened?

Was this a dream?

“Mom, mom, look at Xiaoxue. Do you not want Xiaoxue anymore? Wuwuwu…”

The child was terrified, clinging to Jiang Mingyue’s sleeve, sobbing uncontrollably.

Shaken to her core, Jiang Mingyue finally realized.

This was her daughter.

Jiang Xiaoxue.

She immediately pulled the child into her arms, hugging her so tightly as if afraid she might disappear at any moment.

This isn’t a dream, is it?

Her daughter had died at five years old, after catching a fever from a cold. She had carried her on her back for over ten kilometers through the snow to the county hospital in the middle of the night. Yet moments later, her husband drove over with Wen Ning and her son, Chen Xiaodong.

Chen Xiaodong only had a slight fever. But with just one dose of penicillin left at the hospital, Luo Mingzhong insisted the doctor give it to Chen Xiaodong, citing his condition as “serious.”

Her own daughter missed her chance at treatment, and died in the icy, snow-filled night.

The pain of losing her child tore her apart, left her wishing for death.

Later, Luo Mingzhong wanted to have another child with her. But Jiang Mingyue’s heart was already dead.

The death of Xiaoxue was like a gulf of stars between them an unbridgeable rift.

In this lifetime or the next, there would never be reconciliation.

But she also swore she would never let that vile woman, Wen Ning, take her rightful place.

So for the thirty-plus years after Xiaoxue’s death, they lived in mutual resentment, torturing each other until Jiang Mingyue developed terminal breast cancer.

Time slipped away. She had always thought there would be more tomorrows. Only in the final moments of her life did she realize life holds many things worth doing. It isn’t worth pouring everything into just one relationship, or one man.

So she let go of her obsession. Flowers became flowers, trees became trees. Before entering the operating room, she left him a divorce agreement.

At the end of her life, she returned herself to herself, and gave others back to where they belonged.

But now what was this before her eyes?

Could Heaven have pitied her grief, and allowed her to reunite with Xiaoxue even in the afterlife?

Overcome with emotion, she slapped herself.

Hiss.

It hurt.

Could ghosts feel pain? Impossible.

Maybe… Heaven had shown mercy, and she had been reborn?

The child’s sobbing pulled her out of her chaotic thoughts. She looked down in shock at the little girl trembling in her arms.

Yes. This was her daughter her Xiaoxue.

She had picked her up outside the hospital one year after her marriage. Her mother-in-law, Lin Jinghua, had despised the fact that she was a girl, and resented the cost of raising her with Luo Mingzhong’s stipend.

Only after Jiang Mingyue begged again and again did Lin Jinghua reluctantly agree to let Xiaoxue stay but she could not take the Luo family surname.

It was just a surname. Jiang Mingyue didn’t care at all.

Nothing mattered more than the child being alive.

That was the day Jiang Mingyue became a mother.

But everyone in the compound looked down on her, calling her a barren hen. They thought that after a year of marriage, her belly hadn’t swelled, so she had simply picked up an unwanted baby girl from the roadside.

Now, looking at the girl’s chubby doll-like face, her round eyes like glass marbles, her pouty red lips she seemed so real.

Most of all, her little palm was warm.

Maybe she just hadn’t opened her eyes at the right time. She shut them again, then opened them forcefully. The child was still in her arms.

Before she could fully savor the joy of rebirth, the ward door was suddenly pushed open.

A tall man stood at the doorway, with cropped black hair, sharp features, and piercing eyes. His nose was straight, his posture upright in a green military uniform. His presence was commanding.

In his hand was a medical report, as if he had just returned from the doctor.

He strode toward the bed, fury radiating from him, glaring at her.

“Jiang Mingyue, have you made enough of a scene? The whole compound knows you slit your wrists because of Ningning. How could you embarrass her like this? Are you satisfied now?”

Jiang Mingyue looked at him in shock.

So this was the so-called “good husband” others envied her for marrying.

Luo Mingzhong.

Seeing her dazed expression mixed with joy and an inexplicable excitement, he grew even more disgusted.

When she didn’t answer, he stepped forward, grabbing her wrist. His iron grip clamped down right on her injury.

Hiss!

She gasped in pain but at the same time, she was completely certain.

She had returned. She was really back!

Luo Mingzhong froze for a moment, frowning at the way she clutched the child tightly.

What was wrong with her? Something seemed… different.

Jiang Mingyue raised her head, her eyes now cold as she stared at him.

“Satisfied? I only cut myself cooking by accident. Who told you I tried to kill myself over her? Does she deserve that much?”

That cheap woman, Wen Ning, was still alive so why would she ever commit suicide?

From this day forward, the Jiang Mingyue who had once loved Luo Mingzhong with all her heart… was dead.

The words had barely fallen when the hospital door was pushed open again.

It was Wen Ning.

The frail, delicate woman who had stood between husband and wife for so many years.