"Do you have any regrets?"
A voice came from afar!
Zhang Liunian, lying on the sickbed, trembled. He opened his eyes, which were about to close, and vaguely, as if piercing through the limits of time, he saw a figure.
Regrets?
In the eyes of the world, Zhang Liunian was the richest, most powerful man, someone whose mere stomp could change the fortunes of the southern city. But he too had regrets, and his regret was his wife.
A person unknown to the world.
She was a kind and beautiful girl.
In seventy-seven, when the college entrance examination was resumed, they met at the examination hall. It was love at first sight for both of them, and soon they formed a revolutionary friendship.
Not long after marriage, she brought back an infant, claiming it was an abandoned baby. But he heard from a friend that the child was hers with someone else. He believed this, and misunderstood her.
At that time, he had just failed his college entrance examination. He used the excuse of continuing to study to successfully dump all the household chores onto her, a woman.
However, she did not complain at all, bearing everything tirelessly, and encouraging him to take the university entrance examination again and again.
But he knew very well that he was not cut out for it. He just felt uncomfortable, felt that she had wronged him, and didn't want to work.
He thought this would be his whole life. But in the summer when farmland was distributed to households, Jiang Qingqing, who had never shown weakness to him, carrying a six-month-old fetus, asked him for the first time to help open the floodgates. He refused unceremoniously, thinking of his friends' mockery.
The next time he saw his wife, it was her cold corpse, a life and a fetus lost.
Later, when he became rich, he built bridges and roads for the village. It was then that he learned the truth from the village elders. The child was indeed an abandoned baby, and his wife, unable to bear the child freezing to death, had brought her home to raise her as her own daughter.
Past events flashed before his eyes one by one. Zhang Liunian's breathing suddenly became erratic. These were memories he could never touch, but before his death, he clearly remembered the despair and regret of that moment.
"I am not human!"
Zhang Liunian cursed himself in his heart and unwillingly took his last breath.
...
"Mom, Huabao is so hungry, it feels so uncomfortable." A childlike voice sounded in his ear, followed by a gentle female voice that made him shed tears.
"Huabao, be good. If you're hungry, let's drink some water and take a nap. Then you won't be hungry."
This voice... it sounded so much like Jiang Qingqing.
Jiang Qingqing!
His wife!
Why could he hear her voice? Had he returned to Jiang Qingqing's side after death?
That's great!
Zhang Liunian opened his eyes excitedly, eager to see the woman he had thought of, missed, and regretted for forty years.
But the next moment, he was stunned.
What met his eyes was a mud wall with a palm-leaf roof. This was... his old home from forty years ago.
After Jiang Qingqing's death, he had never dared to step foot in this place again.
Because it held all the beautiful memories of her for him.
So, had he returned to the place he most wanted to return to after death?
"Mom, but I'm too hungry to sleep. Huabao really wants to eat." The childlike voice sounded again from his side.
Is this... his daughter Zhang Yehua's voice?
Thinking of his daughter Zhang Yehua, Zhang Liunian's mind instinctively recalled her accusations.
"I don't have a dad like you, I don't know you."
"Give me back my mom, give me back my mom."
"Why didn't you continue to study for college? Wasn't that your dream?"
"."
Recalling his daughter's reproaches, Zhang Liunian instantly burst into tears. He had made a mistake, he had truly made a mistake.
If he had known that refusing that time would have resulted in his wife and fetus being lost, and Huabao without a mother, he would never have refused.
"Huabao!" Zhang Liunian called out cautiously. Turning, he first met the beautiful little face from his memory. It was Jiang Qingqing!
It was the person he had longed for for forty years!
Seeing her again after so long, Zhang Liunian couldn't control himself. He jumped off the dilapidated bed and rushed over, holding her tightly in his arms, "Qingqing, Qingqing!"
His heart, empty for forty years, was finally complete. Zhang Liunian sniffed the scent on Jiang Qingqing, feeling the warmth of her body. Warmth...
Wait!
Were they reuniting as souls?
Why could he feel such clear warmth? Could it be... he had been reborn?
He looked around in disbelief, but his gaze was drawn to his own young and strong wrists.
These hands were no longer dark and wrinkled as they were before death.
So, Zhang Liunian had returned, back to the time before his wife and fetus were lost?
That's great, that's great!
Having figured out the situation, Zhang Liunian couldn't suppress his excitement and tightened his arms around his wife.
Jiang Qingqing was stunned by his sudden actions, but her body instinctively protected her pregnant belly, and she said softly:
"Liunian, I didn't ask you to open the sluice gate because I was blaming you for not getting into college. Don't take it to heart.
I also strongly support your dream.
Do what you want to do, I'll take care of everything at home.
Just focus on preparing for next year's college entrance examination at home. You don't need to worry about the fields.
Work hard, I believe you can do it."
Jiang Qingqing spoke very casually, but in places Zhang Liunian couldn't see, her expression was bitter.
This was Zhang Liunian's fourth failure. And in those years, she had borrowed from everyone in the village who could be borrowed from. If this continued, they might starve to death.
Not possibly, but truly.
She and her daughter had not eaten for a day, so hungry that they had drunk well water to sustain themselves.
But thinking that the college entrance examination was Zhang Liunian's dream, she could only respect it.
Hearing his wife's words, the tears that were already streaming down Zhang Liunian's face poured out even more.
It wasn't like that. That wasn't his dream. It was just an excuse for him to avoid supporting his wife and child.
Why was Jiang Qingqing so foolish? When he said he wanted to go to college, she single-handedly held up their family for four whole years.
Not a single complaint.
It wasn't worth it, not worth it at all.
"Liunian, let go of me. I need to go and open the sluice gate. If I don't open it, all the seedlings in our two mu of land will wither."
Boom!
Open the sluice gate?
Wasn't this the day his wife and fetus were lost?
No, he absolutely could not let her go open it.
"No, Qingqing, don't go open the gate, absolutely not." Zhang Liunian's body trembled, his hands tightly grasping Jiang Qingqing's arms, as if afraid she would really go to open the gate.
"Liunian, if I don't go to open the gate, we'll lose the two mu of land we just cultivated. I planted them with great difficulty, we can't give up on them."
Jiang Qingqing's eyes welled up with tears at the end, but after a moment, she forced herself to hold back the tears and tried her best to appear that the situation at home was not so bad.
Zhang Liunian stared at her the whole time, how could he not see that she was just forcing herself to be calm.
In fact, their life at home had reached the point where they could no longer go on.
Because he knew that Jiang Qingqing died in her previous life partly because she hadn't eaten for a day.
His gaze swept over his daughter Huabao. She had found a dirty bamboo sliver from somewhere and was sucking and biting it, looking like someone who was extremely hungry.
Seeing this, Zhang Liunian couldn't help but curse himself as inhuman in his heart again.
His wife and daughter were so hungry, and yet he was still evading reality and not working hard to support them. He was truly a scoundrel!