After My Death, Everyone Repented (Transmigration) - Chapter 51.1

Xie Shaojun had never experienced anything like this before, her sense of time slowed to a crawl, and she could no longer see anything.

She lost all perception of the outside world, like a lone cloud drifting endlessly in the sky.

She didn’t know how much time had passed so long that she began to think she might already be dead.

Then, an immense force pulled at her from all directions. Pain surged through her, and she knew she must be in terrible shape.

Her soul was repeatedly crushed and reshaped.

Fragmented images flickered through her mind chaotic, piercing, burrowing deep into the core of her being.

And then, Xie Shaojun remembered.

To call it amnesia wouldn’t be entirely accurate. It was more like a missing piece of her life.

When she was six years old, Xie Guangqi brought a girl home.

Feng Cinian, upon receiving the call, rushed out of the kitchen, still wearing her apron.

They stood at the entrance, flanking the child on either side. Feng Cinian crouched down, gently patting the girl’s head, her voice warm and affectionate. “So this is Xiao Qing, right? Come, let’s go home with Auntie.”

At the time, Xie Shaojun was in the garden massaging her grandmother’s legs. Xie Guangqi called her over to play with Jian Qing.

Her grandmother shooed her away. “Jun-Jun, do you want some candy? Go get some from my room.”

Back then, parenting wasn’t exactly scientific. The old woman didn’t know that children losing their baby teeth shouldn’t eat sweets, but she doted on her granddaughter without logic or restraint. Xie Shaojun happily obliged, skipping off to rummage through her grandmother’s room for candy.

Later, when the old woman’s mouth grew bitter from taking medicine, Xie Shaojun would occasionally let her have a lick.

That day, thanks to her grandmother’s intervention, Xie Shaojun didn’t feel that Jian Qing’s arrival would bring any significant change to their lives.

Xie Shaojun was six, about to start elementary school. Xie Guangqi and his wife were busy with work, while Jian Qing, only five, stayed at home under the old woman’s care.

For the first month, everything was peaceful.

Xie Shaojun could walk to and from school on her own, no need for anyone to pick her up.

Her grandmother, leaning on her cane and already tasked with looking after Jian Qing, found it inconvenient to fetch Xie Shaojun from school, so she asked the neighbors to keep an eye on the child.

The old woman worried endlessly, feeling guilty, and brought it up with Xie Guangqi many times.

In the end, Xie Guangqi assured her Xie Shaojun was their biological daughter, and they knew where their priorities lay.

Every day, Xie Shaojun’s schoolbag held a bottle of milk, warmed by her grandmother, one in the morning, one at night. Jian Qing didn’t get any.

Once, Xie Guangqi saw this and said, “Mom, you can’t be so biased.”

The old woman shot back sternly, “Is it wrong for me to favor my own granddaughter?”

Xie Guangqi had no retort.

Curled up in her grandmother’s arms, Xie Shaojun thought this old woman was truly the best.

Every day after school, the elderly ginger cat that had been with the family for years would wait by the door for Xie Shaojun’s return.

A month later, Jian Qing and Xie Shaojun occasionally exchanged a few words, but Xie Shaojun didn’t particularly like children and had no interest in getting too close to the female lead, so their interactions were minimal.

Jian Qing was more well-behaved and quiet than other children polite and refined at just five years old, endearing in every way.

Xie Guangqi and his wife adored her, buying her a guzheng and a piano.

The old woman asked them, “Why haven’t you ever thought about cultivating Jun-Jun’s hobbies?”

The couple stood there awkwardly, but Xie Shaojun groaned, “Oh, please spare me. Last time Fatty Hua next door played the guzheng, her fingers bled.”

“You’re just too carefree.” The old woman sighed, poking Xie Shaojun’s forehead. What was rather astonishing was how popular Jian Qing was, yet the old lady clearly played favorites, her double standards glaringly obvious.

Xie Shaojun wasn’t actually carefree. As an adult, she didn’t have the mentality to compete with a child for attention, nor were such emotions appropriate for someone in her role as a character actor.

The first rule in their character actors’ handbook was: “Do not genuinely immerse yourself in the role, do not get entangled in the character’s emotional arcs, do not break character.”

To gently pass through each character’s life without meddling in their joys and sorrows, this had always been Xie Shaojun’s guiding principle.

That was why she could effortlessly play the role of the villainess, routinely pranking Jian Qing, deliberately exploiting loopholes in the system, and subtly letting Jian Qing catch on.

No harm done, no malice intended just enough to fulfill her own tasks.

She never overstepped into the characters’ emotions, and within her capacity, she was happy to indulge the old lady, grateful for her protection.

Xie Shaojun had originally thought her entire life would unfold just as the plot described a fleeting observer, detached from it all.

First grade, first semester. After two months of playing the role of a clueless little student.

That day, the teacher called on Xie Shaojun to recite “Goose, goose, goose, you bend your neck toward the sky and sing.”

The classroom door creaked open it was Feng Cinian, standing at the doorway with a grim expression, her hair disheveled, her usual composure completely shattered.

The elementary school teacher, a former student of Xie Guangqi, stepped to the door and addressed her, “Shimu.”

After a brief exchange outside, Xie Shaojun was called out. Feng Cinian took her hand, her fingers icy cold.

“Mom?”

“Your grandmother,has passed away.” Feng Cinian told her with a sorrowful expression.

In a daze, they sped to the hospital, but Xie Shaojun still didn’t make it in time to see the old woman one last time.

Outside the emergency room, the family was in tears. Many of the Xie relatives and friends had gathered. Xie Guangqi, barely holding himself together, was arranging the funeral arrangements while Feng Cinian helped.

Curled up in a corner, Xie Shaojun’s tears fell as she thought the only person in this world who had ever given her a sense of home was gone.

A moment later, a pair of ballet shoes and white socks appeared in her line of sight. Wiping her tears, Xie Shaojun looked up to see Jian Qing standing there.

Timidly, the little girl stood before her and said, “Big sister, don’t cry.”

As she spoke, she pulled a tissue from her little purse and handed it to Xie Shaojun.

That was when Xie Shaojun noticed the tuft of orange cat hair on the floor it must have fallen out of Jian Qing’s purse.

On the way here, Feng Cinian had mentioned that the old woman had left in a hurry with her cane because the elderly cat had gone missing. It was raining, and without her reading glasses, she had recklessly dashed out straight into a red light.

Then, a truck had mercilessly sent her body flying.

Xie Shaojun froze for a moment before fixing Jian Qing with a piercing gaze. “Why did the cat run away?”

The old cat and the old woman had grown attached over the years. Both were nearing the end of their lives neither would have left the other so easily.

Tears streamed down Jian Qing’s childish cheeks as she struggled to free her wrist. Finally, she looked up at Xie Shaojun and whimpered, “It hurts.”

“It was scratching at the door, trying to get out, so I opened it for it.” Jian Qing’s innocent, guileless eyes met Xie Shaojun’s. A five-year-old might not have understood what the cat’s disappearance truly meant.

But Xie Shaojun would never forget the surge of resentment she felt upon hearing that answer.

“So you gave Grandma directions.”

Jian Qing nodded, pointing at the old woman covered with a white cloth, and asked innocently, “Sister, why are they crying?”

Xie Shaoyun couldn’t find the words to respond. The hand she had raised slowly dropped, clenched into a fist. Picking up a tuft of cat hair from the ground, she walked away.

Xie Shaoyun had wondered why she later grew to despise Jian Qing so much.

It was because the day after Grandma passed away, the orange cat, covered in mud stains, returned. Jian Qing shut the cat outside and refused to let it in.

Xie Shaoyun happened to witness it. She stepped forward to warn Jian Qing, picked up the cat, took it home, and cleaned it. The next day, the cat was found dead in the weeds by the garden villa wall.

Perhaps Xie Shaoyun wasn’t a mature woman or an outstanding task performer. Faced with a mere five-year-old child, she succumbed to irrational emotions blame, suspicion, even thoughts of revenge all misplaced and unreasonable.

After Grandma’s seventh-day memorial, Xie Shaoyun received her first task as the villainess: to lure Jian Qing into a crowd where she would be abducted and sold.

In the six years leading up to this, Xie Shaoyun had repeatedly contemplated whether there was a loophole to avoid this.

But Jian Qing had to be abducted to meet Chi Yi. If Xie Shaoyun showed mercy, she would disrupt the plot, severing the chance for Jian Qing and Chi Yi to meet.

Already torn between conflicting choices, compounded by Grandma’s death and the cat’s tragic end, Xie Shaoyun hardened her heart.

In a daze, she went to an amusement park with her family to distract herself, then abandoned Jian Qing in the crowd and walked away alone.

That afternoon, rain poured down in sheets. Xie Shaoyun returned home alone, only for Xie Guangqi to fly into a rage and whip his six-year-old daughter.

Feng Cinian sobbed uncontrollably on the sofa. The family called the police, and chaos erupted.

Xie Shaoyun rushed out into the downpour. The cold rain jolted her muddled mind awake.

Later, she went back to find Jian Qing, shielding her from harm in the traffickers’ den.

Not out of kindness, but because if she allowed herself to act on spite and commit evil, she would no longer be the granddaughter Grandma had loved nor would she be herself.

A person’s nature doesn’t have to be virtuous, but one must never let it rot and fester because of others.

She was not like Jian Qing.

In the autumn of her sixth year, consumed by grief over Grandma’s death, Xie Shaoyun lost herself and betrayed her principles. She failed to appreciate the melancholy beauty of the season.

Winter brought a change of scenery. In a shabby brick house in Shanmian County, she crouched by a coal stove, waiting for a roasted sweet potato, now accompanied by friends who huddled together for warmth.

“Stay put in the train car. When the buyers arrive, you’d better behave,” barked the trafficker, a middle-aged, overweight woman whose ill-fitting bra sagged and jiggled as she walked.

She wielded a ruler, and none of the children dared to cry. The lessons from days prior had been brutal, any whimper or noise earned a vicious strike in hidden places under their clothes.

Her hands were large and heavy. Two or three hits were enough to leave a child gasping in pain.

The woman ordered the children to wash their faces and hands one by one. Once cleaned, their innocent, youthful features emerged.

After surveying them with satisfaction, her tone softened slightly. “The best-behaved one today gets a can of yellow peach.”

After the woman left, Xie Shaojun wiped some dust from the grimy roof of the green train onto her face. Once done, she smeared some on Jian Qing as well. In this regard, Jian Qing was more obedient than the other children, calling out sweetly, “Sister Xie Shaojun.”

Xie Shaojun paid no attention saving her didn’t mean she wasn’t annoyed by her.

Turning around, she told the other children to rub dust on their faces, but unfortunately, they didn’t understand. The allure of canned food far outweighed the grime on their heads.

That day, a few unfamiliar men and women entered the train and took away three children.

The first time Xie Shaojun saw Chi Yi was after those three children had been taken away.

Chi Yi was dragged out by the plump woman, and a porcelain bowl was smashed against her forehead.

An eight-year-old girl, not strong enough to resist, blood trickling down her pale forehead.

A small figure, standing coldly in the shadows, her spine unbent despite the plump woman’s abuse.

Her clothes were clean, her face was clean. Originally, she had been sitting in the farthest corner of the green train, the most beautiful among the children, and also the most out of place.

She had never spoken, her presence barely noticeable. If not for a couple walking over to the corner and telling her to lift her head, which she ignored no one would have even noticed her existence.

Chi Yi expressionlessly slapped away the “client” trying to take her hand. After the couple left, the plump woman punished her.

That day, all the children received a steamed bun, except Chi Yi.

A small cut split her lip as she stood there.

Tiny, like a lone wolf cub, out of place and defiant.