After My Death, Everyone Repented (Transmigration) - Chapter 51.3

“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.

Xie Shaojun knew she was Chi Yi. She didn’t take it upon herself to share her own bun with her, waiting instead for Jian Qing to offer kindness.

But Jian Qing, struggling to swallow the entire bun in her small mouth, made no move to share with anyone.

When Xie Shaojun looked at her, Jian Qing looked back and called out sweetly, “Sis.”

The second time they met was a month later.

At the orphanage, the children who had ridden the green train together were gradually adopted by uncles and aunts.

Chi Yi, because of her solitary nature, was kept under separate supervision. Her striking looks made the plump woman determined to sell her for a high price, so she spent extra effort keeping an eye on her.

But a month later, Chi Yi had managed to offend every single one of the plump woman’s clients.

When Xie Shaojun saw Chi Yi again, it was during her worst period, her face dirty, her clothes filthy, her lips cracked and dry.

Her face was pressed into the ground by the plump woman’s shoe, only her dark, gleaming eyes betraying that she was the same cold, composed little girl from the green train.

A child who neither cried nor made a fuss, blood at the corner of her mouth as she stared down the plump woman.

Xie Shaojun couldn’t bear it. She handed the ten yuan she had earned from selling her drawings that morning to the woman.

Seizing the moment when the woman was in a better mood, Xie Shaojun offered some fashion tips to hide her belly. Distracted, the woman lifted her foot.

When Xie Shaojun turned back, she saw Chi Yi staring at her.

A thoughtful gaze, she must have realized Xie Shaojun had helped her out.

Without quite knowing why, Xie Shaojun winked at her. Before leaving, she stuffed her own steamed bun into Chi Yi’s hands.

“The bun’s clean,” Xie Shaojun said, wrapping it carefully in a clean cloth. “Eat it quickly.”

Chi Yi’s lips moved slightly, her eyes fixed on Xie Shaojun.

Though her expression remained unreadable, she looked pitiful covered in grime, her lips bruised and stained with dried blood. It was hard to tell whether she needed water more or the bun.

The plump woman urged them from the front. Afraid of being seen, Xie Shaojun reached out and patted the child’s head, saying, “If you can’t speak, just nod. In a place like this, you can only rely on yourself to stay safe. So don’t push yourself too hard, eat, drink, understand?”

Chi Yi stared for a long time before replying unhappily, “I’m not mute.”

“Alright, you’re not a little mute,” Xie Shaojun said with a laugh. “Hurry up and eat.”

With that, she left.

None of the abducted children could escape their fate of being sent away one after another Jian Qing and Xie Shaojun were no exception. The plump woman had a three-year-old child who needed care. Busy as she was, she picked and chose until she decided Jian Qing and Xie Shaojun were the most suitable. Xie Shaojun gave the opportunity to Jian Qing.

Left behind, she was sent to live with a drunken man on the street as his foster daughter.

The man was a heavy drinker. On Xie Shaojun’s first day, he knocked out one of her teeth. On the second day, he drunkenly tripped over the threshold and died.

The entire street branded Xie Shaojun a jinx, and the man’s wife forcibly returned her to the orphanage.

That night, Xie Shaojun trudged through thick snow, venting her frustration.

She saw Chi Yi feeding a stray dog. Behind her stretched a world of ice and snow, frost clinging to her lashes, her fingers red from the cold.

Dressed so lightly, yet her soft lips curled into a faint smile.

The girl, who appeared cold and mature beyond her years, must have had an incredibly tender heart.

Xie Shaojun walked over, an old pair of gloves hanging around her neck. She motioned for Chi Yi to put her hands inside.

Chi Yi glanced at her. Xie Shaojun grinned, eyes crinkling. “It’s so cold, warm my hands, friend.”

“Hey, not talking again?”

“Or is your vocabulary just too limited? How old are you, anyway?”

Perhaps annoyed by the questions, Chi Yi answered all at once.

“Chi Yi.”

“Eight years old.”

“I can speak.”

After a moment’s hesitation, she added awkwardly, “Friend.”

Then she slipped one hand into the glove. Xie Shaojun gestured for her to put the other one in too.

Chi Yi complied, but then seemed at a loss for words or perhaps simply didn’t know how to converse so she just stared at Xie Shaojun.

Xie Shaojun joked, “Do you want to leave this place?”

“I suggest cutting your hair short.”

“Why?”

“That’s how it’s done in TV dramas abducted girls disguise themselves as boys to escape.” Seeing Chi Yi take it seriously, Xie Shaojun laughed, eyes curving mischievously. “You don’t talk much anyway no one would notice.”

Chi Yi thought for a moment, then met Xie Shaojun’s gaze, puffing her cheeks in protest. “I don’t like pretending to be a boy.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Xie Shaojun teased. “You like girls.”

Chi Yi considered it, then shook her head. “I don’t like girls either.”

“Huh?”

“I don’t like children.”

Xie Shaojun’s lips twitched.

It was unclear exactly when, but eventually, the orphanage held only Xie Shaojun and Chi Yi. They stuck together, and whenever the plump woman took offense, she would beat them or send them out to beg for money.

Pitiful children could earn a few coins by holding out a bowl, or by lying in front of cars.

Xie Shaojun couldn’t bring herself to do it and Chi Yi even less so.

So, under normal circumstances, to make ends meet, Xie Shaoyun would help people by painting. However, painting required brushes, pigments, and paper, while sand painting needed more tourists. Earning money this way was unpredictable, and sometimes she even had to rely on clients providing the tools.

Chi Yi, on the other hand, helped others with tutoring. She was only eight years old but exceptionally good at English, speaking with a flawless accent. Yet, earning money this way was also sporadic, who would believe an eight-year-old could tutor?

So, it had to be cheap, and someone had to trust her enough to teach.

Sometimes, the two children would even take jobs that paid just one yuan a day, just to have food to eat.

On New Year’s Day, Jian Qing came back once to visit Xie Shaoyun, but she didn’t like Chi Yi much and never helped her.

As for Jian Qing’s inexplicable distance from the female lead T, Xie Shaoyun had no solution.

The system didn’t either it grew so anxious that it started cracking melon seeds at a frantic pace.

On New Year’s Eve that year, Chi Yi placed the only piece of meat from her bowl into Xie Shaoyun’s, saying, “You’re my only friend.”

“Nonsense,” Xie Shaoyun laughed, pushing the meat back and adding another piece for Chi Yi. “You talk like an old person. Life is long, how could I be the only one?”

Chi Yi stared straight at her. Behind her, brilliant fireworks bloomed in the sky. Like a child with autism, she turned to watch as the fireworks reflected in her eyes. For the first time, Xie Shaoyun saw Chi Yi laugh out loud in genuine happiness.

She heard Chi Yi ask, “Is ‘Number One’ your nickname?”

Xie Shaoyun replied, “Yes.”

“What’s your real name?”

At midnight, deafening fireworks drowned out Xie Shaoyun’s answer in the gentle night.

Under the dazzling starry sky, in the cold of that six-year-old winter, silence didn’t make anyone feel lonely.

Three days after the New Year, those seven days became the hardest holiday Xie Shaoyun had ever endured. With no work during the break, they ran out of food.

Xie Shaoyun developed a fever, burning through the night until she passed out.

No one was at the orphanage, so Chi Yi sneaked out. She found an open pharmacy at the end of a long alley and stood outside, staring for a very, very long time.

Months earlier, even when beaten half to death by a fat woman, she had refused to steal. But now, for the first time, because Xie Shaoyun’s fever wouldn’t break, Chi Yi stepped into that pharmacy to take a single fever-reducing pill.

In the process, she was caught.

“I’ll beat you to death, you little thief! So young and already turning to crime!”

The pharmacy owner struck hard, but Chi Yi didn’t dodge, accepting her punishment. She was nearly crippled, her leg taking the worst of it. Seeing how badly she was hurt, the owner felt guilty and gave her some medicine and a bit of money for free.

It wasn’t until late at night that Chi Yi finally returned home, dragging her injured leg, her hands clenched and bloody. Leaning against the doorframe, she lifted the medicine and called Xie Shaoyun’s name:

“Number One, can you come get the medicine yourself?”

She apologized weakly, “I can’t walk anymore.”

Xie Shaoyun stared blankly at the girl kneeling in the snow. At eight years old, she should have been the one being taken care of by Xie Shaoyun. Yet this child had done everything in her power to protect her.

That winter when she was six, with fragmented memories getting beaten hurt, the cold wind cut to the bone, hunger gnawed constantly, and there was no medicine when sick. Every moment was miserable.

But Xie Shaoyun never felt it was unbearable. With someone to rely on, she pressed forward. She reached out her hand to Chi Yi, and Chi Yi reached back.

Finding joy in hardship, they exchanged gifts, two silver skull necklaces. Xie Shaoyun carved the skull pendants herself, while Chi Yi bought the silver chains.

Because it was unbearable, impoverished, and arduous, with only each other to rely on, the warmth of their closeness became profoundly unforgettable.

This was the six-year-old Xie Shaojun remembered the six-year-old she had once envied.

Absent, belated.

She and her, together, formed the most blazing warmth in the seasons of life that year at six.

051

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?”