When He Qiu and the others gathered around her, Fu Yuling noticed that she was slowly disappearing. Her soul was fading away. She called out to He Qiu and the others, but they couldn’t hear her.
She disappeared completely.
With a shift in the scene, she found herself back in the moment when she had accompanied Fu Qi to the hospital. As she returned to the ward, the original owner sitting on the bed began to move as if she had pressed the play button. Even the surroundings started to gain color.
Fu Yuling watched as the original owner lay back down on the hospital bed and closing her eyes that concealed many things.
Fu Qi brought back food from outside, and thinking she was still asleep, he sat quietly in a chair. He looked worn out, with a fresh scar still healing on his hand. He appeared thin and devoid of any vitality.
“Sister, this will be the last time I call you sister. I won’t think of you as my sister anymore. My sister died the moment she met He Jingsi and won’t come back.”
“I often wondered during those times when you made mistakes if you would reflect on them, if you would realize that you were wrong and come home, and then give up on He Jingsi. But you didn’t.”
“I have waited for you time and time again, but now I can’t wait any longer. Dad has been taken back home for treatment because of you. Our family no longer has extra money for Dad’s medical needs, but they still insist on cutting down on daily food expenses just to save you.”
At this point, he couldn’t hold back his emotions and began to choke up. A boy in his teens had matured to the level of someone in their twenties, tears welling up in his eyes.
“From now on, apart from our blood relationship, I won’t acknowledge you anymore.”
Standing beside the original owner, Fu Yuling clearly saw tears streaming down her face, silent yet making people feel despair.
After a while of sitting there, He Qi left. He went to the construction site.
Once he was gone, the original owner opened her eyes. She was different from the person who had been sitting on the bed and saying vicious words. As she got out of bed, she stumbled to the ground. She reached out for the fruit knife that was placed nearby with trembling hands, her eyes filled with determination.
Fu Yuling watched as she picked up the knife, the tip of the blade slowly turning in the air, directed toward her heart.
Just as she was about to stab herself, she found she couldn’t pierce it at all.
“Why? Why must I fall in love with He Jingsi? I want to go home. I don’t want to be here. Xiao Qi… Xiao Qi… save me…”
“Xiao Qi… can you please save me…”
She collapsed onto the floor, her face filled with a despair that evoked pity. Her eyes were fixed on the direction of the door, praying for someone to come and rescue her.
Slowly, Fu Yuling noticed a change in her.
With her hair disheveled, she slowly sat up. She brushed her hair aside and let out a sinister laugh, “You old hag, trying to kill me? Then I’ll make you die first. Let’s see who can beat me.”
She ignored the fruit knife on the ground and shifted her gaze to the meal Fu Qi had left on the table. Without caring about much else, she began to eat.
Fu Yuling found it strange. The original owner who was currently eating seemed to have completely forgotten about her earlier suicide attempt.
She stayed by the original owner’s side, and for several days, she didn’t see her return to that desperate girl pleading for help.
She clearly understood that she was now in the original novel, at a time when she was not present. What she was seeing now was the part that wasn’t written in the novel.
She was almost well. Before leaving the hospital, she watched the original owner go downstairs to the billing counter. After learning that Fu Qi had settled all the expenses, she didn’t have any particular emotion.
Feeling a sense of déjà vu, she followed her back to Zhuangjia Village, which looked much like it had when Fu Yuling first arrived.
