dognovel Chapter 1 Rebirth
Chapter 1 Rebirth
(Section 1) Third Sister's Love
"Let me go, you beast! I'll haunt you even as a ghost!"
"Help, ah..."
From a cornfield in the countryside during the autumn harvest, came the cries of a woman struggling and screaming for help...
In a small village courtyard not far away, a little girl lying on a sorghum stalk mat covered with a thin cotton quilt with red and white flowers on the south side of the earthen annex, with her eyes tightly closed, was awakened by the heart-wrenching cries for help from the cornfield outside. She suddenly opened her two big almond-shaped eyes, threw off the quilt, and sat up.
At this moment, the little girl's consciousness became somewhat blurred, as if her mind was glued shut, and she felt dizzy.
Before her eyes appeared some blurry fragments from her dream: a dark image of a ragged young girl struggling on a piece of withered, yellow corn stalk in the pitch-black rainy night.
The young girl, her limbs soaked by the heavy rain, was helpless as she wildly clawed at the face of a half-familiar, half-unfamiliar, hideous man who was tearing at her...
Immediately following, amidst the little girl's tinnitus, the older girl, in a blur, kept screaming for help into the gloomy night, her voice filled with despair and chilling terror!
A loud clap of thunder outside the window shattered the blurry, eerie darkness before her eyes!
At this moment, her vision cleared slightly, and she turned her head to look at the streaks of white light amidst the lightning in the pitch-black darkness outside the window.
The long, sword-like rain streaked relentlessly against the wooden window sash, which was composed of four panes of glass folded in half vertically.
Suddenly, a white light pierced through the darkness, through the glass window, and through the little girl's emaciated body, followed by a loud "crack"!
The little girl's frail body shuddered as if by reflex, and she closed her eyes again!
With a loud bang, the door to the west room opened, and the little girl opened her big eyes again. A smiling girl of about seventeen or eighteen walked in, holding a white porcelain bowl containing a steaming, golden-yellow, viscous unidentified substance.
The older girl said shyly, "Yuhan, I knew you would wake up by now. Before dark, your childhood friend came to read the text to you again, and your two little hands even moved a few times to match her voice and intonation."
“Third sister has been reading the text to me these past few days, and my speech isn’t as rustic as before. The thunder outside is very loud, are you scared? You’ve always been afraid of thunder. Come on, have some corn porridge to warm your stomach. You’ve been in a vegetative state for over twenty days. I’ve been making corn porridge for you.”
The older girl stared blankly at Yu Han, who was staring at her with wide eyes, probably stunned by the thunder. Every time there was thunder, she would bury her head in the red and white floral quilt that had just been left unused.
She glanced at the quilt and felt something was off. Yu Han was afraid of thunder, so she should have buried her head in the quilt. Why was the floral quilt left aside?
She noticed that Yu Han seemed calm, not at all like someone who had been frightened by the thunder.
“Yu Han, you’re not afraid of thunder anymore. You used to cover your head with the blanket every time it thundered. You just woke up, how come you’ve changed? But it’s good.”
"Cough cough!" Yu Han coughed twice but remained silent.
"Look, you've caught a cold and are coughing. You cough every year when the weather gets cold, and then it gets better on its own without any medicine."
She paused for a moment, then opened her chapped lips.
"Who are you? Third Sister, Little Sister, who are you? I can't remember you. What are you doing here? Weren't you the one who cried for help that rainy night...?"
"Yu Han, how come you don't even recognize your own third sister after waking up from your illness? Where else could I be if I'm not at home?"
"You and I are sisters born of the same parents? How could I have other sisters? I am my parents' only daughter."
"I don't think you've woken up yet, and I'm telling the truth."
"Even if what you said is true, weren't you harvesting corn in the fields west of the village? And you were harvesting corn with that man, and it was raining so hard outside the window in the cornfield. At the same time, you were screaming in that stormy night, waking me up from my dream! You were..." She stopped abruptly halfway through her sentence!
"Yuhan, it seems you hurt your head. That's why you were talking nonsense in a moment of confusion. Come here and let your third sister check if you have any wounds on your head." The older girl said, putting down the bowl in her hand and raising an arm to touch her head.
"There's no wound. If there were, you would have noticed it by now. My head doesn't hurt. I was just a little dizzy, but I'm fine now."
"Yes, when you fell in front of your own front door, Mom immediately went to call the village's barefoot doctor to check your head. There was no external injury. The barefoot doctor then slowly carried his white medicine box with a red cross on his back and went back." The girl said, putting down her raised arm. No external injury was found.
The little girl still believed that she was the one from that rainy night...
Since she wouldn't admit it, the girl didn't press the matter further. It was already a very shameful thing for a girl, and if she were to admit to that embarrassing thing, it would hurt her self-esteem and make it difficult for her to face others in the future.
It was very likely that something was wrong with Yang Yuhan's own brain. She roused herself and looked at the bowl of golden-yellow paste that had been neglected and placed on the edge of the wooden kang (heated brick bed), which had dried out slightly.
She can't possibly have forgotten what this food is!
Just as she was wondering what was going on, suddenly, "Crack!" another massive flash of lightning pierced through her internal organs.
Yang Yuhan's eyes lit up. She was awake! She had been reborn! As for how she died in her previous life, she'd worry about that first, she'd eat her fill!
She regained some of the original owner's memories, recognized the girl in front of her, and even knew her name!
"Yang Yuqiu, Third Sister, am I really hungry? Hehe!"
"Yu Han, you've finally recovered and remember my name. But you've really changed; you're not afraid of thunder anymore, that's great. Eat up, the corn porridge isn't completely cold yet. It'll get thicker and won't taste as good once it's cooled down." Yang Yuqiu picked up the bowl of porridge and handed it to her.
"Yes, it's cornmeal porridge. I drank this stuff when I was a kid in my past life, but..." she said, then quickly raised her hand to cover her mouth.
"Little sister, what are you talking about in your past life? Are you confused again?"
"I'm a little dizzy, that's why I said the wrong thing. I'm actually hungry."
The little girl's stomach rumbled, much like her own words. She raised her hands to catch the white porcelain bowl, but suddenly her head spun, she missed the bowl, and her arms wouldn't obey her commands.
Yang Yuqiu almost dropped the bowl of corn porridge in her hand, but quickly grabbed it again and asked anxiously, "Yuhan, what's wrong? Did you suffer an internal head injury? Let me feed you."
"It's okay, it'll be fine now. I'll eat it myself." As she spoke, she secretly glanced at her, though she was quite good at acting.
Yang Yuhan strained her eyes to look at the girl in front of her who claimed to be her third sister. She was convinced that the girl in plain clothes who cried for help in the rainy night must be her!
The terrifying night from her dream flashed before her eyes, and her head spun again!
This time, she wasn't faking fainting; it was a lingering effect from the original owner's fall, an effect that would accompany her for life!
She had intended to feign dizziness to cover up her earlier mistake, but she actually did faint!
She roused herself, took the bowl, and gulped down the cornmeal porridge with a few spoonfuls of the white metal spoon.
She had a small appetite and was full. Sure enough, the corn porridge from this era tasted several times better than that of later generations!
Yuqiu smiled and took the empty bowl as she walked out of the room. The little girl returned her a sweet smile.
She looked around the house; the walls were made of mud and covered with old newspapers.
On the west wall, above a pair of large yellow boxes, hangs an old-fashioned wall clock in the center. The pendulum below the clock swings back and forth, and the long and short hands above it coincide exactly at the position of 12 o'clock in the morning.
Yang Yuhan was reborn at this time! She is about to complete her second mission in life!
She looked out the window and saw that it was still dark. After a while, a girl who claimed to be her third sister walked into the west room, took off her handmade floral-patterned cloth shoes with straps and buckles, placed them under the edge of the wooden kang (heated brick bed), got into bed, and lay down to sleep.
She clearly remembered that these shoes with laces were made for the original owner by her older sister from out of town, and she wore them.
Yu Han lay down as well and quickly fell asleep. In her hazy dream, amidst the terrifying rain and thunder in the cornfield, the big girl continued to struggle to break free from the man pressing down on her body.
After a while, the torrential rain in the dream stopped abruptly. The big girl, whose neat clothes were torn to shreds, was suddenly found lying on the heated brick bed in a disheveled state, sobbing with her face turned outwards.
Daylight broke, and the rain that had fallen all night outside the window stopped!
The family stared intently at the two torn, sewn-up pieces of white floral coarse cloth waistbands, separated from their heads, on the edge of the kang (a heated brick bed).
"You still have the nerve to cry? Go hang yourself or drown yourself! Don't disgrace the Yang family!" the old woman kept yelling...
Yu Han was awakened by the old woman's shouting outside the courtyard. "Damn it, why are you so greedy and stealing my malted milk powder? You brat, you're not even dead yet and you're pretending to be sick to steal Grandma's things."
The old woman paced back and forth in the courtyard with trembling little feet, pointing a finger at the south wing of the courtyard and cursing loudly.
Standing at the door of the west wing, a girl of medium size watched the old lady perform with a monkey, then looked at the south wing, and smirked, covering her mouth with her hand.
Yu Han was in a daze. Why had the old lady in the courtyard changed the location of her cursing? It wasn't on the ground in the west room of the south wing anymore, and the target of her cursing had also changed. It seemed like she was cursing herself. The person she should be cursing was Yang Yuqiu, but she was rushing to the old lady's side as if explaining something.