Chapter 2: Who Am I?

Pang Ya is a fool; everyone in the village knows it. He also knew that she wouldn't understand a word he said, and speaking to her was like playing the lute to a cow.

His only motive was that after saying it out loud, he felt a tiny bit better inside.

His fingers still seemed to be stained with a foul stench. He wiped them on his clothes in disgust, no longer looking at the faint glimmer of something struggling to turn in the depths of Pang Ya’s murky eyes. With a gloomy face, he threw the wild hawthorns from his schoolbag out, not leaving a single one behind. Then, he stooped to pick up the books scattered on the ground, brushed off the dust, carefully packed them into his bag, snorted, and strode toward the village without looking back.

He had just reached the pond embankment when a dull "plop!" suddenly sounded behind him, like a heavy object hitting the water.

He slammed on the brakes, his heart sinking abruptly.

Immediately after, the panicked and chaotic shouts of villagers rang out from behind him: "Oh no! Pang Ya couldn't take it anymore, she’s jumped into the pond to end it all..."

……

Under the old locust tree in the courtyard, Sun-shi rolled up her sleeves, revealing two thin, withered arms, and squatted beside a large wooden basin, burying her head in scrubbing the clothes in her hands.

The old Yang family had over a dozen people, and except for the few old and young ones, everyone else was out in the fields working. These clothes were thick and hard to wash; once taken off, one could shake pounds of yellow mud off them. As soon as they were soaked in water, a large basin of water was instantly stirred into a pot of yellow mud soup.

Usually, Sun-shi would carry the clothes to the pond at the entrance of the village to wash them. The pond water was flowing, trickling down from Mianniu Mountain behind the village and heading east. She could even wash the vegetables for the family's lunch while she was at it.

But today was different. Ever since Qing'er was rescued from the pond yesterday afternoon—after pinching her philtrum and forcing ginger water down her throat—her life had been saved, but she wasn't doing well.

She had developed a high fever in the middle of the night and talked nonsense for half the night. She and Qing'er’s father hadn't closed their eyes all night, keeping watch by the bed. As soon as the sky brightened, Qing'er’s father went to the village to find the old doctor, Uncle Fu. Hearing that Uncle Fu had gone to the town thirty miles away the previous evening, Qing'er’s father returned and discussed it with her; they both felt this illness could not be delayed.

Qing'er’s father went to discuss it with Qing'er’s grandfather, then drove the family’s only ox cart to town to get medicine.

With the autumn harvest in full swing these past few days, the able-bodied laborers in the family had all been sent to the fields to harvest rice. By rights, she should have gone too.

But with Qing'er so ill, she couldn't set her mind at ease and had to beg Qing'er’s grandmother to let her stay home to do the chores. All morning, she had swept the courtyard, shoveled the pigsty, washed the pots and bowls in the kitchen, fed the chickens, ducks, and the pig in the backyard, and now she had brought the whole family’s clothes to the courtyard to scrub.

All morning, she had gone into the room several times, touching Qing'er’s forehead each time and feeding her a few sips of tea. The child had been burning like a charcoal stove all morning.

Sun-shi absentmindedly wrung the water out of the clothes in her hands, tossed them into a bamboo basket to the side, and grabbed another piece from the mountain-like pile of dirty laundry at her feet, throwing it into the basin to scrub away.

Her sallow, gaunt face was filled with worry. From time to time, she looked up at the sun, which was almost at its zenith, and pricked up her ears to listen for the sound of ox cart wheels from the front yard. From Changping Village to the nearby Qingshui Town, it was over thirty miles round trip. Qing'er’s father had been gone for nearly two hours; surely he should be back soon?

Having finished scrubbing the clothes in a rush, Sun-shi stood up, wiped her wet hands haphazardly on her clothes, and turned to hurry toward the west wing room behind her.

……

When Yang Ruoqing woke up, her whole body ached, and her head was still buzzing.

She had just finished an A-level mission and was on the private jet returning home.

This was the final mission of her career as a secret agent: to deliver a set of antique calligraphy and paintings to an underground auction house for playthings in Las Vegas.

Once this was done, her career as an agent would come to a perfect end.

However, the plane encountered severe convective weather over the Pacific Ocean. In the instant the plane crashed, she vaguely remembered a green light suddenly flying out of the calligraphy and paintings and drilling into her body.

She fell into the ocean, and the icy seawater surged in from all directions...

She struggled in the water, trying to grab a piece of plane wreckage floating by. Her head finally broke the surface, and fresh air rushed in, causing her to cough violently and sit bolt upright.

The sudden intrusion of light stung her eyes with soreness.

She squinted slightly, and only after the stinging pain in her eyes faded did she slowly open them.

What came into view was a low, dilapidated room with a thatched roof and cracked yellow mud walls. There wasn't a single decent piece of furniture in the room. A faded wardrobe stood against the corner, and on a chipped table sat a teapot and two earthenware tea bowls, also chipped. The only stool was missing a leg and was propped up by a few mud bricks.

The floor inside was uneven and damp, and the air was filled with a mixture of mold and the stench of urine from a chamber pot in the corner, making her stomach churn.

There was no icy seawater, no plane wreckage. Where on earth was this dilapidated place that was barely fit for human habitation?

Could it be that while she was drifting at sea, she was rescued by kind fishermen and brought ashore?

But it was the 21st century; looking around the globe, even those African indigenous tribes wouldn't have such impoverished dwellings, would they?

Her gaze swept to a wooden door, with wisps of light filtering in through the cracks. She pushed aside the damp, patch-covered quilt covering her and was about to get out of bed to ask someone at the door, when her eyes caught a pair of cloth shoes of indistinguishable color placed in front of the bed, with two holes worn through at the toes.

She shook her head slightly, thinking that having a pair of shoes was better than being barefoot. Just as she stretched out her foot to put on the shoes, the incredible happened.

These fleshy, somewhat swollen feet were clearly not her own.

She was born with a pair of petite, exquisite feet, as cute and translucent as white jade, and her toenails were as healthy and cute as pink scallops.

But the feet before her were rough, thick, and the nails hadn't been groomed for ten days or half a month, she feared. They were pitch black, and two of the nails had been torn off.

Following that, she discovered that her hands were not her original hands either.

She was a secret agent, and even more so, an international top-tier assassin. Years of training had left a layer of thick calluses on the pads of her fingers. But she was a hand-fetishist, so even with calluses on her fingertips, the rest of her hands were well-maintained—white, smooth, and delicate as jade.

And these hands before her? The five fingers were as thick and short as radishes soaked in water—vulgar beyond compare.

She touched her features again; by the feel of it, this face was not her own either.

What is going on?

Who is she?

And who am I?

Where on earth is this?

Just then, a "creak" suddenly came from the silent, dim room. The dilapidated door opened a crack wide enough for a person, and then, a figure hurried in from outside.

(End of chapter)