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Chapter 1, First Time: She Had No Concept of Being Killed
A sudden cold snap hit today, and the temperature dropped from the early twenties to single digits. Even adults wearing coats were shivering and their necks were hunched over when walking outside late at night. Wenxu, however, ran out in just a nightgown.
Her left eye was swollen, and her vision was blurry. She had long since lost both of her slippers, but she wasn't going to stop. She kept shouting for help. She could see the lights of the villa across the street and hear the dogs barking in the yard, but no one came out. She used the last of her strength to shout loudly, hoping that if someone heard her, she could be saved.
Thinking this, she ran even faster. A street lamp in front of the villa emitted a warm yellow light, illuminating the brown paving stones. As soon as one of her feet stepped onto the stone, she felt a dull pain in the back of her head, and all her strength drained away. She fell to the ground and saw red blood staining the brown paving stones. A bloodstained baseball bat lay beside her.
Lu Heng knelt beside her, lifted her body, and murmured, "You will never leave me again."
This crocodile tears of feigned compassion made her want to vomit; it was clearly this man she called her husband who killed her.
Why do you always make me angry? Can't we go back to how things were before?
She could feel his warm lips brush against her earlobe, even biting down with varying pressure. She couldn't take it anymore; with her last bit of strength, she bit her tongue, spitting the blood from her mouth onto his face.
Then she died.
At this moment, she felt no pain, only relief. They called her a slut, dressed extravagantly, using her husband's money to support a gigolo, a gigolo whose education, looks, and character were no match for Lu Heng's little fingernail. She deserved to be beaten; she didn't deserve a good man like Lu Heng. Even the fetus she miscarried from Lu Heng's beatings was a bastard; she didn't even know if the child was a boy or a girl, only seeing a sticky substance mixed with blood flowing from her lower body…
Rather than saying she died, it's more accurate to say she escaped from this insane world.
She suddenly felt very light, as if she were wearing a swimsuit and sunbathing on the beach, and all she could see was a white light.
"Damn it! We're all members, why are we seeing nothing but pixelated images?!"
"It needs to pass censorship. It's already pretty good that the sound wasn't censored."
"How long will this take? I'm going to complain if this keeps up!"
"We have to wait for her to wake up. You can watch other programs first."
Wen Xu heard a young couple arguing in her ear, seemingly angry about some program. It is said that one has a revolving lantern before death, reviewing one's life. It seems that the rumor is false. Moreover, she did not want to recall being beaten by Lu Heng, betrayed by friends and family, ostracized by colleagues, and gossiped about by neighbors.
"Xiao Xu".
She heard someone call her name. She knew whose voice it was, and her eyebrows furrowed instantly, and goosebumps rose all over her back.
"Xiao Xu, are you feeling unwell? Would you like some water?"
Wen Xu opened her eyes and saw Shao Ziwen's magnified, worried face. She was in a position where she was almost lying in his arms, letting Shao Ziwen support her back.
"Get away!"
Wen Xu pushed him away and quickly stood up, but felt a sharp pain in her chest and fell backward due to inertia. Shao Ziwen immediately stretched out his strong arm and caught her again. Wen Xu jumped up as if her back had been scalded by boiling water. The pain made her vision go black, but she still slapped Shao Ziwen's hand away.
Her reaction was so strong that it startled Shao Ziwen. Taking advantage of this moment, she ran straight ahead, her heels hitting the marble floor. To the passing waiters, she was just a pretty customer in a hurry, and no one found it strange. However, she stared at the ceiling for a long time, unable to recover.
How did she end up here?
She was in the lobby of the Shaohua Liujin Hotel, a spacious hall that could fit a symphony orchestra of a hundred people. She had only been here once before. She glanced down at the time on her phone; there were still thirty minutes until Shao Ziwen helped her into the hotel room.
No, no, that's not the point. The most important thing is that she went back to two months ago.
She looked at her smooth, fair hands, then slipped her right hand under her clothes and inside her shirt until she touched her left breast—it was gone. In her first life, she had breast cancer surgery a month later, having her left breast removed. Was the surgery earlier in her second life? She had just felt pain because of the incision on her chest.
Her vision blurred, and she broke out in a cold sweat on her forehead and back. If she stood there any longer, she might faint. In a corner of the hall, there was a sofa covered in dark red velvet. She slowly moved over to it, and at that moment, a memory popped into her mind.
After she married Lu Heng, he became violent towards her. She initially tried to endure it, but his behavior escalated, leaving her no choice but to call the police and undergo a medical examination. After the examination, the doctor kindly advised her to have a full-body checkup.
During that time, she did feel a constant tightness in her chest and heart, and often experienced difficulty breathing when she woke up in the morning. When she finally received the test results, she felt dizzy and disoriented.
She and her mother suffered from the same disease, triple-negative breast cancer. Watching her mother, who loved beauty, become emaciated from treatment, her once thick, black hair now thin and wispy, filled her with immense fear of death. The first person she thought of was Lu Heng. It was she herself who returned to Lu Heng's side, giving him the opportunity to hurt her.
But the memories that surface in her mind now are different. When she was diagnosed with breast cancer in the hospital, it was already in a locally advanced stage. But in her first life, when she was diagnosed with breast cancer, it was still in an early stage.
Something changed that worsened her condition. What surprised her even more was that she didn't confuse the two memories. It was as if her brain had turned into a computer, automatically storing the two memories on different hard drives, and she would never make a mistake.
During her break, Shao Ziwen followed her into the lobby, looking around for Wen Xu. Although his features were ordinary, he was polite, over forty but with a strong build, and spoke with a firm, resonant voice without being intimidating. His taste in clothing was also quite good. As Wen Xu's former client, she had a good impression of him. But the thought of him helping her, unconscious, into a hotel room in thirty minutes, and then doing *that* to her, gave her a headache. Lu Heng, having learned of this, couldn't suppress his jealousy and thus ruthlessly killed her.
Wen Xu really didn't want to have anything to do with him, but Shao Ziwen didn't think so. His eyes lit up when he found Wen Xu.
"Xiao Xu, I heard you resigned, and you're not answering your calls. I thought that with our relationship, we could at least have a coffee together as friends."
If it were the first time she'd experienced warmth in her life, she would reflect on how impolite it was not to answer a call from an acquaintance, then smile and exchange pleasantries with him, and might even agree to his invitation to have coffee together. But right now, only one thought is on her mind.
Ha, then tell me what our relationship is.
"Excuse me, I have to go now."
Although her physical condition was not as good as her first life, even if she only had one day left to live, she didn't want to waste it on unimportant people. Her mother was still in the hospital, and she wanted to go and see her mother directly.
Ignoring Shao Ziwen's attempts to persuade him to stay, Wen Xu walked towards the hotel entrance. Just as he reached the door, he suddenly heard a loud rumble, and a bolt of lightning flashed across the sky as if it had been torn apart. After a few muffled claps of thunder, a torrential downpour was followed by hailstones the size of eggs. Two cars that had just parked in front of the hotel were instantly dented by the hailstones.