Chapter: 2 Rebirth
“Chen Qiao, quickly dodge, fast…”
A worried and childish voice rang in his ears. Chen Qiao, still dazed from the inexplicable train rear-end incident, hadn’t reacted when a basketball came rushing towards him, hitting him in the face. Losing his balance, Chen Qiao fell backward, and the world instantly turned upside down.
His face hurt, and the back of his head did too.
The blue sky and white clouds, dust rising around him, along with the sounds of a basketball hitting the ground and children playing and laughing, chattering incessantly, were so noisy that it felt just like being in primary school.
“By the way, Xinyu, Xinyu, are you okay?”
Chen Qiao suddenly sat up, looking around in confusion, his hands grasping at empty space. This was the school’s big playground, with a cement basketball court, peeling basketball hoops, rusty single and double rods along with a climbing frame, the teaching building assessed as a dangerous structure still not demolished, with green doors and windows against white walls.
A pair of delicate, fair small hands waved in front of Chen Qiao.
“Hey, Chen Qiao, can you still hear me? I’m fine, but you should worry about yourself first. Do you want to go to the infirmary? Or maybe to the hospital? Your head won’t be damaged, right?”
Chen Qiao instinctively grasped the small hand that was shaking and used it to rise unsteadily from the ground.
It was slippery, and there was a slight sweat in his palm.
“Ah!”
The girl immediately withdrew her small hand.
The sharp scream brought Chen Qiao back to some clarity, and his gaze fell on the girl in front of him.
Wearing a red and white primary school uniform with a red scarf tied around her neck, her bangs damp with sweat slightly disheveled against her forehead.
With an oval face, her cheeks were flushed, her small mouth slightly open, her petite chest rising and falling with quickened breaths, her starry eyes beneath straight brows deep and terrified, with her left hand gripping her right wrist that had been touched by Chen Qiao, showing much concern.
She looked somewhat familiar; she was a classmate from primary school, the daughter of a middle school teacher, academically excellent, a star student just like his sister who had received countless awards, named Wu Xinyu.
It turned out her pronunciation was the same as his niece’s, which he had never realized before, as in the countryside, only a few major surnames were prevalent, and parents often had limited education levels, so there were many with the same name and surname, like the fact that there were three students with his sister’s name in the same grade, and the teacher’s parent contact list even noted them as number one, two, and three.
“Blood, Chen Qiao, you have a nosebleed.” Wu Xinyu pointed to her own nose as she spoke.
“Oh.”
Chen Qiao wiped his nose, his small palm was covered in blood, just a moment ago thinking it was snot from the deep winter, but it turned out to be a nosebleed.
He looked up, squinting in the glaring sunlight, raising his left arm to cover his nose and asked, “Does anyone have a tissue? Or anything else that can stop the bleeding?”
“Tissue, tissue, my tissue is in the classroom.”
Wu Xinyu rummaged through her school pants pocket, finding only some change. Since they were going to have P.E., she had left her keys in the drawer of the desk, then turned to ask other classmates for tissues, loudly calling out: “Does anyone have a tissue? Chen Qiao has a nosebleed.”
Even though tissue companies sprouted everywhere in the late 80s and 90s, not every primary school student could have a small pack of pink tissues. Many families were still using the cheapest rough paper for wiping, and if they had money, they would have bought snacks instead.
“Handkerchief… will that do?” A weak voice came from nearby, easily drowned out by the noisy playground.
“Of course! Thank you so much.”
“No need to thank me.”
Chen Qiao reached out to where the voice came from to take the handkerchief, squinting upwards to see who it was. He seemed to brush against someone’s arm and chest, and then the handkerchief was directly placed in his palm, good thing he caught it in time, nearly blown away by the wind.
Chen Qiao hurriedly stuffed the handkerchief into his nostrils and ran towards the restroom.
The oldest teaching building in the primary school had no restroom, only this rectangular public toilet by the playground, where it was easy to fall in while squatting.
“Chen Qiao, the tissue…”
Finally borrowing a tissue, Wu Xinyu happily ran back but couldn’t find Chen Qiao’s figure, only the bloodstains left on the ground. Silently, she stuffed the tissue into her pocket, hiding her right hand behind her body, her pretty face flushed in the sunlight.
Chen Qiao turned on the faucet to wash the blood off his palm and nose, splashing some clean water onto his forehead.
Finally, he could calmly think about his situation.
Is this rebirth?
Both the pain in his head and face were testifying that this wasn’t a dream.
First, let’s organize the information and current situation: it was May 4th, 2009, a Monday afternoon, and he was currently a sixth grade primary school student, with just over a month until graduation.
The family tragedy was set to occur on February 10th of the following year, right before the New Year. His dad was driving his dump truck to haul bricks as usual when someone driving under the influence on a motorcycle rear-ended him, sending the four people in that vehicle directly to another world.
Everyone on their side was gone, leaving only the elderly at home. It would be very difficult to hold the other party fully responsible; at the very least, there would be elderly support payments to consider; it was a calamity from the heavens.
The family had no connections, while the other party’s relatives were formidable. Additionally, his dad’s dump truck had serious overloading issues and common mechanical and facility problems, which made it easy to pin the blame on him.
He had forgotten all the wrangling that took place during the incident, but in the end, it resulted in either paying 980,000 yuan or serving three years in prison.
This amount of money was exorbitant; that year, the average house price in Pengcheng was only 14,000 yuan per square meter. The flood of money into the market didn’t stop the house prices from skyrocketing, rising past 20,000 and even 50,000 yuan.
The family’s savings combined with his mom borrowing money and selling her wedding ring and jewelry along with insurance payouts wasn’t enough, but it did reduce the sentence. In the end, his dad was imprisoned for two years, but after that, he became drastically changed, turning into an alcoholic and gambler. Previously he was just a chain smoker, truly a case of “five poisons all gathered.” All the money earned went to the casino, and he even ended up in debt, with people coming to their house asking for money before New Year.
Meanwhile, his hard-working mom was stuck supporting the family alone, going to work in the endocrinology department of the city hospital for a higher salary and better treatment. After working 18 hours straight, she collapsed while doing rounds, and despite attempts to revive her, she ultimately died from a ruptured artery.
Only after his mom passed did his dad slowly return to a normal routine, earning money to support the family, but he drank even more heavily, to the point where he couldn’t sleep without alcohol. In Chen Qiao’s freshman year, he died at home due to alcohol poisoning, leaving only Chen Qiao and his sister, along with Xinyu, to depend on each other.
Now there is still time to change everything. First, he must prevent the repeat of the car crash. This accident not only drained the family’s savings; the prison sentence also changed his dad’s nature.
But it seems unlikely to get his dad to change careers. He was the head of the family and had been driving a dump truck for over twenty years; apart from driving, he didn’t know how to do anything else.
After the financial crisis, there was massive investment in infrastructure in the country, and the construction of new rural areas was underway. Many migrant workers were sending money home for reconstruction, making it a great era for dump truck drivers like his dad. There’s always danger on the road; one cannot let past mistakes hinder their actions.
The person who drove while intoxicated and crashed into a motorcycle carrying a wife and children was even more ridiculous; he harmed two families, and the incident probably occurred on the way home from a banquet. The specifics of the event—whether it was a wedding or funeral—were unclear, but his children should have been a pair of twin daughters.
Apart from not allowing his dad to drive on the day of the incident, there are other things he could do, such as deflating his car’s tires, then going to stop the parents of those twins. If they were drinking, they should rest well and not drive, hurting others and themselves. Overloading and not wearing helmets lead to self-inflicted disaster; he shouldn’t drag the kids along with him.
Then there was his mom’s illness. If the family didn’t face trouble, with no debt pressure and his dad as the pillar, Chen Qiao could smoothly utilize his rebirth information advantage to earn some money. He had done a lot of research and contemplation while writing rebirth novels before, but he never expected he would actually use it one day.
However, his mom had a naturally busy disposition and couldn’t sit still. She was always looking for things to do, raising some chickens and ducks, growing vegetables, and often staying in the fields until dark. In earlier years, they even raised pigs, and Chen Qiao had helped his sister prepare pig feed, exhausting themselves daily. If pork prices dropped, they wouldn’t be able to break even.
After repeated persuasion from Chen Qiao and his sister, their mom finally gave up raising pigs. If their dad had persuaded her, the two would have likely argued.
Aha! Letting their mom get pregnant and sit the month would work; they could have a little sister to play with. During the prenatal check-up, he could also check if his mom had any other illnesses. While pregnant, she shouldn’t exert herself too much; this could be killing two birds with one stone.
His mom was a doctor. If he asked her to go for a comprehensive check-up at a big hospital, she would surely say it was a waste of money and wouldn’t go. She was a doctor and knew her body better than anyone else, and she would probably wait until she was hired at a county or city hospital to casually do an employment physical.
Originally, his mom could have worked at a better hospital, but she continued to stay in the countryside because Chen Qiao was still young, and both siblings were studying in the countryside. When his excellent sister went to the city for high school, their mom would likely follow her. Chen Qiao and his dad would remain in the countryside, but after their dad’s incident, their mom had to go to the city to find work early…
Since he’s been reborn, he needs to change all of this. Chen Qiao clenched his fists and vowed to become a beast among beasts, no longer living a wasted life.
