Deep, empty darkness. Wind that cut to the marrow. Dim, flickering figures swaying around him.
Soundless lightning spilled a pale, ghastly green, lighting everything for an instant before vanishing without a trace.
Cheep!
A clear birdsong reached Ding Songyan's ears and made him flinch, and in his muddled state sparks of clarity burst forth.
Where is this...
Where am I...
A dream? Ding Songyan suddenly understood, and the memories from before came crowding back.
Shit!
He cursed inwardly, full of unwillingness and resentment, and began to grasp what state he was in.
How did I end up running into a few blockheads?
In his youth he had been precocious, clever, good at his studies, and decent enough at sports, and he had always thought very highly of himself—looking down on this one, disdaining that one, so proud and arrogant that he counted no one else as his equal. Then, soon after leaving school, he was crushed by the real world, his confidence and pride smashed to pieces. Though he was unwilling to admit it, he knew that in those days he had been both insecure and hypersensitive.
Misfortunes never come singly. Later his family ran into trouble. Fortunately, someone was always there with him, encouraging him, supporting him, so that even in an unhealthy, irrational state in which he kept hurting those around him and himself, he could slowly seize opportunities, regain his confidence bit by bit, and make his way out. In the end he started a successful business and amassed a considerable fortune.
He had assumed everything would only keep getting better. After the banquet he chose to carry on at a street food stall with a few investors and important partners, reminiscing about hard times and dreaming about the future. During it, one of the investors got into a shouting match with a few young men at the next table, and it turned into pushing and shoving. He hurried over to break it up and try to defuse the dispute. Following the notion that a man of wealth does not sit beneath the eaves, and the principle that the fortunate should yield, he had even prepared himself for a real man's ability to bend as well as stretch—to apologize on the spot and swallow the insult without wiping it off. Who would have known...
Bro, are you sick in the head?
You stabbed a guy over such a small thing?
If you'd said you were sick, I'd have kept my distance. Better a dead investor than me dead!
Why did you have to be so dim!
"All right, looks like I'm not dead yet... uh, and probably not awake either..." Ding Songyan's thoughts were not entirely clear; they were still clouded with confusion.
He tried hard to wake from this dream, but felt his body pressed down by something invisible and heavy, every step laborious, while his eyes seemed bound up in curtains woven from the darkness—open, he could not see; closed, he could not keep them shut.
Cheep!
The bird's cry came again from far away, as if separated by an entire world, hazy and faint.
Ding Songyan instinctively walked toward the sound, stumbling and staggering.
He grew more awake, walked faster and with greater ease.
The surrounding darkness was like smoke, the figures like dreams; the ceaseless birdsong seemed the only real thing in this world.
All at once a shaft of light broke into the darkness, then another, and another.
Ding Songyan's eyes snapped open, then were forced shut again by the glare, tears welling up.
"Cheep, cheep, cheep..."
The clear, pleasant birdsong echoed by Ding Songyan's ear, not far away, as though only a single wall separated them.
"Awake?" A delighted voice followed, more lovely than the birdsong.
Ding Songyan finally adjusted to the light and opened his eyes again.
Feeling the state of his body, searching for pain that ought to have been there, he looked at the person in front of him.
She was a girl of only fourteen or fifteen, her hair done in double spiral buns, wearing a scallion-white short jacket with a straight collar, a center-front fastening and silver-embroidered edging, and a light gauzy skirt of goose yellow. Her features were like a painting—fresh and clean, lively and lovely.
At that moment the girl was crouched in front of Ding Songyan, watching him with a face full of concern.
Ding Songyan had attended plenty of business banquets, had eaten, drunk and seen a great deal, yet he was still momentarily dazzled by the girl's beauty.
But he cared more about a few other questions:
What hospital is this?
Would a nurse wearing hanfu on duty be too unprofessional? A patient really wouldn't feel reassured!
"My... condition... how is it?" Only once he made a sound did Ding Songyan notice how dry his throat was, as though his voice did not belong to him.
At the same time he habitually took in his surroundings.
One look, and he was stunned all over again:
This was no hospital. It was a ruined shrine with a broken idol, weeds growing thick in the gaps between the stone bricks, sunlight pouring through the holes and empty window frames along with the receding birdsong—and he himself was sitting on the ground, leaning against a wooden pillar.
Mistaken for dead, dumped in the wilds, and then running into a girl in hanfu who had come to take photos? Ding Songyan, who had read countless novels in his school days, had that thought flash through his mind instinctively.
He dismissed the possibility at once, because many people had witnessed the scene, and there had been a police car at the mouth of the street; those blockheads could hardly have been given a chance to make off with a "corpse".
The girl answered his question brightly:
"I already looked you over. You're fine!"
Fine? Ding Songyan lowered his head and looked at his own abdomen.
It didn't hurt at all... this setting... this outfit...
Surely I haven't transmigrated?
No! I haven't even started enjoying my life yet!
Ding Songyan slowly raised his head, looked at the girl, and asked, choosing his words and probing:
"You... are?"
He had just tried hard to examine the state of his current body and found not a single fragment of memory; instead, his own recollections from the past had grown clear again because of what had just happened.
In such a situation, acting to conceal the fact that he knew nothing would be very hard to sustain in the daily contact that followed, and no amount of quick thinking would help, because one lie needs more lies to cover it; when one has to lie about everything, being found out is only a matter of time.
Therefore, without any concrete understanding of his situation, telling a "partial truth" was the better and wiser choice. Afterwards he would not have to rack his brains putting on a performance, or live in dread every day—the people around him would find a reasonable explanation on their own.
The girl with the double spiral buns sat back a little, her eyes lighting up at once, and answered with a smile in a tone like a stage performer:
"My good little brother, you don't recognize your sister?"
As she spoke she watched Ding Songyan's face, and found him still serious, frowning.
"..." The smile on the girl's face froze in an instant, and she blurted out with a touch of alarm, "Second Brother, you don't remember me?"
Ding Songyan slowly shook his head and replied with utter sincerity:
"I don't remember anything."
The girl crouched in front of Ding Songyan abruptly straightened up:
"Quick! Let's go home right now and have Mother and Father take you to the medical hall to see a physician... ah!"
She stopped halfway up, as if she had become a portrait on a sheet of silk.
"What's wrong?" Ding Songyan asked instinctively.
The girl made a bitter face and mumbled:
"My leg's gone numb."
Ding Songyan lifted his head a little and looked at the roof beam covered in cobwebs.
He got up too, confirming that he wore a pale moon-white scholar's robe and that his height was about the same as before the transmigration—close to one meter eighty.
"All right, all right!" The girl had finally recovered, and she reached for Ding Songyan's sleeve, meaning to drag him outside.
Ding Songyan quietly stepped back, so that her hand closed on empty air.
"Uh..." The girl looked up at Ding Songyan's face, her clear, dark eyes full of bewilderment.
Ding Songyan asked slowly:
"How do you prove that you are my real sister?"
"This... I..." The girl was completely dumbfounded, as if she had never expected one day to be asked such a question.
Her lips moved; she opened her mouth several times, but no words came out.
Ding Songyan explained with a solemn face:
"Miss, I don't remember anything. If you were a bad person and I trusted your words and went home with you, wouldn't I be in for something very terrible?"
"Th-that's true..." The girl was clearly convinced, then her eyes darted. "I know! I know what to do! I'll go back first and bring Father and Mother. They can prove I'm your real sister!"
Ding Songyan glanced at the girl, whose features had not yet fully matured:
"And how do you prove that the ones who come are my father and my mother?"
"..." Her mouth fell open and stayed that way.
After a few breaths, her mouth twisted and a faint mist veiled her lively eyes.
Aggrieved, and with a touch of urgency, close to tears, she cried out:
"I'll have the neighbors come and prove it! I'll take you to the yamen! Father is a yamen clerk—his colleagues can all prove he's your real father! And I'm your real sister..."
"All right, I believe you," Ding Songyan said suddenly.
"Ah..." The girl looked at Ding Songyan in bewilderment.
Just like that?
Ding Songyan gave a slight nod:
"I can feel your sincerity, miss."
Her offering to go to the yamen to prove it, and naming so many witnesses, was enough to establish provisionally that she wasn't lying to trick him.
I bet you've never seen The Truman Show!
"Sincerity..." The girl tilted her head slightly and studied Ding Songyan carefully for a while, then murmured with little confidence, "Or... should we still go to the yamen to confirm it? You've got me almost doubting you're my second brother. I need others to look too... the clothes... the face... the height... the birthmark... they all match..."
Ding Songyan checked himself over in front of the girl and found no wounds at all; he felt quite energetic as well.
Imitating the TV dramas and novels he had watched and read, he cupped his hands in greeting and said:
"Miss, how should I address you?"
"How to address me?" The girl was suddenly a little amused. "You usually call me Little Sister. Second Brother, you really have forgotten everything."
She thought for a moment, then explained in detail:
"You're my second brother, and there's an elder brother above you. Father and Mother are both alive. Right now we've come to Dingjiang Prefecture to stay with Cousin Qin of our aunt's family, and we've been here over half a year.
"My given name is Qingyan. You can call me Little Sister or Sister Qingyan, either is fine."
Ding Songyan digested these words and deliberately let his manner soften:
"Then what is our surname?"
The girl Qingyan said, "Hmm," and tugged at a strand of black hair outside her bun:
"Second Brother, you don't even remember your own surname? Our surname is Ding."
"Ding..." Ding Songyan's gaze sharpened, and he suddenly had a certain premonition:
"Then what is my name?"
Ding Qingyan tilted her head again and looked at Ding Songyan for a while, then sighed and said, muffled and a little sorrowful:
"You are called Ding Songyan."