NOVEL NEXT 034 Death Reversal
Ning Zhe walked around the house but didn’t see his grandfather or grandmother.
He took out his phone and glanced at the time:
June 6, 2018, the 22nd day of the 4th lunar month, 07:27 AM.
At this time, his grandfather should have gone to the reservoir outside the town to fish, and his grandmother was probably at the old street in Gubei Town selling vegetables. There was no one in the old house.
Ning Zhe walked over to the old camphor tree, casually brushed off the leaves from a wooden bench, sat down, and looked down at himself. He noticed that his clothes were very neat, without any dust or bloodstains. The injuries he had received in Hejia Village were gone, and his physical condition was as it usually was.
It was as if he had returned to the time before entering Hejia Village.
If it weren’t for the fact that he could still easily transform into a magpie and fly up to the branches, he might even think that the previous experience was just a dream.
“By the way, Auntie… she shouldn’t be dead, right?” Ning Zhe unlocked his phone, swiped to the bottom of his contacts list, but couldn’t find the contact labeled ‘Feng Yushu’.
“So that’s how it is?” Ning Zhe frowned slightly, as if he understood the logic behind it.
Unlike Ning Zhe, who had entered the eerie place early this morning, Feng Yushu was sucked into Hejia Village around 7 PM. At that time, she had been planning to bring a cup of coffee to her husband’s room. After opening the door, she found herself in that broken world.
“If the time of returning to reality coincides with the time of leaving reality, that means Feng Yushu hasn’t entered Hejia Village yet. She will return from that broken world when she opens the hotel room door tonight at 7 PM.”
Then, a thought arose in Ning Zhe’s mind: “Does this mean that if I go to the village clinic now, I can meet Gu Yunqing and Ye Miaozhu before they died?”
And Zhang Yangxu—he entered Hejia Village later than I did. He and Xie Sining might still be alive in the real world…
With this thought in mind, Ning Zhe stood up, quickly crossed the yard covered in fallen leaves, left his old house, and walked onto the streets of Gubei Town.
Gubei Town was Ning Zhe’s hometown, a small rural town with no significant industries. Everything in the countryside felt peaceful and tranquil. There were few people on the street in the early morning, only a few students who had just finished early classes sitting in the breakfast shops, with steam rising from the food.
The owners of the breakfast shop, both familiar faces to Ning Zhe, were already calling out to him before he got close. The lady in a checkered apron, holding a sieve, called out enthusiastically, “Ah Zhe, when did you come back? Is school on break? Why didn’t my daughter tell me…”
“No, I took leave to come back. Didn’t they say they were going to demolish the town? They’ve taken our land, but no one in my family can read, so I had to come back and take a look.” Ning Zhe answered casually.
He paid 2.5 yuan with Alipay, took three steaming sauerkraut-filled buns and a cup of soy milk from the shop owner.
As he walked down the street, eating his bun, Ning Zhe took out his phone and, relying on his memory, dialed Feng Yushu’s number.
Before long, the call connected, and a calm and gentle female voice came from the speaker: “Who is this…”
“Hello, my name is Ning Zhe.”
“Ning Zhe? Do I know you?” Feng Yushu’s voice was slightly confused, with a faint sound of wind in the background, likely from a car or a gas station.
“Maybe I dialed the wrong number, sorry about that,” Ning Zhe said, taking a sip of soy milk. “But we’ll meet again, in another place.”
“What are you talking about…” Feng Yushu was puzzled, but Ning Zhe had already hung up the phone.
Ning Zhe quickly finished the bun in a few bites and tossed the plastic bag and soy milk cup into a nearby trash can.
When no one was around, he took a turn into a hidden alley, and then a black-and-white magpie flew out from the alley.
Gu Yunqing and Ye Miaozhu interned at the village clinic in Gubei Town, a designated healthcare provider, located across from the Dragon King Temple near the bridge. Ning Zhe stretched his wings and glided over the quiet town, with warm sunlight gently falling and a soft breeze drifting between his feathers, making the flight very comfortable.
Soon, Ning Zhe arrived above the village clinic.
He landed casually, like the sparrows on the nearby power lines, on a potted money tree in front of the clinic, quietly observing what was happening inside.
Just like the barbershop and breakfast shop, the clinic was an early-opening establishment. It was still not quite 8 AM, and there were already patients waiting to be seen. A woman holding a child sat on a bamboo chair, anxiously watching the child’s flushed face, likely from a fever that had started overnight, which brought her here so early.
Ning Zhe had also been brought here by his grandmother when he was young.
Soon, Doctor Lin from the clinic finished washing his face and brushing his teeth, and came out. After a brief inquiry about the symptoms, he inserted a mercury thermometer under the child’s armpit.
“Let’s take your temperature first. You sit for a while, I’ll go get some breakfast, and be back in a few minutes,” Doctor Lin said, then left the clinic. He saw Ning Zhe standing quietly on the money tree.
The woman holding the child smiled faintly, her worry easing a little. “A magpie is on the money tree, Doctor Lin, you’re going to get rich!”
“Getting rich from seeing patients isn’t a good thing,” Doctor Lin laughed, teasing the magpie on the tree. When he saw that Ning Zhe didn’t fly away, he smiled even more brightly and leisurely walked out the door.
Ning Zhe patiently waited until Doctor Lin came back with breakfast. After diagnosing the child’s condition, two young and handsome people, who were a perfect match, walked together to start work at the clinic.
It was Gu Yunqing and Ye Miaozhu.
For modern young people, waking up before 9 AM was considered early.
Gu Yunqing and Ye Miaozhu arrived just in time. Doctor Lin had just finished giving the child an injection, so he asked Ye Miaozhu to go to the pharmacy to get the medicine. Gu Yunqing, without being asked, went to the clinic door and fully opened the door that had been halfway open.
Then, there was a thud from the pharmacy. Ye Miaozhu, who had just opened the door, collapsed in front of everyone.
Ning Zhe silently observed everything. Inside the clinic, both Doctor Lin, who had been eating breakfast, and the woman with the child were startled by Ye Miaozhu’s sudden collapse. Meanwhile, at the door of the clinic, Gu Yunqing also weakly leaned against the door he had just opened and slowly slid to the ground, no longer breathing.
Both of them were dead.
“Just as I thought…” Ning Zhe confirmed something in his heart.
Just now, at the right moment, Gu Yunqing and Ye Miaozhu in Hejia Village had returned.
But the ones who returned were two dead bodies.
I wonder if Feng Yushu, who will return from Hejia Village tonight at 7 PM, will be alive or dead.