Chapter 34: Death Return

Ning Zhe walked into the house but didn’t see his grandfather or grandmother.

He pulled out his phone and checked the time:

June 6, 2018, the twenty-second day of the fourth lunar month, 07:27 a.m.

At this hour, his grandfather would be fishing at the reservoir outside town, and his grandmother would be selling vegetables on the old street of Guzhen—no one was home.

Ning Zhe went to the old camphor tree, brushed away the fallen leaves from the wooden bench, sat down, and examined himself—he found his clothes clean, free of dust or blood, all injuries from Hejia Village gone, his body as it always was.

Just as it had been before he entered Hejia Village.

If he couldn’t still turn into a magpie and fly effortlessly onto a branch, he might have thought the whole experience was a dream.

“By the way, Auntie… she’s probably still alive, right?” Ning Zhe unlocked his phone, scrolled to the bottom of his contacts, but saw no contact labeled “Feng Yu.”

“So that’s how it is?” Ning Zhe frowned slightly—he seemed to understand the logic now.

Unlike Ning Zhe, who entered that strange place early that morning, Feng Yu had been pulled into Hejia Village around seven p.m., just as she was about to bring her husband a cup of coffee; the moment she opened his door, she was there.

“If returning to reality matches the exact moment you left it, then Feng Yu hasn’t entered Hejia Village yet—she’ll return from that shattered world the moment she opens the hotel room door tonight at seven.”

A thought surfaced in Ning Zhe’s mind: “Does that mean if I go to the village clinic now, I’ll find Gu Yunqing and Ye Miaozhu still alive?”

And Zhang Yangxu—he entered Hejia Village later than I did. He and Xie Sining might still be alive in the real world…

Thinking this, Ning Zhe stood up, hurried through the courtyard piled with leaves, left his ancestral home, and stepped onto the streets of Guzhen.

Guzhen was Ning Zhe’s hometown, a backward rural town with no major industry; everything here felt quiet and peaceful. The morning streets were nearly empty, save for a few students who had just finished morning self-study, sitting in a handful of early-opened breakfast shops, steam rising into the air.

The shop owner and his wife were familiar to Ning Zhe; before he even approached, he heard the woman in her checkered apron, holding a strainer, call out warmly: “Ah Zhe, when did you get back? School on break? My daughter didn’t even tell me…”

“No, I took leave to come back. They said the town’s being redeveloped, and our land got requisitioned—no one in the family can read, so I had to return to check things out,” Ning Zhe replied casually.

He scanned 2.5 yuan via Alipay, took three steaming pork-and-fermented-cabbage buns and a cup of soy milk from the shop owner.

Walking down the street, chewing the buns, Ning Zhe pulled out his phone and dialed Feng Yu’s number from memory.

Soon, the call connected, and a soft, gentle female voice came through the speaker: “Who is it…?”

“Hello, my name is Ning Zhe.”

“Ning Zhe? Do I know you?” Feng Yu’s voice was puzzled; faint wind rustled in the background—she was likely on a bus or at a gas station.

“Maybe I dialed wrong. Sorry,” Ning Zhe sipped his soy milk. “But we’ll meet again—somewhere else.”

“What are you talking about…?” Feng Yu was bewildered, but Ning Zhe had already hung up. He devoured the buns in three bites, tossed the plastic bag and soy milk cup into a roadside trash bin.

Seeing no one around, he turned down a hidden alley—and moments later, a black-and-white magpie flew out.

Gu Yunqing and Ye Miaozhu were interning at the village clinic, a designated medical facility across from the Dragon King Temple by the bridge. Ning Zhe glided over the quiet town, morning sunlight falling gently, brushing through the gaps between his feathers with a soft breeze—comforting.

Soon, Ning Zhe arrived above the clinic.

Like the sparrows perched on the wires nearby, he landed casually atop a potted Fortune Tree in front of the clinic, watching silently inside.

The clinic, like the barber shop and breakfast stalls, opened early; it was still before eight a.m., yet patients already waited—a woman held a child on a bamboo chair, frowning at the child’s flushed face; he must have had a fever overnight, prompting this early visit.

Ning Zhe himself had been brought here by his grandmother as a child.

Soon, Doctor Lin washed his face and brushed his teeth, stepped out, asked a few questions, then inserted a mercury thermometer under the child’s armpit.

“Let’s take his temperature first. Sit tight—I’ll grab breakfast. Back in a few minutes,” Doctor Lin said, stepping outside—and noticing Ning Zhe perched quietly on the Fortune Tree.

The woman holding the child relaxed slightly and smiled: “A magpie on the Fortune Tree—Doctor Lin, you’re going to get rich!”

“Rich from treating patients? That’s no blessing,” Doctor Lin chuckled, teasing the magpie on the tree. When he saw Ning Zhe didn’t fly away, he grinned wider and strolled off.

Ning Zhe waited patiently until Doctor Lin returned with breakfast, finished diagnosing the child, and then two young, strikingly handsome and beautiful people arrived together for work.

Gu Yunqing and Ye Miaozhu.

For modern youth, waking up before nine counts as early.

Gu Yunqing and Ye Miaozhu arrived just in time—Doctor Lin had just finished giving the child an injection. He told Ye Miaozhu to fetch the medicine from the pharmacy, and Gu Yunqing naturally pushed open the clinic’s half-open door fully.

Then, a thud came from the pharmacy—Ye Miaozhu, having just opened the door, collapsed onto the floor before everyone.

Ning Zhe watched silently: inside, Doctor Lin and the woman with the child were startled by Ye Miaozhu’s sudden fall; outside, Gu Yunqing slumped against the door he’d just opened, his body sliding down, breath gone.

Both were dead.

“So it’s true…” Ning Zhe’s suspicions were confirmed.

Just now, the moment arrived—Gu Yunqing and Ye Miaozhu from Hejia Village returned.

But they returned as corpses.

I wonder—when Feng Yu returns tonight at seven, will she be alive… or dead? (End of chapter)