Xin Yi opened her eyes slowly. She was in a cave, surrounded by complete darkness. Only a single match lit the area. Xin Yi tried to get up with some difficulty and looked around. There wasn't much to see-just a table not far from her and the stone bed she was lying on. She looked at herself: her left arm and leg were skillfully bandaged. She could move her right hand without any problems and felt pain when she tried to move her right leg, but that wasn't the main problem. The real problem was that her head felt empty; she had no memories of why she was there, nor who she was.
After a while, she stood up and walked to the table. There was a piece of paper and a tray with a bowl of some sort of medicine, dried food, and snacks. She picked up the paper and started reading it.
The letter began,
"Young girl, drink your medicine first. It will give you. Enough energy to return to your town. When you get out of the cave, go straight west, and when you see the road, go. North. It's not far..."
Xin Yi put down the paper and reached for the medicine bowl. When she touched it, she found it wasn't completely cold; there was a slight warmth. She drank it in one gulp and wrinkled her eyebrows.
"Eww... so bitter... yuck!"
Then, she looked at the cave entrance, smiled slightly, and
murmured, "Maybe that person left when he knew I would wake up soon and even told me the direction of my hometown. Had he already known I couldn't remember anything?"
Xin Yi picked up the paper again and continued reading:
"I left you a walking stick at the cave entrance. Your wounds have almost healed, and you will be fine
As for what happened to you and who you are, I don't know. An old friend brought this body here. At that time, she had already died. He asked me to call your soul back to be reborn in this body. He gave up his life for that, and I buried him here as he had wished. When you go down, you will be able to see his grave. He left you a letter and a box. I placed them next to his grave. Young girl, The direction of the town that I told you is the hometown of this body. She had a tragic fate, maybe because of this. My method of returning the soul this time worked. Not all people get a second chance in life like you do. Start a new life and be happy. I don't know if one day you will remember your memories; it all depends on your fate."
A buzzing wave goes through Xin Yi's head
"'This body'... 'save her soul'... 'second chance'... what does that mean?"
Did it mean she had already died once, and that the person who had brought her back to life was dead because of her? But why? Who was she to him?
After a while, she calmed down. She ate some food and drank some water, then tucked the paper into her sleeve and walked out of the cave. Halfway there, she turned around, went back to the table, and picked up all the dried apricots.
Outside the cave was a beautiful scene. The trees were green, and different kinds of flowers bloomed everywhere. Xin Yi thought that perhaps it was the first month of spring. She closed her eyes to take a deep breath, filling her lungs with the fresh fragrance of the flowers.
"Let's see what awaits me."
She started walking with the help of her walking stick. Fortunately, the cave was not located in a high place. When she reached the bottom, she saw a grave. The soil was not completely dry. A gravestone bore the inscription, "An old friend."
Xin Yi thought perhaps this person wasn't even willing to leave his name in this world-only that epitaph was buried with him.
What about her? What was his relationship to her?
Xin Yi picked up the box and the letter beneath it and began reading.
"I am not sorry for what happened. We were enemies; we had different paths and different ambitions. But two years after your death, I learned you were the only sister of that individual. I owe him my life, your brother. If I had known that, I would never have tried to hurt you for his sake, but I didn't know. Now, all I can do is ask my friend to do me a favour: bring you back to life. He said this is an old and dangerous method and requires a lot of energy. If I weren't injured, perhaps I could have survived,
But your soul could wait no longer. It would vanish, so I had one chance. I tried, and whether you returned or not, and whether you remember your past or not, is not my concern. I want to be able to tell him I truly tried to correct my mistake and repay your life by giving up mine. I found this young girl's body at the bottom of the cliff. She was already dead from blood loss, and I didn't know who she was. She only had the pendant I placed inside the box."
Xin Yi finished the letter, feeling conflicted. Someone gave up his life to bring her back to life, not because of her, but because of her brother, who had died long ago. Not only that, but this person might also be the culprit behind her death in her previous life. So, he was both her killer and her saviour.
She thought, since she didn't remember anything, she shouldn't think about it too deeply. She just bent down, looked directly at the tombstone, and said:
"Thank you, sir, for saving me."
Then she opened the box and looked inside. There were two things: one was a beautiful pendant, but it didn't look complete-it seemed like only part of it. The other was an old, red-scented sachet with the character (哥)on it. Xin Yi picked it up, looked at it carefully, and then sniffed it. There was only a very faint smell of azalea.
"'Maybe it's from my brother,' Xin Yi murmured to herself."
Xin Yi didn't go to the town directly. She went back to the cave because, firstly, she needed to completely recover, and secondly, she needed to think carefully before deciding anything. This time, she had enough time to look around the cave. Actually, there was a small river deep within it.
Xin Yi looked at her face in the river: almond eyes slightly upturned at the ends, a small, straight nose, and full, small pink lips, smooth white skin.
She touched her face and said to herself, "This face can bring a lot of trouble."
Then she remembered her saviour saying, "This body, found dead at the bottom of the cliff.
Who could be so cruel to someone so beautiful? Or did she do it herself? Was it homicide or suicide?"
Xin Yi had a lot of free time in the cave. She ate all the dried fruits, starting with apricots and ending with red bayberries.
Lying on the stone bed, wrapped in a blanket, she thought. She needed a beginning, so the best place to start was the original body's home and family. Since she had taken this body, she had to find out the truth about its death.
She had been thinking for too long-she didn't know when she had fallen asleep.
In her dream, she was falling from a cliff. She woke with a sudden jolt, heart pounding loudly beneath her hand. The cave was already bright.
She calmed down when she saw the ray of light streaming through the cave entrance.
"What a dream... Was that a memory? Or just this body reacting after a fall?" she wondered.
Xin Yi placed a hand on her chest and slowly steadied her breath.
She stood up and felt that her left leg was not hurting as before, and she felt much better. She washed her face in the river and collected her hair into a simple bun. She looked at her hair stick; it was broken, maybe because of the fall, but it still looked like an expensive piece, not simple. Xin Yi thought perhaps the original body's family was rich.
For the last time, she looked at the empty bowl of dried foods; there were only some heavily spiced dried radish pieces left, which she had almost died from coughing after one bite of it the night before.