Chapter 100: The God Walking Toward Her

It was 1970, in the mountainous area of the Southwest, during a severe winter.

The thirteen-year-old her curled up in the corner of an earthen kang, holding her father's scalding hot hand.

Her father had been in a coma for a day. His lips were dry and peeling, and a terrifying wheezing sound came from his chest when he breathed.

Outside the window, the north wind howled like an evil ghost.

The only barefoot doctor had come half an hour ago. He felt her father's pulse, rolled up his eyelids to take a look, and finally just sighed heavily, shaking his head and leaving.

(TL: "Barefoot doctor" were farmers with minimal medical training who provided basic healthcare in rural China.)

Right before going out the door, facing little Shuyi who looked at him eagerly, he only left four words:

"Leave it to fate."

Then, it was a boundless, suffocating silence.

Only the sound of the wind, her father's difficult breathing, and the crazy drum-like beating of her own heart.

She didn't dare to cry.

Her tears had dried up long ago. From yesterday afternoon when her father collapsed headfirst onto the field ridge, her tears had dried up.

She just firmly held her father's hand, as if doing so could transfer her own vitality over.

Just when she felt she was also going to solidify and die together with this silence and coldness—

That voice, without any warning, clearly sounded in her deathly silent mind.

It didn't enter through her ears, but sounded directly in the depths of her consciousness.

Gentle, tranquil, carrying a strange rhythm that could smooth out all anxiety.

The thirteen-year-old her shuddered violently from fright, looking around the empty, dim, and dilapidated earthen house in panic.

Thinking that in extreme fear and exhaustion, she had finally produced auditory hallucinations on the verge of breaking down.

Then, she saw a beam of light.

No, not light.

It was an existence more... concrete than light.

It was a god wearing a sharp Mao suit, precipitating out from the rippling air, silently appearing in this dilapidated house permeated with the breath of death.

The thirteen-year-old Qin Shuyi forgot to breathe, forgot to blink.

Those large eyes of hers, due to days of fear and despair, widened roundly at this moment.

Reflected clearly in her pupils was that warm and holy halo, as well as that "god" who seemed to have walked out of a New Year painting.

He looked so... clean.

Completely incompatible with this dilapidated house, with her who was covered in dirt and ashes, and with her dying father.

This "god" slowly walked in front of her and leaned over slightly.

Then, a large semi-transparent hand condensed from warm light, carrying a reassuringly gentle halo, softly caressed her small head covered in dust, tear marks, and despair.

The touch... was warm.

Like a hot water bottle suddenly wrapping around freezing hands and feet on a winter night, like the first mouthful of hot porridge drunk when starving, like the blood flow felt again by a dying person.

That wave of warmth gently poured in from the Baihui acupoint on top of her head, instantly flowing through her limbs and bones, dispelling the bone-piercing coldness.

She wanted to reach out and touch him.

Stained with dirt and chilblains, her thin, small, and trembling fingers cautiously, carrying incomparable piety and awe, probed forward.

Her fingertips touched that warm halo.

And then... passed right through.

Like reaching into a patch of warm mist, warmth came from her fingertips, yet she couldn't grasp anything.

No texture of fabric, no touch of skin, no physical entity could be felt at all.

As expected!

He is not human!

He is a god!

It's the god with boundless magical power told in Grandma's stories! He came to help me! He really came to save Dad!

She abruptly withdrew her hands, both knees kneeling on the cold, hard dirt floor. Her dirty little hands clasped together in front of her chest, raising that small face covered in tear marks and dust.

Using all her strength, crying so hard she couldn't form words, she screamed hoarsely:

"I do! I want to! I beg you! God! Save my dad! Save him! I am willing to do anything! Letting me do anything is fine! Taking my life is fine too! I beg you! I beg you!"

"Okay."

The god nodded gently.

Then, he told her to go to the corner of the warehouse and find that scrapped old radio that had been dismantled until only the casing was left.

He taught her to identify those weirdly shaped electronic components, using picked-up iron wire and discarded needles asked from the clinic, assembling it bit by bit according to principles she completely couldn't understand.

Forty-eight hours, without sleep or rest.

Her fingers were cut, frozen stiff, and her eyes were red from staying awake.

The guards of the cadre school thought this child had gone crazy, talking to the air and fiddling with a pile of junk.

In the early hours of the third day, that laughably crude "machine" pieced together from junk actually displayed a faint yet regularly undulating waveform on its screen.

That was her father's heartbeat.

Immediately following, the god's voice sounded again.

At the same time, in the void before her, light and shadow slowly outlined the form of a plant—serrated leaves, deep purple vines, inconspicuous small white flowers, and a brown rhizome the thickness of a thumb buried deep in the soil.

The god told her:

"Go to the back mountain and find this kind of vine. Take its rhizome, wash it clean, slice it, and boil three bowls of water down to one bowl. Note, the rhizome is slightly toxic, it must be boiled for a full two shi-chen, to remove its toxicity and preserve its medicinal properties."

(TL: One shi-chen is a traditional Chinese time unit equal to two hours, so four hours total.)

Every detail was incomparably clear; she could even "see" the texture of the cross-section of the rhizome.

Like a drowning person grasping the last lifesaver—no, grasping a solid rope leading to the shore of survival personally handed over by a god—without the slightest hesitation, she rushed into the most bone-chilling wind and snow before dawn.

Relying on the "god's" meticulous description and the image in her mind, she indeed found that deep purple vine tenaciously surviving in the bitter cold in a shaded, snow-covered rock crevice on the back mountain.

Taking the root, smashing the ice surface of the freezing river to wash it clean, carefully slicing it with a rusty sickle head, lighting a cautious stove fire, guarding that only broken clay pot.

Four hours, not a minute off.

Her eyes red like a rabbit's from staying awake, staring firmly at the boiling brown medicinal juice in the pot, carefully controlling the faint flame in the stove.

When that bowl of medicinal soup, concentrated with all hope and emitting a peculiar bitter smell, was fed bit by bit into her father's dry and cracked lips...

A miracle happened.

That scarily hot temperature on her father's forehead began to slowly subside at a speed perceptible to the naked eye.

Although he hadn't woken up yet, the heaving of his chest obviously became deeper and more powerful, and that torturous wheezing sound significantly weakened.

At that moment, the thirteen-year-old Qin Shuyi knelt down before the earthen kang again, facing the void, heavily and piously kowtowed three resounding times.

Her forehead pressed against the cold, rough dirt floor, emitting three muffled "thud, thud, thud" sounds.

It hurt very much.

But that lamp named "faith" in her heart was completely ignited by this pain and the real miracle before her eyes.

From then on, it never went out again.

That "god" not only saved her father's life.

Even more so, in her subsequent long and gloomy cadre school years that seemed to never see an end, he became the...

Only light that illuminated her entire cold, barren, and suffocating world.

The only warmth.

The only god.

The cadre school years were long and gloomy.

During the day, it was heavy physical labor that made one unable to straighten their back, endless "ideological study" and criticism meetings.

At night, when everyone fell into deep sleep, when the north wind howled in the wilderness, when mice rustled in the corners...

Only then was her secret, true moment of redemption.

In the dead of night, like the strictest yet most learned, most patient yet most mysterious mentor, the god systematically taught her lessons.

No textbooks, no blackboards, no paper and pens.

All knowledge directly formed clear concepts and images in her mind.

From the most basic math, physics, and chemistry formulas to the frontiers of molecular biology that almost no one domestically was involved in at the time.

Like a dry sponge, she greedily absorbed everything.

Using picked-up cigarette box paper and waste newspapers to secretly record that era-surpassing knowledge, hiding them in cracks in the wall and under her pillow.

"God, why did you come to my side? Why did you choose... to help an inconspicuous little girl like me?"

She once asked timidly.

That voice fell silent for a moment and answered:

"Because this world needs you."

She was stunned.

"Your eyes inherently can 'see' the order of the microscopic world that others cannot see. Your mind possesses the talent to understand life's most exquisite and complex codes. And your heart..."

This pause made her heartbeat inexplicably miss a beat.

Then, she heard an unprecedented, extremely gentle intonation:

"Your heart is resilient enough to endure pressure and darkness unimaginable to ordinary people."

"And also... warm enough. Having witnessed the deepest malice and coldness, you are still willing to believe, to save, to give."

Finally, that sentence, like the most ancient prophecy, and also like the most solemn entrustment, was deeply branded into her thirteen-year-old, not-yet-fully-formed soul:

"I, on behalf of those who will be saved by your knowledge, your hands, your benevolent heart in the future..."

"Thank you in advance."

She knelt alone by the earthen kang, unable to move for a long time.

That sentence repeatedly echoed, collided, and reverberated in her empty chest, stirring up infinite power.

It was no longer an illusory oracle.

It became a contract.

Became a lighthouse.

Became the most solid foundation stone supporting her through decades of wind and rain, bumps, glory, and loneliness in the future.