Chapter 1: Thunderstorm

Chapter 1: Chapter 1: Thunderstorm

Mo Xiaoman was suffocating in the water. The moment she broke the surface, she gasped desperately for air. To make matters worse, the rain was pouring down, and the huge raindrops pelted her so hard she nearly suffocated all over again. She felt dizzy and detached, as if nothing was real. The ROARING of the rain filled her ears. Hearing someone shout, she forced her eyes open to see the person holding her above the water. ’Is that... Uncle Man Cang?’

"Xiao Man, how are you? Are you okay? You silly girl! The wind is howling and the rain is coming down hard. There’s not a soul in sight. Couldn’t you have waited for the rain to stop at the mill before crossing the bridge? Falling into the river like that... if I hadn’t happened to be walking along the bank to check on my fish traps, you would’ve drowned for sure!"

Uncle Man Cang sputtered out rainwater as he yelled. Seeing that Mo Xiaoman could still open her mouth to cough repeatedly, he figured she wasn’t seriously hurt. He tossed her onto a stone slab on the bank and paid her no more mind, running off to check on the fish trap he’d placed in a crack between the rocks.

Mo Xiaoman, however, was stunned. She looked all around, the shock in her heart beyond description.

’Am I dreaming? Why am I dreaming of this scene?’

This was the great river of her hometown, a place she knew like the back of her hand. The rickety wooden bridge, the mills on both banks, the large windmill, the jagged rocks, the thickets of shrubs and bamboo along the riverbank... ’That’s right! It was that summer. I was in a hurry to get home and recklessly tried to cross the suspension bridge alone despite the downpour. The torrential rain left me so dazed I couldn’t tell the sky from the ground. I lost my footing and tumbled off the bridge, and the swift current sent me tumbling head over heels. Luckily, Uncle Man Cang, on his way home from work, happened to walk by the river to check the fish traps he’d set the night before. He saw a child fall from the bridge and quickly waded into the river to intercept me, pulling me out of the water!’

’Yes! This was it! She had fallen into the raging river during the storm, and Uncle Man Cang had saved her!’

Mo Xiaoman looked down. She saw the body of a thin, scrawny little girl, like a bean sprout. Her outstretched hands were just skin and bones, like a chicken’s feet. Her palms were covered in calluses, and her fingernails were caked with black dirt... She pinched her thigh hard. It hurt!

’This isn’t a dream? I’m alive in 1977?!’

’But I clearly went through so much, endured countless hardships, and didn’t die until the summer of 2012... Could that whole experience have been the dream?’

While she was lost in a daze, Uncle Man Cang returned with the fish trap on his back. It seemed he hadn’t caught anything. With a sullen face, he didn’t even glance at Mo Xiaoman. He walked steadily up toward the high bank. Only after he was some distance away did he turn back and yell at her:

"You think the rain can’t kill you? Hurry up and get home! It’s about to start thundering!"

The last time this happened, the sharp-tongued Uncle Man Cang had yelled just like that, and Mo Xiaoman had obediently stood up and followed him home.

But this time, she didn’t move. Perhaps it was psychological. She no longer felt like a child. She had lived into her forties, older than the current Uncle Man Cang. She felt she had the right to make her own decisions, to follow her own heart and continue sitting there in a daze, trying to sort through her thoughts and make sense of everything.

Uncle Man Cang’s figure quickly vanished into the curtain of rain. As if to prove his words, the thunder and lightning truly arrived.

In the sky, as black as ink, streaks of lightning flashed one after another like fireworks. The blinding white light was followed by a deafening CRACK. Mo Xiaoman clearly saw a string of glowing red fireballs plummet from the sky, striking an old maple tree about twenty or thirty paces away. That maple tree was said to be a hundred years old, its branches and leaves still lush as it stood tall by the great river. People crossing the river often liked to rest in its shade. Now, in a single instant, more than half of the maple’s magnificent canopy was blasted away by the lightning, revealing a bare trunk with wisps of green smoke rising from it...

Mo Xiaoman saw the lightning, then the thunder-fire. Her eyes were dazzled, and her ears seemed to have gone deaf. She couldn’t see or hear anything clearly. She felt as if her entire body was caught in a net of fine electrical currents, as if a bolt of lightning could strike her at any moment!

’After experiencing so many tragic events, and then dying inexplicably on a high-speed train, I never thought I’d wake up again, back in 1977! This is so bizarre, but also incredibly rare, isn’t it? People talk about things that happen once in a century, but this must be a once-in-a-millennium event!’

Even though Mo Xiaoman was somewhat numb, she couldn’t help but feel a surge of fear. ’Since I’m alive, then being alive is a good thing. I don’t want to die!’

’Besides, getting struck by lightning would be a horrible, ugly way to go!’

’And another thing—Uncle Man Cang risked his life jumping into that raging river to save me. If I die again, forget everything else, I’d be letting him down. Saving a life is a meritorious deed. It would be completely wrong to just throw that away!’