"Head of the house, why isn’t Qianqian awake yet? I’m not going out to work today. I’ll stay home and watch our girl."
Jemima Sullivan looked sick with worry, her eyes red and swollen.
Yesterday afternoon, after school, her daughter, Josephine Sullivan, had gone up the hill to gather firewood. Who could’ve guessed she’d miss a step and roll right down the slope?
Good thing one of the educated youths saw it and rushed her to the clinic.
Every time Jemima thought of how her girl had looked yesterday—face covered in blood, skin white as paper, lying there without a sound—her heart felt like it was being sliced apart.
Godfrey Sullivan bent down and looked at the daughter lying on the kang. The little girl’s face was deathly pale. White gauze was wrapped around her forehead, and one patch had already been soaked through, red and dark with blood.
He let out a long sigh. "Alright. I’ll go to work. Don’t panic."
Outside in the yard, the gong calling people to the fields was clanging loud and sharp—"clang, clang"—pushing everyone to hurry up and earn their work points.
Godfrey Sullivan didn’t dare dawdle. He grabbed the hoe by the wall and headed out.
Seeing the thin layer of sweat on her daughter’s forehead, Jemima quickly wrung out a warm towel and carefully wiped her face.
A little later, she carried the earthenware basin and tiptoed out of the room.
Her footsteps faded farther and farther away. Only then did the Josephine Sullivan on the kang finally stir.
Her whole body felt limp, like she had no strength in it at all. Even moving a little took effort. Her eyelids were so heavy they felt packed with lead, and her head throbbed and spun, like something had smashed into it hard.
Little by little, her vision cleared.
Above her was a rough wooden frame, and dark gray roof tiles laid out neat and even.
Inside the room stood an old reddish cabinet, a table, and a chair. A few books were stacked on the table.
One wall was built from stones of all sizes piled together, with yellow mud still visible in the cracks. The other walls were made from nailed wooden planks.
Josephine froze for a second and looked around in a daze.
"Where is this? Some kind of farmhouse vacation experience?"
She had clearly been on a plane to France. She’d only closed her eyes for a nap. How had she opened them and ended up here?
She shook her foggy head, and right after that, wave after wave of strange memories poured into her mind like a mountain flood, washing away every bit of her confusion.
"I… crossed over!"
She had landed in the seventies, in a time when everything was scarce, where you needed certificates to go anywhere, ration tickets to buy things, and even filling your stomach was no easy matter!!
She’d just dozed off on a plane, and from a top-tier English interpreter in the twenty-first century, thirty-seven years old, she had turned into a fourteen-year-old village girl in Hongqi Village in 1975.
This girl had also been called Josephine Sullivan and was in fifth grade.
Yesterday, after school, she’d gone up the hill to gather firewood and accidentally stumbled onto a man and woman from the village hiding in a hollow, wrapped up in each other.
Those two had been going at it hot and heavy. She got so scared she turned and ran, slipped underfoot, and tumbled down the slope. Her forehead smashed against a rock, and she died on the spot.
When she opened her eyes again, the body was already carrying a different soul from decades later.
"Qianqian! My girl, you’re awake!"
A hoarse voice came over, rough but full of joy.
Josephine lifted her eyelids and saw a woman around thirty.
Her complexion was yellowish, and she wore a faded blue cloth jacket so washed out it had almost lost its color. There were several eye-catching patches sewn onto the cuffs and hem.
She didn’t know this face, yet a familiar warmth rose in her chest all the same, and the word slipped out of her mouth on its own:
"Mom?"
Jemima hurried over and helped her daughter sit up slowly.
"Does your head still hurt? You haven’t eaten all day. Hungry?"
When she saw her daughter staring straight at her, with a look like she was seeing her for the first time, Jemima couldn’t help asking again,
"What’s wrong? Why are you looking at me like that?"
Josephine’s heart tightened. She quickly looked away and didn’t dare meet her eyes, afraid somebody would notice the soul inside this body had already changed.
Jemima watched her daughter sit there in silence, acting strange, and started to feel uneasy.
Usually this girl was sweet-tongued and chatty. Why was she so wilted and dull today?