Beidahuang, March 1970.
The last of winter still had its claws out. The woods and hills lay buried in snow, silent as a grave. Victor Ashford trudged along the snowy path back to the village, one foot deep, one foot shallow.
"Waa... waa..."
A faint baby's cry drifted into his ears. His dead, empty eyes flickered. He stopped short and froze where he stood.
Sounded like a child crying?
"No way. It's this late, and it's still snowing..."
Victor Ashford shook his head and let out a bitter little laugh. "What, because Iris is gone, I've lost my mind too?"
He said that, but his feet still turned on their own, following the crying.
"Waa... waa..."
The sound grew clearer. In an instant, the grief, numbness, and despair that had wrapped around him for days were blown apart. A wild burst of joy slammed straight into his chest.
A baby. There really was a baby!
He followed the sound and rushed like a madman toward an old pine not far off. One glance, and he saw it—a thin swaddle tucked into a hollow of snow.
Inside lay a little baby girl, only a few days old. Her cheeks were red from the cold, her lips tinged pale purple, but her eyes were wide open, clear and bright.
Sensing someone near, she gave a weak flutter of her tiny arms and legs. Her icy little hand stretched forward in the air, and the soft little sounds she made were small and pitiful.
Victor Ashford's chest tightened and warmed at the same time. Bitterness and joy tangled together so fiercely his eyes went red on the spot.
With trembling hands, he carefully lifted the swaddle into his arms and pressed it hard against his chest, shielding that tiny life with his own body heat.
Wrapped in warmth, the little one quieted right away. Her small head rubbed lightly against his coat, obedient and heartbreakingly good.
He didn't dare waste a second. Hugging the child tight, he turned and ran straight for Qinghe Commune Hospital.
All the weariness and dejection from before vanished. The wind seemed to rise under his feet, and out of nowhere his whole body was filled with strength he couldn't use up.
Three days ago, his own baby girl, little Iris, who had only just reached one month old, died.
There were already two boys in the family. He had waited year after year before finally getting a soft little daughter, the kind you treasured in your palm and feared to even breathe on too hard.
No one had expected that Lily Ashford, his elder brother's six-year-old girl, would sneak a cooked peanut into little Iris's mouth while the adults weren't looking.
A newborn's throat was so delicate. The baby choked on the spot, her face turning blue-purple, unable to breathe.
The whole family ran like mad to the commune clinic, but in the end, they still couldn't save her.
His wife, Margaret Ashford, had only just given birth. She was weak to begin with, and when she watched her own daughter die with her own eyes, she fainted from grief right there.
After waking up, she cried all day and all night, refused food and water.
In just three days, the woman who used to be soft and full-faced had withered down to skin and bone. Her eye sockets sank in, her gaze went dead, and her whole body looked like frost-burned grass left lying in the field. She stayed flat on the bed without moving, like even the will to live was almost gone.
Victor Ashford had come back to the village alone this time to pack some clean clothes and scrape together a little more money, hoping he could stay at the hospital longer with his wife and pull her back from the edge.
He never expected to pick up an abandoned baby girl.
With this child, his wife might still be saved.
In the commune hospital ward, the yellow light was weak and dim.