Chapter 2: Reborn

A child’s urgent and immature voice echoed in his ears.

Chen Qiao, still dazed, hadn’t fully reacted to the strange car crash incident, when suddenly, a basketball flew towards him, hitting his face.

Unable to steady himself, he stumbled backward, and the world spun upside down.

“Chen Qiao, hurry and dodge, quick…”

His face hurt, and so did the back of his head.
 
The sky was blue with white clouds, dust rising around him, and the sound of a basketball hitting the ground, along with the noise of children playing, chattering and making loud sounds, which was almost as noisy as being in an elementary school.

 “By the way, Xinyu, Xinyu, are you okay?”

Chen Qiao suddenly sat up and looked around blankly, reaching out with his hands to grab at the air.

He was on the school’s large playground, a cement basketball court, a peeling basketball hoop, rusty single and double poles, and the teaching building, which was deemed a dangerous building, still hadn’t been demolished, with green windows and white walls.

A pair of delicate, fair hands waved in front of his eyes.

“Hey, Chen Qiao, can you still hear me? I’m fine, you should take care of yourself first. Do you want to go to the infirmary? Or to the hospital? Is your head alright? You didn’t hit it too badly, did you?”
 
Chen Qiao instinctively grabbed the trembling hand, using it as support to wobble to his feet.
 
It was slippery, with a slight sweat on his palm.
 
“Ah!”
 
The girl quickly pulled her hand back.
 
The sharp cry snapped Chen Qiao out of his daze, and he blinked, regaining some clarity, his gaze falling on the girl in front of him.

She was wearing a red and white elementary school uniform, a red scarf around her neck, and her bangs were wet with sweat, sticking messily to her forehead.

She had an oval face, her cheeks were flushed red, her small mouth slightly open, and her petite chest rose and fell with her rapid breaths.

Her starry, deep eyes were filled with panic, and her left hand was tightly holding the right hand that had just touched Chen Qiao, clearly concerned.

She looked somewhat familiar.

She was a classmate from elementary school, the daughter of a middle school teacher, an excellent student, always winning awards like her sister, her name was Wu Xinyu.

The sound of her name was similar to his niece’s.

He had never noticed it before, but in their rural area, the most common surnames were those of the big families, and many of the parents had limited education.

There were many people with the same name.

For example, there were three people with the same name as his sister in their grade, and the teacher’s parent contact book even had labels like

“Number One,” “Number Two,” and “Number Three.”

“Blood, Chen Qiao, you’re bleeding!”

Wu Xinyu pointed to her nose.
 
“Oh…”
 
Chen Qiao wiped his nose with his hand.

His small palm was covered in blood.

He had initially thought it was just winter snot, but it turned out to be a nosebleed.

Chen Qiao tilted his head back, squinting against the glaring sun, and raised his left arm to cover his nose, asking, “Does anyone have a tissue? Or something else I can use to stop the bleeding?”

“Tissues, tissues, I left my tissues in the classroom.”
 
Wu Xinyu patted the pocket of her school pants, finding only loose change.

Since they were about to have PE, her keys and other things had been left in the desk drawer.

She then turned to ask other classmates for tissues, loudly calling out, “Does anyone have tissues? Chen Qiao has a nosebleed!”

Although domestic tissue companies started booming in the late ’80s and early ’90s, not every elementary student carried a small packet of pink tissues.

Many families still used the cheapest rough paper for wiping, and if they had the money, they would buy snacks instead.

“Handkerchief… Is that okay?”

A weak voice came from nearby, soft enough to be drowned out by the noise on the playground.
 
“Of course, thank you so much.”
 
“No need to thank me.”

Chen Qiao reached out towards the source of the voice, squinting to make out the face but only seeing a blurred figure.

He seemed to have bumped into someone’s arm and chest, and then a handkerchief was placed directly in his hand.

Luckily, Chen Qiao managed to grab it before the wind could blow it away.

He clumsily stuffed the handkerchief into his nose and ran toward the restroom.

The oldest teaching building in the school didn’t have any restrooms, only the large public restroom by the playground.

The squat toilet there was so poorly maintained that people would sometimes fall into the pit.

“Chen Qiao, tissues…”

Wu Xinyu, having finally borrowed some tissues, ran back excitedly but saw no sign of Chen Qiao.

Only bloodstains remained on the ground.

She silently put the tissues into her pocket, hiding her right hand behind her back, her face flushed in the sunlight.

Chen Qiao turned on the faucet and washed the blood off his palms and nose, splashing some cool water onto his forehead.

Now he could finally calm down and think about his situation.

Was this a rebirth?

The pain in his head and face seemed to scream that it wasn’t a dream.

First, he needed to gather his thoughts and assess the situation.

It was now May 4th, 2009, a Monday afternoon, and he was currently a sixth-grade student in elementary school, with just over a month left until graduation.

The family tragedy would happen on February 10th of the next year, just before the New Year.

His father, as usual, was driving a dump truck to carry bricks when a drunk driver on a motorcycle rear-ended him.

The family of four in the other car died instantly, leaving only the elderly members in his family.

Holding the other party responsible was difficult, especially since the family had no connections.

His father’s truck had serious overload issues and some damaged equipment, and they were held accountable for those problems.

In the end, they were either fined 980,000 yuan or sentenced to three years in prison.

This was an astronomical amount of money.

At the time, real estate prices in Pengcheng were only around 14,000 yuan per square meter.

Despite the government’s efforts to control the market, the prices continued to rise, eventually breaking 20,000 and 50,000 yuan per square meter.

The family’s savings, plus money borrowed by his mother and the sale of her wedding rings, jewelry, and insurance, still wasn’t enough.

Eventually, his father was sentenced to two years.

Afterward, his father changed drastically, becoming an alcoholic and a gambler.

Before, he was just a smoker, but now he was a wreck, spending all the money on gambling.

He even owed a huge amount of debt, and before the New Year, people would come to their house demanding payment.

Meanwhile, his mother, who was holding the family together, went to work in the endocrine department at the city hospital to earn a higher salary.

After working 18 hours straight, she collapsed during her rounds and, despite efforts to save her, passed away due to ruptured blood vessels.

It wasn’t until his mother’s death that his father started to regain his composure, but he became even more dependent on alcohol, to the point where he couldn’t sleep without it.

In Chen Qiao’s first year of college, his father died from alcohol poisoning, leaving just Chen Qiao, his sister, and Xinyu to rely on each other.

Now, everything was still in his control.

First, he needed to avoid repeating the car accident.

The incident had not only drained their savings but also altered his father’s character due to the prison sentence.

But it seemed impossible to get his dad to change careers.

He was the head of the family, and his authoritarian attitude was common for that generation.

He had been driving a dump truck for over twenty years, and could honestly say he didn’t know anything except driving.

After the financial crisis, there was a large investment in infrastructure construction in the country, and the new rural construction was in full swing.

Many migrant workers sent money back home to rebuild their properties.

It was a golden era for truck drivers like his father, who made good money.

The roads were always dangerous, but that couldn’t stop people from continuing to work.

The person who was more ridiculous was the drunk driver on the motorcycle who was carrying his wife and kids.

He ruined two families with his actions.

That day, he had been coming home from a banquet when the incident occurred.

The details of whether it was a wedding or funeral were unclear, but his children should have been twin daughters.

Aside from stopping his father from going on the road on the day of the incident, he could sabotage his father’s tires first and then try to prevent the motorcycle driver’s family from going on the road.

If someone was drunk, they should stay home and rest, not drive and cause harm to others.

Overloading, not wearing helmets, and risking his life along with his children—he should have been more careful.

Then, there was his mother’s illness.

If the family had not faced a crisis, if there had been no debt pressure, and with his father still the backbone of the family, Chen Qiao could have used his rebirth knowledge to easily make some money.

When he wrote rebirth novels in the past, he had done a lot of research and thought about it.

He never expected to actually use this knowledge in real life.

But his mother was naturally hard-working and could never sit still.

Even when there was nothing to do, she would find work for herself.

She would raise chickens and ducks, grow vegetables, and even stay in the garden until dark.

In earlier years, the family had raised pigs.

Chen Qiao and his sister would often help prepare pig feed, working tirelessly every day.

When the price of pork dropped, they couldn’t even break even.

After many repeated pleas from Chen Qiao and his sister, his mother finally gave up raising pigs.

If his father had been the one to persuade her, they would have argued instead.

He had an idea now.

What if his mother got pregnant and went into confinement?

He could have a little sister to play with, and during the prenatal checkup, they could also
check if his mother had any other health issues.

She couldn’t work too hard during the pregnancy.

It would be a win-win situation.

His mother was a doctor, and if he suggested she go for a full checkup at a big hospital, she would definitely say it was a waste of money and refuse to go.

She was a doctor herself and knew her body better than anyone.

She planned to get a checkup when she joined a hospital in the county or city later on.

His mother had the potential to work at a better hospital, but she stayed in the countryside because Chen Qiao was still young.

Both siblings were attending school in the countryside.

When his excellent sister went to high school in the city, his mother probably would have followed her, leaving Chen Qiao and his father behind.

But after the accident, his mother went to the city early to find a job…

Now that he had been reborn, he had to change all of this.

Chen Qiao clenched his fist and swore that he would become the worst of the worst and would not live his life in vain anymore.