Chapter 141
How long can a person retain consciousness after death?
This was a difficult question to answer accurately due to the lack of substantial reference data and the inability to calculate an average.
Based on Cheng Tingyan’s personal experience, it was about 2-3 minutes.
From excruciating pain to nothingness, it was just a moment, then the screams and panicked voices of the people around her… Based on the average speaking speed of 200 words per minute, she heard them for about two minutes.
Dying in a car accident… wasn’t pretty.
Those surrounding sounds also confirmed how terrible the scene was.
It was ironic, before deciding to meet, Cheng Tingyan had hesitated so much.
Would that person be angry that she hid the fact that she was a public figure?
Would that person mind the “dark history” still lingering on the internet?
Would that person believe that her words were true, not just for sympathy?
Would that person… possibly like her, the way she liked them…
Too much hesitation and uncertainty became procrastination. Year after year, she finally mustered the courage to take this step.
But why couldn’t one know when the final full stop would be drawn!
The sudden ending rendered all her previous patience, struggles, and waiting meaningless!
In the very end, Cheng Tingyan’s wish was… that the person would stand her up, wouldn’t show up, wouldn’t see her current, terrible state.
Of course, Cheng Tingyan soon realized that the wishes of someone who was always disappointed in life wouldn’t be granted even after death.
It was strange.
Her body, no longer feeling any pain, empty, only a sliver of hearing remaining… When that hand reached out, her hand seemed to regain consciousness, she clearly felt the trembling coldness and the desperate grip from the hand holding hers.
Before falling into endless darkness, Cheng Tingyan really wanted to open her eyes and take one last look.
It was that person, right? The person she could finally meet, the person she wanted to have a future with…
Such a pity.
She couldn’t see them anymore.
She didn’t even hear a single sound.
They must be terrified, she was truly sorry… Little Cookie.
Dying young, with unfulfilled ambitions, the pain and regret were like sharp blades piercing her heart and soul, even death couldn’t remove them.
Endless darkness… a bit cold?
A damp… earthy scent?
Footsteps and voices mixed together, slightly noisy, under the fabric pressed against her right hand was a rapidly beating heart, her left hand… seemed to be holding something soft and warm, something that was moving!
The world after death felt so real that Cheng Tingyan was startled, she instinctively let go of her left hand and took a step back.
Mmm? She could still move?
“Okay, okay, it was a power outage!”
An unfamiliar voice, unclear words, came from afar, and with it… a sudden burst of light.
Bright, dazzling, blinding, her delayed senses, carrying the memories of two lifetimes, returned.
“Yan Yan, are you okay?” Wei Maomao asked, one hand shielding her eyes, which were tearing up from the sudden light, the other hand reaching out to the person who had just let go of her hand.
“… “ Cheng Tingyan, biting her lip, swallowed her unspoken panic, she forced herself to speak calmly, “I’m fine.”
A childish, soft voice, with a girl’s clarity.
The voice coming from her own mouth sounded so unfamiliar yet familiar… Just like the memories that were suddenly stuffed into her mind.
Cheng Tingyan felt that she… had been reborn?
Was it… true?
Usually, memories faded with time.
Just like a twenty-four-year-old, recalling things from before they were six, except for the deeply ingrained ones, the rest should have faded with time.
The Cheng Tingyan from before was like that too.
But the current Cheng Tingyan was clearly different.
The things she had long forgotten from before she was six, big and small, important and insignificant, she remembered many of them.
She could confirm that those were indeed things she had experienced.
Except…
The life that should have been a straight line had forked before she returned.
Before the fork, her clear memories were the same as what she had experienced in her previous life.
The fork was a few days before the official filming of “Where’s Baby Going” Season 3, when the program team announced the addition of two families and changed the format from pre-recorded to live broadcast.
After the fork, everything was vastly different from her previous life.
Shi Dingshan was fine, Jin Youliang didn’t become the head director, he was still an assistant director, they added two families, changed it to live broadcast, the locations and tasks were all different…
Cheng Rongrong didn’t become the beloved little sister, Shen Zilin and Wen Dongyu didn’t treat Cheng Rongrong differently, always by her side, Wen Jiangyue wasn’t discouraged by comparison, and she… wasn’t isolated, wasn’t hated, she even got along well with the other children?
In her previous life, when Cheng Tingyan was reading scripts, she had also seen some about rebirth. The protagonists in those stories would always be reborn at a crucial point in their past, then they would change their lives, make up for their regrets, and walk a new and better path.
Back in the light, this air-raid shelter looked much cleaner than in her previous life, the setup was also very different.
But it was still the same shelter, and the task… half of it was still the same.
Cheng Tingyan admitted that this time and place was indeed a crucial point in her previous life. But… Why now? Those bad days, she had already overcome them, what she wanted now wasn’t to change her childhood, but…
Cheng Tingyan, realizing when she had returned to, only wanted to go back to the few minutes before that car accident, just a few minutes of change, and she could end that long wait.
From now until she met Little Cookie, wouldn’t it be another ten years?
Why bother!
She had only walked on this forked path for a little over a week, before Cheng Tingyan could even process it, the massive influx of new information made her dizzy.
But the thought of being reborn was just a fleeting moment, the feeling of unfamiliarity with the memories was just a brief instant.
Ink dropped into water, only for a moment could one see the darkness entering the clear water, then it dispersed, becoming one with the water, no longer distinguishable, as if it had always been like this.
The soft, warm, and comforting collision was her embrace.
The childish, soft-spoken words of justice were to defend her from injustice.
The diligent chubby hands, scattering blessing after blessing of cilantro for her.
The puffed-up cheeks were from eating the food she didn’t like, the food others gave her.
She shared a bowl of unappetizing mush, the roughness of the pig tooth when she snatched back the little chubby bunny’s foot still lingered in her hand, they exposed the scam together, sold candied tomatoes and cucumbers together, worked together, and together… planned her future.
That was the boundless starlight she, the six-year-old her who had somehow walked onto a different path, received.
That was the peace and happiness the six-year-old her couldn’t even imagine.
No, that was the miraculous little chubby bunny the six-year-old her had!
The memories of a little over a week merged into the sea of her twenty-four-year memories, like ink in water, inseparable.
“It suddenly went dark just now, I was startled and let go of your hand, did I scare you?” Cheng Tingyan asked softly, taking a step to the left, gently holding the little chubby paw that she had let go of earlier, thinking she had died.
Wei Maomao shook her head. She wasn’t sure, during the few seconds when the lights came back on, that seemingly unfamiliar Yan Yan, was it just her imagination? It should be… It was the familiar Yan Yan again now.
Obedient, soft, warm… Almost instantly, a sense of peace filled her heart, Cheng Tingyan, whose mind had just caught up with her body, instinctively tightened her grip on the little chubby paw.
It was this warmth that could temporarily suppress even the most intense resentment and anger.
At this point in time, there were indeed things she could do.
Cheng Tingyan glanced at the little chubby bunny, whose hand she was holding tightly.
A person’s life, it couldn’t just deviate without a reason, right? The different path she had taken before this moment, why?
Was it… because someone else had been reborn before her?
Was it Shi Dingshan, who changed the locations, tasks, and even the format of the show, and was still the head director?
Was it Wang Qingchuan, who suddenly joined the show? Or Wei Chengli?
Was it Qin Sichao, who didn’t appear in her previous life, but seemed to be part of the crew this time? Or Jiang Heye? Ni Jinyan?
There were too many suspects who deviated from her previous life’s trajectory, now that the power was back on, and the staff were urging them to continue with the task, Cheng Tingyan didn’t have time to think.
Anyway…
Cheng Tingyan naturally squeezed the little chubby paw in her hand, this bed-wetting cutie could be ruled out, Wang Zhizhi, who was so excited about playing laser tag that he almost jumped to the ceiling… he didn’t seem like it either.
Actually, the person Cheng Tingyan suspected the most was Wei Chengli.
This forked path she was on, it was smooth and safe, a completely different kind of happiness compared to the hardships of her previous life. The person who was willing to change her life must have good intentions.
Among these suspects, the only one she had some interaction with in her previous life was Wei Chengli, whom she had chatted with a few times on set.
And during this time, the one who had been protecting her, standing up for her, was this little chubby bunny from the Wei family.
Then it was highly likely that Wei Chengli was the one who taught her to help, that’s why she kept saying “My dad said…”
The more Cheng Tingyan thought about it, the more it made sense, she couldn’t help but tighten her grip on the chubby paw. It must have been hard on you, little baby, still wetting the bed, and already having to fight bad people for other children…
It was fine now, she was back, she could do it herself.
Now, it was her turn to protect the little chubby bunny.
Whether the person who returned first and helped her was Wei Chengli or not, she had been taught by him a few times in her previous life, and she had received so much kindness from this little chubby bunny in this life, she would definitely try her best to prevent the accident a few years later that would make them lose their loved ones.
But now…
She would start by exposing this “accident.”
For the viewers in the live broadcast room, the few new windows on the live stream page, showing the babies’ movements inside the air-raid shelter from different fixed camera angles, it was just because of a sudden power outage that switched them to night vision mode, for less than a minute.
No one knew that during that less than a minute, a soul from the future had returned.
Bai Lei, who was drinking red wine and watching the live broadcast early in the morning, her face full of anticipation for a good show, naturally didn’t know either.
Looking at the two little ones, hand in hand, being led deeper and deeper into the air-raid shelter by the staff, Bai Lei chuckled and finished the red wine in her glass in one gulp.
There was even a power outage, making her worry that the plan would be ruined.
Thankfully, it was still going according to plan.
Bai Lei put down her wine glass, she impatiently answered the phone next to her, which had been ringing for a while, while keeping her eyes on the live broadcast.
“What?” Bai Lei asked, annoyed.
Zhang Jin, on the other end of the phone, was speechless, his tone also worsened. “What do you mean ‘what’? Who was the one who kept calling me yesterday, asking me to arrange a meeting? And now you’re asking me ‘what’? Liu Qiongfang is available to meet at noon today, she has mobility issues, I booked a private room at the restaurant downstairs from her place, it’s almost noon now, and you’re only answering the…”
“Oh, right now, it’s not convenient.” Bai Lei said, refilling her wine glass, she looked at the two little ones on the screen, who had been led to their starting positions by the staff and were about to start their laser tag and treasure hunt, she smiled. “You tried to arrange a meeting all day yesterday and couldn’t give me a definite answer, I thought you had other plans.” And I also have other plans now.
“What do you mean?” Zhang Jin asked, frowning. “You don’t want to clear Cheng Feiying’s name anymore? You’re not meeting Liu Qiongfang?”
“Meet… I still have to meet her.” Bai Lei said slowly. “But not now, I also have important things to watch… Mmm, to do. How about this, this afternoon, if she’s still in the mood.”
After saying that, Bai Lei sneered and hung up the phone.
Yes, if Liu Qiongfang was still in the mood after seeing her daughter in the same state, ha.
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