Chapter 1: Miraculous Survival
The scorching heat of July descended upon Meng City as expected, driving people to distraction.
A serious traffic accident that occurred a week ago on the highway leading out of the city remained the focus of attention: a pile-up involving more than ten vehicles, resulting in dozens of casualties.
Besides the lamentations and regrets for the lost lives, the most talked-about topic was Shen Yiqiu, the miraculously surviving passenger, and the sole survivor, from the Mercedes-Benz at the very center of the collision.
Before this accident, Shen Yiqiu was just an ordinary high school student who had just finished the college entrance exam and embarked on a short trip with her parents for the summer vacation. A sudden disaster struck, and now, lying in the cold hospital ward, Shen Yiqiu had become an orphan, both her parents deceased.
The ward was quiet, with occasional footsteps approaching, but they only stopped by the bedside to change Shen Yiqiu’s dressings and check her injuries. Like a puppet, she had been lying here for a week, still unconscious.
When she was carried out of the ambulance, the doctors and nurses waiting at the hospital entrance were stunned. Covered in blood, Shen Yiqiu was similar yet different from the other injured brought in. Her clothes were stained with blood, but upon closer inspection, it was easy to see that her face was almost uninjured, and her body only had wounds on her arm.
“This child is lucky. She only suffered minor injuries in such a serious car accident,” Officer Liu, the traffic policeman in charge of the escort, breathed a sigh of relief, speaking softly to his colleague.
“But her parents…” His colleague, a recent recruit, whose legs had been trembling at the accident scene, trailed off.
“Parents will always protect their children first. If she can survive, her parents will be gratified.” Officer Liu patted the young colleague’s shoulder and turned to walk away.
He had already heard from the doctor that the child was not in immediate danger. A series of detailed examinations were needed to determine whether her internal organs and brain had been injured in the crash.
Seeing that his colleague was slow to follow, as if unwilling to leave, Officer Liu called out in a deep voice, “Xiao Chen, there’s still a lot to do tonight. Let’s get to work.”
The person who had been peering into the emergency room finally snapped back to attention and hurried after him, replying, “I really hope that child can survive. It’s so rare to pull someone out completely intact from such a horrific accident scene!”
Officer Liu kept walking but agreed with Xiao Chen’s words.
“By the way, what was that child’s name again?” Xiao Chen asked, trying to recall. The accident scene was so chaotic that he couldn’t remember the victim’s name for a moment.
“Shen Yiqiu.”
**
Shen Yiqiu was undoubtedly lucky. After a thorough physical examination, the attending physician looked at the report, shaking his head and sighing, “This is truly a blessing in disguise. No serious external injuries, and no internal injuries either.”
Yet, she remained inexplicably unconscious for a week, with no signs of waking up. The attending physician made his rounds once a day, and the rest of the time she was mainly cared for by two nurses.
“When do you think she’ll wake up?” The younger nurse replaced the IV bag with a new one filled with glucose.
The nurse on the other side performed a basic check on Shen Yiqiu, already accustomed to the question.
“Who knows? The examination results show no serious injuries, yet she’s still sleeping.”
The nurse who had changed the IV bag looked around, then leaned over the bed, lowering her voice, “Do you think there’s something strange going on? There are all sorts of speculations online. Some people even said they were passing by and saw a strong light sweep across the accident scene.”
“Do you believe what they say online?” The other nurse seemed a bit surprised, pausing before asking in return.
“I didn’t believe it at first, but seeing Shen Yiqiu like this every day, clearly fine but still unconscious, and then reading those theories online when I get home… it’s hard not to believe.”
The two young nurses chatted more animatedly, standing shoulder to shoulder at the foot of the bed, exchanging the various versions of rumors they had seen online, completely oblivious to the fact that the person lying in the bed was the very subject of their discussion.
“Ahem, we must believe in science. Even if we can’t explain the reason for the patient’s continued coma for the time being, we cannot easily believe those superstitious rumors, and even more so, we cannot spread them.”
The attending physician walked in, and the young nurses quickly returned to their respective positions. It seemed that Shen Yiqiu wouldn’t be waking up today either.
After the doctor and nurses left the ward, silence returned. The air conditioner continued to run, separating this place from the hot and restless summer outside.
Shen Yiqiu opened her eyes, slowly adjusting to the light in the darkened environment. Her head still ached dully, but she bit her lip, not making a sound.
She had actually regained consciousness three days ago, but she couldn’t open her eyes or speak. She could perceive and hear the doctors and nurses entering and exiting the ward every day, performing their checks, and the nurses’ conversations by her bedside.
The moment she regained consciousness, she thought she was dreaming after death, and for a moment, she felt a strange sense of joy. Because she knew very well that her last days in her previous life were miserable. She had lost her personal freedom, her dignity, and had almost ceased to be Shen Yiqiu.
But now she was reborn in a hospital, back at the crucial moment when her fate took a turn. She didn’t have time to rejoice at how much heaven favored her, giving her a second chance at life, nor did she have time to grieve the loss of her parents, although she had suffered for years because of it in her previous life.
Now, all she could think about was how to change her upcoming fate and cherish this hard-won opportunity for rebirth.
Although Shen Yiqiu never understood when her scientifically-minded father had incurred such huge debts in her previous life, debts that led to her losing all her dignity to repay them. She also never expected that her parents’ old classmate, who had rushed from a city thousands of miles away to take care of her, would do so to obtain the inheritance her parents left her. To be precise, a priceless but currently illiquid intellectual property patent.
It was truly a headache. A thousand thoughts raced through her mind, but she still couldn’t think of a solution. The Shen family was small; the older generation had passed away when Shen Yiqiu was very young, and now her parents were gone, leaving only some distant relatives.
Her parents were both dedicated to academic research and usually indifferent to social interactions. The only person they occasionally interacted with was her relatively young maternal uncle.
But he loved adventure travel and spent more than half the year traveling around, his whereabouts uncertain. In addition, she had heard he had suffered a heartbreak two years ago and had been wandering around even more, never staying home.
After thinking about it, there was no one she could rely on, but there were quite a few people eyeing her covetously.
Shen Yiqiu was born into a scholarly family. Her parents and ancestors were intellectuals, treating others with courtesy and sincerity. She had been well-protected since childhood. Although she excelled in her studies, she was similar to her parents in terms of social skills: she wasn’t good at socializing, nor did she disdain flattery.
If it weren’t for that traffic accident, Shen Yiqiu would have followed the life path her parents had planned for her without worry: attending the top university in the country, then studying abroad for further education, and returning to contribute to the nation after graduation.
Before her death in her previous life, she had unexpectedly learned that the car accident was not an accident. Her parents had been deliberately murdered, and the so-called pile-up was just a cover-up!
A fire ignited within her, anger gradually rising, and Shen Yiqiu realized that a kind of power was accumulating within her body. This feeling was unfamiliar to her, and she dared not act rashly, so she lay still, waiting for her emotions to calm down.
After a while, the anger subsided. But that strange feeling remained, taking over, becoming distinct and powerful.
Shen Yiqiu was a little scared but chose to remain silent. She knew there were people guarding outside the ward, waiting for her to wake up. She remembered clearly that in her previous life, she had been seriously injured in the car accident and had been in a coma for a long time. When she finally woke up, she had barely heard the news of her parents’ death when creditors, alerted to the situation, began to press her relentlessly.
She was panicked and lost, unable to process all the information before being overwhelmed by the creditors’ aggressiveness. She then muddleheadedly signed a repayment contract that she regretted to this day.
So this time, she absolutely could not repeat her mistakes. Until she figured out a way to escape, she would rather continue feigning a coma than give the creditors another opportunity.
While randomly thinking about her past life, that strange feeling converged at her heart, and Shen Yiqiu instinctively held her breath for a moment. Then a bizarre image appeared in her mind: a person in a nurse’s uniform opened the door, walked to her bedside, observed her for a moment, then took out a phone and snapped a few pictures of her.
The image lasted only a short time, and as it disappeared, the strange feeling vanished as well, as if it had never existed. Shen Yiqiu pondered, puzzled, and was about to give up her confusion when she heard hurried footsteps in the corridor.
She was startled. These were not the footsteps of the nurses who usually cared for her, nor were they the footsteps of the kind, middle-aged attending physician. Without time to think, Shen Yiqiu quickly closed her eyes, returning herself to a state of unconsciousness.
The person gently closed the door, walked to her bedside in a few steps, and then performed the exact same actions as in the image she had seen in her mind just moments before.
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