Chapter 11
Edward Quan ·
"Qinghe!"
"Open the coffin!"
I looked at the seventeen coffins.
Suddenly, I remembered a detail.
In the first dream, the room had four red walls.
The child sat on a bed.
No door.
No windows.
Like…
A coffin.
Slowly, I asked, "Sweetheart."
"Do these seventeen coffins represent all the times you were locked away?"
"Yes."
"Then the eighteenth time…"
She was silent.
I looked down.
"Where will you be trapped?"
After a long while, she answered, "Inside you."
Cold washed over me.
"Mommy," she continued.
"This time, I don't need you to save me."
"I need you to save yourself."
Chapter 7: The Truth About Seventeen Reincarnations
At last, the iron door burst open.
Mr. Lu entered.
But he wasn't the man I'd seen before.
His white hair turned black.
His aged face grew young.
Within seconds, he became a man of about thirty.
I stared at that face.
Suddenly, it seemed terribly familiar.
As though I'd seen it somewhere.
He smiled.
"Qinghe."
"At last, it's time to finish this."
I backed away.
"Who are you?"
He tilted his head.
"You really don't remember?"
I shook my head.
He sighed.
"Then let me remind you."
He went to the first coffin and placed a hand on the lid.
"The first time, you became pregnant."
"You discovered your husband intended to sacrifice the baby."
"You ran."
"But in the end, they brought you back."
He moved to the second.
"The second time, you remembered fragments."
"You called off the wedding yourself."
"But fate brought you back to Chen Mingyuan."
The third.
"The third time, you never married."
"You lived alone."
"But in the end, you still became pregnant with that child."
I stared.
"Impossible."
He smiled.
"Why?"
"The child isn't a consequence of marriage."
"Whatever you choose, she'll come."
I held my belly.
He continued.
"The fourth time, you fled abroad."
"The fifth, you took religious vows."
"The sixth, you tried sealing your own memories."
"The seventh…"
He stopped and looked at me.
"You killed me."
I went cold.
He laughed.
"Yes."
"You killed me once."
I stared at his face.
A memory flashed.
A dark room.
A man in white.
A knife in his chest.
I stood in front of him, both hands covered in blood.
He looked at me.
Smiling.
"Qinghe."
"Did you think killing me would end it?"
I recoiled.
"You…"
He nodded.
"Finally."
Shaking, I asked, "Are you the thing beneath the well?"
"No."
He smiled.
"I'm the one who made the well."
I went numb.
"A hundred years ago, my name was Lu Changsheng."
"I was the first to discover a way beyond life and death."
"Once I gather eighteen fragments of the same child's fate-soul…"
"I can escape reincarnation."
I looked at him.
"You're using my child?"
He nodded.
"Yes."
"But not just her."
He pointed at me.
"You too."
I stared.
He smiled.
"Don't you understand yet, Qinghe?"
"The child in your womb isn't some stranger's soul."
"She's the part of your own fate-soul that was split away."
My breath stopped.
"A hundred years ago, you were the first to stop my ritual."
"You used a forbidden art to divide your fate-soul in two."
"One part became you."
"The other became the child."
"That kept me from taking the whole soul."
I clutched my head.
Broken images poured in.
A burning house.
A well.
A woman in red.
A woman with my face.
She stood at the mouth of the well, holding a child.
Hundreds of people knelt behind her.
Someone shouted, "Don't!"
"You'll never be reborn whole again!"
The woman looked down at the child.
And smiled.
"It doesn't matter."
"As long as she has a chance to live."
Then she pressed a hand to her chest.
Red light split away from her.
I screamed.
The memory shattered.
When I opened my eyes, I was on my knees.
Lu Changsheng stood before me.
Greed filled his eyes.
"Do you understand now?"
"Your daughter is part of you."
"Once she's born, the two fate-souls will have a chance to reunite."
"But if I take her first…"
He laughed.
"I'll become the first person truly free of life and death."