Reborn a day later, I emptied my enemy's possessions beforehand.

Zhou Haibing sat in the driver's seat, then took out his phone from his pocket and found a name in his contacts—An Baojun.

He stared at the name, his fingers gripping the phone case, his knuckles turning white.

An Baojun.

Li Su'e's husband.

Li Su'e.

This name has been etched in Zhou Haibing's heart for decades and has never faded.

That was in 1975. He was eighteen years old, and Li Su'e was also eighteen. They were educated youth sent down from the provincial capital to Wolong Village.

The day she first appeared at the village entrance, she was wearing a faded floral shirt, had two braids, and was carrying a canvas duffel bag. She stood under the old locust tree, looking around blankly.

Zhou Haibing was just coming out of the village clinic, carrying his medicine kit to treat a fellow villager, when he saw her as he passed by the old locust tree.

She happened to look over as well, and their eyes met. She nodded slightly to him, a reserved and timid smile on her lips.

Zhou Haibing later recounted this scene to someone, saying that he had seen many beautiful women in his life.

No one else could make him feel like he'd been electrocuted, numb from head to toe, just by looking at him like Li Su'e did.

Li Su'e has a poor constitution and gets sick every few days, suffering from headaches, fevers, stomach aches, or abdominal pains.

Because Zhou Haibing's grandfather was an itinerant doctor, Zhou Haibing learned medicine from his grandfather from a young age. After his grandfather passed away, Zhou Haibing became the barefoot doctor of Wolong Village.

Therefore, Li Su'e would always seek out Zhou Haibing whenever she was sick.

When Zhou Haibing treated her, he was extremely attentive. He would take a long time to take her pulse, ask her about her symptoms in great detail, and go over the prescription in his mind several times before writing it, for fear of making a mistake.

Li Su'e also sensed his sincerity.

She started finding all sorts of excuses to go to the clinic. Sometimes it wasn't because she was sick, but just because she was passing by, so she would sit down, say a few words, and have a glass of water.

Zhou Haibing wiped the chairs in the clinic again and again, and washed the water cups repeatedly. She always made sure the clinic was spotless before she came.

The two of them slowly and tacitly grew closer.

Zhou Haibing taught her about herbs and took her to the mountains to collect them.

Li Su'e knew many flowers and plants that Zhou Haibing didn't. She had read many books when she was in the provincial capital and knew many things that the people of Wolong Village had never heard of.

They sat on the hillside, she read poetry to him, and he told her about the folk remedies and secret recipes he had heard from his grandfather.

As the sun was setting, Li Su'e leaned on his shoulder and said something that Zhou Haibing would remember for the rest of his life:

"Hai Bing, I feel especially at ease when I'm with you."

Zhou Haibing didn't say anything, but what he was thinking was: I will make you feel at ease for the rest of my life.

Unfortunately, he was never given that chance in his life.

When Zhou Fuxiang found out about this, he called Zhou Haibing over and gave him a severe dressing-down.

"Do you even know what her background is? Her father's a capitalist! You dare to marry a capitalist's daughter? Are you out of your mind?"

Zhou Haibing said, "She is herself, her father is her father, as long as she is a good person, that's enough."

Zhou Fuxiang slapped him across the face:

"What do you know? If you marry her, your life is over! Forget about becoming a doctor, you can forget about joining the Party! You're going to ruin our entire family!"

Zhou Haibing knelt down and begged him, but Zhou Fuxiang remained unmoved.

Zhou Haibing pleaded several more times, but Zhou Fuxiang refused each time. The last time, he simply placed a bottle of pesticide on the table and said:

"If you insist on marrying her, I'll drink this medicine right now. You decide what to do."

Ultimately, under pressure from his father, Zhou Haibing married Sun Guiying, the daughter of Sun Deming, the village chief of Wolong Village.

Later, when the educated youth returned to the city, Li Su'e went back to the provincial capital. I heard that she got married under the arrangement of her family. She married a man who owned a gold shop named An Baojun.

When Zhou Haibing heard the news, he felt sad but also happy for her.

He thought that since he had married someone who owned a gold shop, his life shouldn't be bad.

Little did he know, that was the beginning of Li Su'e's nightmare.

Later, Zhou Haibing founded Haibing Pharmaceutical Company in the provincial capital. As the company grew, he was so busy that he didn't think about Li Su'e for several years.

It's not that I've forgotten, it's that I dare not think about it.

Every time I think about it, it feels like someone is squeezing my heart, making it hard to breathe.

Then came that unexpected reunion.

That day, he went to the hospital to visit a sick friend. When he came out of the inpatient department, he saw a woman in the corridor.

The woman's back was incredibly thin; her shoulders were narrow, her waist so thin it looked like it could be snapped in two. Her hair was disheveled, and her clothes were wrinkled, as if she hadn't changed them in days.

He hadn't paid any attention at first, but as they passed each other, the woman looked up and glanced at him.

Zhou Haibing was completely stunned.

It is Li Su'e.

It wasn't the gentle, intellectual girl he remembered, whose eyes curved into crescents when she smiled. Instead, it was a middle-aged woman with a sallow complexion, sunken eyes, chapped lips, and eyes full of despair and numbness.

At the time, she was not yet forty years old, but she looked like she was in her fifties, and was incredibly old.

Li Su'e also recognized him.

She was stunned for a moment, and then large tears suddenly welled up in her murky, lifeless eyes, flowing uncontrollably like a river bursting its banks.

She opened her mouth as if to say something, but couldn't utter a single word. Her whole body went limp, and she collapsed forward.

Zhou Haibing caught her.

She threw herself into his arms, clutching his clothes tightly with both hands, crying uncontrollably, her whole body trembling, sobbing so hard that everyone in the corridor stopped to watch.

Zhou Haibing held her, feeling her body as light as a piece of paper, her bones digging painfully into his arms, and his heart feeling like it was being stabbed away with a knife.

"Sea ice...sea ice...sea ice..."

She would only call his name, over and over again, each time sounding like a cry for help.

Zhou Haibing took her to a teahouse next to the hospital, poured her a cup of hot water, and waited for her to finish crying before slowly recounting what had happened over the years.

An Baojun.

Domestic violence.

control.

Surveillance.

captivity.

Every word felt like a knife stabbing into Zhou Haibing's heart.

His hand holding the teacup was trembling, not from the cold, but from anger, from hatred, from wanting to rush to An Baojun immediately and strangle that beast to death.

Li Su'e said that after An Baojun learned that she had dated Zhou Haibing before, he concluded that she had been maintaining an improper relationship with Zhou Haibing.

She went out to buy groceries and came back late. An Baojun said she went out to meet some random man.

She answered a phone call and said a few more words; An Baojun said she was talking to her lover.

She looked at herself in the mirror a few more times, and An Baojun said that she was dressed up so extravagantly because she was going out to seduce people.

She explained, cried, and even knelt down to beg him to believe her.

An Baojun wouldn't listen.

He never listens.

He only wants to hear what he wants to hear and only wants to believe what he wants to believe.

He started hitting her.

The first time was a slap, the second time was a kick to the stomach, the third time was a whip with a belt, and the fourth time was a burn with a cigarette butt.

Each time it got harsher and more severe than the last.