Old Mrs. Song is reborn; get out of here, you scumbag husband and illegitimate child!

Song Xianglan walked out of the wholesale warehouse and flagged down a tractor at a crossroads outside the county town.

She threw two sacks of dates into the truck bed.

The man climbed up and plopped down on the sack: "Master, Koizumi Battalion, drive faster!"

The tractor chugged along the dirt road, making a "putt-putt-putt" sound.

The autumn harvest in Qingyang is relatively late.

The rice straw stacks were drying everywhere on the ridges of the fields.

On both sides of the road, the shadows of people bending over to work are scattered across the fields.

After the land was distributed to individual households, everyone in the village threw themselves into working in the fields.

As long as you are diligent, there will be endless farm work to do all year round.

As the sun began to set, a streak of orange-red appeared on the horizon.

Children chasing and playing on their way home from school, their schoolbags slapping loudly as they swing them on their backs.

A few mischievous boys darted into the field by the roadside and crouched down to pick fruit.

They were scolded by the old man guarding the field and ran away with their heads in their hands.

Song Xianglan squinted as she leaned against the sack, her bones trembling from the constant jolting.

"Yang Xiaocui, your younger brother fell into the water while playing at the beach."

The tone of the voice changed, shattering the evening's tranquility.

A little girl who was squatting on the ground with her classmates picking up pebbles by the roadside suddenly jumped up, and the color drained from her face.

She grabbed the man's arm. "Where's the beach?"

"Over there at the typhoon shelter."

The little girl threw the stone and ran away.

The children around me all grew up by the sea, and the word "falling into the water" was more jarring than anything else.

A group of people dropped their backpacks and rushed towards the harbor.

Song Xianglan's heart skipped a beat, and she sat up straight.

Huang Yitian was running towards the sea with the group of children when he turned around and saw Song Xianglan on the tractor.

He turned his leg and chased after the tractor with all his might.

The tractor driver saw the chaos ahead and slowed down.

Huang Yitian scrambled onto the truck bed, his face flushed red, gasping for breath: "Grandma, Yang Xiaoming fell into the sea."

Song Xianglan's heart sank. "Master, faster!"

The tractor accelerated and bumped its way to Song Xianglan's doorstep.

She took out some money and gave it to the driver, then climbed out of the truck bed, opened the gate, and threw two sacks of dates and her luggage into the yard.

Without even bothering to lock the door, he turned and ran towards the typhoon shelter.

"One day, you will go home. Don't come with me."

Huang Yitian opened his mouth, but ultimately didn't dare to insist and ran home.

Song Xianglan ran into Liu Chunhua, Wang Zhihe, and several other elderly women hurrying towards the seaside.

When Liu Chunhua spotted Song Xianglan, she was taken aback. Just as she was about to burst into laughter, she remembered Yang Xiaoming's matter and forcibly withdrew her smile.

"Old Song is back. You're quite well-informed."

"I heard Huang Yitian say that on the way." Song Xianglan didn't stop and followed them to the seaside.

Wang Zhi and his mother slipped on the gravel and talked as they walked: "They just fell in and disappeared. All the fishermen in the village who can swim went down, and Liu Dahua and Liu Yidao also ran there."

The men in the family with boats have all gone out to sea to look for people. It's low tide now, and I'm afraid…”

Song Dajia silently prayed in her heart.

Yang Xiaoming was only seven or eight years old.

Families who live by the sea have always told their children not to go into the sea.

Especially at low tide.

The sea may appear calm on the surface, but the undercurrents can sweep an adult away without them even noticing.

Every few years, something like this happens in the village.

When the group arrived at the harbor, a large crowd had gathered on the shore.

There were men, women, young and old, standing, squatting and sitting.

His face was always the same expression.

When everyone saw Song Xianglan, they nodded as a greeting.

Nobody had the time or inclination to gossip.

They were staring intently at the sea.

The sea is receding.

The exposed rocks were covered with wet oyster shells.

A man, soaking wet, climbed ashore from the water.

"That brat Xiaoming insisted on jumping from the Waiting-for-Husband Rock to the nearby reef, saying he wanted to compete with the other kids in courage."

The stone beneath his feet slipped, and he tumbled to the bottom. The children screamed at the top of their lungs, but by the time the adults arrived, he had vanished from the sea.

He paused for a moment, then pointed to the group of rocks on his right.

"There were no adults around. The children panicked and ran back to the village to call for help. The whole trip took at least ten minutes."

As the tide receded, the water level in the typhoon shelter dropped.

The mudflats were exposed.

The villagers on the shore spontaneously split into two groups and searched inch by inch along the coastline.

He shouted Yang Xiaoming's name loudly.

Song Xianglan followed a group of people along the shore.

Wang Zhi and his mother came over to her side and whispered, "Old Song, Zhou Fang came back a few days ago to check on the progress of the workshop project."

Song Xianglan responded with an "oh," her eyes still fixed on the sea.

Wang Zhihe's mother said again:

"Zhihe from our family also came back for a visit and met with Lin Fang."

Song Xianglan then turned to look at her.

"They met? How did their talk go?"

Just as Wang Zhi and his mother were about to speak, a heart-wrenching wail suddenly erupted from in front of them.

The sound pierced everyone's ears.

Song Xianglan strode through the crowd.

Zhou Yun and Yang Dafu collapsed to the ground. Yang Dafu curled up in a ball, his head buried in his knees, his shoulders twitching.

Zhou Yun clutched a wet cloth shoe tightly in his hand, his ten fingers turning white from gripping it so hard, and his whole body was trembling like a leaf.

Zhang Mahua stood to the side, wiping away tears with her sleeve, snot and tears streaming down her face. "Someone pulled this shoe out of a crevice in the rocks in front of us, saying it was Yang Xiaoming's shoe."

The afterglow of the setting sun spread across the sea, making the shimmering waves particularly dazzling.

An old man in the crowd sighed, "Good people are always protected by heaven. Xiaoming will definitely be alright. Maybe he was swept away by the waves to some corner and climbed onto the rocks."

No one dared to predict the worst-case scenario.

Old Mrs. Yang rushed up to Yang Dafu and Zhou Yun, poking their noses with her finger and cursing:

"I've said for a long time that I want Xiaoming to be adopted by the old banyan tree at the village entrance as his godmother. I've said it so many times, but you two just wouldn't agree."

They insisted that it was shameful to adopt a tree as a godmother, thinking it was superstition. They said if I had listened to them, would they have fallen into the sea?

Yang Dafu raised his head.

His lips trembled, and he couldn't utter a single word.

The elderly people in the village believe in this.

Children with weak fates need to be given a big tree or a stone to be their godmother, so that their fate can be secured.

After Song Xianglan was reborn, she secretly went to the Guanyin Bodhisattva statue in the cave and kowtowed to it, recognizing Guanyin Bodhisattva as Song Xiangdong's godmother.

She was afraid that the bad luck from her past life would repeat itself, so she did everything she could.

Whether it works or not is another matter, but it gives me peace of mind.

An elderly person in the crowd chimed in, "Yes, we should have found godparents to ward off disaster. We should have listened to the old lady back then."

"If they had admitted it sooner, this might not have happened."

One sentence at a time.

It was plunged into Zhou Yun's heart.

Zhou Yun lowered his head and his body trembled more and more violently.

Her lips moved a few times, her eyes fixed on the shoe in her hand, her pupils slowly dilating.

Seeing Zhou Yun's condition, Song Xianglan felt a pang of anxiety.

This woman is going to get into trouble.

really.

"My Xiaoming... Mom is here to see you."

Zhou Yun let out a roar, like a string stretched to its limit suddenly snapping.

They rushed into the sea like madmen.

"Stop her."

Song Xianglan had been keeping an eye on her for a while.

Before the words were even finished, the person had already darted out.

She lunged forward, wrapped her arms tightly around Zhou Yun's waist, and dragged him backward by bracing her feet against the slippery rocks.

Zhou Yun has completely gone mad.

She struggled desperately, flailing her arms and legs wildly.

The ten fingernails scratched and clawed at Song Xianglan's forearm, leaving bloody marks and beads of blood seeping out.

Song Xianglan gritted her teeth and refused to let go.

Liu Chunhua and Zhang Mahua realized what was happening and rushed over, each grabbing one of the legs.

The three men held Zhou Yun down tightly.

Zhou Yun lay on the rock, his voice hoarse from shouting, and two of his fingernails broke off from rubbing against the rocks, blood seeping from his fingertips.

Yang Dafu crawled over on his knees and hugged Zhou Yun's head.

The couple's cries mingled together, their sounds carried on the sea breeze, making one's heart ache.

Song Xianglan released one hand and raised her forearm to take a look.

Five or six bloodstains.

The first time I was hurt, I couldn't fight back.

"Shut up, you old hag. Why don't you say that your ancestral graves are poorly buried? So many ancestors down there don't even know how to bless their descendants."

Tomorrow we'll dig up their graves, lift the coffin lids, and throw the bones out to dry in the sun.

"With so many people in the family, you always blame the mother when something goes wrong. You're so capable, why didn't you stop Xiaoming?"