Beidahuang, March 1970.
The last of winter still had its claws out. The woods and hills lay buried in snow, silent as a grave. Victor Ashford trudged along the snowy path back to the village, one foot deep, one foot shallow.
"Waa... waa..."
A faint baby's cry drifted into his ears. His dead, empty eyes flickered. He stopped short and froze where he stood.
Sounded like a child crying?
"No way. It's this late, and it's still snowing..."
Victor Ashford shook his head and let out a bitter little laugh. "What, because Iris is gone, I've lost my mind too?"
He said that, but his feet still turned on their own, following the crying.
"Waa... waa..."
The sound grew clearer. In an instant, the grief, numbness, and despair that had wrapped around him for days were blown apart. A wild burst of joy slammed straight into his chest.
A baby. There really was a baby!
He followed the sound and rushed like a madman toward an old pine not far off. One glance, and he saw it—a thin swaddle tucked into a hollow of snow.
Inside lay a little baby girl, only a few days old. Her cheeks were red from the cold, her lips tinged pale purple, but her eyes were wide open, clear and bright.
Sensing someone near, she gave a weak flutter of her tiny arms and legs. Her icy little hand stretched forward in the air, and the soft little sounds she made were small and pitiful.
Victor Ashford's chest tightened and warmed at the same time. Bitterness and joy tangled together so fiercely his eyes went red on the spot.
With trembling hands, he carefully lifted the swaddle into his arms and pressed it hard against his chest, shielding that tiny life with his own body heat.
Wrapped in warmth, the little one quieted right away. Her small head rubbed lightly against his coat, obedient and heartbreakingly good.
He didn't dare waste a second. Hugging the child tight, he turned and ran straight for Qinghe Commune Hospital.
All the weariness and dejection from before vanished. The wind seemed to rise under his feet, and out of nowhere his whole body was filled with strength he couldn't use up.
Three days ago, his own baby girl, little Iris, who had only just reached one month old, died.
There were already two boys in the family. He had waited year after year before finally getting a soft little daughter, the kind you treasured in your palm and feared to even breathe on too hard.
No one had expected that Lily Ashford, his elder brother's six-year-old girl, would sneak a cooked peanut into little Iris's mouth while the adults weren't looking.
A newborn's throat was so delicate. The baby choked on the spot, her face turning blue-purple, unable to breathe.
The whole family ran like mad to the commune clinic, but in the end, they still couldn't save her.
His wife, Margaret Ashford, had only just given birth. She was weak to begin with, and when she watched her own daughter die with her own eyes, she fainted from grief right there.
After waking up, she cried all day and all night, refused food and water.
In just three days, the woman who used to be soft and full-faced had withered down to skin and bone. Her eye sockets sank in, her gaze went dead, and her whole body looked like frost-burned grass left lying in the field. She stayed flat on the bed without moving, like even the will to live was almost gone.
Victor Ashford had come back to the village alone this time to pack some clean clothes and scrape together a little more money, hoping he could stay at the hospital longer with his wife and pull her back from the edge.
He never expected to pick up an abandoned baby girl.
With this child, his wife might still be saved.
In the commune hospital ward, the yellow light was weak and dim.
Margaret Ashford sat quietly against the headboard, her face white as paper. Her eyes stared blankly into the dark outside the window. She didn't move. Days of grief had drained every bit of life out of her, leaving her still and lifeless.
The ward door was suddenly shoved open. Cold wind rolled in with bits of snow.
Victor Ashford burst inside covered in snow, clutching the swaddle tight in his arms. He could barely hold back the excitement in his voice. "Margaret! Look! I found a baby!"
Margaret Ashford slowly turned her head. Her hollow eyes fell onto the bundle.
The moment she saw the tiny, living baby face inside, moisture rushed into her deadened eyes. Her hands shook as she reached out and pulled the child into her arms.
The warm, soft little body settled against her. That faint breathing, those tiny whimpers, filled up the empty place in her heart in one breath.
The baby felt the warmth and reached out, wrapping her little hand around Margaret Ashford's finger.
"Wah... ah!" she cried in a thin voice.
Victor Ashford smiled. "Margaret! Feed her quick, she's starving!"
Margaret Ashford nodded and hurriedly pulled open her clothes, bringing the baby to her chest.
Luckily, it had only been a month, and she still had milk. The baby was starving and latched on at once, sucking hard, making soft little sounds in her throat.
Tears dropped one by one from Margaret Ashford's eyes onto the baby's hair. Looking at the little thing nursing in her arms, the corners of her mouth slowly lifted.
It was the first time in three days that there was even a trace of life on her face.
"Victor..." Her voice was hoarse and dry, trembling so badly it barely sounded steady. "This child is too pitiful. Let's raise her. Let's just say Heaven took pity on us... and sent Iris back to me in another way."
Seeing the long-lost spark in his wife's eyes, Victor Ashford felt the huge stone weighing on his heart finally hit the ground.
He nodded hard, his voice firm and gentle. "We will. Of course we will. From today on, she's our own daughter. We'll love her, protect her, and never let her suffer even a bit of wrong again."
The husband and wife looked at each other. They didn't need to say anything more. Their hearts were already of one mind.
The agony of losing their daughter was softened by this sudden comfort. Their darkened life finally had hope in it again.
But after that brief warmth, Victor Ashford's brows slowly drew together. A knot of anger and confusion rose in his chest.
He looked out at the pitch-black mountains and wilderness beyond the window and said in a low voice, "But in a place this wild, in weather this bitter, who could be cruel enough to throw away such a tiny baby out there? In this freezing cold, if no one found her, she'd have died tonight for sure. That's just vicious."
The wind and snow kept howling. No one answered him.
And at that very moment, on the mountain road below Qingwu Ridge, a figure was hurrying downhill in a miserable panic.
It was the woman who had abandoned her own daughter.
She stumbled on in blind haste, boots crunching hard over the crusted snow. Even after throwing away the flesh and blood she had just given birth to, her steps stayed hard and final, not slowing for even a breath.
By the roadside at the foot of the mountain, a military-green van had long been waiting there.
The woman hurried to it, yanked the door open, and climbed inside in one quick motion.
The driver in the front turned and glanced at her. In a low voice, he asked, "All taken care of? Didn't leave any trouble behind, did you?"
"Don't worry. I dumped her out in the middle of nowhere."
The woman lifted a hand and brushed snow dust from herself, her eyes cold as ice. "Little girl, don't blame me for being cruel. If you want to blame somebody, blame your bad luck. If you don't die, how's my child supposed to get into the Hartley family and live a good life?"
With that, she looked away coldly and said without a trace of feeling, "Drive. Let's go."
