1995.
A Minnan fishing village.
In the dead of midsummer, the scorching sun made the wooden planks of the pier glisten with a layer of glistening oil.
Old women squatted on the bluestone slabs to pick vegetables, the water spinach in their bamboo baskets wilted and drooping. Hearing the commotion drifting from the distant mangrove forest, they put their heads together in gossip.
"Such a sin! That public menace Shen Lang has gone down to the mudflats with a knife. Word is that girl is trying to steal his fishing boat."
"Steal his boat?"
"That beat-up boat is the lifeline of the Shen family! The year before last, Old Second Zhao merely brushed his hand against the gunwale, and Shen Wen broke three of his ribs with an oar!"
"You lot haven't forgotten about that, have you?"
"What on earth is that girl thinking? When Shen Lang's father was still alive, he helped her family out plenty of times. Why is she repaying kindness with enmity?"
"Exactly! If the eldest of the Shen family hadn't tracked down medicine from out of town back then, Xiaoyu's mother would have died long ago."
"That Lin Xiaoyu girl is as pretty as a flower, so why is she out of her mind to provoke that fiend? Now that she's fallen into his hands, she's likely to be skinned alive a few times over..."
"What a pity. Such a fine girl is bound to be ruined today!"
...
As if hearing their gossip.
The cicadas in the trees suddenly chirped with piercing harshness, as if protesting someone's atrocious deeds.
At that moment, seventeen-year-old Shen Lang was walking along the beach in flip-flops.
A tattered undershirt hung over his shoulder, revealing the ferocious old scar on his bronze arm.
That was a three-inch gash inflicted by a fishing knife last year when he was fighting for fishing grounds with the neighboring village.
A worn-out spring-loaded knife was tucked into his waistband, the hilt scraping against his thigh and making a rustling sound as he walked.
Behind him followed three loafing youths, each holding a piece of deformed steel rebar, their shoe uppers still stained with yesterday's liquor.
"Brother Lang, that lass is right on the mudflats!"
A skinny fellow with dyed yellow hair nudged Shen Lang's arm with a cheap, leering smile. "I saw her with my own eyes, crouching on your boat and meddling with it!"
"Is that so?" Shen Lang stopped in his tracks and squinted toward the distant mudflats.
The mudflat after the ebb tide gleamed with a dark luster, and sure enough, that mottled little skiff was moored behind a few twisted mangroves.
That was the only keepsake his father had left behind when he died at sea.
His late father's name, "Shen Dahai," was still carved into the stern, traced over three times with blue paint.
At that very moment.
Countless scenes from his previous life flashed through his mind.
On a night of torrential rain, he had desperately raced this battered boat back.
The bottom of the boat had suddenly sprung a leak, and the freezing seawater poured into the cabin...
And then there was Lin Xiaoyu, the girl who had died a tragic death because he hadn't arrived in time. When she died, she was still clutching half a hemp rope used for patching the boat planks...
"Damn it!"
Shen Lang violently shook his head as the love and hatred of his past life surfaced before his eyes.
Out of jealousy toward Lin Xiaoyu's appearance, Liu Jiaqi had instigated thugs from another village to set a trap.
Using Lin Xiaoyu's kindness, they made her "accidentally" discover that the deck of his boat was leaking.
Rough and reckless though Shen Lang was, he never bullied the weak—which was why he had a solid reputation in the village for fairness.
Last year, when someone harassed Lin Xiaoyu, Shen Lang had stepped forward to rescue her.
The lass knew how to return gratitude; out of village loyalty and constrained by his notorious reputation, Lin Xiaoyu could only sneak over under the cover of night to help out.
Only to be ambushed right then and there by Zhang Xinyian, a thug from another village, who pinned her onto the boat and raped her!
As the two of them struggled and scuffled, Shen Lang happened to stroll by and discover them.
The mere thought that some scum dared to so defile his father's keepsake made Shen Lang grab a firewood chopper and rush onto the boat to vent his fury.
Lin Xiaoyu was rescued, and the outsider thug was beaten to within an inch of his life.
Yet in the heat of the brawl, the firewood chopper had accidentally plunged into Lin Xiaoyu's abdomen!
This was a seaside area where things rusted all year round, and tetanus shots were not yet widely available back then.
Watching her bleed profusely and faint away, Shen Lang could only row desperately toward the town hospital.
Yet just as they reached the hospital entrance, the campus belle in his arms drew her last breath.
In the aftermath, Lin Xiaoyu's mother fell into a deep depression and died of illness, her father became a hopeless alcoholic, and her younger sister was sold to a distant place as a child bride...
As for Shen Lang, he sank into an unerasable remorse, condemned by all and living in perpetual gloom.
To the point where he simply gave up on himself and became a thoroughly rotten scoundrel.
By contrast, the thug who started it all and the green-tea bitch got off scot-free, living comfortable, contented lives!
Thank goodness he had been reborn this time; there was no way he would let those two beasts off the hook!
And even more so, he had to protect the innocent and pitiful Lin Xiaoyu, making up for the guilt and regrets of his past life!
"I never thought that little lass would actually dare to touch my boat?" Shen Lang's voice suddenly dropped, his Adam's apple bobbing as the scar above his brow twitched.
"You guys stay here and keep watch. I'll go teach her a lesson."
Hearing Shen Lang say this, his subordinates naturally obeyed and stood guard for him.
Shen Lang sprinted across the mud, startling a flock of grayish-blue fiddler crabs.
This time, having arrived ahead of time, he refused to believe that some punk from another village would dare to break ground on a grand old piece of work!
When Lin Xiaoyu heard the commotion, it was already too late to run.
The coconut shell patch in her hand dropped with a "plop" into the mud, gathering half a clump of soggy seaweed.
Shen Lang looked at Lin Xiaoyu from afar. At that moment, the young girl was wearing a faded blue cloth shirt, her trouser legs rolled up to her knees, revealing thin, slender ankles covered in mud splatters.
Her dark hair was blown messy by the sea breeze, the tips dripping with saltwater. She looked like a little egret that had stumbled into a trap, trembling all over.
Even so.
The sight was still breathtakingly lovely.
"Shen Lang, what do you want?"
"Don't, don't come over!"
She snatched up a piece of broken seashell and backed away, only to stumble over a mud pit.
Shen Lang stopped three paces away from her.
He suddenly noticed the scattered bits of hemp rope, palm fiber, and half a bitten hard cake at her feet—the kind of dry rations only the poorest families in the fishing village carried.
"Campus belle, I should be the one asking what you're up to."
"Trying to steal my boat?"
Shen Lang's gaze fell upon a few fresh scratches on the boat planks.
Lin Xiaoyu bit her lower lip, her fingertips digging into her palms: "The, the bottom of the boat has a crack... I wanted to help you patch it..."
"Patch the boat?"
A sneer crossed Shen Lang's face.
Startled by his sudden outburst of roughness, Lin Xiaoyu recoiled.
Her lower back pressed against the cold gunwale.
She saw the shifting, murky light in Shen Lang's eyes as he stared at her, resembling the sea before a storm. Even in the blazing sunshine, it chilled her to the bone.
Is he going to rape me?
It's over...
"No, please don't..."
When Lin Xiaoyu cried out those words with a tearful voice, the sneer on Shen Lang's face abruptly vanished.
"Xiaoyu, last year..." Shen Lang began suddenly, his voice unusually soft, "was your mother sick?"
"Ah?" Lin Xiaoyu's pupils shrank, and the seashell in her hand dropped into the mud with a click.
This was a secret she hadn't even shared with her best friend; how did this demon know?
To save money, her mother refused to go to the hospital and stubbornly relied on folk remedies to push through.
Now even walking to the fields was a struggle...
"How do you know..."
"Never mind how I know." Shen Lang cut her off, bent down to pick up the coconut-shell patch from beside her feet, and his Adam's apple bobbed as he suddenly reached out and grabbed her wrist.
Seeing this, it looked as though he meant to lean in and kiss her right then and there.
Terrified, Lin Xiaoyu let out a cry of alarm and struggled, her fingernails scraping across the back of his hand, but he only gripped her tighter.
"Let go of me!"
She drove her knee toward his lower abdomen, but he sidestepped it.
"Don't hit me." Shen Lang gritted his teeth. "I just want to take you out to catch seafood."
This sentence caused Lin Xiaoyu to freeze completely.
"Ah?"
Tideline foraging was the most lucrative trade in the fishing village, yet no one had ever been willing to take along a fatherless and motherless girl like her, because she would only hold them back.
"You... you aren't trying to pull some trick, are you?"
Lin Xiaoyu's voice trembled, but she stopped thrashing wildly.
This time, Shen Lang didn't waste words.
He dragged her toward the stern.
The mud swallowed their ankles, and he caught the scent of her hair mixed with sea salt and soapberry.
It made Shen Lang vividly recall the day of her funeral in his past life, when that exact same scent had been sprinkled over the coffin, causing a thin layer of sweat to break out on his palms.
He released her wrist, bent down to untie the mooring rope, and gave the gunwale a kick.
Then he abruptly grabbed the firewood chopper and hurled it hard into the reed thicket behind the mudflats!
It instantly startled a rustling sound as several figures turned and fled in panic.
A dark shadow flashed in Shen Lang's eyes; even though he hadn't let that beast cause a disaster in this lifetime, that didn't mean he was going to let him off so easily!
Yet the most urgent task right now was still helping the campus belle make some money to cure her mother!
"Get on board."
Shen Lang pointed at the repaired boat plank.
Hesitantly, Lin Xiaoyu boarded the "pirate ship." As the small boat drifted leisurely toward the deep sea, Lin Xiaoyu heard voices discussing from afar on the shore.
"Look! Shen Lang dragged that girl onto his boat!"
"What a sin, looks like she's really been ruined..."
She clenched the hem of her shirt, her face flushing crimson.
Suddenly, a low chuckle came from Shen Lang beside her.
"Want to jump ship?"
🏴"My dear campus belle..."
"You wouldn't want people to find out about your mother's medical treatment, would you?"
Those words struck like a knife, precisely piercing Lin Xiaoyu's soft spot!