After I Died, My Childhood Friend Cried and Said She Loved Me

In my previous life, as I lay dying in a hospital bed, Su Nian cried and said to me, “I’ve loved you since I was sixteen.”

Tubes were stuck in me, and I couldn’t answer.

That scene was carved into my bones.

When I opened my eyes again, it was 1980. She was alive, flour dusted on her sleeves and her collarbones jutting out beneath her skin.

I told myself: For every bowl of porridge she gives me in this life, I’ll give her a reason not to cry.

People in town laughed at me, saying I was crazy. I was seventeen and went to buy a burlap sack, saying I was waiting for the flood.

They didn’t know. I did.