Chapter 1: Crossing the Seventy

In the seventh month of the lunar calendar, at the end of summer, the rice blooms, and the hot air is mixed with the fragrance of rice.

Outside the house, bees buzz and cicadas chirp, their continuous sounds slightly disturbing.

Wen Jiajia, lying in the infirmary of the Progressive Commune, opened and closed her eyes nearly a hundred times before finally accepting her fate as her eyelids grew heavy.

She had a long dream.

In the dream, she died suddenly, her soul left her body, and she drifted away into a strange place. One after another, people grabbed her hand, cried, and spoke. Wen Jiajia only felt that her head was about to explode. When she opened her eyes again, she found herself not only in a strange place but also in a different body.

Wen Jiajia knew nothing except that she had achieved a bit of financial freedom, but she hadn’t enjoyed a happy and beautiful life before she found herself crossing over to another time. She gritted her teeth and cursed this damn fate in her heart. She was a very pragmatic person and never had the dream of conquering all challenges and reaching the pinnacle of life after crossing over because no matter what era she traveled to, it wouldn’t be as good as modern times.

Thinking of this, she couldn’t help but be glad that she had only traveled back a few decades. If she had ended up in ancient times, she would have strangled herself with her own hands.

Memories told her that it was 1972.

Looking around, she saw an incandescent lamp hanging above her head, medical posters on the wall, and a row of medicine cabinets inside the room. Wen Jiajia stood up slightly and sighed.

Well, it’s been 30 years since she was born. She had to live well, and maybe she could find out who had left her at the door of the orphanage on that snowy day, causing her to get pneumonia and almost die.

Wen Jiajia was an orphan in her past life but did not lack love. She was adopted by her adoptive parents when she was three years old, and she lived happily ever after. When she was fifteen, her adoptive parents died of illness one after the other, leaving her a house. However, she didn’t have much money. After her adoptive mother died, she sold the family house and gave the money, after deducting tuition and living expenses, to her adoptive mother’s elderly mother, her grandmother. Since then, Wen Jiajia had lived a work-study life.

Perhaps she was destined for wealth. She seized the opportunity before short videos became popular. By the time she gained significant followers, she was already a treasure in the eyes of many internet users. The four years of college were also the four years when her career took off. In the summer of her college graduation, she successfully bought a large flat in the provincial capital. Wen Jiajia, thinking she was already a winner in life, gained unprecedented confidence and was about to start a self-media company to move towards luxury cars and villas.

How did she die? She worked on video editing until 3 o’clock in the morning and suddenly died. How did the original owner die? She was scared to death by a room full of dead people.

Thinking of this, Wen Jiajia sighed again.

The people who held her hand in the dream and explained various things were the original owner and the original owner’s family. Now, as she recalled it, she understood what the original owner and her family were explaining to her.

The original owner wanted her to live on her behalf, feeling her death was too unjust and fearing being laughed at by her adoptive parents’ family. The parents of the original owner explained where the family’s money and food were hidden. The original owner’s sister wanted to ask her to help take care of her two daughters, at least ensuring they had something to eat and were not bullied.

The original owner’s name was Wen Jia, nicknamed Jiajia. Their name was the same, and even their backgrounds were somewhat similar. She was adopted, and the original owner was adopted. The difference was that she had met a good pair of adoptive parents, while the original owner had not.

The original owner was born in 1953 and had lived with her parents in the Fuyang Brigade since childhood. In 1959, during a difficult period, a relative came to support her, and her parents tearfully gave her to a relative in the county town who worked in a food factory.

After her adoptive mother became unexpectedly pregnant seven years ago, she became like a wilted cabbage in the field, an old workhorse, and a little nanny at home. If it weren’t for her adoptive mother’s sworn enemy working in the Women’s Federation, the original owner wouldn’t have been able to attend school.

Not long ago, the original owner’s adoptive parents connected with the newly appointed factory leaders, and the original owner, who was smooth, had a new role in their eyes—to marry the factory leader’s foolish son and pave the way for themselves.

The original owner was a smart and clever girl. After realizing that seven years of hard work were enough to repay her parents for raising her, she made a big fuss at the food factory. She seized an opportunity during a superior leader’s inspection of the factory to reveal the transaction between her adoptive parents and the factory leader, eventually breaking off with her adoptive parents and causing the factory leader to be punished.

Could she still stay in the city after this? Absolutely not!

That night, she took the luggage she had packed long ago and went to the Women’s Federation office to stay. The next day, which is today, she returned to the Fuyang Brigade with her baggage.

The original owner had both the heart and the means to succeed, and with her brain, she wasn’t afraid of a bad life in the future. But accidents in this world will happen.

Recently, it’s the season when mushrooms are growing, and many villagers go to the mountains to pick mushrooms early in the morning. If they’re lucky, they can fill most of their baskets, ensuring they have food for a few days and possibly drying some mushrooms for stews during the New Year.

Unfortunately, the original owner’s family encountered bad luck with mushrooms. Someone picked poisonous mushrooms, and out of a family of seven, five died. This even scared the original owner to death. The remaining two, still children, survived because they didn’t eat the mushrooms.

Recalling that scene, Wen Jiajia instantly had goosebumps, and cold sweat drenched her body. It was no wonder the original owner was frightened. If someone hadn’t passed by and sent her to the infirmary, Wen Jiajia, who had come back from the dead, might have been scared to death again seeing this scene.

However, fortune and misfortune are unpredictable. Her sudden death was a curse, but crossing over and coming back to life was a blessing. The original owner’s family used the space-time tunnel opened when she arrived to go to another world, which must also be their blessing.

Wen Jiajia thought about it, lifted the quilt, and got out of bed. She had to deal with the aftermath for the original owner’s family. But before she could get out of bed, there was a movement at the door, and then the door was pushed open. A girl wearing a blue blouse, black pants, and with two braids hanging from her chest walked in.

She was pleasantly surprised: “You’re awake!”

Before Wen Jiajia could ask anything, the girl’s expression changed, and she said: “How are you now? My uncle said before leaving that you were frightened and fainted. If you feel unwell, just tell me. Don’t worry, my uncle will be back soon.”

Wen Jiajia hurriedly asked, “What about my family?”

The little girl looked embarrassed, hesitated for a moment, and said, “They’re all at your house.”

Wen Jiajia said, “Then I have to go back.”

The little girl hesitated for a moment and said, “Okay, I’ll take you back.”

After speaking, she put her backpack on her shoulder and helped Wen Jiajia walk out.

Wen Jiajia was grateful for the help because the original owner had twisted her foot when she fell.

Outside the house was a large yard of dozens of square meters. There were many high wooden frames on both sides of the yard with round bamboo sieves placed on them, layer by layer, drying a lot of herbs. As soon as the door opened, the courtyard was filled with the fragrance of herbs.

There was a path nearly a meter wide at the entrance of the courtyard, with a ditch next to the path, and water murmuring. Next to the ditch were cascading terraces, stretching for hundreds of meters until a river blocked its progress.

Unable to stretch forward, they went left and right. Along the path were endless terraced rice fields. In this season, as the rice was about to ripen, a long yellow-green dragon^[1]It symbolized a sense of hope and vitality, particularly during the season when the rice is nearing ripeness. It suggests that this dragon, with its mythical and powerful presence, brings a promise … Continue reading seemed to soar over this land, bringing hope.

Wen Jiajia wasn’t captivated by this beautiful scenery. She had lived in the countryside for a period of time in her previous life while shooting videos, and she even had a house in the countryside. Her most-watched videos were those shot in the countryside.

The little girl in the infirmary was surnamed Fang and called Fang Lan. Wen Jiajia thought it was no wonder she could work in the infirmary. With a name like that, she must have been exposed to some medical skills since childhood.

Fang Lan stared at Wen Jiajia for a moment and said cautiously, “Don’t be too sad. The villagers are already helping. Your two nieces are accompanied by school teachers, and you have to make decisions about what to do next.”

Wen Jiajia nodded, her face full of sadness. The large flat was gone, and the million-dollar luxury car was gone. How could she not be sad?

So when Wen Jiajia arrived at the Wen house, the expression on her face was no different from that of someone who had lost a loved one.

The Wen family’s house was at the head of the village of the Fuyang Brigade, more than ten minutes away from the commune’s infirmary. The Fuyang Brigade belonged to the Progressive Commune and was the closest brigade to it. With a good geographical location, the living conditions of the team members have been slowly improving in recent years.

As she walked, Wen Jiajia observed her surroundings. First, she passed the residential area of the commune, then the main street, then the commune primary school, and finally, she saw a vast field.

Unlike the terraced rice fields she had just seen, this one was relatively flat and surrounded by rivers. A two-meter-wide straight path divided the field into two parts. After this straight trail, which was more than 500 meters long, one could reach the Fuyang Brigade.

When she arrived home, the villagers had already helped build the mourning hall. Although it was a special period and feudal behavior was not allowed, several members of the Wen family had died overnight, leaving only a 19-year-old girl and two 3-year-old girls. No one would criticize this.

If anyone really wanted to be strict about this, they would be seen as lacking morality.

“Are you the third child of the Wen family?” An old man in his late teens approached her and said, “I am the village party secretary. Don’t be afraid. The village will help with the aftermath for your parents, and you just need to take care of Chunchun and Xuanxuan.”

This incident brought great criticism to their brigade. The Wen family had an accident by eating poisonous mushrooms, showing that the brigade’s usual propaganda work had not been effective. Now they were also trying to make up for it.

Wen Jiajia rubbed her still dizzy head, nodded, and said, “Okay, branch secretary. Are my two nieces at home?”

“Yes, they’re in the room. The old man fed them medicine. They were scared and hysterical, but they’re sleeping now,” the village party secretary said.

He had also asked his daughter-in-law to secretly take care of the two children, fearing something might happen to them. Although the Wen family was not originally from the Fuyang Brigade, they had lived together in the village for many years. They couldn’t let the Wen family suffer even more.

“The third child of the Wen family, don’t stand, kneel down! The drum team is here, you have to cry, understand?”

Before Wen Jiajia could continue to ask, she was pushed to the front of the hall by her slightly obese aunt, bent her legs, and knelt directly on the ground. Wen Jiajia covered her thighs, and for a while, she didn’t know whether her knees or her ankles hurt more.

It wasn’t until the mourning started, and the men and women around her kneeled and cried, that she reacted and felt her heart hurt even more. Tears rained down suddenly.

Oh, my car, my house, my company, and the beautiful man at my fingertips…