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“So, you’re secretly eating roast chicken all by yourself, Jiang Huiwan! Just you wait until Mom and Dad get back; you’re going to get a beating!” Xu Huirong gloated, reaching to snatch the package.
Jiang Wanwan quickly lifted the bundle over her head. “I’m not eating it! Someone just gave it to me, and I haven’t even opened it yet! You came back before I had a chance to!”
“Do you think I’m stupid?” Xu Huirong rolled her eyes. “Who would spend half a month’s salary on a roast chicken just to give it… Wait a minute! Shen Sanqian!”
“I knew something was up when he took a detour down our lane! It was to deliver a roast chicken to you!” She widened her eyes, feigning shock at her cowardly stepsister’s brazenness. “Mom has told you time and again not to hang out with that hooligan, and now you not only see him but you took his roast chicken?! Jiang Huiwan! You are! Done! For!”
Jiang Wanwan was stunned. Not out of fear, but surprise. The handsome young man was Shen Sanqian? The very gangster the original protagonist was willing to go to the countryside to avoid? She was floored by the solid moral values of the people in this era. In today’s society, where people’s morals were dictated by attractiveness, a face that could be a top-tier celebrity wouldn’t be held back by a mere reputation as a troublemaker.
She was also a sucker for a good face, but she had her own principles. She remembered a guy from the vocational high school next door. He was a good-looking player with poor grades, a rough family life, and a habit of getting into fights, but countless girls still threw themselves at him. She had always kept her distance, never joining her classmates’ discussions about him. This was because she had once overheard him bragging to his friends about all the girls who had had abortions for him, even listing their names one by one. She heard the name of a girl she knew, a beautiful and smart neighbor who played the piano and danced ballet—a person she had always looked up to. She was furious and disbelieving at the time, thinking he was just making it up to sound cool. But when she went to confront her neighbor, the girl’s face went pale, and she was quickly rushed out of the room. It was then that she learned a valuable lesson: some people look like angels on the outside, but their hearts are ugly and monstrous on the inside.
Remembering this, the little voice in her head that had been shouting, “I can totally go for that,” was immediately silenced. But suppressing her desires wouldn’t solve her current problem.
As soon as Jiang Lan got home, before she even put down her bag, her stepdaughter started her report. Hearing that her daughter had met secretly with the hoodlum and accepted a roast chicken from him, Jiang Lan felt as though she had been struck by lightning. She was so furious she felt dizzy. Steeling herself, she grabbed a broom from the corner and stormed toward Jiang Huiwan’s room. She kicked the door open and found the culprit—eating a drumstick!
Jiang Wanwan looked up at Jiang Lan, who was red-faced with anger, broom in hand. She then looked at the…
…her stepsister, Xu Huirong, with a look of pure schadenfreude, there was no doubt as to what was going on. With no time to wipe the oil from her mouth, she jumped up, ready to make a run for it.
Thanks to her quick moves, she was able to slip past the enraged Jiang Lan. Honestly, she hadn’t even planned on eating the roast chicken. She had only been in the new body for two days and wasn’t yet craving meat. But, well, a chicken worth half a month’s salary was just too good to resist. She’d been trying to figure out her next move, but the delicious aroma kept filling her nose, and all she could think about was that chicken. In a moment of weakness, she’d eaten half of the delicious thing. The only problem was that only a single drumstick was left when Jiang Lan walked in, catching her red-handed.
She ran out into the courtyard and bumped into her stepfather, Xu Weishan, who was just getting home from work. She immediately grabbed onto her lifeline and hid behind him.
“How dare you hide after what you’ve done?” Jiang Lan looked even angrier.
“What have I done? I was just minding my own business at home when someone knocked on the door. I thought it was a neighbor, but when I opened it, before I could even see who it was, someone shoved a paper package into my hands. I didn’t even have time to react before they ran off! If Xu Huirong hadn’t come back, I wouldn’t even know who it was from!” With someone shielding her, Jiang Wanwan bravely argued her case.
Jiang Huiwan’s honest and timid reputation seemed to have left a strong impression on everyone. Jiang Lan appeared to believe the explanation and lowered the broom she was holding. But before Jiang Wanwan could breathe a sigh of relief, Xu Huirong started fanning the flames.
“Hmph, you say that as if someone is framing you. If you’re so innocent, why did you eat the chicken? You’ve already devoured the evidence. There’s no use trying to justify it now.”
Jiang Wanwan was speechless. Xu Huirong’s words successfully reignited Jiang Lan’s fury. Seeing that her younger stepdaughter was about to get a beating, Xu Weishan couldn’t help but glare at his trouble-making eldest daughter.
“Come on, she’s a kid. Who isn’t tempted by food? Even I can’t walk away from a roast chicken!” He took his wife’s hand and gently took the broom from her grip. “I’ll go buy another one later. We’ll give half back to that Shen Sanqian guy and keep the other half for dinner tonight.”
Jiang Wanwan nodded eagerly in agreement, and even Xu Huirong quieted down at the mention of roast chicken for dinner.
“You’re still nodding? You’ve already eaten half of one; now you want to eat more? You’re not getting any tonight!” Jiang Lan scolded her, threw the broom into a corner, and went inside. Xu Weishan gestured to his two daughters before following her inside.
Jiang Wanwan could faintly hear him talking to his wife, telling her not to be so harsh with the children. The original Jiang Huiwan would have been heartbroken by her mother’s words, but Jiang Wanwan simply shrugged. It was no big deal. Her high school homeroom teacher had a habit of making personal attacks. Since she was lazy and unmotivated, her teacher’s special attention had given her a tough skin. She was completely unfazed when people got in her face. Besides, while she had inherited the original owner’s memories, she hadn’t inherited her feelings. The original owner had a deep longing for her mother’s affection, but Jiang Wanwan had no such feelings for Jiang Lan.
Speaking of memories, it was strange. In Jiang Huiwan’s memory, Shen Sanqian was the same…
…face as the one she’d just seen. Logically, having reviewed Jiang Huiwan’s memories so many times, she shouldn’t have been surprised by his looks.
Jiang Wanwan sat at her desk, holding her head as she tried to make sense of it. She realized that while it was the same face, in the original’s memory, it was just an ordinary one. Yet in her own memory from just a few hours ago, that face was so handsome it seemed to glow.
So… could her own perceptions affect her memories of objective reality? Jiang Wanwan scratched her head, deciding that the original’s memories might be unreliable. From now on, she’d have to look at everything with a critical eye.
After solving that riddle, Jiang Wanwan moved on to the next problem—the one that had been interrupted by the roast chicken. How was she going to avoid being sent to the countryside?
Could she rely on her parents? Her mother, Jiang Lan, was practically itching to pack her off to the countryside as soon as possible. Her stepfather, Xu Weishan, might be able to help, but it was impossible for a henpecked husband to go against his wife. Her friends? As the saying goes, “birds of a feather flock together.” Jiang Huiwan’s only friend, He Qingqing, was a pathetic little girl who was also unloved by her parents.
Jiang Wanwan searched through her memories of the policies about being sent to the countryside in Jiangcheng and found that there were only three ways to get out of it: a serious illness, a job, or marriage. Faking an illness was useless without a city hospital diagnosis, and getting sick enough to get out of the program without dying was a fine line to walk. As for marriage, she was too young, and there was no one to marry anyway.
That left only one option: a job. But all the factories in Jiangcheng had finished their recruitment in June. Her friend, He Qingqing, had convinced the original Jiang Huiwan to take the factory test with her. After the test, Shen Sanqian had stopped her and tried to give her a bag of milk candy. The original Jiang Huiwan was so scared that she wanted to run, but with a gang of troublemakers behind her, Shen Sanqian in front refusing to let her go without taking the candy, and her angry mother appearing out of nowhere, she was trapped. That night, her mother ordered her to sign up for the countryside program, and her chances of getting a job disappeared.
Now it was already August. To get a job at this point, she would either have to buy one or pull some strings. A neighbor had just paid over 400 yuan—emptying her family’s savings—to buy her son a job as a porter at a food factory. Jiang Wanwan’s total savings were only 19 yuan and 35 cents. While that was a huge sum for a high school student in this era, it was nowhere near enough to buy a job. As for pulling strings, who could a high school graduate like herself possibly go to?
Jiang Wanwan sighed, resting her chin in her hands. She hadn’t realized how dark it had gotten outside the window. From the courtyard, she could hear her brother Xu Huipeng cheering, Xu Huirong scolding him, and her stepfather Xu Weishan’s hearty laugh. Along with their family’s joyous sounds, a powerful smell of roast chicken wafted into her room.
She swallowed. For no reason at all, her mind went back to the handsome, glowing young man from the afternoon. She sighed again, annoyed that she was still thinking about him. Perhaps she was thinking about him so much that she would dream about him. That night, in her dream, Jiang Wanwan found herself in the role of an overbearing CEO. She looked at a young man whose face she couldn’t quite make out, and at the roast chicken in his arms. A wicked smirk spread across her face as she said with arrogant confidence:
“Ha, men! You, and your roast chicken, have successfully captured my attention!”