Chapter 2

Before Leng Xue could ask anything, King Yama quickly sent her into the reincarnation tunnel.

After a wave of intense dizziness, Leng Xue arrived in the year 1979—the world where Gu Beilu now lived.

“You, Leng Daguì, Li Chunhua—your daughter Leng Zhaodi is already dead. You need to return the bride price to me!”

Before Leng Xue could even open her eyes, she heard this line.

“Comrade Xu, it’s the hottest part of summer. If the corpse isn’t buried soon, it’ll start to stink. How about we bury that short-lived girl first, and then talk about returning the bride price?”

Leng Daguì spoke with a bit of flattery. The Xu family was from the city. Both husband and wife worked at the cotton mill—state jobs with guaranteed salaries.

Their lives were far better than those of rural farmers like himself. Unfortunately, they had a mentally disabled son. No decent family was willing to marry their daughter off to him.

Since they had only that one son, in order to continue the family line, the Xu couple had scraped together 200 yuan and asked someone to find a family in the countryside willing to marry—more precisely, willing to sell—their daughter.

In 1979, 200 yuan was a large sum. For an average worker, it was over half a year’s salary; for a farmer, it was nearly two years’ income.

Still, most families weren’t willing to marry their daughters to someone mentally disabled. No one could bear to send their own girl into a pit of fire.

But Leng Daguì and Li Chunhua were different. Their hearts only cared for their younger son. They didn’t care whether Leng Zhaodi lived or died. They took the 200 yuan as a dowry and planned to use it for their son’s high school education.

They hadn’t expected Leng Zhaodi to refuse the marriage once she learned the groom was mentally impaired. She resisted fiercely. So Li Chunhua locked her in the west-facing woodshed during the dog days of summer, planning to starve her into submission.

But these were the hottest days of the year. The shed was like an oven, and she had no water. On top of that, Leng Zhaodi had never eaten her fill in all her years—her body was too weak to endure the heat. In the end, she was literally cooked to death.

“Well then go bury her already! Why are you still dawdling?”

Xu Zhonghong was growing impatient, fanning himself aggressively.

It had been hard enough to find a family willing to marry off their daughter. Now, when he came to discuss the marriage, the bride-to-be had died for no clear reason. What terrible luck!

The cotton mill had received a major order recently, and it was a busy period. His wife had a higher position than him and couldn’t get leave, so he’d had to ride a bicycle here in this sweltering heat.

This summer was especially hot. The cicadas screeched endlessly from the trees, further aggravating Xu Zhonghong’s temper.

He barked at Leng Daguì, “Hurry up and carry your daughter up the mountain and bury her! What are you waiting for? And burying her has nothing to do with refunding my bride price. Give me back my 200 yuan. It’s roasting here—there’s not even a fan. I need to get back to work.”

Leng Xue lay stiffly on the floor of the main hall. She was still receiving Leng Zhaodi’s memories. The little red orb in her mind flickered as she quickly skimmed through key points.

Hearing Xu Zhonghong’s words, Li Chunhua jumped in. As a peasant woman, she had no sense of shame—she said whatever came to mind.

“Comrade Xu, my daughter was already engaged to your son. She’s part of your Xu family now. Technically, she should be buried with your family.”

“Bullshit!” Xu Zhonghong shouted, drenched in sweat.

“There was no marriage certificate, no wedding banquet. How is she part of my family?”

His mentally disabled son was already difficult to marry off. If he brought home a corpse, no other woman would ever dare marry into their family.

“Fine, then if you won’t bury her, you need to pay a burial fee.”
Li Chunhua wasn’t fazed by Xu Zhonghong’s rage. Hands on hips, she was determined to get money.

“How much?”

Xu Zhonghong was so furious he nearly spat blood. But thinking he’d better just get the bride price back and leave, he held it in. He figured the Leng family hadn’t even prepared a coffin for Zhaodi—probably just planned to wrap her in an old sheet and dump her. Three or five yuan should be plenty.

“Two hundred yuan,” Li Chunhua demanded shamelessly.

“……” Xu Zhonghong was so stunned he couldn’t speak. He had seen shameless people before—but never one this outrageous.

Just then, Leng Xue finished absorbing the memories. She opened her eyes and sat up.

The Leng household had no cement flooring—just uneven, hard-packed dirt. If she didn’t get up, her flawless skin would be ruined.

Thanks to King Yama’s illusion spell, she still looked like herself. But the clothes were another matter.

She was now wearing Leng Zhaodi’s old patched clothes. Since Leng Xue was taller, the pant legs only reached mid-calf, and the sleeves were far too short.

The adults were still arguing and didn’t notice her movements.

At that moment, Leng Zhaodi’s younger brother, Leng Tianbao, opened the back door holding a bundle of lotus pods. Seeing Leng Xue sitting up, he screamed in terror:
“Ahhhhh! A ghost! Leng Zhaodi turned into a ghost!”

Leng Tianbao was thirteen—right in the middle of puberty. His voice cracked like a rooster’s, loud enough to shake the sky and startle the neighbors.

In the countryside, no one could afford TVs at this time of day, and it was too hot to work the fields. Most people were lounging around at home.

Hearing the commotion, villagers came running in twos and threes, wearing straw hats to see the spectacle.

Li Chunhua, who had been demanding money, heard her son scream and turned around—only to see Leng Xue slowly rising to her feet.

“Y-You… are you a ghost or a person?” Li Chunhua asked with trembling voice.

Leng Daguì shrank into a corner. Even in the intense heat, he broke into a cold sweat.

They had caused Leng Zhaodi’s death. Their guilty conscience made them instinctively think she had returned from the dead for revenge.

Xu Zhonghong, being a city man, had attended many anti-superstition, anti-feudal lectures organized by the cotton mill. He didn’t believe in ghosts. Instead, he suspected the Leng family was staging this to trick him out of money.

“Trying to fool me with fake ghost tricks to avoid refunding my money? You can’t even act properly—if there were ghosts, they wouldn’t come out at noon!”

He fanned himself furiously, thoroughly fed up. He strode up to Leng Daguì and stuck out his hand.
“Give me back my 200 yuan right now, or I’ll report you to the police for fraud and feudal superstition!”

“She—she’s really not a ghost?” Leng Daguì pointed at Leng Xue.

“Hmph. Only those with guilty hearts see ghosts,” Leng Xue sneered coldly, having just finished receiving Leng Zhaodi’s memories.

This family had never treated Leng Zhaodi like a human being. Her short life had been nothing but labor and abuse—until she was quite literally cooked to death.

Leng Xue made a silent vow:
Since I’ve taken over her life, I’ll avenge her.