Chapter 1 First Encounter

1968, Commune Clinic.

A young man in coarse linen clothes, pant legs rolled up to his knees, lifted the curtain at the door with a troubled expression and stepped inside. He dropped the bundle from his shoulder beside the bed.

“Sis, if you don’t wake up soon, Grandma’s going to beat me to death—!”

“It’s do or die at this point! I went and stole the team leader’s referral letter. How about I send you back to the provincial capital?”
“Auntie was right. Even if your adoptive city parents don’t care about you, you still have a fiancé, don’t you?”
“Married to a chicken, you live with a chicken. Married to a dog, you live with a dog. At least he’s better than a pig or a beast.”

Su Niannian stirred at the commotion. As her vision cleared, she gradually made out the face of the young man crouching beside the bed. His skin was dark, eyebrows sharp and slanting toward his temples, giving him a slightly fierce look. But his eyes were clear like a child’s—simple, honest.

“…Brother?” Her voice trembled. She reached out to touch his face—warm, rough skin under her fingers.

But her brother, Su Jianshan, had clearly died two years ago.

Back then, when she was imprisoned by Jin Chuan, her honest and simple brother had wandered through the provincial capital doing hard labor, selling blood to support the search for her, and ultimately collapsed under a bridge, dying with no one to collect his body.

Yet here he was, alive and breathing.

Was this a dream?

Outside, the summer cicadas cried loudly from every direction, their shrill “Zhi-la, zhi-la” call tearing through the heat. Su Niannian glanced around. The roof beams were wooden and covered in cobwebs. The walls, coated with white clay, had old calendars pinned to them. On one, bold black characters stood out:

1968.

She had been reborn?!

Su Niannian’s hand trembled as she pinched the arm of the person beside her.
Su Jianshan nearly jumped, “Ow! Sis!”

He looked at her, puzzled, and studied her face. She’d clearly been well cared for by the Chen family.

Two long black braids hung over her shoulders, her delicate face pale and smooth like cream. Her skin was dewy and tender, her eyelids thin, eyelashes long and curled, her eyes shaped just right. Her rosy lips looked like fresh cherries on a spring branch.

Su Jianshan could tell she wanted to cry. Her lips trembled as she held back tears, the rims of her eyes turning red in a way that made her look heartbreakingly obedient and pitiful.

He rushed to say, “Pinch me more if you want—your brother deserves it! We won’t eat coarse grains or work the fields anymore. Even if the sky falls, I’ll hold it up! I’ll send you back to the capital—!”

Back to the capital? That would be like jumping into a fire pit!

The memories of her previous life were still vivid.

After her identity as a fake heiress was exposed, Su Niannian had been sent back to the countryside by Madam Chen. Her biological parents had died after making some mistakes, and everything was left to her grandmother Wang Guifen to decide.

She had been pampered by the Chen family for 18 years, raised with bourgeois habits. The moment she returned to the village, she plummeted to the bottom of the food chain. Only her brother Su Jianshan tried to protect her with all his might.

She once set the firewood stack ablaze while trying to light a fire, fell into a pond while cutting pig grass, pulled up the seedlings instead of weeds, and was terrified of leeches in the fields.

During the autumn harvest, she tried helping with rice cutting and nearly sliced off her foot with a sickle. That incident landed her in the clinic for three days.

Unwilling to see his sister suffer, Su Jianshan—egged on by their aunt—stole the team leader’s referral letter to get her out of the village.

But that trip ended in tragedy.

She did join the Military Arts Troupe, where she met Jin Chuan again. Then, during a dance rehearsal, she had a serious accident and broke her leg. Afterward, she was forced to live at the Jin residence. In daily close quarters, Jin Chuan removed his mask and revealed his terrifying possessiveness. He began using emotional manipulation, then outright threats and force, to control her.

For the sake of her family, Su Niannian endured it all. Just before Jin Chuan was to marry Chen Niannian, the real heiress, that woman came to her privately—with devastating news: her brother Su Jianshan had died.

Not long after, after nearly two years of being imprisoned, Su Niannian slit her wrists at home, ending a tragic and wrong life.

Tears rolled silently down her cheeks.

She couldn’t make the same mistakes again.

This time, she would protect her brother. Join the Arts Troupe—on her terms.
She would never allow Jin Chuan to lay a finger on her!

Su Niannian stood up, taking a few steps. Tears still streaked her cheeks, but her eyes shone with a fierce light.

“Brother, we’re not going back to the capital. I’m staying in Xiangyang Village.”

“If you stay in the countryside and don’t earn work points, you’ll starve to death.”

“Then I’ll earn them!” she said.
“I’ll learn to cut grass, plant rice, sow seeds, harvest corn—or marry a good man. There are always more solutions than hardships. I’ll learn to overcome them.”

At just eighteen, Su Niannian’s face was soft and fair, delicate like the first budding willow of spring. Even her voice seemed laced with honey—just one sweet word, and others would take on the sky for her.

Su Jianshan nodded instinctively. “Alright.”

Su Niannian took a deep breath. For the first time, she felt a strange calm settle in.
As long as she didn’t cross paths with Jin Chuan again, everything could slowly be put right.

---

The door curtain lifted.

Wang Guifen, dressed in a clean blue cotton jacket, stood in the doorway like a brooding hen and scolded loudly:

“Su Jianshan, aren’t you bold! Stealing a referral letter from the team leader? You must be itching for a beating! And trying to send your sister to the capital? You think that’s some kind of paradise? That place eats people alive!”

“You two wanna leave? I’ll break both your legs!”

She suddenly switched tones, becoming all sweet and syrupy:

“We’ve got guests at home. No point sitting around. Go catch some cicada nymphs on the road—at least we’ll have a dish of meat on the table.”

Then she turned to Su Niannian with a kindly face.

“Niannian, come back with me on the ox cart. The sun’s scorching. I made mung bean soup—it’ll cool you off.”

As the matriarch of the Su family, Wang Guifen’s word was law. No junior dared disobey her.

But Su Niannian no longer stayed silent as before.

“I want to go with my brother to catch cicadas.”

Wang Guifen, quick as lightning, tucked the blue cloth bundle under her arm and plopped a straw hat on Su Niannian’s head. Sunlight filtered through the gaps, casting delicate shadows across her snow-white skin and cherry-pink lips. She looked more dazzling than ever.

“Alright.”
“But if you’re not back on time, I’ll skin your brother alive!”

After paying the medical fees, the grandmother and the two siblings parted ways outside the clinic.

Su Jianshan and Su Niannian walked one behind the other. Su Jianshan held a bamboo pole, the tip wrapped with a gluey substance made from wheat paste that Wang Guifen had brought. It was made by chewing dried wheat grains into a thick, sticky mash and removing the bran—exceptionally tacky, perfect for catching cicadas. Once a cicada landed, it was stuck for good.

In their past life, Su Jianshan had often used cicada shells to exchange for maltose candy for Su Niannian. Now, under the blazing sun, sweat streamed down his tanned skin, soaking through his clothes until they clung to him.

Su Niannian, hiding in the shade of a tree, kicked at the gravel with her foot, eyes gradually reddening.

“What ‘important guest’ is coming to our house, huh? Important enough to need a dish as wasteful as fried cicadas?”

“Maybe Aunt Xiu’e’s younger sister? Or Sister Wang next door…”

“But you worked so hard catching these,” Su Niannian said, taking a few quick steps forward. Her pale hands snatched the cloth pouch tied at his waist.
“Let’s sell them to the herbal buyer instead.”

That so-called aunt’s sister had gossiped plenty about Su Jianshan—called him a fool, a jinx! Even if she had to throw the cicadas away, Su Niannian wouldn’t let those people eat them.

Just then, a cloud of dust rose on the road.

A jeep drove past the siblings, brushing by them before screeching to a halt. The driver’s side window rolled halfway down—clearly waiting for them to come closer.

Su Jianshan’s eyes widened in surprise.
“A cicada buyer? They’re early today!”

Su Niannian’s eyes lit up. She grabbed the cloth bag and dashed forward. The sudden motion made her slight frame stagger, and she instinctively braced herself with one hand on the car window.

“Uncle, here—! Can I trade them for five fen of malt—”

In a flash, a firm hand lightly steadied her.

The man’s fingers were long and well-defined, with a faint bullet scar across the back of his hand.

Su Niannian froze.

The young man’s gaze shifted toward her.

His expression was sharp, his features chiseled and aloof. His sun-kissed arm rested casually on the window frame, veins subtly visible beneath the skin. His voice was low and gravelly, like stones scraping along a riverbed.

“Five fen?”
“Is it the rule in Qinggang Commune that you need to trade something just to ask for directions, Comrade?”