Li Hongying’s lips trembled, caught between joy and worry.  

She was overjoyed that her daughter had a suitor—and a soldier, no less. Being a military wife was an honorable role, and soldiers received allowances. Even a veteran’s allowance was no less than that of an ordinary worker. If he got promoted to officer rank, the allowance would increase, and after retiring from service, he could even be assigned a job. Without even meeting the man, Li Hongying was already quite satisfied with her future son-in-law.  

But she was also worried that Jiang Dahai might disapprove of the match.  

“You silly child, why didn’t you mention you had a suitor sooner? Dahai, I had no idea about this either. Look at the mess we’re in now…”  

Jiang Qing, observing Jiang Dahai’s darkening expression, spoke up. “We’ve known each other for a long time, but he’s been stationed in the army all this while. I couldn’t bring him home to meet you, so I never brought it up. He just returned on leave a few days ago, and we decided to get married. Once he finishes handling some matters, I’ll bring him to meet you properly.”  

“Damn it, Jiang Qing! Are you doing this on purpose?!” Jiang Peng kicked his chair aside and cursed. “You didn’t say a word about having a suitor all this time, and now you bring it up right before being sent to the countryside? You’re deliberately trying to screw my sister over, aren’t you?”  

Jiang Moli couldn’t help but give her little brother a mental thumbs-up.  

Kid, you hit the nail on the head.

As the reincarnated female lead, Jiang Qing harbored deep hatred for the original villainous stepsister—her. Thus, the first thing she did after rebirth was to steal the original protagonist’s childhood sweetheart, a soldier.  

First, Jiang Qing recognized the potential of the arranged marriage and knew the man would achieve great things in the future.  

Second, she used marriage as a way to avoid the tragic fate of being sent to the countryside.  

And third, she cut off the original protagonist’s escape route.  

The childhood sweetheart could only marry one person—once Jiang Qing took him, he wouldn’t be available for the original host.  

It was a triple win.  

As the villainess, Jiang Moli couldn’t stay silent now, even though she felt absolutely nothing inside.  

“Dad, don’t you dare give her the household register to get married!”  

She then turned to Jiang Qing with a smug grin. “So what if you have a suitor? Without a marriage certificate, it doesn’t count. You’re still going to the countryside!”  

Jiang Qing glared at her coldly.  

“What are you staring at? Keep it up and I’ll gouge your eyes out! If you want to get married so badly, go marry some country bumpkin after you’re sent down, have a litter of brats, and rot in the countryside for the rest of your life!”  

Jiang Moli lifted her chin arrogantly, her expression so malicious that even she wanted to slap herself.  

“Moli, Xiao Qing, stop fighting!” Li Hongying wrung her hands anxiously, terrified that Jiang Dahai would lose his temper with them. “Dahai, Xiao Qing is young and doesn’t know any better. She didn’t think things through. Don’t hold it against her. We can still figure something out about the countryside assignment.”  

Uneducated and without a proper job, and without a son to rely on, Li Hongying’s only lifeline was Jiang Dahai.  

Jiang Qing despised Li Hongying’s submissive attitude.  

Yes, Jiang Dahai had given them food, shelter, a city hukou, and even paid for her high school education. But she and her mother hadn’t been freeloaders.  

From the age of ten, when she entered this household, she and Li Hongying had worked tirelessly to serve the father and his two children, enduring constant bullying and harassment from Jiang Moli and Jiang Peng.  

They weren’t stepmother and stepdaughter—they were more like the Jiang family’s live-in maids.  

She had loathed that dependent, powerless existence. So in her past life, she had chosen to go to the countryside without hesitation, just to escape the Jiang family.  

But when she arrived at the Hainan farm, full of hope for a life of her own, she was caught in a flash flood and buried under a landslide.  

After her death, her spirit returned to the Jiang household.  

Before her body had even gone cold, the family had eagerly prepared for a wedding, marrying Jiang Moli off to Zhang Jiaming.  

Not long after, Zhang Jiaming distinguished himself in the army and was promoted ahead of schedule.  

Jiang Moli packed her bags and became a military dependent.  

But even in the army barracks, Jiang Moli remained her lazy, scheming self, stirring up drama and gossip wherever she went. Worse, she was manipulated by criminals into leaking military secrets, costing Zhang Jiaming not only his rank but also landing him with a disciplinary record.  

Later, Zhang Jiaming died honorably on a mission. Jiang Moli took the pension money and immediately remarried—this time to a wealthy businessman from Zhejiang.  

The injustice of it all burned in Jiang Qing’s heart.  

How could a wicked, lazy woman like Jiang Moli live a life of luxury, while she—hardworking and ambitious—had met such a miserable end, dying alone in a strange land?  

Perhaps her resentment had been too strong, because when she opened her eyes again, she found herself back on the day before the countryside assignments were announced…  

She shook off the memories.

Jiang Qing didn’t argue with Jiang Moli. Instead, she adopted a tone of feigned concern:  

“Uncle Jiang, I know you can’t bear to send Moli to the countryside. The only solution now is for Moli to get married too. Once she’s married, she won’t have to go.”  

Even if Jiang Qing hadn’t brought it up, Jiang Dahai had already considered this.  

Though he was angry at his stepdaughter for going back on her word, he wasn’t cruel enough to force her to break up with her sweetheart.  

But if his stepdaughter didn’t go to the countryside, his own daughter would have to.  

There were only two ways to avoid being sent down: fake an illness or get married.  

Given his daughter’s foolishness and loudmouth tendencies, faking an illness would never work—she’d give herself away immediately. Marriage was the safer option.  

But who could she marry?  

There were several unmarried young men at the machinery factory, but none of them were interested in Jiang Moli.  

With her reputation for laziness and vanity, combined with her pretty but trouble-magnet face, no one dared to take her.  

It was enough to drive him mad.  

…  

After dinner, Wang Lianhua from next door came over with a plate of melons for a visit.  

Jiang Moli was flipping through a martial arts novel she’d scavenged from Jiang Peng.  

In an era where even listening to the radio was restricted to certain hours, reading books and newspapers was pretty much the only entertainment available.  

Jiang Molly picked up a slice of melon and nibbled on it half-heartedly.  

The melon wasn’t very fresh—the flesh was soft and not particularly sweet. But it was better than nothing.  

Wang Lianhua had come to propose a match for Jiang Moli.  

“…You’ve met my nephew from my maiden family a few times. Aside from being poor, he’s got no other flaws.”  

Wow, and poverty isn’t a major flaw?

Jiang Moli tossed the melon rind onto the table, embodying the spirit of “I’ll eat your food but won’t soften my words.” 

“Auntie Wang, I only have one standard for a man—he’s gotta be rich. House, car, money, none of that can be missing. After marriage, he’ll need to give me eighty to a hundred Yuan a month for spending money. That’s all I ask.”  

Pfft!

Are you making a wish here?

A lazy, good-for-nothing like you should be grateful any man would take you, and yet you’re still picky? Just wait till you’re sent to the countryside and suffer a bit—then you’ll learn your lesson!

Wang Lianhua left in a huff.  

On her way out, she even took the unfinished plate of melons with her.  

“Hey, Auntie Wang, I wasn’t done eating yet!” Jiang Moli shamelessly called after her.  

The only response was the sound of Wang Lianhua slamming the door.  

Jiang Dahai glared at his daughter, torn between anger and reluctant amusement.  

He wasn’t keen on Wang’s nephew either. His daughter was already lazy—if she married a penniless man, how would they survive?  

At the very least, he had to find her a family with some means, one where she wouldn’t go hungry.  

After much deliberation, Jiang Dahai remembered the arranged marriage he’d set up for his daughter years ago.  

He and Zhang Tiesheng were from the same village. Their families had been neighbors, and the two had been close since childhood, so they’d arranged a marriage between their children.  

During the famine of 1960, Jiang Dahai fled to the city with his family to survive and later became a worker at the machinery factory.  

Zhang Tiesheng, however, had stayed rooted in the countryside, and the gap between their families had widened over the years.  

Whenever Jiang Dahai returned to his hometown, Zhang Tiesheng would occasionally bring up the arranged marriage, but Jiang Dahai had always brushed it off with vague excuses.  

On one hand, his daughter was a snob who refused to acknowledge a rural betrothal. On the other, he couldn’t bear the thought of her suffering in the countryside.  

“Your Uncle Zhang told me that Jiaming has already become a volunteer soldier in the army. Volunteer soldiers get a monthly allowance, and after retiring, they’re assigned jobs—it’s basically an iron rice bowl. He’d definitely be able to support you, so stop looking down on him.”  

Jiang Dahai pleaded earnestly with Jiang Moli.  

“If you don’t get married, you’ll have to go to the countryside. You know how harsh life is back home—up before dawn, cooking, feeding pigs, farming, transplanting rice seedlings, hauling manure… endless labor. Life sent down would be even harder. Do you really think you’d survive?”  

Jiang Dahai might not have been a good stepfather, but he was undoubtedly a devoted father.  

Jiang Moli had grown up with divorced parents, raised by her mother and maternal grandmother. The absence of paternal love made her particularly vulnerable to Jiang Dahai’s fatherly concern.  

“System, in the original story, the original host was killed by a train. But what about Jiang Dahai? What happened to him?”