Chapter 1

Ning Shu woke up from a sharp pain at the back of her head. She furrowed her brows as she opened her eyes, not yet grasping why her head hurt so much. Then waves of acupuncture-like pain surged from her brain.

Followed by a flood of memories…

She had crossed over.

It was now 1970. The original owner of this body shared the same name as her, Ning Shu.

The original owner was sent to the countryside as a youth in 1965. Her family was a dual-employed household with an older brother and sister, twins, she was the third child, followed by a younger brother and sister.

At home, she was neither favored by her parents nor loved by them. But assuming she had suffered since childhood because of this would be wrong.

The original owner was not weak; she knew she was not liked by her parents and also knew that her parents cared about their reputation.

So, she would slack off at home whenever she could and leave whenever there was work to do. Consequently, her parents didn’t like her very much.

This time, she was sent to the countryside because it was mandated by the state that every urban household must send their children to the countryside.

Because her parents didn’t like her, they simply registered her name without her knowledge.

When the original owner found out, she knew there was no escaping being sent to the countryside. So, she did something drastic; she secretly registered the names of her brother, sister, who already had a partner, and her younger siblings who were still in junior high school, along with hers.

As a result, the whole family went to the countryside, leaving the original owner’s parents furious, chasing her for three streets.

Consequently, the original owner received no help from her family. When registering her siblings, she received a subsidy of fifty yuan per person from the Youth League.

She registered four people and received a total of two hundred yuan, of which she didn’t spend a single penny.

The original owner was also resourceful. After arriving at Qinglin Bay Production Brigade in the countryside, she knew she couldn’t bear the hardship of manual labor and also knew her parents wouldn’t help her return to the city.

So, she decided to get married. When she was secretly selecting her husband, Lin Guodong, who was serving in the army, came home on leave. So, she chose him.

Normally, even if the original owner chose Lin Guodong, it didn’t mean he would choose her. But Lin Guodong had a younger sister who was not very bright and because she was young, only thirteen at the time, she was bribed by the original owner with White Rabbit milk candy, a red headband, and red hair clips.

Consequently, while everyone else in the Lin family went to work, leaving only Lin Guodong at home, she gave Lin Guodong water laced with medicine prepared by the original owner and then brought the original owner into her brother’s room.

By the time the Lin family returned from work, everything between the original owner and Lin Guodong was settled.

Although this was orchestrated by the original owner, Lin Guodong’s younger sister, Lin Xiaojing, was an accomplice. If things were to go awry, not only would the original owner be punished, but Lin Xiaojing wouldn’t escape either.

At the same time, it could also affect Lin Guodong’s reputation and future. As the youngest, most favored, and most promising son of the Lin family, they wouldn’t let anything happen to him.

So, after discussing with the Lin family, Lin Guodong had no choice but to marry the original owner. After getting married, Lin Guodong and the original owner not only slept in separate beds, but he was also cold towards her.

As soon as the holidays were over, he went back to the army. If it weren’t for fear of gossip from the villagers about leaving his wife the day after getting married, he wouldn’t even have waited for the holidays.

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The original owner didn’t care about Lin Guodong’s coldness towards her; she was only concerned about her own well-being. But she also knew that marriage was not a guarantee, so she played nice at her parents’ home but acted subservient at Lin’s house.

Because of this, the Lin family’s attitude towards her improved slightly.

However, despite her endurance, luck was on the original owner’s side. Because, before long, she became pregnant from one encounter before marriage.

After getting pregnant, she changed her previous efforts to please the Lin family and began acting up. She took advantage of her pregnancy to threaten the Lin family with splitting the property.

She demanded three tiled houses after the division, and she also insisted on receiving Lin Guodong’s salary. If they didn’t agree to the division, she threatened to commit suicide with her unborn child.

Feeling guilty for their daughter in law’s actions, Lin’s parents agreed to the original owner’s demands without informing Lin Guodong.

So, the original owner successfully separated from the family while two months pregnant. Four months into her pregnancy, she moved into the three red brick and tiled houses provided by the Lin family.

In an era where most households lived in adobe houses, the original owner’s red brick and tiled houses were quite eye-catching.

In March of 1966, the original owner gave birth to twin sons.

By the end of the year, Lin Guodong came home to visit. It was then that he learned about the division of the family’s property.

All the money he had sent home during this time had been given to the original owner by Lin’s parents. Lin Guodong felt exhausted both physically and mentally.

The family had split, the children were born, what else could he do?

When the two children were four years old, at the beginning of 1969, Lin Guodong returned home for the second time.

That day, the original host’s family and the people from the old house had dinner together, and the rare family reunion led the men to drink more than usual. After returning home, the original host made sobering tea for Lin Guodong, adding some leftover medicine to it.

The original host thought that since Lin Guodong was a bit drunk, if something happened between them, she could blame it on Lin Guodong’s drunkenness. And indeed, Lin Guodong never expected that she would drug him after they got married.

Afterwards, he simply thought he had drunk too much. So, after Lin Guodong left last year, the original host became pregnant again, and in mid-October of ’69, her third son was born. And now it was September of ’70.

Over the past few years, the original host had been living quite comfortably. Since the division of property, Lin Guodong gave her 30 yuan every month, along with some coupons from the army, such as meat coupons, cloth coupons, industrial coupons, and so on.

The original host had money and didn’t have to take care of the children, making all the women in the village envy her. As for not having to take care of the children, Lin’s mother took care of them at the beginning when the children couldn’t walk yet. When the children learned to walk, like all rural children, they were left to roam freely, and she didn’t bother much.

Perhaps because she didn’t receive love from her parents in her original family, she also lacked maternal love for her children. All the good things were enjoyed by herself. Even if there were rumors in the village, she didn’t care, as every family raised their children like this.

Of course, when cooking, she would cook a little more for the children to have leftovers. After all, she also knew that if anything happened to the children, her life wouldn’t be easy either.

However, with her cooking skills so bad that even pigs would turn up their noses, the children didn’t seem to notice any problem. It must be because they have iron stomachs.

You see, the original owner of the body was lazy when she was living with her parents, She never cooked. Of course, her mother didn’t dare to let her cook either, afraid that she would secretly eat up all the good stuff.

Although the original owner was sneaky and cunning at her parents’ home, she had the best grades. Maybe there was a grudge in her heart, she wanted to prove herself better than her siblings.

Plus, she knew that her family couldn’t help her, so she wanted to rely on herself and become a worker. However, no matter how good her grades were, it was useless; her parents secretly signed her up for rural work.

And today, the original owner returned to her parents’ home. A few days ago, she received a letter from her old friend He Ling, one of the few friends she had.

Unlike the original owner who wasn’t favored by her parents, He Ling was quite spoiled at home. Although the original owner initially approached her intentionally, she was straightforward and clear-minded.

So, in their later interactions, she genuinely considered He Ling as a friend.

This time, He Ling’s letter informed the original owner that her mother was sick and needed care at home. Her brother, who was sent to the countryside, had returned to the city, and these days her mother’s work was temporarily handled by her brother who came back from the countryside.

After reading the letter, the original owner hurriedly bought a train ticket back to her parents’ home, intending to curry favor. Even though she had severed ties when she went to the countryside by reporting the names of all her siblings, knowing that her parents wouldn’t help her, this time when she returned, she had a plan to gain some benefits.

Ning Shuxin thought to herself, “This original owner really is shameless and selfish.”

Ning Shuxin herself was also a selfish person. In her original world, she had no close relatives. Her parents divorced when she was in the third grade of primary school.

Her father sent her to live with her grandmother in the countryside, giving her grandmother a monthly allowance of 500 yuan for food. Her grandmother had several sons, and she had plenty of grandchildren, so although she didn’t show any dislike for her granddaughter whose mother had divorced, she naturally didn’t show much affection either.

But still, being her own granddaughter and with her father giving 500 yuan every month, she never lacked for meals.

Growing up in such an environment, she developed a calculating personality. Especially as she grew older, she knew she was different from others. She wouldn’t have parents to care for her. So, before she came of age, every month without fail, she asked her biological parents for living expenses.

She asked from both sides, not just for living expenses, but also for various study material expenses, money for buying clothes, and so on.

Of course, asking for money every month without fail would also annoy her parents. At those times, she would cry pitifully and say, “I won’t bother your new family in the future. I won’t come and bother the new dad (new mom).”

In this way, by selling misery appropriately and having a thick skin, she managed to have quite a generous allowance during junior high, high school, and university.

She studied in the town for primary and junior high school and managed to enter high school with good grades. But her performance in high school wasn’t great, maybe because she didn’t have a talent for studying, so she only got into a third-tier university.

At that time, there were many clothing companies in the city, and she didn’t want to study in an unfamiliar place, so when filling out her college preferences, she chose the local clothing college.

However, after graduating from university, her remarried parents stopped giving her living expenses. After graduating from university, she successfully entered a well-known local clothing company as a design assistant.

Through this, she got involved in group purchases and became a group leader. Starting as a side job, she later earned quite a bit of money from it and became a full-time group leader.

From earning a few thousand yuan a month to earning tens of thousands of yuan, she even rented her own store.

“Comrade, are you awake? How are you feeling? Do you feel uncomfortable anywhere?” The middle-aged man, trembling, asked as Ning Shu woke up.

He was really scared just now. After knocking down the female comrade, he saw her lying motionless on the ground and couldn’t feel her breathing when he reached out to touch her nose.

Now, seeing the female comrade open her eyes, he thought he might have been too nervous and made a mistake.

Ning Shu moved and got up from the ground. This movement made her furrow her brows slightly, and the wound on the back of her head hurt even more.

She instinctively reached out to touch it, but found herself holding something in her hand. Upon closer inspection, she suddenly widened her eyes. Wasn’t this her phone? How did her phone end up here?

“Comrade? Comrade, how are you? Comrade, I’m really sorry. My mother is seriously ill, and I just bought medicine from the pharmacy and hurried home, so I didn’t see you. How about this, I’ll compensate you with 50 yuan for medical expenses. You can go to the hospital to check. If the medical expenses aren’t enough, you can come to my workplace to find me. I’m the director of the textile factory, named Zhang Fujun. Does that sound okay?” Zhang Fujun felt that going to the hospital wouldn’t cost 50 yuan, but he was anxious to get back home to his old mother. He had finally bought a 50-year-old ginseng today, so he was eager to return and didn’t want to linger with the other party.