In China, 2023, an old woman named Zhou Lian closed her eyes for the last time, surrounded by her devoted children and grandchildren. She expected to see Ox-Head and Horse-Face, the guardians of the underworld, but when she opened her eyes, all she could see was lush greenery.
Lying in bed, she heard the rhythmic snoring around her—it was her two unmarried younger sisters. Scalding tears streamed from Zhou Lian's tightly shut eyes. She, an old woman nearly seventy, had become her twenty-year-old self again. 'Although I'm barely literate, my grandchildren taught me how to use a smartphone and a computer. I couldn't read novels, but I could listen to them! This must be the transmigration and rebirth I've heard about in those stories.' It was 1977. She wasn't married yet, still her father's most beloved daughter.
'I've had my share of joys and sorrows in this life. My parents adored me and my children were devoted, but the man I married was a disappointment. What could I do? For the sake of those two wonderful children, I still have to marry him in this life.'
When she first opened her eyes that morning, she thought she was dreaming and spent the whole day in a daze. It wasn't until that evening, seeing her siblings and her long-dead parents, that she realized it wasn't a dream. She had truly returned to the time before her marriage, back when she was twenty years old. It was the autumn of 1977. In two more months, she was supposed to have a blind date with *that* man. 'I really don't want to see him. He's so infuriating! He's selfish, foolishly filial, and hot-tempered. He even hit me when we were young. But if I don't marry him, then my son and daughter will never be born.'
Her two children had been obedient, devoted, and clever since they were young. Because of their father's bad temper, her daughter took her to live with her when she started college, afraid her parents would constantly argue and fight. The image of her two children, both over fifty, looking pained and helpless by her deathbed, flashed before her eyes. Wiping the tears from her face, Zhou Lian sighed softly. 'I'll marry him. But this life, I won't be so weak and naive! Time to sleep. I have to wake up early to work in the fields tomorrow.'
Under the veil of night in Shanqian Village, a young man sat smoking by the river. If Zhou Lian had been there, she would have recognized him instantly. It was Li Xiu, the man she had yet to marry. The hand holding his cigarette trembled uncontrollably. 'How could she be gone? How could she die before me? She suffered her whole life and never had a single day of happiness.'
He didn't snap back to reality until the cigarette burned his fingers. He was back. Back to the time before their blind date in his past life. This time, he would treat her right. 'I'll do what my little granddaughter always said and cherish her in the palm of my hand. I still have a chance. It's not too late. She doesn't even know me yet!'
He looked up at the great mountain before him, his gaze seeming to pierce through it to the village on the other side. That was the home of the Yue Family, his wife's maiden home! In a daze, he could almost see her again on her deathbed, her gaze placid. There was no complaint, no resentment—she looked at him like he was a familiar stranger. 'How long has it been?' he wondered. 'She hasn't seen me as her husband for ages.' When he tried to visit her at their daughter's home, she would flee to their son's. The moment he went to their son's, she would return to their daughter's.
It seemed they had been living apart ever since their daughter left for college. Although they never officially divorced, their marriage existed in name only. He was filled with regret, but she never gave him another chance. He had been a reckless fool in his youth and had broken her heart. She endured it all for the sake of their children, and once they grew up, they knew how to dote on her.
When their daughter left for college, she took her mother with her. At the time, their son was only a freshman in high school. She had been worried about leaving him, but it was their son who threatened to let his grades slip if his sister didn't take their mom away. 'And what was I doing then?' he thought bitterly. 'I was busy with my youngest brother's wedding.' By the time he realized what was happening, the three of them—mother, son, and daughter—had already made up their minds.
Their daughter had cried about being too far from home, saying she was scared to be without her mother. Their son had tearfully chimed in, saying he was worried about his sister being all alone at school. He begged his father to let their mom go along to take care of her. He argued that since he was a boy and his school was close to home, he could look after himself, so his parents shouldn't worry. And just like that, the matter was settled. From then on, the couple lived apart. With the children taking care of her, they hardly saw each other except for their kids' major life events...
He'd regretted it, he'd resented it, and on the day after she passed, he had followed her in death. But he never saw her on the other side. Instead, he woke up to the sight of his young, sickly father. He had been knocked unconscious by a production team's bull and sent home to rest. When his eyes fluttered open, he discovered he was twenty-two years old again.
'Thinking back, the bull knocked me out in my last life because my fourth and fifth brothers had snatched our sister's red scarf to taunt it. I got hit trying to save them. What an idiot I was. Because I was the eldest son and our father died young from illness, I foolishly shouldered the entire burden of my four younger brothers and one younger sister.'
'But I never stopped to consider whether they even wanted to be carried on my back. In my past life, when Father died, Second Brother was twenty-two, Third Brother was nineteen, my sister was seventeen, Fourth Brother was fourteen, and Fifth Brother was thirteen. Second Brother had just gotten married, and as the eldest, I helped every single one of the others get married and establish themselves. I even paid for and organized Second Brother's wedding. And yet, in the end, not a single one of them treated me like family.'
'In the end, I was the one left with a broken family. Though my children were filial, they kept their distance. I understood, though. They were only repaying their debt for being brought into this world and raised. It was my fault. I didn't know how to be a husband or a father. When I remember hitting her back when we were young, egged on by my mother's meddling and my siblings' complaints, I want to chop my own hands off. The look in her eyes at that moment... after everyone else had abandoned me, it became a nightmare that haunted me night after night.'
'Whatever. This life, I'll pay more attention to my father's health. And if I can't change his fate of dying young, I won't be an idiot and fall for that "eldest brother is a father, his wife is a mother" crap. We have a mother, don't we? She's the one who lived a long life. Her children, her responsibility. Weren't I kicked out with practically nothing on the fourth day of my own marriage when the family property was split?'
'Oh, and I was also saddled with a 100-yuan debt. Mother claimed it was from my wedding, so naturally, I was the one who had to pay it. Three thatched-roof rooms, a hundred pounds of dried sweet potato, a single large wok, a tiny, barren vegetable plot, and that 100-yuan debt—that was the sum total of my worldly possessions.'
'I started working full-time in the production team at the age of twelve, earning ten work points a day. By sixteen, I was earning twelve. For ten years, I supported the entire family, young and old, only to be kicked out with next to nothing. How could I have been so stupid back then? How could I not see my parents' blatant favoritism and my siblings' selfish scheming? Instead, I just thought about how hard my parents had it and felt sorry for my "poor" little siblings.'
'For decades in my last life, I wondered how I could have missed something so obvious. Most guys in the village got engaged at eighteen or nineteen, but they dragged things out until I was twenty-two before even letting me have a blind date. They were just afraid that if I got engaged too soon, I'd grow close to my wife and stop slaving away for the family like a beast of burden. And, of course, they didn't want to have to send New Year's gifts to the Yue Family for any longer than necessary!'
'My mother truly had me schemed against down to the bone. No matter. It's not too late. I need to get everything ready. When she marries me next February, I can't let her suffer all that same humiliation again!'