In 1973, in a small room on the right side of a residential compound in Yang County, Southern, a kerosene lamp cast flickering shadows against the mottled walls. Jiang Rou stared at the dancing flame inside the glass chimney, her fingernails digging deep into her palms.
Within the shifting light, Zhou Hong’s face, streaked with tears, flickered in and out of view. "Xiao Rou, it’s not that your stepmother is playing favorites. It’s just that Xiao Jie is only sixteen, and he’s the only son in this family. How can we send him to the countryside? As his older sister, you should be more understanding."
Zhou Hong kept up her incessant chatter, hoping to brainwash Jiang Rou into voluntarily relinquishing her job and taking her brother's place in the countryside.
An enamel mug slammed heavily onto the wooden table. Jiang Jianguo’s bloodshot eyes bulged. "We're going to the neighborhood office tomorrow to transfer the printing factory quota to your brother!" The stench of cheap liquor mixed with droplets of saliva sprayed onto Jiang Rou’s face.
"You are the older sister; taking Xiao Jie's place in the countryside is your duty." After drinking at the dinner table, Jiang Jianguo’s face turned beet red as he tried to gaslight Jiang Rou.
Duty?
Jiang Rou looked at the man who was the biological father of this body, and after absorbing the memories of the original owner, she found it laughable.
This body was only eighteen years old!
Reflecting on the original owner’s life: her biological mother died in childbirth, and her father remarried less than six months later. From childhood, she had never known a shred of parental love. From the moment she could understand the world, her stepmother had treated her like a servant, ordering her around constantly.
"I’m talking to you! Did you hear me? Say something!" Jiang Jianguo frowned, dissatisfied with Jiang Rou’s attitude.
Jiang Rou suddenly let out a low laugh—a sound like silk tearing in the dark night. She snapped her head up, revealing the dark red whip marks on her neck. "Last year in the twelfth lunar month, you broke two of my ribs just because I stole half a steamed bun."
Her thin, bony fingers brushed over a yellowed group photo on the table. She stood up abruptly, staring straight at Jiang Jianguo, her voice cold and laced with a hint of fury. "Why? Just because I’m the older sister? From the time I was little until now, what have you ever given me? I ate leftovers, wore old clothes, and the moment I failed to suit your wishes, I was beaten and scolded. Now you want me to go to the countryside, and you want me to give my job quota—which my mother traded her life for—to him? Why on earth should I give it to this good-for-nothing?"
Jiang Jianguo was stunned by Jiang Rou’s sudden defiance, his face turning from blue to white.
"You’ve gone rebellious!" Jiang Jianguo grabbed a bamboo broom, intending to strike her, but Jiang Rou caught his wrist. The palm of the eighteen-year-old girl was calloused—the proof of years spent soaking her hands in cold water while scrubbing the family’s laundry.
"You unfilial daughter, you dare to talk back? In this house, I am the one who makes the decisions! We’re going to register tomorrow and transfer that job to your brother!"
"Dad!" Jiang Jie suddenly slammed his chopsticks down. "She’s just jealous of me! Director Wang from the neighborhood office said that people’s ears can freeze off in Beidahuang!" The sixteen-year-old boy shook his new Warrior-brand sneakers triumphantly. "Once I get the job, I’ll buy you Da Qianmen cigarettes to smoke."
At this, Zhou Hong feigned an attempt to stop them, but actually pushed Jiang Rou toward the broom. "Dear, don't get so angry; it's bad for your health. Xiao Rou, your father is doing this for the sake of the family. Your brother is young; the countryside is too hard for him. Just help the family out, won't you?"
Jiang Rou sneered at Zhou Hong and replied without flinching: "Don’t put on this hypocritical act. You are not my mother; my mother passed away the moment I was born. How you’ve treated me all these years, you know in your hearts. You’ve used me as free labor for years, and now you want me to sacrifice my future for your precious son? Not happening!"
Jiang Rou was not the original owner; she would not be submissive or choose to compromise. Besides, the original owner had been a girl of only eighteen, and it was precisely because of their long-term abuse that she had transmigrated into this body.
Jiang Jie couldn't be sent to the countryside at sixteen, but had they considered that the original owner was also just an eighteen-year-old girl? Moreover, the original owner was frail and sickly due to long-term malnutrition. She looked so thin and small that no one would believe she was eighteen; she looked like a girl of fifteen or sixteen. How could she possibly endure the harsh conditions awaiting her in the countryside?
What’s more, that job belonged to the original owner’s biological mother, reserved for her to inherit upon reaching adulthood. Why should she give it to someone else?
Jiang Rou looked up at Jiang Jianguo and said calmly: "You want me to go to the countryside? Forget it." With that, she dropped the broom and turned to walk toward her small, dim room.
The moment Jiang Rou slammed the door, the feigned misery on Zhou Hong’s face vanished like a receding tide.
Jiang Jianguo was still stunned by Jiang Rou’s outburst. After all, today’s Jiang Rou was a far cry from her usual submissive self; she had actually learned to resist, and he hadn't reacted in time. Once it registered, his face flushed with rage again. He threw down the broom he was holding and cursed: "Whether you like it or not, you will give up that job! As your father, I am the head of this house!"
Zhou Hong walked over to soothe him, though she was secretly fueling the fire. "Calm down, dear." Then she whispered, "Can this actually work? After all, the job is legally Xiao Rou's."
Feeling his authority questioned, Jiang Jianguo slammed his hand down. "I am the head of this family, and what I say goes. Tomorrow, you take her and Xiao Jie to handle the transfer, and register her for the countryside while you're at it."
"Dad, I’ll definitely be better at it than Jiang Rou. I promise that once I get the job, I'll be a permanent employee within three months. Once I get my paycheck, I’ll definitely buy you Da Qianmen cigarettes," Jiang Jie promised, patting his chest.
A smile appeared on Jiang Jianguo’s angry face. He patted Jiang Jie’s shoulder and said, "Good, good, good. You’re truly my own flesh and blood."
Before the words had faded, a dull thud came from the inner room—a wooden chest hitting the floor. Jiang Jianguo grabbed a fireplace poker and started to rush over, but Zhou Hong grabbed his sleeve tightly. "Don't be angry, dear. Let's eat!"
Inside the room, Jiang Rou sat on the creaking bed, beginning to carefully sort through the memories of this body and her current situation.
Just yesterday, she had been the Jiang Rou of the twenty-first century. A few days prior, she had suddenly discovered a portable space of one hundred cubic meters. As a seasoned homebody and avid reader of web novels, she immediately sensed a crisis: the apocalypse was likely coming.
Although she didn't know what kind of apocalypse it would be, she knew that stockpiling supplies was never a bad idea. And so, Jiang Rou had spent all her savings and maxed out every credit app on her phone. The shelves in her storage space were packed to the brim. She had even rented the top floor of a garden villa and hired contractors to weld a steel fortress—it was incredibly sturdy.
Yet, here she was, having mysteriously transmigrated to 1973 in Yang County, Southern, inhabiting the body of a girl who shared her name and her tragic fate.
She would have to go to the countryside, of course, because her personality was far too different from the original owner's. To avoid raising suspicion among those around her, moving to an unfamiliar environment was necessary. Furthermore, with her portable space and the supplies she had prepared for the apocalypse, she would definitely live better than she could by staying here.
But she would absolutely not grant their wishes.
Thinking of the faces of her so-called father and stepmother, a flash of cold light crossed Jiang Rou’s eyes. "Want me to take Jiang Jie’s place in the countryside? In your dreams!" Jiang Rou whispered to herself, already having a plan in mind before drifting off into a peaceful sleep.
At the break of dawn the next day, Jiang Rou felt around in the dark to retrieve the iron box hidden in the brickwork. As her cold fingers brushed against the grain coupons, she felt a sharp pain in the center of her forehead. When she opened her eyes, ten rows of shelves appeared in her consciousness, neatly stacked with the compressed biscuits and antibiotics she had hoarded in the modern world.
Before anyone else was awake, she slipped out of the house. She had also secretly taken the family’s household register and the grain supply book.
She went to the neighborhood office first. Standing before the faded wooden door, Jiang Rou pulled her patched collar tighter. Upon learning that her stepmother had already registered her for the support campaign in Beidahuang, hatred surged in her heart once more.
She turned to the registration clerk and said, "After returning home yesterday, our family decided it wasn't quite right."
The clerk, assuming Jiang Rou was having second thoughts, spoke up immediately: "Registration is done; there’s no backing out now. You don't need to—"
"No, no!" Jiang Rou interrupted quickly. "That’s not it. Our family is actively responding to the country’s call, and my younger brother said he wants to be a revolutionary pioneer."
Jiang Rou spun a story and successfully registered Jiang Jie for the countryside as well, also heading to Beidahuang.
The clerk looked at her over the rim of his reading glasses. "I need a parent’s signature for Jiang Jie’s application."
She slipped the fifty-yuan bribe into her inner pocket; the gold bracelet sewn into her cotton jacket pressed painfully against her ribs—she had fished it from the bottom of Zhou Hong’s dowry chest that morning. As the scent of deep-fried dough sticks drifted in from outside the window, the nib of her pen carved a sharp arc in the "Family Voluntarily" column.
After securing the money and leaving the building, Jiang Rou prepared to head to the printing factory.
The moment she stepped out the door, she brushed past two young men in dark blue coarse cloth uniforms with five-pointed star insignias. The man in front suddenly paused, glancing sideways at Jiang Rou as she walked out.
"Hey, what are you looking at?" his partner asked, noticing him stop.
"Hmm?" He snapped back to reality. "Nothing."
Jiang Rou, who was walking away, felt a slight hesitation. Sensing someone watching her, she felt that her sixth sense was picking up on something off, so she quickened her pace.
Now that she had decided to go to the countryside, her biological father and stepmother would certainly not prepare any supplies for her. This job at the printing factory was a lost cause, so she might as well sell it to someone else in exchange for things of value, ensuring she would live a better life once she reached Beidahuang.