In 1974, at the gates of the Liaoning Military District.
“Comrade, please stop. This is a military base, unauthorized entry is prohibited. Are you here to see someone or handle official business? Do you have a letter of introduction?”
As Shen Ruanruan approached the gate, a sentry stopped her.
She wore a light-colored floral blouse and pale denim-style trousers. Her hair was braided, tied with a silk ribbon matching her blouse into a large bow that rested at the back of her neck. She looked very fashionable.
The weather was scorching hot. Dragging a heavy suitcase behind her, sweat dotted her forehead as she panted lightly.
“Hello, my name is Shen Ruanruan. I’m here to—”
Before she could finish, the sentry quickly asked, “Ruan as in the character with the left ear radical and yuan?”
Startled, she nodded and pulled out her introduction letter and identification papers from her shoulder bag.
“I’m Lu Mingye’s fiancée. I came to marry him. Is he here?”
The sentry’s expression shifted instantly. After quickly checking her documents, he said, “Please wait a moment. I’ll make a phone call.”
Then he hurried inside.
Soon, he returned. The way he looked at her had become somewhat strange, carrying even a hint of warmth. Gone was the cold and stern demeanor from before; instead, he gave her an honest smile.
“Comrade Shen, sorry about that. Deputy Regiment Commander Lu is out on a mission and won’t be back for another half hour. Please wait in the reception room for a while.”
…
Inside the reception room, the sentry poured her a cup of water into a clean enamel mug before leaving.
Shen Ruanruan sat there in a daze.
Seven days ago, when she opened her eyes again, everything had returned to the year she was twenty-three.
Her parents had not yet been sent away. She had not married Su Jingming. She was still the pampered only daughter treasured by her parents.
She came from a family of renowned doctors. Both her parents had studied medicine abroad.
In 1958, they returned to China with her to serve the country. Her father became the director of the Capital First People’s Hospital, while her mother became a professor at the nation’s top medical university. As their only child, Shen Ruanruan had never suffered a single hardship. She always had the very best of everything.
Nor had she disgraced her parents’ reputation. Inheriting their talent for medicine, she skipped grades all the way through school and graduated from the Capital Medical University at sixteen, just before the final year the college entrance exams were abolished.
Afterward, she worked alongside her parents between the hospital and the medical university, where she met someone—Su Jingming.
He matched every fantasy she had ever had about a future husband.
Gentle and refined, eloquent in speech, wearing black-rimmed glasses, tall and slender, and always considerate toward her.
She fell in love, and their families quickly arranged an engagement.
Because her parents wanted to keep her with them a few more years, the marriage was delayed until she was twenty-three. But then disaster struck—the family was reported, and her parents were about to be sent away.
Unable to bear the thought of her suffering alongside them, her parents urged her to marry Su Jingming as soon as possible.
Unexpectedly, once Su Jingming’s family learned of her family’s situation, they immediately proposed breaking off the engagement.
In her previous life, she had been heartbroken.
Her family’s crisis, her fiancé’s abandonment, her hopeless future…
Everything pushed her into despair.
Unable to watch their daughter suffer, Shen’s parents used the last of their connections to secure Su Jingming a promising future in exchange for restoring the engagement.
She finally married into the Su family.
But she never realized it was the beginning of a nightmare.
Her in-laws despised her as the daughter of political criminals. Her husband’s attitude turned icy and distant overnight.
Lost and helpless, she tried desperately to please them with money. Even when she was mocked for being unable to bear children while living like a widow in her own marriage, she endured it.
Over time, she became numb—a gilded canary trapped in a cage.
When Su Jingming suggested adopting a child, she agreed.
When he brought home a woman claiming to be his cousin, she agreed.
Even when they slept together in her bed, she endured it.
Or rather…
She had stopped caring.
She still wanted to live properly and wait for her parents to come home. They had suffered so much already—she couldn’t let them worry about her anymore. She wanted to learn how to take care of them instead.
But not long after her parents returned, they died at their research table.
Not a single member of the Su family—not even Su Jingming—appeared at the funeral.
Later, by accident, she overheard a conversation between Su Jingming and his so-called cousin.
Only then did she learn the truth.
From the very beginning, Su Jingming had approached her for her family’s connections and wealth.
The adopted son she had painstakingly raised was actually their biological child.
Her parents had been murdered by them for the sake of the Shen family fortune.
At last, Shen Ruanruan snapped.
One ordinary day during dinner, she served them food as usual.
Then she silently looked at every member of the Su family—including the illegitimate child.
…and watched them all bleed from their seven orifices and die.
The disbelief in Su Jingming’s eyes made her want to laugh.
Had he forgotten?
She was the daughter of two medical geniuses.
Putting poison into their bowls was hardly difficult for her.
Shen Ruanruan never ran.
She was arrested immediately afterward.
But she no longer cared about living.
Her family was gone, and her revenge was complete.
Yet two days later, she was unexpectedly released.
They claimed another culprit had poisoned the Su family.
Soon afterward, a friend of that “culprit” appeared and brought her to a grave.
There, she saw the name carved into the tombstone—
Lu Mingye.
“That fool still managed to get himself killed in the end,” the friend said with a bitter smile, looking up at the sky.
“When we were young, we all told him to get married, but he refused. Later I realized he stayed single his whole life because the woman in his heart had already married someone else.”
The man looked at Shen Ruanruan.
“He never told you, did he? Back in ’74, after your engagement was broken off, he went to your parents and asked to marry you. But because you insisted on Su Jingming, he gave up.”
“I never understood why he threw himself so recklessly into missions. Until before he turned himself in, he told me he was afraid he couldn’t protect you. Even after you married someone else, he still worried about you being bullied.”
“He blamed himself for your parents’ deaths. He kept thinking that if he had returned just a little sooner, maybe everything would’ve been different.”
“What a joke, right? During that mission, he himself nearly died on the battlefield.”
“Forget it. If I keep talking, that guy will probably curse me in his dreams for making you cry.”
“Sister-in-law, forgive me for being presumptuous one last time on his behalf. His tombstone only has his name on it—nothing else.”
“He never cared about anything or anyone else. The only person he cared about was you.”
“If possible, I hope your name can be engraved here too… as his wife.”
Shen Ruanruan had thought she would never cry again.
Yet after hearing those words, tears streamed uncontrollably down her face.
Lu Mingye?
A man long forgotten in the river of her memories had suddenly appeared before her again—
As her “dead husband.”
…
What happened afterward?
She vaguely remembered slitting her wrists.
Shen Ruanruan absentmindedly touched her wrist, as though she could still feel the numbness of her blood slowly draining away.
Then, when she opened her eyes again—
Everything had returned to the very beginning.
The day before her family received news of the report against them.
The day before Su Jingming proposed breaking off the engagement.
Without hesitation, she took the initiative to cancel the engagement first. Using memories from her previous life, she also saved an important figure who arranged for her parents to be sent to a better village, sparing them much suffering.
Afterward, she asked her parents to write to the Lu family, expressing her wish to marry Lu Mingye.
She did not know whether everything from her previous life had been a dream or reality.
But Lu Mingye replied almost immediately.
As though he truly couldn’t wait any longer.
He agreed to marry her.
And this time—
She had come to find him herself.