The reason the Original Owner had jumped into the river to end her life was that her parents had decided to marry her off to a forty-year-old Old Bachelor.
They called it a marriage arrangement, but in truth, they had simply sold her.
The Old Bachelor had won money through gambling, and over time had actually managed to save up two hundred yuan. He intended to use those two hundred yuan as the bride price to buy the Original Owner.
A bride price of two hundred yuan was considered extraordinarily high.
At that time, getting married generally cost very little, especially in rural places like theirs. Every household was desperately poor, every family had to tighten their belts just to get by, so where could anyone possibly find the money to marry a wife?
Even ten or twenty yuan was already considered more than generous.
More often than not, carrying over a sack of grain was enough to count as a proposal. If a thoughtful young man gave a young woman a pair of shoes or a couple of hair ties, that gesture alone was already meaningful enough and was more than capable of winning a girl’s heart.
That was an extremely common practice in their area.
So the fact that the Old Bachelor was willing to pay two hundred yuan naturally made it an exceptionally high bride price.
But that was because the Original Owner was beautiful. She was one of the most attractive girls within ten miles. Not only was she beautiful, she was also hardworking both inside and outside the home, and she was still a pure, unmarried virgin. The Qiao parents had always wanted to marry her off for a very good price.
They had even announced publicly long ago that if the bride price was less than five hundred yuan, no one should even think about asking for their daughter’s hand.
Although quite a few people had their eyes on the Original Owner, five hundred yuan was an enormous sum.
In the countryside, a family considered itself fortunate if it had enough food to eat throughout the year. Even though money would be distributed at the end of the year, after setting aside enough grain to feed the entire family the following year, how much could possibly remain?
The little bit of money they received still had to cover the expenses of the entire household.
Matches, salt, children’s school fees, buying cloth to make clothes and trousers for the family, along with the occasional illness or fever, and all the other countless expenses, left very little money that could actually be saved. Whatever savings a family managed to accumulate had been pinched and scraped together bit by bit through extreme frugality.
Only the wealthiest families in the big cities demanded the “Three Transistors and One Sound” and the “Thirty-six Legs.”
In a rural place like this, what family’s daughter could possibly be worth that much?
So everyone in the neighboring villages within ten miles said that the Qiao family had become obsessed with money.
No matter how beautiful the Qiao family’s daughter was, expecting someone in the countryside to pay five hundred yuan to marry her was nothing more than wishful thinking.
It was precisely because of that five-hundred-yuan bride price barrier that the Original Owner remained unmarried from the age of sixteen to eighteen, then from eighteen to nineteen. She was already about to turn twenty, yet there was still no prospective husband.
The Qiao parents eventually realized that this would not do. If they continued delaying, would their daughter not end up becoming impossible to marry off?
So they lowered the price, from five hundred yuan to four hundred eighty, and finally to four hundred fifty.
After seeing the Qiao family lower the price, some people finally came to negotiate, asking whether they would agree to marry her off for a bride price of two hundred yuan.
After all, the Original Owner’s appearance truly left nothing to be criticized. Young men from well-off families naturally found themselves tempted.
So anyone willing to offer the high bride price of two hundred yuan was already exceptionally rare.
But the Qiao parents refused.
The young man’s family had already swallowed their pride. A bride price of two hundred yuan was something unheard of in the local villages, but the Qiao family’s daughter was simply too beautiful, and their good-for-nothing son desperately wanted to marry her.
So the family finally gritted their teeth and agreed to pay two hundred yuan.
Who would have thought that even two hundred yuan was rejected? The Qiao parents stubbornly insisted on four hundred fifty.
The other family sneered coldly and said, “Then you can keep her yourselves!”
They immediately turned around and arranged a marriage with another girl who was both pretty and hardworking.
Because of the Qiao parents, the Original Owner ended up remaining unmarried from the age of twenty all the way to twenty-two, and still no one came to marry her.
In those days, plenty of people married at eighteen or nineteen. Some married even earlier, while those who married later usually did so by twenty. For the Original Owner to still be unmarried at twenty-two truly made her an old maid.
Only girls who were unattractive and unwanted would remain unmarried until that age.
At first, there were still people who came to bargain a little, but later there was simply no interest at all. No one, not even Yaoyao, liked talking about that family’s affairs anymore.
It was not as though the Qiao family’s daughter was the only girl left in the world. Just look at how highly they thought of themselves!
A bride price of four or five hundred yuan, they simply did not treat money as money!
With parents like that, although the Original Owner was indeed innocent, she still endured endless gossip and finger-pointing, bearing tremendous psychological pressure.
However, the Qiao parents paid no attention to any of that. They were merely beginning to feel anxious and worried.
Because it truly looked as though their daughter would end up impossible to marry off!
All the families with good conditions had already married off their sons. Although the remaining crooked melons and cracked dates still had their eyes on their daughter, even if those families sold everything they owned, they still could not gather enough money to meet the Qiao family’s demanded bride price.
It was at that very time that the Old Bachelor arrived with two hundred yuan and proposed marriage.
After discussing it among themselves, the Qiao parents bargained some more and stubbornly demanded an extra fifty yuan, bringing the bride price to two hundred fifty yuan.
Since their eldest son happened to be getting married, they planned to agree to the marriage.
The Original Owner had fallen into utter despair. Not only had she been worked like an ox and horse by her family since childhood, but in the end she was going to be sold to an Old Bachelor with yellow, decayed teeth, a bald head, a body that constantly gave off a foul stench, and the disgusting habit of scratching his crotch every so often.
Thus came the incident in which she jumped into the river and died by suicide, allowing Qiao Nianyao to be reborn by borrowing her body.
Qiao Nianyao sat in front of the stove, warming herself by the fire.
What filled her mind was the moment two years earlier when Song Qingfeng had pulled her from the river. His body had also been soaked through at the time, and because it had been summer, his wet clothes had clung tightly to his abdomen, faintly revealing his exceptionally well-built physique.
His eyes had been bright and clear, filled with righteousness. He had been both handsome and heroic. Coupled with the old customs and traditions of the area, as well as the predicament she had been facing with the Qiao family at the time,
after weighing everything together, she had proposed marrying him.
He had hesitated only briefly before agreeing.
Afterward, when the Qiao parents saw that Song Qingfeng was a soldier and that he was the only person in his household, although they did not know exactly how much allowance he received, they were certain it would not be a small amount.
So they immediately raised the price on the spot, increasing the originally agreed two hundred fifty yuan all the way back to the original five hundred yuan.
Qiao Nianyao had intended to step in and settle the matter. Given her temperament, how could she possibly allow the Qiao family to make such outrageous demands?
At that time, Song Qingfeng had already reached the rank of Battalion Commander, but he knew he was about to leave on a mission, one that would keep him away for a long time, so he had no intention of taking her to the military with him.
Since she would have to remain at home alone afterward, he chose to be taken advantage of just this once and agreed to pay the five hundred yuan.
His goal had been to completely buy out every remaining tie between her and the Qiao family so they would never come to bother her again.
But how could a man like him possibly understand the true nature of people like the Qiao family?
No sooner had he left than the Qiao family came to the house intending to empty it out, only to be severely beaten and driven away.
That was because, before Song Qingfeng had returned to his unit, he had prepared many things for her.
Not only had he purchased a great deal of grain for the production brigade.
He had also taken her into the city and bought her two new sets of clothes to change into. He had not hidden anything from her, telling her that he would soon be leaving on a mission and probably would not be able to return for quite some time. Therefore, he had even taken her along to purchase winter cotton-padded clothing and cotton quilts.
In short, he had taken care of every necessity she would need for daily life.
He had even repaired the courtyard and the roof of the house, thoroughly renovating everything once again.
He had also left behind two hundred yuan in household savings, along with quite a number of nationwide-use ration coupons that would not expire.
Only after arranging everything properly had he left home.
What he had never expected was that the spirited and handsome young man he had once been would be carried back by his comrades two years later.