Xiang Wenshan felt like her head was about to explode.
Was this a aftereffect of the car accident?
Before she could think it through, a soft, girlish voice called out beside her ear, “Sis, sis.”
She was irritated beyond belief. Who was that, shouting in a hospital room?
She forced her heavy eyelids open and saw a sweet-looking little girl blinking at her. “Sis, you’re awake.”
Something felt off. Xiang Wenshan closed her eyes again. She didn’t have a younger sister.
Could this be her unlucky flash-marriage husband’s little sister?
She opened her eyes again, about to ask—then froze.
No wonder something had felt strange.
What came into view was a gray, mud-brick house, with newspapers pasted all over the walls.
Holy crap.
Did she get kidnapped after the car accident?!
Xiang Wenhui looked at her sister’s blank expression and waved a hand in front of her face. “Sis, what are you thinking about?”
As she spoke, she pressed the back of her hand against Xiang Wenshan’s forehead, then touched her own. “No fever anymore!”
Xiang Wenshan blinked. The soft, sweet girl kept talking, no malice in her eyes—only worry.
A ridiculous thought formed in her mind as she struggled to sit up.
Seeing this, the girl quickly supported her. “Sis, why are you getting up? You should rest more.”
Every inch of Xiang Wenshan’s body hurt, but she ignored it and sat upright, scanning the shabby, worn-down room.
Then she lay back down with a look of utter despair.
While surveying the room, a series of images had flashed through her mind.
Memories that didn’t belong to her.
She now felt like dying.
She never imagined that after a car accident, she would time-travel to the 1970s.
Even more unbelievable—it happened on the very day she registered her marriage with her flash husband.
And even worse, she was now in Shuanghe Production Brigade, Hongxing Commune, Yangping County, He Province.
The sky was falling.
This was a major agricultural province!
That meant working all year round with barely any rest.
And she couldn’t even tell the difference between chives and wheat seedlings—what exactly were they expecting her to do?
If only she had arrived a few days earlier, she could’ve gone north to Dong Province to “winter like a cat.”
Why did the original owner have to choose this place?
Ahhh!!
She was about to go insane.
The chattering girl in front of her was her cousin. As she kept talking, Xiang Wenshan said lifelessly, “Stop talking. Let me rest. My head hurts.”
Xiang Wenhui immediately shut her mouth, glanced at her worriedly, and slowly left the room.
Once she was gone, Xiang Wenshan regretted it so much she punched the wall.
If she’d known, she would never have gone out that day.
Now look—she’d transmigrated into this nightmare of an era.
Though… in a way, she was lucky. At least she was still alive.
But this kind of “alive” wasn’t the same as before.
That chain-reaction car crash had been horrific.
Who knew how many families had been torn apart?
The only thing she worried about now was her mother. After this, her mother would surely blame herself for urging her to go on that blind date.
She hoped her older brother could find time to stay with their mom.
Regret was useless now. She needed to figure out how to survive from here on out.
The original owner of this body was also named Xiang Wenshan.
What shocked her was that the original looked 80% like her. The original had a colder temperament—especially her eyes, clear and distant.
She rarely smiled. Combined with her aloof nature, she gave off an unapproachable aura.
Actually, when she was young, she used to smile a lot. But her younger brother had been sickly since childhood. In school, people bullied him and mocked him as a “sick weakling.” She always defended him—if she heard anyone say a bad word about him, she would go up with a stern face and beat them up.
Over time, she stopped smiling. Not smiling made people think she was someone not to be messed with.
The reason Xiang Wenshan ended up here was probably because the original had died from a high fever.
The original responded to the country’s call and went to the countryside to help build rural areas. On the way there, she developed a high fever. After getting off the train yesterday, she was already dizzy and disoriented.
The production team leader arranged lodging for them and told them to rest for a day before starting work.
Last night, after Xiang Wenhui tidied up a bit, the original lay down to sleep.
After one night’s sleep, “she” had become her.
It was now 1970—the height of the sent-down youth movement.
The original’s family situation was fairly simple. Her father, Xiang Tianming, was a workshop director at a steel factory. Her mother, He Shuping, worked at the supply and marketing cooperative.
There were four siblings in total. The original had an older sister and older brother. She was the third child, with a younger twin brother (a boy-girl twin pair).
Her eldest sister, Xiang Wenyi, found a job as a nurse at a hospital after graduating high school. She had a doctor boyfriend, and they were planning to marry before the end of the year.
Her second brother, Xiang Wener, graduated during the rural-sent-down craze. Full of passion, he had wanted to go to the countryside to contribute—but didn’t get the chance.
Their mother, He Shuping, had worked in the countryside before and knew how hard life was there. On top of that, the second brother was soft-hearted and easily influenced. Afraid he’d be taken advantage of if he went, she quickly spent 600 yuan to buy him a temporary job.
As for her and her younger brother, Xiang Wensi—they were twins. Before being sent down, the neighborhood office kept urging families to comply. Her brother had been frail and sickly since birth.
The family was extremely worried. In the past two years, none of the sent-down youths had returned. In letters, they cried about how bitter life was—waking before dawn to work and earn work points.
Many families didn’t want their children sent down, so they scrambled to find jobs for them.
But jobs weren’t easy to come by.
Seeing her parents troubled, and thinking about her weak younger brother—whom she was especially close to—the original secretly signed up to go to the countryside herself, hiding it from her family.
Her brother’s health was poor, and her older siblings already had jobs. Only one of her or her brother would be chosen to go.
When her family found out she had registered, they scolded her fiercely.
But in the end, they still helplessly prepared her things for the countryside.
What they hadn’t expected was that her clingy cousin would follow her there too.
The soft, sweet girl who had just called her “Sis” was…
Xiang Wenhui, the second daughter of her youngest uncle’s family, had followed behind the original host since childhood.
After hearing that she was being sent down to the countryside, she even asked where she would be going and sweetly said she would write to her later.
Then she turned around, took the family household registration booklet, and directly signed her up for the same place. Only after the registration was complete did she tell her and the rest of the family.
When Uncle Xiang’s family found out, it was absolute chaos.
Her aunt chased her around with a broom, trying to beat her, but the countryside assignment was already finalized—there was no changing it now. Fuming, her aunt still ended up packing her things.
Wenhui’s family situation was different from hers—she didn’t have to go to the countryside. She had an older sister and a younger brother.
Her older sister already had a job, one the family had bought for her, and she even had a boyfriend. She’d once overheard the adults saying that after Wenhui graduated, her sister Wenwen would pass her job over to her.
Meanwhile, the family had been slowly helping Wenhui look for work or arranging potential marriage matches.
Her younger brother, Xiang Wenzhe, was still little, so there was no rush.
Xiang’s father, Xiang Tianming, had only one younger brother, Xiang Tianlang. The two families had always been close. Their grandmother had passed away early, and their grandfather had died last year.
In a car accident.
Yes. No need to doubt it—he really died in a traffic accident.
A fifteen- or sixteen-year-old boy had secretly ridden the family’s brand-new bicycle and knocked him over. The back of his head hit the ground directly… and he was gone.
As she was thinking about all this, Xiang Wenhui came again. Leaning against the doorframe, she poked her head in and called, “Sis, sis, are you asleep?”
Xiang Wenshan slowly sat up from the bed. “No. What’s wrong?” Her mind was still a mess.
“I’m going with the educated youths who came with us to the brigade leader’s place. He said yesterday that today he’ll give us some grain and told us to go pick it up.
“Oh, and he said it’s borrowed grain—we have to pay it back with work points or buy it with money.
“Sis, are you going?
“Or maybe you shouldn’t. We’ll go together. You can lie down a bit longer. You’re not fully recovered yet.”
“I’ll go too. Wait for me.”
With that, Xiang Wenshan slowly got out of bed, her head still feeling heavy and foggy.
She didn’t know whether it was because she’d been thinking too much just now, or because this body’s cold hadn’t fully healed.
Xiang Wenhui stepped forward to support her. “Sis, I’ll help you.”
Xiang Wenshan waved her hand. “It’s fine. I can manage.”
Even so, Wenhui still held onto her.
“Comrade Xiang Wenhui, hurry up! We’re leaving!” a female voice called from outside.
“Coming, coming!” She hooked her arm through Xiang Wenshan’s and walked out.
Cao Yu saw Xiang Wenshan coming out as well and froze for a moment. “Comrade Xiang Wenshan is going too?
“Are you feeling better?”
Xiang Wenshan nodded. “Mm. Thank you. Much better.”
Cao Yu nodded back. “Alright, then let’s hurry. Comrade Lu is waiting at the door.”
The three of them stepped out and saw a young man waiting for them.
When he saw them, Lu Guangyao nodded. “Let’s go.”
These two comrades had been assigned here together with Xiang Wenshan and the others.
There were now eight educated youths at the youth point.
Four were older educated youths who had arrived two years ago; the other four were them.
Together, they headed to the brigade leader’s house.
The moment she stepped out of the educated youth compound, Xiang Wenshan couldn’t help frowning. Though she had mentally prepared herself, she hadn’t expected it to be even worse than she imagined.
Just looking at the youth dormitory buildings made her feel like they might collapse with a gust of wind.
The villagers’ houses were all low and small—mud-brick walls with straw laid on top. Her heart felt even more desolate…
Thinking that she would have to stay here for seven or eight years made her want to break down.
Damn it, heavens—did it really have to mess with her like this?
Walking along the dirt road in the countryside, dust coated her cloth shoes.
And if it rained…
Ah, this harsh era—when would it finally get better?