Everyone at the neighborhood office knew precisely how much Liu Min doted on her precious son, Chen Jinbao.
Left with no choice, Wen Ya put her seasoned acting skills to work. Dropping her head in a posture of sheer heartache, she dabbed at the corners of her eyes, letting tears track down her cheeks as her voice cracked into a hoarse, shaky rasp.
“Do you think I have a choice? Old Chen has been blaming me endlessly over Xiuya’s assignment… I was backed into a corner! I had no other way out than to sign Jinbao up too!”
The clerk paused, offering a look of guarded sympathy. “Liu Min, you really need to think this through. Once his paperwork goes through and he leaves, trying to transfer him back will be a nightmare.”
(What the clerk actually meant was: once he leaves, he’s never coming back.)
“I know… I know,” Wen Ya sobbed, burying her face in her hands. “I’ve cried myself hoarse, but Old Chen won’t even look at me. I figured… let the boy go out for a little while. My health isn’t great anyway; in a few years, he can just come back and take over my job slot.”
The official sighed. “You’re entirely sure about this? You really want to register him?”
“Yes.”
“Have you picked a destination for him yet?” Since she had come to register voluntarily, the staff—being long-time neighbors—were willing to extend a slight courtesy.
“I’ve thought it over. Send him down South. It’s warmer there.”
“Alright. If that’s what you want, we’ll assign him to a southern settlement.”
“Thank you… please, you choose.”
The registration process went smoothly. The official even issued a 200-yuan relocation allowance. Wen Ya had intentionally chosen a more remote location because remote assignments offered higher compensation—a bonus she claimed was meant to give Jinbao extra emergency funds for self-defense.
Handing over the register, she secured the official migration certificate, pocketed the 200 yuan, and slipped out the door.
After changing back into her regular attire, she returned home and approached a few kindly neighbor aunties in the compound, requesting their help to stitch her cotton winter clothes and heavy quilts. Since the original girl had never mastered needlework, doing it herself would risk breaking character.
With every loose end tied up, she sat back to await her departure date.
Neither Chen Jinbao nor Liu Min had any inkling of the grand, miserable adventure awaiting them.
Meanwhile, over at Wang Weiguo’s cadres’ compound, a staggering, unprecedented mystery was unfolding.
Out of an entire row of grand residences, every single home whose family was away had been completely stripped clean—all while leaving the outer door locks entirely intact.
The thieves had left nothing behind. They had even peeled off the bright red “Double Happiness” paper cutouts from the director’s front door.
Well… to be fair, they did leave one thing behind: the family dog.
Local police and internal investigators scoured the premises, but uncovered not a single clue. Within two days, the target cadres were taken away for formal interrogation—and none of them were ever seen again.
The neighbor aunties worked with impressive speed, delivering the finished winter gear by late afternoon. Wen Ya rewarded each of them with four fresh eggs as a token of thanks, sending them home beaming with satisfaction.
The day before her relocation, she dropped her heavy quilts and padded winter clothes off at the post office to be shipped ahead to her destination.
On the morning of her departure, she woke before dawn.
She packed every single item out of her bedroom into neat bundles, completely unwilling to leave a single thread behind for her stepfamily.
Next, she slipped into the kitchen to whip up a massive feast of travel rations for the train ride. Liu Min certainly wasn’t going to pack a lunch for her, and her scum father wouldn’t even think to offer. If she wanted to be well-fed, she had to take matters into her own hands.
When Liu Min walked into the kitchen later that morning, her eyes nearly popped out of her head. Wen Ya had raided the kitchen, using up every scrap of refined flour and every last egg.
Before Liu Min could scream, her eyes darted to the empty meat hook where her prized cured bacon had hung. The shock sent her straight into a dead faint, her body collapsing onto the floorboards.
Spotting her father watching from the doorway, Wen Ya immediately called out in a panicked voice:
“Dad! Hurry, come quick! I don’t know why, but she just fainted! Come check on her!”
Her father rushed over, immediately digging his thumbnail into the acupressure point under Liu Min’s nose. He pinched so hard he drew blood before Liu Min finally gasped back to consciousness.
By then, Wen Ya had already packed the last batch of cooked food into her meal tins, stashing them securely into a sturdy cloth tote bag.
Before Liu Min could open her mouth to unleash a torrent of abuse, Wen Ya turned to her father with wide, timid eyes.
“Dad… did she faint because I made a little dry food for my train journey? Is it because I’m not her biological child that I’m not allowed to eat anything from this house? Were all these rations reserved exclusively for her son? Did I do something terrible, Dad? Should I just starve on the train until I reach the countryside?”
Her rims turned instantly pink, brimming with trembling, silent tears as she looked up at him.
Her father froze, not daring to utter a single harsh word. After all, he had been visited by her late mother in his dreams every single night this week. He still wanted to live a few more years! Besides, his own daughter was eating the food—it wasn’t being given to strangers.
“It’s fine,” he muttered, waving a hand. “What’s done is done. Take it on the train so you don’t starve.”
“I made breakfast too,” Wen Ya offered softly. “Should we eat now?”
“Let’s eat.” He reached down, hauling Liu Min up by her arm. “Liu Min, since you’re awake, get up and eat.”
Liu Min was practically vibrating with rage, but with her husband issuing the order, she didn’t dare object. Her family background carried political stigma, and even though she was divorced, she remained painfully aware of her low standing in the household.
After breakfast, Wen Ya brought out her heavy luggage. Her scum father proved surprisingly helpful today, stepping forward to hoist two large canvas duffel bags onto his shoulders before leading the way out. Wen Ya followed close behind, carrying her light tote bag.
Liu Min, too furious to swallow more than two bites of food, sat alone at the table, seething in bitter silence.
Her father accompanied her all the way to the train station, waiting while she checked in with the youth movement officer to collect her ticket. He then boarded the train with her, stowed her heavy bags securely in the overhead rack, and looked at her as if wanting to say something. In the end, he remained silent, turning on his heel to exit the carriage.
Go on, run along back home, Wen Ya thought with a cold smirk. There’s a delightful little surprise waiting for you both.
As the train shuddered to a start and chugged out of the station, Wen Ya finally had time to survey her surroundings.
Sitting directly across from her was a young man with a face as cold as carved ice—radiating an unmistakable “stay away from me” aura. He looked to be around eighteen or nineteen, quite tall, with an intense, unreadable gaze that seemed to process everyone around him like a corpse. Sigh, what a waste of a handsome face.
Beside the ice prince sat another young man of similar age, wearing wire-rimmed glasses and sporting the refined, deceptively gentle look of a scholarly rogue. Both appeared to be fellow urban youths heading to the countryside.
Beside Wen Ya sat a young woman with short hair and clean, delicate features, her face dotted with a few minor adolescent blemishes.
Having sized up her cabin mates, Wen Ya closed her eyes, focusing her consciousness inward to manage her spatial dimension. She had been so busy over the past few days that she hadn’t checked whether her crops and fruit trees were ready for harvest.
As her mind slipped into her private world, she failed to notice that the icy young man across from her had dropped his dead-eyed stare. Instead, his gaze turned intensely curious, scanning her slowly from head to toe.
Unaware of his scrutiny, Wen Ya was busy harvesting fields of grain, vegetables, fruit orchards, livestock, and seafood inside her space.
Since her plantings had been staggered, her harvests were staggered as well. The sheer volume of yield brought her immense joy. Ever since her two spatial dimensions had fused together, time inside the pocket dimension moved twice as fast as the outside world.
While she didn’t possess the instant one-day harvest space common in web novels, this accelerated rate was more than enough to make her ecstatic.
While Wen Ya was busily sorting her abundant harvest, Liu Min was back at the apartment, facing an unexpected visit from the neighborhood committee.
“What did you just say?!” Liu Min shrieked, her voice hitting a piercing register. “Impossible! You must have made a mistake! How could my son possibly be assigned to the countryside?! Check your files again—that’s definitely not my Jinbao!”