“Yanyan, Dad knows it’s unfair to ask you to marry Zhiwei.”
“But if you don’t, when those lunatics come to ransack our home, I won’t be able to protect you!”
“You’re the Cen family’s only child. If anything happens to you, how could I face your mother after I’m gone?”
“Stop acting like a spoiled child! Zhiwei’s been waiting downstairs for ages. If you don’t come out right now, I’ll break down the door and drag you down there myself!”
Hearing the voice outside, Cen Yan sat on the traditional enclosed canopy bed, momentarily dazed.
Had she… been reborn, back in the autumn of 1974, on the very day the Cen family was placed on the list for political reckoning?
In three days, the people wearing red armbands would break through the Cen family’s door, smash things up, ransack the house, arrest people, and send them away to the far Northwest.
As the Cen family’s only daughter, she would be the first to bear the brunt of it. There was no escaping it.
The only way out was to marry into another family and become one of their own.
Bang, bang! The knocking turned into pounding, and Cen Yan’s gaze gradually grew cold.
In her previous life, everything had happened exactly as it was happening today.
Her father, Shan Jianshe, who had married into the Cen family, had pounded on her door and ordered her downstairs to meet a potential husband, claiming it was all for her own good.
At first, Cen Yan had refused. She believed there was still room to turn things around.
After all, the Cen family had been known for its good deeds for generations. They had opened their granaries during famines and donated money during wartime. They were bona fide red capitalists.
Surely, things wouldn’t go so far as a political purge and being sent away.
But Shan Jianshe had used both persuasion and coercion, even threatening to kill himself.
Cen Yan couldn’t hold out against him, so she finally agreed to marry Hu Zhiwei and follow him back to the countryside to escape the reckoning.
What she hadn’t expected was that the husband her father—who had always doted on her—had chosen for her was a sadistic pervert who had been impotent since birth!
After she followed Hu Zhiwei to the countryside, she barely had time to understand what was happening before she was locked in a cellar. She never saw the light of day, and abuse and whippings became routine.
Years later, she narrowly escaped death and finally managed to find Shan Jianshe in Hong Kong. But before she could even call him “Dad,” he tricked her into drinking water laced with a sedative, then arranged for a boat to take her back to Hu Zhiwei that very night.
Only then did she understand: Shan Jianshe’s kindness toward her had been a lie from beginning to end!
He had married her off to Hu Zhiwei to get her out of the way so he could quietly transfer the Cen family’s assets, slip into Hong Kong with his mistress and illegitimate child, and leave her alone in Shanghai to face the political reckoning.
After Shan Jianshe sent her back to the Hu family, Hu Zhiwei’s abuse only grew worse.
She had thought that, having fallen seriously ill, she could at least find release in death. But she hadn’t realized those wolves and tigers had no intention of letting her go. They sold her into a ghost marriage, buried her alive, and left her to suffocate to death…
Given another life, she would reclaim everything that belonged to the Cen family and make that beast Shan Jianshe pay the price he deserved!
At the thought, Cen Yan’s breathing grew heavier. She rose, opened the door, and fixed the man with a dark, unwavering stare.
His eyes were plainly full of greed and calculation over the Cen family’s assets. How had she failed to see it in her previous life? How had she ever thought he was a good father?
When Shan Jianshe saw Cen Yan come out obediently, the anger on his face vanished at once. “Not mad at Dad anymore? That’s my good girl!”
“Listen to Dad and go downstairs to meet Zhiwei. He’s really a good comrade, from three generations of poor peasants—a family with impeccable class credentials. If you marry him, even if our house is ransacked, you won’t be implicated.”
Looking at Shan Jianshe’s hypocritical smile, Cen Yan wanted to slap him and shatter that false, loving-father act—but she didn’t.
While she had been in her room, Cen Yan had already made up her mind. She would make Shan Jianshe and his family of leeches pay for every bit of suffering she had endured in her previous life. But now wasn’t the time.
That beast had her household registration booklet in his hands. Without it, she could hardly go anywhere. If she chose to oppose Shan Jianshe openly now, she would be the one to suffer.
The urgent thing was to have her household registration transferred out separately. After that came the family property her grandparents had left her…
At the thought, Cen Yan swallowed her disgust and looked at Shan Jianshe with an aggrieved expression. “Dad! I haven’t forgiven you yet! Unless you buy me that jadeite necklace I had my eye on a while ago, I’m not listening to you. Whoever wants to go on a blind date with that wretched Hu Zhiwei can do it. Go find her instead!”
“Yanyan, don’t be unreasonable. Don’t you know what things are like right now? The people with red armbands are keeping a close eye on our family. We can barely afford to keep our heads down, so how can we spend money so ostentatiously?”
Shan Jianshe frowned. The necklace Cen Yan had mentioned was an emerald necklace, and the seller was asking a full 3,200 yuan. In 1974, that was an astronomical sum!
Cen Yan’s eyes reddened. “Fine, don’t buy it. Everyone else has one except me. How am I supposed to hold my head up as the Cen family’s young lady when I go out? Hu Zhiwei, is it? Let your ‘adopted daughter,’ Shan Xianxian, marry him instead. She’s on the Cen family’s household register, too. She also has to get married to escape the reckoning.”
As she spoke, Cen Yan looked ready to storm back to her room in a huff.
Shan Jianshe’s eyelids twitched. He didn’t have time to argue with Cen Yan. The most important thing was to get that damned girl out of the way!
“Fine! Dad will buy it for you. It’s only a jadeite necklace. Whatever my precious daughter wants, I’ll buy it for her!”
Shan Jianshe called for his wife, Hu Lier, and told her to open the cabinet and get the money.
Hu Lier had been smiling, but at his words her face immediately fell. “Honey, you spoil Yanyan far too much. She’s only twenty, and she’s a girl—what does she need an emerald necklace for? It’s a waste of money!”
Cen Yan gave a cold laugh and looked at Shan Jianshe with tear-bright eyes. “Dad, wasn’t all the Cen family’s money left to me by Grandpa and Grandma? Why is Auntie Hu so possessive of my money?”
“Or am I not really your precious daughter after all? Can Auntie Hu just bully me however she likes? Hmph, I’m not getting married!”
Cen Yan turned and stormed back toward her room.
Shan Jianshe glared at Hu Lier. “The girl wants jewelry, so just give her the money! Why are you going on and on? Hurry up!”
If she delayed the transfer of the family’s assets, he would divorce Hu Lier for sure!
Hu Lier gritted her teeth. Reluctantly, she went back to her room, fetched 3,200 yuan for Cen Yan, and slapped it heavily into her hand.
Being smacked with money didn’t bother Cen Yan in the least. She had the 3,200 yuan now. What a windfall!
But how could that be enough? She didn’t want to leave even a single copper coin to that bastard’s family!
Next, she had to get that thing back before anything else went wrong.