I woke to a wave of intense pain. My head was foggy, and for a moment I couldn’t remember a thing.
The sun had set, and with no lights on, the room was dim.
I sat up on the kang. Before me was an old, mottled yellow mud wall, with old newspapers pasted over the lower walls and ceiling. A large red “double happiness” character was pasted above the mirror.
Why did this scene feel so familiar?
I turned my head to the right and, sure enough, saw a mirror on the east wall, with peonies painted in its lower right corner, along with one of Chairman Mao’s famous lines: “Women prefer military uniforms to pretty dresses.”
In the mirror was a face I knew all too well—a young girl’s face, with a thick black braid draped over her shoulder and tied with red silk.
I was completely stunned. This was what I looked like now?!
No, that couldn’t be right. I was already dead.
That beast had wanted to drag his own daughter—his own flesh and blood, who’d just been accepted into university—away and sell her to a forty-year-old man who walked with a limp and had been divorced twice, all to pay off a hundred-thousand-yuan gambling debt.
He’d even had the gall to say, “She’s just a money-losing burden anyway. Why waste money sending her to university? You never got much schooling yourself, and you’ve lived just fine. It doesn’t matter who she sleeps with—as long as I get some money out of it!”
Without a second thought, I pushed him and we went down together. I’d already been diagnosed with cancer—no money for treatment, only days left to live anyway—so I might as well take that beast with me. My life was over, but I absolutely could not let my daughter suffer the same fate.
Just before we hit the ground, I saw his terrified, twisted face, and I felt a rush of exhilaration. At least my daughter could be happy now. Please, don’t let her end up as miserable as her mother…
But what on earth was going on?
Had I actually gone back thirty years, to the very day I married that scumbag?
While I was still dazed, the door opened and a smiling man walked in. Even reduced to ashes, I’d recognize that lowlife—my husband, Xie Yanlai.
He was wearing a gray Zhongshan suit. He looked me up and down, a refined smile spreading across his face. “Zhenzhen, you look so beautiful today. We’re finally married. Don’t worry—for the rest of my life, I’ll always treat you well.”
Hearing the same words from my previous life, I couldn’t help but sneer.
In my past life, I’d been young and naive. He’d deceived me so thoroughly, yet I’d still thought I was the luckiest woman alive. When he said those words, I’d been too shy to look up, so naturally I never saw the greed and malice in his eyes.
But things were different now. I’d spent a whole lifetime with him—I knew exactly what was in his heart. Seeing that hypocritical face of his, I wanted to vomit.
How could I be so unlucky! I’d already endured thirty miserable years with you—why am I back again?!
If I had to be reborn, couldn’t I have gone back to before my wedding? Was I really going to live a life worse than a dog’s or a pig’s with this beast all over again?
But then it hit me—nothing had been consummated yet. There was still time to change everything!
Just as I was trying to figure out what to do, Xie Yanlai reached for my shoulder, trying to press me down beneath him.
“It’s getting late, wife. Let’s rest early.”
“Beast! Don’t touch me!” I smelled alcohol on him, and every hair on my body stood on end. I shouted and kicked hard at his knee. Caught completely off guard, Xie Yanlai went sprawling off the bed and underneath it.
Crash! Clatter! He knocked over a chair behind him and let out a shriek like a pig being slaughtered. “Zhen’er, what’s wrong with you? Have you gone mad?”
I jumped off the kang, pulled off the hideous red suit jacket I was wearing, and threw it in his face. “I haven’t gone mad. I just don’t want to marry you anymore. Let’s leave it at that—this marriage doesn’t count.”
With that, I headed straight for the door. Xie Yanlai scrambled to his feet and grabbed my arm. “Don’t go! How can you just walk away like this? We’ve already held the wedding—how can it not count? Zhen’er, don’t throw a tantrum! I know you’re unhappy because we didn’t give you a bride price, but didn’t I say I’d make it up to you later…”
I turned to look at him. “What do you mean, ‘later’? Have you ever heard of getting married without a marriage certificate or a bride price? I married into your family, and all you gave me was this one red outfit—one your fourth aunt wore at her own wedding! Do you take me for a fool?”
“Zhenzhen, you’ve never been the vain, materialistic type. How could you turn out like this? You really disappoint me. Can our love really be measured in money?” Xie Yanlai stared at me in shock, looking deeply aggrieved.
I sneered. It had been the same in my past life—he’d spouted the noblest sentiments while doing the most disgusting things.
We’d agreed on a bride price of six hundred sixty yuan and four new outfits for the wedding. My brother had promised to pay for my dowry—new bedding and a full set of new furniture. Everything on my side was ready, but the Xie family had never intended to pay up. They didn’t even acknowledge me as their daughter-in-law.
The Xie family had even borrowed money for the wedding banquet. When I made the traditional return visit to my parents’ home three days after the wedding, they hadn’t prepared a single return gift—and they expected to take money from my family to pay back the wedding debts.
My mother never concerned herself with my affairs, and my father was a man of few words who stayed out of everything. My brother had been furious, saying I’d been cheated and threatening to go settle accounts with them.
He said, “The Xie family may not be rich, but they’re not that poor either. It’s obvious they don’t value you! After all this, you can still live with him?”
But I wouldn’t listen. I thought money wasn’t the issue, and I foolishly argued with my brother. “Xie Yanlai just doesn’t want to depend on his parents—he wants to earn money himself and give me a good life. Isn’t that a good thing?”
How could I have known that his whole family was simply playing me for a fool?
Thinking of the past, my hatred deepened.
I said, “I was never some noble person. My older sister went to vocational school—she’s more refined than I am—and even she demanded the traditional ‘three turns and one sound’—a bicycle, a sewing machine, a watch, and a radio—when she married. Why should I marry in such a shabby way? I’m not missing an arm or a leg. I want a bride price too, and I want a proper wedding.”
At the mention of my sister, Xie Yanlai’s face darkened.
I yanked the red silk ribbon out of my hair. “I absolutely cannot accept this marriage. Since you already think so little of my character, and I don’t think this arrangement will work either, let’s just call it off.”
I finished speaking and pushed open the door—only for a woman to burst in. She wore a gray Dacron jacket and black pants. Her hair was streaked with gray, her triangular eyes looked vicious, and the wrinkles at their corners sagged, making her whole face look fierce. It was my mother-in-law, Liu Cuizhi.
She jabbed a finger toward my forehead. “Our family has already held the wedding, you’ve already married into this house, and now you want to leave? Do you want everyone to laugh at us? Did you come here just to ruin our family?” So she’d been eavesdropping all along?
Behind me, my father-in-law, Xie Facai, also spoke up. “That’s right, Zhenzhen. If you’d raised this earlier, our family would have done everything we could. But now you’re already married—the whole village knows about the wedding. Wouldn’t this be a disgrace? Why don’t you try to live your life properly for now, and we can discuss it again later?”
I gave a cold laugh. “Before the wedding, you wouldn’t give me a thing. Now that you think it’s a done deal, you expect me to believe you’ll pay? I don’t trust your family, and I don’t believe a word you say.”
“Just trust me. I won’t let my son mistreat you. In the future, you’ll get every bit of what you’re owed,” he said earnestly.
A wave of hatred surged in my heart, and my temples throbbed with pain.
On the surface, Xie Facai seemed like an honest man, but in truth he was the worst of the Xie family. He pretended to be a good person, yet he was the most calculating of them all. He controlled all the household money, even the wages I earned working myself to exhaustion at the quarry. He claimed he was keeping it safe for me so Xie Yanlai wouldn’t gamble it all away.
He said he’d let me use the money when my child started school, but when I actually needed it, he brushed me off and denied ever owing me anything.
When my son fell ill with pneumonia, I knelt before him and kowtowed, begging him for money to treat the child, but they refused to give a single cent. My son died because he couldn’t receive treatment in time—and then they had the nerve to make a scene at the hospital, demanding money from the doctors.
I couldn’t bear to look at the true faces of this family any longer.
Xie Yanlai grabbed hold of me and pleaded, “Zhenzhen, my father has already said his piece, so stop making a scene. Look, you’ve even upset Mom…”
“How can you be so spineless? This woman is nothing but a curse on our family, and you’re still groveling to her!” Liu Cuizhi raged.
Xie Facai put on an act. “That’s enough. Stop fanning the flames. Zhenzhen is a good girl—she’s just upset right now.”
I sneered. “Give me a break. The Lin family’s daughter is the wonderful girl no one else in heaven or on earth can compare to. I’m nothing.”