1972, Lin City, Hei Province.
Hongqi Commune, Xiangyang Production Brigade, the Shen family’s home in the northern part of the village.
The moment Shen Hehua realized she had been reborn, she immediately looked at the calendar hanging on the wall to confirm the date.
June 15.
Her pupils suddenly shrank.
“Oh no!”
She jumped out of bed, shoved her feet into her shoes, and threw the door open.
As she hurriedly put on her shoes, she ran toward the courtyard gate.
The commotion was so loud that it alerted the rest of the Shen family. By the time everyone came out of their rooms, all they saw were the front gate and Hehua’s bedroom door standing wide open. She was already gone.
Hehua’s mother looked at her sons and daughters-in-law.
“What happened?”
That was a pointless question. Who would know?
Seeing everyone’s equally confused expressions, she stopped asking.
There was only one thing left to do.
She hurried after her daughter.
Panting heavily, Hehua sprinted straight toward the large river ditch on the eastern side of the village.
In her previous life, she had only learned after her death that she had been living inside a novel.
She was the spoiled, troublesome younger sister of the villainess in a military romance set in the 1970s.
Her family’s entire existence was meant to highlight the happiness of the male and female leads through their own suffering. The villainess was cursed to bring disaster to her husband, while the heroine was blessed to bring prosperity to hers. In the end, Hehua’s entire family died, taking the villainess down with them and conveniently removing every obstacle from the protagonists’ careers and love story.
Knowing the plot, she naturally refused to accept that fate.
But because she had awakened her own consciousness, she was excluded from the story itself. She could only watch the predetermined plot repeat over and over again, helplessly witnessing her family die tragically in every cycle.
Just as her awakened consciousness was about to disappear, she encountered a being that called itself a System. It was nearly out of energy.
The two hit it off immediately and formed a bond.
Her job was to earn energy for the System. In return, the System would use its remaining energy to tear open the story world, allowing her to be reborn before everything happened so she could change her family’s tragic fate.
To prevent hatred and resentment from consuming her, the System also erased all of her harmful emotions without affecting her memories.
Now she was seventeen years old again.
She simply carried all the memories of her previous lives, and she knew every one of them had truly happened.
According to the plot, today was the day her third brother’s tragedy began.
Her third brother had always been clever and resourceful. After graduating from high school, he had found himself a temporary job through a classmate in the city. After several years of hard work, he had become a full-time employee at the commune’s food factory.
Their family was well-off by village standards. Her third brother had a stable job, was handsome, and had an upright appearance. If he hadn’t insisted on waiting until he found someone he truly loved, he would have been married long ago.
With such excellent qualifications, he naturally became the target of many women.
Their family never wanted to interfere in his marriage. They believed he should choose his own wife.
After all, he was a capable young man. It wasn’t as though no one wanted him. There was no need to rush.
But no one expected him to catch the attention of a shameless female educated youth.
She carefully chose the perfect time, place, and circumstances to stage a drowning incident, forcing him to save her.
Although her third brother was mischievous, he couldn’t simply stand by and watch someone drown.
For the sake of propriety, he deliberately waited until the young woman had passed out before rescuing her. His plan was to pull her ashore, leave immediately, then go home and ask his mother to check on her. As for whether someone else would steal the credit, whether she would wake up and leave on her own, or whether anything else happened afterward, he didn’t care.
What he never expected was that the woman had only been pretending to be unconscious.
The moment they reached shore, she pulled open her collar, threw her arms around him, and began shouting.
Just as her third brother managed to shove her away and was about to run, a male educated youth jumped out of the nearby grass.
With a witness present, her third brother was trapped.
The woman deliberately spread rumors throughout the village to ruin her own reputation. Under the excuse of repaying his kindness, she constantly brought him gifts. Every time she saw him, she put on a pitiful expression with tears in her eyes, acting as though she wanted to say something but couldn’t. Eventually, she even threatened suicide, all to pressure him into marrying her.
If it had truly been an accident—if he had rescued her and someone happened to see them—then, considering his character, even if he already loved someone else, he would have taken responsibility for her.
But this had all been a carefully planned trap.
Filled with resentment, her third brother absolutely refused to marry her.
He would rather be executed by firing squad.
Anyone with common sense could see what had really happened.
Only a handful of loudmouthed busybodies—people who loved gossip despite having nothing to do with the matter, especially those jealous of the Shen family—continued stirring up trouble.
Everyone knew her third brother had no intention of marrying her. The male educated youth didn’t dare lie too blatantly, and the woman couldn’t push things too far because her goal was still to marry him.
So the situation dragged on.
The brigade leaders had no intention of punishing someone for doing a good deed. Otherwise, who would dare help others in the future?
They certainly wouldn’t encourage such twisted behavior.
As time passed, the woman had no choice but to change her tactics.
Somehow, she discovered that her third brother had someone he liked.
She even found out it was Zhao Xiaomei, who also happened to be Hehua’s best friend.
Without a shred of shame, she ran to Zhao Xiaomei’s house, knelt, kowtowed, and caused an enormous scene that filled the entire village with rumors.
Her third brother didn’t care about his own reputation.
But he cared deeply about the reputation of the girl he loved.
Naturally, he defended Zhao Xiaomei.
The more he protected her, the more vicious the rumors became.
Originally, Zhao Xiaomei and her third brother had only just begun developing feelings for each other.
Even Hehua, who was both his younger sister and Zhao Xiaomei’s best friend, hadn’t noticed anything yet.
After all this happened, how could they possibly be together?
Even worse, the woman became completely vicious.
She had the male educated youth helping her deliberately ruin Zhao Xiaomei’s reputation.
The man already had the same goal as she did, so the two helped each other.
The woman was notorious for constantly sacrificing herself for her younger brother’s benefit, while the man was famous for being lazy. Neither had a good reputation in the village, and no respectable family wanted to marry into theirs.
One couldn’t endure hardship.
The other only listened to her family’s orders and dreamed of marrying into a good family so she could support her parents.
Both of them had set their sights on people from the village.
One day, in front of countless witnesses, the male educated youth deliberately fell onto Zhao Xiaomei, hugged her, and kissed her on the cheek.
After that, he relentlessly demanded that she take responsibility.
Every single day, he loudly declared,
“I don’t mind your ruined reputation. We’ve already kissed. We should get married.”
He never cared who overheard him.
After failing repeatedly to get what he wanted and with the endless village gossip closing in on her, Zhao Xiaomei could no longer bear the pressure.
One night, she hanged herself from the gateframe of the educated youth residence.
Before dying, she wrote a blood letter.
The incident shocked the higher authorities.
The respectable people in the village were furious.
Families beat the wives and children who had spread the malicious rumors.
The male educated youth was convicted of hooliganism and executed by firing squad.
The female educated youth was deemed especially vicious. As the planner and mastermind behind everything, she was made an example of and sentenced to fifty years of hard labor in the far northwest.
Even her mother in the city, who had given her the scheme, was also sentenced to labor reform.
After Zhao Xiaomei died, her third brother completely lost the will to live.
The blow devastated him.
He drowned his sorrow in alcohol.
One night, while staggering home drunk, he was attacked by a herd of wild boars coming down from the mountains.
They gored him to death.
His body was mangled beyond recognition.
Her third brother was highly skilled.
Even drunk, he should have been able to escape—or at the very least, he shouldn’t have died without putting up any resistance.
Hehua didn’t know whether it was the plot forcing his death…
…or whether he himself had already lost the desire to live.
But regardless of the reason, she had been reborn.
She would never allow this tragedy to happen again.
Her third brother would not die.
Neither would Zhao Xiaomei.
She would make sure they grew old together.
The image of her third brother’s gruesome death flashed before her eyes.
Even after the System had erased her destructive emotions, the memory still struck her so hard that tears streamed uncontrollably down her face.
She wiped them away as she ran.
From a distance, while there was still a bit of light in the evening sky, Hehua spotted someone struggling desperately in the river ditch.
The movements were becoming weaker and weaker.
Not far away, her foolish third brother was casually strolling toward the riverbank.
Judging by his leisurely pace, he was clearly planning to do exactly what he had done in her previous life.
He intended to wait until the female educated youth had exhausted herself and passed out before rescuing her.
But…
My foolish brother…
She’s faking it!
She’s a beautiful “mermaid” from Jiangnan’s water towns!
She swims far better than you, you big northeastern goose!
Shen Jiandang was still leisurely making his way toward the river when he suddenly felt a gust of wind rush past him.
Whoosh!
In the blink of an eye—
Someone shot past him.
That speed…
He could only stare after her in amazement.
Just how desperate was she to find herself a wife…?