This plot was simply too addictive.
Too outrageous.
A heavenly thunderstorm of absurdity!
Shen Yueliang was genuinely disgusted.
But when she finally reacted and realized that she herself was now Shen Yueliang—
One.
Two.
Three.
Shen Yueliang turned and bolted.
Mom, I want to go home!
As long as she ran fast enough, maybe she could transmigrate back.
Facts proved that her idea was pure wishful thinking.
Had anyone ever seen a transmigration that let you return so easily after arriving?
Carrying two headless chickens in her hands, Shen Yueliang sprinted all the way home. As she passed her uncle’s house, she hurriedly asked,
“Uncle, when did you send the telegram to my brother?”
“Yesterday afternoon, I think. After the Luo family said they wanted to break off the engagement, your mother said we should call your brother back to stand up for you—”
Before Lin Caisheng could finish speaking, his niece had already vanished like a gust of wind, leaving a few chicken feathers drifting on the ground.
There was no time to explain.
Shen Yueliang continued running home.
Meanwhile, her mind was racing.
She knew where her brother was stationed.
The military base was several provinces away, over six hundred kilometers from here.
Based on experience, a telegram would usually arrive the next day if everything went smoothly. Sometimes delays of one or two days happened due to unexpected circumstances.
In other words, her brother would probably receive the telegram tomorrow.
If this were the modern era, she could jump into a car immediately.
Even if the drive took seven or eight hours, she could still reach his unit today.
As long as she told him she was fine and convinced him not to come home, she could prevent his needless death.
The Shen family would most likely avoid their tragic fate.
And she wouldn’t end up emptying chamber pots and washing toilets for her ex-fiancé’s new girlfriend.
But here came the problem.
This was 1975.
There were no convenient four-wheeled vehicles.
Traveling required introduction letters.
If she wanted to find her brother at the military base, she would first have to walk an hour to town, then travel from town to the county seat, take a bus from the county to the provincial capital, buy a train ticket there to the provincial capital where her brother was stationed, then continue to the county seat and finally to the military compound…
Forget one day.
Even three days might not be enough.
A telephone?
Her brother had left the family a contact address.
She had copied it down herself and kept it in the drawer of her room.
Although it seemed like she had thought through many things, all of it had taken less than a minute.
Carrying the chickens, Shen Yueliang stepped into the courtyard.
Her sister-in-law, He Erhong, was sitting in the yard with her legs crossed, cracking sunflower seeds.
When she noticed Shen Yueliang return, she merely lifted her eyelids.
At first she showed little reaction.
Then she saw the chickens.
Immediately, she pounced over like a dog that had caught the scent of meat.
“Oh my, what fat chickens! Perfect. I’ve been losing weight lately. They’ll help me build up my strength.”
Shen Yueliang looked at the flesh piled on her face and the barrel-like waist.
A certain sentence rose to her lips…
Forget it.
Who knew what the future would bring?
There was no point arguing over this now.
He Erhong snatched the chickens away and weighed them in her hands.
“Nice and fat. I’ll eat one today and the other tomorrow. Perfect.”
Shen Yueliang fell silent.
“Yueliang, why are you running so fast? I’m exhausted.”
Mother Shen came hurrying in, panting heavily.
Looking at her mother, Shen Yueliang wondered whether she should tell her everything she knew.
But she quickly dismissed the idea.
There was no way her mother would believe it.
The whole thing was far too unbelievable.
“It’s nothing. I’m just a little hungry. Mom, make me something to eat. And boil some eggs too. A lot of eggs.”
Mother Shen assumed her daughter had suffered a grievance.
Besides, ever since receiving the news yesterday, none of the family had properly eaten anything.
Since her daughter wanted food, she certainly wasn’t going to be stingy.
She immediately headed for the kitchen.
After all, they had just brought back a basket of eggs from the Luo family.
If they didn’t eat them, who would?
Mother Shen went into the kitchen.
Not wanting to waste time, Shen Yueliang hurried back to her room.
Her room was actually quite spacious.
Not because Mother Shen favored her.
Rather, after her brother got married, the family had built a separate brick house for him. It was quite impressive.
As a result, nobody competed with her for this old room.
The original owner had been a seamstress.
Not one of those underground tailors either.
At thirteen, she had formally apprenticed under an old tailor and learned the trade properly.
She was fully qualified and accepted clothing orders for money.
In an era when clothing and food were scarce and many people still went hungry, her sewing skills allowed her to earn as much by herself as an entire family.
Making a shirt earned fifty cents.
A pair of pants earned thirty cents.
She could even exchange her work for labor points.
Because of this, her room was divided into two sections.
Near the front window stood a wooden table used for cutting fabric and making patterns.
Beside it sat a sewing machine.
That was her workspace.
Originally, a cloth curtain had separated the room.
But as the original owner grew older, the family felt it was inconvenient and eventually built a dividing wall down the middle.
Effectively, it became two separate rooms.
Shen Yueliang headed straight for the bedroom and pulled an old envelope from the desk drawer.
The letter had been sent by her brother, Shen Xiangdong, from the military.
The envelope contained the address of his unit, making it convenient for the family to send letters or packages.
Unfortunately, there was no telephone number.
Shen Yueliang didn’t know much about this era.
But based on her limited understanding, even if the military had telephones, they were probably located in the offices of commanding officers.
A mere platoon leader like her brother would never have access to such an advanced luxury.
As for their production brigade, electricity had only arrived two years ago.
Both her uncle and Mother Shen had personally helped dig holes to install utility poles.
“What am I supposed to do?”
Shen Yueliang paced back and forth inside the room.
Was she really supposed to wait until her family was destroyed?
Wait until she ended up scrubbing toilets and carrying foot-washing water for Luo Shengli’s girlfriend?
If it came to that, she’d probably finish herself off first.
Shen Yueliang wasn’t an especially strong-willed person.
If she could simply lie flat and coast through life, who would willingly charge through mountains of blades and seas of fire?
It wasn’t as though she had eaten too much and was looking for trouble.
The problem was that she didn’t have that kind of fate!
As she wandered around the room, she eventually arrived at the original owner’s workspace.
Beside the sewing machine sat a half-finished dress.
She vaguely remembered it.
It belonged to Educated Youth Su.
Su Qiuyun was a sent-down youth assigned to Qinghe Brigade.
She was very pretty.
Last year, she married a soldier and her life improved considerably.
After saving up enough cloth coupons, she had commissioned Shen Yueliang to make clothes for her.
The military.
A soldier!
Shen Yueliang’s eyes suddenly lit up.
That’s right.
Wasn’t the reason Qinghe Brigade got electricity so quickly because of the military’s influence?
A military base was stationed only five or six kilometers from the village.
Security there was strict.
Soldiers stood guard at all times, and civilians were normally forbidden from approaching.
But everyone had seen it before.
Green four-wheeled military jeeps racing through muddy roads, kicking up clouds of dust behind them.
Soldier brothers were great.
Soldier brothers were handsome.
Soldier brothers served the people!
Shen Yueliang quickly packed a bundle.
She stuffed in a change of clothes.
There were also a few pieces of peach pastry and several White Rabbit candies in the cabinet, which she packed as well.
The envelope containing her second brother’s military address went into her pocket.
Afraid she might forget it, she recited the address several times.
Even if she lost the envelope, she would still remember it.
“Mom! Are the flatbreads and eggs ready?”
In the kitchen, Mother Shen had already skillfully made five flatbreads.
Considering how wronged her daughter felt, she used the finest white flour.
The breads were pan-fried in oil until they were fragrant and delicious.
She also boiled five whole eggs.
Shen Yueliang found two sheets of oil paper and wrapped up every flatbread and egg.
Still worried it wasn’t enough, she grabbed the leftover wild vegetable buns from breakfast and packed those too.
When she emerged from the kitchen, He Erhong was squatting in the courtyard, plucking chicken feathers with her backside sticking into the air.
Shen Yueliang said nothing.
She simply picked up her things and left.
“Yueliang, where are you going?”
By then, Shen Yueliang had already run off.
Truthfully, she didn’t want to run.
But the family had no other transportation.
What else could she do besides rely on her own two legs?
Five or six kilometers wasn’t exactly far.
But it wasn’t close either.
And the original owner had been delicate and physically weak.
After all, she didn’t work in the fields.
She spent her days sitting at a sewing machine.
As a result, her skin was soft and fair, and her body was delicate and tender.
She wasn’t sure whether she had been walking for half an hour or even longer.
All she knew was that her legs were growing weak.
The military compound was still somewhere ahead, out of sight.
Stopping for a moment, Shen Yueliang rubbed her aching legs.
Traveling by foot alone…
Was truly exhausting.
Then she heard the sound of an engine approaching from behind.
Turning around, she saw a green military jeep speeding toward her.
She figured her luck wasn’t entirely terrible.
So she raised both hands high and waved them frantically.
Afraid they wouldn’t notice her, she jumped up and down while shouting,
“Comrade! Comrade! Please help me—!”
Apparently, nobody saw her.
The jeep sped right past.
What it did leave behind, however, was a massive cloud of dust that blasted directly into her face.