What came into view was not the pale white of a hospital, nor heaven or hell.
It was that small house of hers, with an old poster on the wall that read “Serve the People.”
A middle-aged woman with a short ear-length haircut and faint wrinkles at the corners of her eyes was sitting by her bed, her face full of worry.
“Mom?” Lin Peiru’s lips moved slightly, forming a syllable so clear and youthful that even she herself couldn’t believe it.
Wang Xiulan—her mother!
She reached out her hand. It was a pair of delicate, fair hands with distinct knuckles, not the rough, calloused hands worn down by life.
She had come back.
She really had come back!
Not a reunion after death, but a return to the past!
“Mom, what year is it?” she asked urgently, her voice trembling.
Wang Xiulan was startled by the question and smacked her lightly in annoyance. “You’re talking nonsense in your sleep? It’s 1975!”
Nineteen seventy-five!
She was eighteen!
Her parents and elder brother were all still alive and well!
Everything… had not yet happened!
Lin Peiru’s eyes turned red in an instant.
Tears could no longer be controlled and poured out.
But this time, they were not tears of despair—they were tears of overwhelming joy!
Seeing her cry, Wang Xiulan panicked immediately. “Oh my silly girl, why are you crying? Did Mom speak too harshly?”
“Don’t cry!”
Footsteps came from outside the door, and a tall figure entered.
“What’s going on? Peiru, are you feeling unwell again?”
It was her older brother, Lin Jianguo.
Right behind him, a stern-looking man walked in—her father, Lin Dewang.
Seeing her three living, breathing family members whom she had missed for half her life, Lin Peiru cried even harder.
So good… so good…
“This child… has she gone a bit mad?”
“Maybe she’s scared about going to the countryside.”
Just when the whole family thought she had come to her senses and would no longer insist on going down to the countryside—
Lin Peiru suddenly wiped away her tears, her eyes bursting with an unprecedented light.
A kind of determination that meant burning her boats and never turning back: “No.”
With one word, she stunned the entire family.
“I’m going down to the countryside.”
“I must go down to the countryside!”
She had to go! She absolutely had to go!
She had promised Huo Yunshen that if she ever got a chance to start over, she would go find him first!
She remembered that in her previous life, Huo Yunshen had once mentioned that in the early 1970s, he was in the Red Flag Commune in Northeast China.
That was the place she was originally supposed to go to in her past life—but at the last moment, she had backed out.
Yunshen, I’m coming to find you. This time, it’s my turn.
No matter how her parents and elder brother tried to persuade her, Lin Peiru stubbornly insisted on going.
Lin Dewang even mentioned Chen Mingde, just like in her previous life.
Lin Peiru directly pressed a pair of scissors against her own neck. The person she would marry in this life could only be Huo Yunshen!
The entire family was shocked by her decisive, all-or-nothing determination.
Lin Peiru finally obtained her letter of introduction, packed a few bundles, and didn’t even wait for the group departure date. Alone, she resolutely boarded the green train heading to Northeast China.
……
As the train jolted forward, memories from her previous life gradually became clearer.