Li Wenjing had cooked a meal for the whole family and served it up. Everyone else was fine, but Li Yuerong developed a stomachache and ended up in the hospital…
The two of them had gone out together, but Li Wenjing returned home first. By the time Li Yuerong came back, rain was pouring outside. To make matters worse, the door was locked from the inside, and no matter how hard she knocked, no one opened it.
Li Wenjing was fast asleep in her room, while Li Yuerong, unable to get inside and soaked by the rain, came down with a fever…
Some local hooligans cornered Li Yuerong on the street and harassed her. But only a few days later, one of those hooligans confessed his love to Li Wenjing…
In the end, Li Wenjing was still driven out of the Li family home…
After she was thrown out, Li Wenjing caught the eye of human traffickers. They knocked her unconscious and sold her deep into the mountains, where she spent the rest of her life without ever getting out.
There were plenty of families in the mountains whose men couldn’t find wives because they were too poor. When a household had several brothers, they would pool their money to buy one wife and share her.
The family that bought Li Wenjing had five brothers, and they also had a father. One could imagine what kind of life Li Wenjing endured.
She had always thought she’d been kidnapped and sold because of bad luck. But only after she died and encountered the System did she learn that Li Yuerong had hired the traffickers and had them sell her into the mountains.
Her fiancé, Liu Cheng, had been involved too.
At the time, the System asked if she wanted to be reborn. She answered without a moment’s hesitation: “I do!”
The System told her that if she worked hard and completed nine hundred and ninety-nine missions perfectly, she would be reborn and return to a time when she could still change everything.
After she signed a contract with the System, it took her from world to world as she worked hard to complete her missions.
Fortunately, the System hadn’t lied to her. Once she had completed all nine hundred and ninety-nine missions, it left her with a Portable Space containing a spirit spring and a planting area, then severed their connection and went off to find its next host.
Now that she had finally been reborn, she didn’t want to repeat the mistakes of her previous life.
If she couldn’t stay with the Li family, she would go to the countryside. Wasn’t the country encouraging educated young people to go down to the villages and help build up rural areas?
Since she had made up her mind, Li Wenjing didn’t waste time. She began sorting through her belongings.
Of course, the only things she could take from this house were her clothes. She had no right to take anything else.
Even those clothes were only hers because she had worn them. If Li Yuerong might be upset to see them, Li Wenjing wouldn’t have been allowed to take even those!
“Knock, knock!”
After Wang Jinju knocked, she didn’t wait for Li Wenjing to answer before pushing the door open. “Liu Cheng’s here. He’s downstairs and says he wants to see you!”
Liu Cheng was Li Wenjing’s fiancé. Their engagement had been arranged when they were children.
Their families lived in the same residential compound, and the two of them had grown up together. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call them childhood sweethearts.
They had planned to register their marriage as soon as they both turned eighteen.
Li Wenjing knew exactly why he had come.
She curled her lip in disdain. She really couldn’t understand how she’d been so blind in her previous life—how she could have fallen for a sanctimonious hypocrite like him.
Then again, she had met so few men that she’d thought someone like him would make a good match, someone she could rely on.
After meeting all the outstanding men in the worlds where she’d completed her missions, she could see that Liu Cheng was nothing special at all.
Li Wenjing went straight downstairs.
Hearing footsteps behind him, Liu Cheng turned to look at her.
“Jingjing, I’m so sorry. I only heard what happened to you today. You must be devastated, right?”
Li Wenjing had already died once. She’d long since given up expecting anything from the Li family, so the idea of feeling devastated was completely foreign to her.
Before Li Wenjing could reply, Liu Cheng went on, “I know you must be heartbroken right now. I really do feel for you. But from now on, you’ll be in the countryside in the Northeast, while I’ll be here in Kyoto. We’ll be separated by thousands of kilometers…”
Hearing that, Li Wenjing was so furious she almost laughed.
He wanted to have his cake and eat it too—to dump her while still making himself look like a virtuous man!
He was acting as if he were deeply devoted. How had she failed to see through him in her previous life? How had she believed his lies?
While she was off grieving, he was already happily starting a relationship with Li Yuerong.
Li Wenjing decided to make the scumbag squirm a little too. Drawing on the acting skills she’d honed as an award-winning actress in the mission worlds, she quickly filled her eyes with tears.
Her voice wavered as she said, “Liu Cheng, Mom and Dad don’t want me anymore. This isn’t my home now, and it never will be again! But I really don’t want to go back to the countryside. You love me, don’t you? Why don’t we get married? I know I’m not old enough, but Uncle Liu must have a way, right? Once we’re married, you won’t have to worry about us being separated anymore!”
Liu Cheng took a step back. “That won’t work. It would break the rules! Besides, you don’t have a job!”
“If you think it would put you in a difficult position, I’ll call Big Brother and ask him for help. He knows people who could get my age changed. He could even help me find a temporary job. Liu Cheng, don’t you think that would work?”
Liu Cheng knew that if Li Wenjing asked Li Yonggang for help, Li Yonggang would certainly find a way to help her. Then Liu Cheng would have no choice but to marry her.
But he didn’t want to marry Li Wenjing!
This wasn’t the outcome he wanted either.
“Maybe… no, let’s… let’s not. Big Brother is on the way up right now. You wouldn’t want him to make a mistake for your sake, would you? It could ruin his whole life. Surely you wouldn’t want that?”
Looking at him, Li Wenjing chuckled twice. “Liu Cheng, is it really that hard to admit you want to dump this country girl? You’ve gone around in circles just to make me back down so you can come out of this with a good reputation, haven’t you?”
“Are you afraid people will call you Chen Shimei…?”
Hearing Li Wenjing about to expose the little scheme he had in mind, Liu Cheng hurriedly cut her off. “Jingjing, don’t make things up. I never thought anything like that!”
“It’s easy to prove you’re not that kind of person. Just marry me!”
At that, Liu Cheng could no longer keep up the act. His true colors showed. “Li Wenjing, I’ll be honest with you. We’re just not right for each other. I’m the son of a steel mill cadre, and you’re a country bumpkin. What makes you think you’re good enough for me? If you have any sense, get back to the countryside and stop pestering me. And don’t bring up our engagement again. A country bumpkin like you should only marry another country bumpkin…”
“Smack!”
Liu Cheng hadn’t even finished speaking when a hard slap landed across his face.
He stared in disbelief, one hand covering the side of his face that had been struck, and glared angrily at the person who had hit him.