“Sign it! You have to sign it today whether you like it or not!”
“This iron-rice-bowl job at the supply and marketing cooperative was supposed to belong to your brother in the first place!”
“A money-losing asset like you is going to get married off sooner or later—what’s the point of hogging such a good position?”
“Baozong is the only male heir in our Lin family!”
“If you don’t hand this job over to him, you’re trying to extinguish the Lin family lineage!”
Zhao Cuifeng’s sharp, piercing curses rang out in the dim, oppressive main room, accompanied by a shower of flying spittle.
Lin Wanshuang snapped her eyes open.
Her lungs still seemed heavy with the suffocating chill of her past life, frozen through by ice and snow. That extreme agony—as if every drop of her blood had been drained dry—made her subconsciously clench her fists.
The bone-chilling cold retreated in an instant.
In its place was the sour, stench-filled air of cheap, raw tobacco filling the room.
This familiar odor sent turbulent waves crashing through her eyes, which had been as cold and lifeless as a corpse’s just moments before.
She had been reborn.
She was back in the winter of 1977.
Back at the very first turning point of her fate.
The ragged clock hanging on the wall emitted a heavy tick-tock.
The hour hand pointed squarely at two in the afternoon.
In just three hours, the commune’s Armed Forces Department and the Educated Youth Office would close for the day.
In this era, those were the absolute centers of power.
An official stamp meant life or death; a personnel file dictated one’s fate.
As long as that piece of paper bore the official red stamp, her iron-rice-bowl job would completely belong to Lin Baozong.
In her past life, it was on this exact afternoon that she had refused to sign, holding on for dear life.
The result? Zhao Cuifeng had teamed up with her eldest uncle’s family, pinned her to the ground, and brutally broke her right leg.
Even more laughable was what came later: that hypocritical scumbag, Shen Qian, put on a fake act of playing the hero saving the damsel in distress. He tricked her, desperate and cornered, into returning home with him.
He bled her dry and squeezed every last drop of life from her.
Riding on the back of her medical manuscripts and research findings from her previous life, he climbed all the way to the high-ranking position of Deputy Brigade Commander.
And in the end? He tossed her aside like trash in the snow to freeze to death!
“Are you mute or what?!”
“Did you hear a single word I said?!”
Seeing Lin Wanshuang lowering her head without uttering a sound, Zhao Cuifeng slammed her hand onto the table. Her weather-beaten face was filled with hypocritical, aggrieved fury.
“I carried you for ten months to bring you into this world, fed you, and clothed you!”
“Now that your wings have grown strong, you don’t even care whether your own blood brother lives or dies?”
“Do you have any idea? Without this job, Baozong will be assigned to scoop human manure!”
“You ungrateful, heartless wolf!”
Out of habit, Zhao Cuifeng rubbed the rough hem of her clothes, and tears welled up instantly on command.
Outside the courtyard, a few passing village women poked their heads in to snoop.
“What a sin… Zhao Cuifeng is backing her eldest daughter into a corner again.”
“That’s a sales clerk position at the supply and marketing coop! That’s twenty-eight yuan and fifty cents a month!”
“Tsk tsk, she’s really willing to give it to that good-for-nothing Lin Baozong?”
“Well, he’s the one with a dick. A girl is just spilled water sooner or later.”
Gossip drifted in through the drafty, leaky window.
Zhao Cuifeng cried even louder, putting on the full act of a loving mother driven to the brink by an unfilial daughter.
Lin Wanshuang lowered her eyelashes slightly, hiding the icy, lethal arc in her eyes—the look one gives a dead person.
Moral blackmail?
Fine.
She loved nothing more than watching people lift a stone only to drop it on their own feet.
At that moment, under the dilapidated carved window frame outside the main room, a tall, slender figure stood concealed in the wind and snow.
Shen Qian was dressed in a half-new, four-pocket cadre suit, his leather shoes polished to a shine. He stared fixatedly at Lin Wanshuang inside the room, a sneer of utter disdain curling up the corner of his mouth.
Just yesterday, he too had been reborn.
In his past life, he had firmly believed that becoming Deputy Brigade Commander was entirely due to his own brilliant intelligence and extraordinary talent. A woman like Lin Wanshuang—who had nothing going for her except being voluptuous and charming—was merely riding his coattails.
Since the heavens had granted him a second chance at life, he was naturally going to kick this nuisance of a woman out of his way and marry his true “white moonlight,” Lin Wanshuang’s cousin, Lin Xiawei.
Lin Wanshuang, you’re about to become a country bumpkin who can’t even afford a meal.
When you lose everything and end up wandering the streets… let’s see if you still put on that high-and-mighty act in front of me like you did in our past life!
Shen Qian cursed maliciously in his heart, his eyes full of craving for the sense of control that was soon to come.
He wanted to watch with his own eyes as Lin Wanshuang was driven into a dead end.
Inside the room, Zhao Cuifeng had already slammed a crumpled Job Transfer Agreement onto the table. Next to it sat a box of cheap red ink paste.
“Sign it!”
“You’re signing it today whether you want to or not!”
“If you dare say a single ‘no’, I’ll end my life right in front of you!”
Zhao Cuifeng made a show of threatening to throw herself against the doorpost.
This tactic—crying, throwing a tantrum, and threatening suicide—was something she had mastered to perfection.
According to the script of her past life, Lin Wanshuang should be resisting with all her might right now, which would then draw a savage beating from the entire family.
But now…
Lin Wanshuang slowly raised her head.
Her voluptuous, captivating face was instantly covered in tears, looking as if she were on the verge of sobbing.
“Mom…”
“Don’t be like this.”
“I’ll sign. I’ll sign.”
Her voice was weak and helpless, like a lamb waiting to be slaughtered.
The air suddenly turned dead quiet.
Zhao Cuifeng even forgot her stunt of charging into the post, freezing completely in place.
She thought she had misheard.
“You… what did you say?”
Outside the window, Shen Qian’s eyes widened in shock as well.
How was this possible?!
In her past life, Lin Wanshuang had refused to yield even if it cost her life! How could she agree so readily now?
Lin Wanshuang sniffled, her tears falling drop by drop.
“Mom, you’re right.”
“I’m just a girl; I’m bound to marry out sooner or later.”
“The job at the supply and marketing coop is so good—it should belong to Baozong.”
“Only if Baozong succeeds will our Lin family have a future.”
“How could I delay my brother’s prospects just for myself?”
Every single word of this speech landed right on Zhao Cuifeng’s heart. Every syllable dripped with “selflessness and righteousness.”
The hypocritical smile on Zhao Cuifeng’s face couldn’t be held back any longer, her mouth splitting wide open from ear to ear.
“Oh, my good daughter!”
“Mom knew you were sensible!”
“Mom didn’t raise you for nothing!”
“Don’t worry—once Baozong becomes a cadre and you get married in the future, Mom will definitely add two extra towels to your dowry!”
Eager and impatient, Zhao Cuifeng pushed the Job Transfer Agreement closer to Lin Wanshuang.
“Quick, quick! Press your thumbprint!”
“Sister, at least you know what’s good for you!”
Along with a slick, raspy voice, the Lin family’s sole male heir, Lin Baozong, lifted the door curtain and strutted in.
He was wearing an ill-fitting synthetic shirt, his hair slicked with cheap hair oil from who-knows-where. Though only eighteen years old, his face was pale and hollowed out from indulgence.
“Wouldn’t it have been better if you were this quick from the start?”
“You just had to make Mom angry!”
Lin Baozong sat heavily on the long bench, grabbed a handful of sunflower seeds from the table, and shoved them into his mouth.
“Once you give the job to me and I collect my monthly salary, I’ll spare you a couple gulps of meat broth.”
“If you dare dawdle any longer, see if I don’t slap you across the face!”
As he spat out sunflower seed shells, he looked sideways at Lin Wanshuang with utter contempt.
Ever since they were young, he had been the absolute emperor in this house. Lin Wanshuang was nothing more than a servant girl who waited on him.
Looking at the disgusting faces of this mother and son, a wave of physical nausea welled up in Lin Wanshuang’s stomach.
She didn’t reach out immediately. She merely bit her lower lip gently, putting on a troubled expression.
“Mom, pressing a thumbprint won’t count.”
“The commune Armed Forces Department and the Educated Youth Office have rules. The person must sign their name in ink with a fountain pen and press a thumbprint for them to recognize it.”
“This is the transfer of an iron-rice-bowl position—we can’t afford to be careless.”
Hearing this, Zhao Cuifeng panicked instantly.
“Then… then sign it quickly!”
“If this delays getting the stamp this afternoon, those people at the commune won’t recognize it!”
Lin Wanshuang nodded obediently.
“Mom, don’t worry.”
“I have an old fountain pen in my room. I’ll go get it right now.”
“I’ll definitely have it signed before they close for the day.”
With that, she turned around.
The very second her back was turned to Zhao Cuifeng, the weakness and tears on Lin Wanshuang’s face vanished without a trace.
In their place was an intensely spine-chilling, lethal intent.
A bloodthirsty, cold smile curled up at the corner of her lips.
She despised these self-righteous clowns the most.
Since they wanted this iron-rice-bowl job so badly… she would personally deliver them a death warrant straight to hell.
The clock on the wall let out a heavy chime.
Two fifteen.
The official stamp of the commune Armed Forces Department would be locked into the safe at five o’clock sharp.
Time was running out.
As the door curtain fell back into place, Lin Wanshuang’s fingertips carelessly brushed against a wooden splinter on the doorframe, slowly grinding it to dust.
No one can save you now.
The countdown… officially begins.