Weiyang City was a northern city nestled between mountains and sea, conveniently close to the capital, boasting an excellent geographical location. With its port, it had been a major industrial hub even before the founding of the nation.
After the nation's establishment, it went without saying that the streets and alleys were bustling early in the morning, filled with workers in their uniforms.
Nanshang Fang had once been a concession area, lined with Western-style buildings. The smooth, clean walls and clear, transparent glass lent an air of elegance to the architecture. Yet, no matter how elegant, the breakfast hour was always filled with the lively atmosphere of daily life.
Qigu Xiang saw a steady stream of people coming and going. In the annex of Building 6, Hong Huiying had already been up for a while, now standing before a mirror, rolling an egg over her face.
She rolled it for a full half-hour before the swelling around her eyes subsided somewhat. She then dabbed a bit of lip color mixed with cold cream onto the sagging areas of her face, pressing gently before lightly dusting with powder.
In the kitchen, Zhan Guocheng boiled a handful of noodles and cracked two eggs into the pot. After finishing his meal and washing the dishes, he retrieved yesterday's newspaper and settled onto the living room sofa to read.
The clock on the five-drawer cabinet chimed seven times.
Hong Huiying emerged from the master bedroom, grabbed her lunchbox, stuffed it into her cloth bag, and without so much as a glance at the person on the sofa, changed her shoes and left. As soon as the door closed behind her, the breath she had been holding escaped, and she raised a hand to thump her chest twice before descending the stairs.
On the first floor of the main building, Hao Chunhua, the family member of Deputy Director Zou from the power plant's labor union, was tying her apron and placing two plates of steamed buns on the square table by the door. Spotting Hong Huiying, she greeted her, "You're up early today?"
"Ah," Hong Huiying forced a slight smile. "The neighborhood committee is sending a group of educated youth to the station today, so I need to get there early to make arrangements." Reaching the bottom of the stairs, she walked over to the bicycle shed in the corner and pulled her bicycle key from her bag.
Hao Chunhua said earnestly, "It's all in service of the people."
"Serving the people is our honor," Hong Huiying replied immediately.
"Didn't your Linlin return from her business trip? Why haven't we seen her for days?" Hao Chunhua untied her apron and shooed her two grandsons to wash their hands.
Hong Huiying paused before answering, "Kids these days really aren't like we were when we were young. It was just a trip to Qian Sheng, and after working overtime for two days upon returning, she's completely worn out."
"I don't like hearing that," Hao Chunhua said, one hand on the back of a chair and the other on her hip. "Every time the Women's Federation organizes a trip to the countryside for propaganda work, I come back in the evening with my feet swollen terribly. And that's just in our city's outskirts! Linlin went all the way to Qian Sheng—that's so far! Never mind anything else, just the round-trip train ride alone is exhausting. On the train, even grown men have to sleep with one eye open, let alone a young girl like her. How could she afford to be careless?"
"They traveled with a team this time, so the train ride wasn't too bad. It's just that when she first arrived in Qian Sheng, she couldn't adjust to the climate—vomiting, diarrhea, and fever. She really suffered."
Hao Chunhua clicked her tongue sympathetically. "In an unfamiliar place, you have to tough it out on your own."
"If you don't tough it out yourself, who's going to do it for you?" Hong Huiying pushed her bicycle toward the main gate. "Sister Hao, let's chat another time."
"Alright, alright, you go ahead and get busy." Hao Chunhua watched her leave, then turned to see her old man emerge from the study with his hands clasped behind his back.
As the others approached, she whispered quietly, "Accountant Zhang's family has been eyeing Zhan Lin for years, but what's the point? She quietly got married outside without anyone knowing. Hong Huiying is still keeping it a secret for her daughter, but can such a thing really stay hidden? Just the other day, someone from the women's federation in our factory office was talking about it. I don’t believe the neighborhood office hasn’t been discussing it privately either."
Zou Changgong sat down at the table. "Discussing what? It’s not like Zhan Lin just ran off with some random man. Even if she didn’t go through her parents beforehand, she did properly obtain a marriage certificate. Nowadays, marriage is free, and as long as the procedure is correct, outsiders can gossip all they want—it won’t make a difference."
"Exactly," Hao Chunhua pulled up a stool and sat down. "Besides, that girl married Ning Yunshu. Ning Yunshu has both talent and looks, and his future is clearly bright. In any family, he’d be considered a catch."
Grabbing a steamed bun, Zou Changgong took a bite. "As for the Zhang family, even without Ning Yunshu, Zhan Guocheng wouldn’t have married his daughter to them. What’s Shi Lanhua’s temperament like? You’ve seen her attitude when she worked at the department store, and so has Hong Huiying."
Hao Chunhua chuckled softly, lowering her voice. "Her son, Zhang Li, isn’t clean either. Just a few days ago, I heard that kid blocked a girl’s job opportunity. That girl is a proper graduate from a finance and accounting vocational school."
Zhan Lin spent the night drifting in and out of consciousness, waking startled and falling back asleep. She couldn’t distinguish between dreams and reality, remaining in a daze until dawn broke, when her tightly furrowed brow gradually relaxed.
Around eight or nine in the morning, the sun outside was bright. Most adults had already gone to work, while a few boys gathered a group of kids in the alley, dividing into teams to play a game of "fighting the little devils."
"I brought the military bugle my grandpa gave me—I can’t play a little devil."
"I played the devil yesterday, so why should I play it again today?"
"Brother Santu, you’ve been the little hero for six days straight. Today, it’s your turn to play the devil."
"No way! My dad’s a soldier—how could I play a devil?"
"Rock-paper-scissors, rock-paper-scissors…"
Amidst shouts of "Charge!" Zhan Lin turned over and opened her eyes. She had been awake for a few minutes, but after a night of turmoil, her mind remained sluggish. The only thing she felt with absolute clarity now was…
Hungry!
So hungry!
Her stomach growled with a burning emptiness!
Holding her belly, she reflected on everything before her rebirth—she had died suddenly, hadn’t she?
After returning from a fashion show in Paris, her company and design studio had piled up with work. Coupled with jet lag and difficulty sleeping, she hadn’t paid much attention to her health, only focused on clearing the backlog as quickly as possible.
Then, once the work was done, she was done too.
Zhan Lin felt utterly despondent. With one blink and the next, she had whooshed back to before liberation. No, in reality, it was worse than going back before liberation—so much worse that she wanted to close her eyes again.
1993 to 1970—a gap of over 8,000 days. Many memories had long since faded.
She had little recollection of the first half of 1970, only vaguely remembering that when the weather grew warmer, Chen Shiqing, who had been sent down to the countryside in Qian Sheng, sent her a letter.
In the letter, Chen Shiqing mentioned that Ning Yunshu had caught the attention of a certain leader in Qian Sheng. That leader had transferred his beloved daughter to work under Ning Yunshu, asking him to mentor her.
Back then, upon learning that Ning Yunshu might have found a suitable partner, she felt conflicted—offering blessings on one hand while her mind remained filled with thoughts of him.
Coincidentally, not long after, she was temporarily transferred to the Zhiqing Ban. Due to the lackluster progress in mobilizing educated youth to go to the countryside and contribute to rural development, the Municipal Party Committee’s Propaganda Department organized various neighborhoods and factories to report on and promote the positive deeds of educated youth in rural areas.
In her district, a comrade from the District Committee proposed visiting the countryside alongside the educated youth to understand their genuine and uplifting lives. Coincidentally, a group of educated youth was scheduled to depart for Qian Sheng around that time, so she immediately signed up.
She had already made up her mind: the trip to Qian Sheng would be her farewell to her youthful innocence. If she could see Ning Yunshu, that would be wonderful; if not, then so be it. Upon returning from Qian Sheng, she would accept her family’s arrangements and start meeting potential partners.
Traveling thousands of miles, she was fortunate enough to meet Ning Yunshu. Summoning her courage, she stood tall and confessed her feelings to him. What she never expected, however, was that Ning Yunshu accepted her confession and even took the initiative to propose… marriage.
Zhan Lin blinked a few times, suddenly realizing what she had overlooked. She sat up abruptly, her hand just reaching her abdomen when she heard someone shouting outside, “Xiao Zhan, Zhan Lin, are you home?”
“Aunt Lanhua, why are you looking for Zhan Lin in such a hurry?” Zhu Xiaohe, the daughter-in-law of Deputy Director Gao from the Power Plant Research Institute, who lived in the east unit on the second floor, pushed open her window and asked the woman who had rushed into the courtyard.
“Oh, how could I not be in a hurry? Our Factory Director Zhan was caught having an affair at Qin Xiaoqin’s house in No. 9 Daoba Men Courtyard.”
“What? It’s only past nine o’clock. Did Factory Director Zhan go to Daoba Men so early in the morning?”
Several voices chimed in one after another: “With whom? Qin Xiaoqin?”
“Who else could it be at Qin Xiaoqin’s house? The two of them were caught stark naked on the kang by the Geweihui.”
Zhan Lin now knew who had come looking for her. She glanced at the calendar: July 16th. That couldn’t be right—her father was supposed to be caught on July 20th. She got out of bed, slipped on her slippers, and walked to the living room.
Well, the calendar in the living room read July 20th.
The front door was being pounded loudly, but Zhan Lin paid no attention. Shi Lanhua, the wife of Zhang Derun, head of the Power Plant’s Finance Department. This woman was a master at flattering those in power and stepping on those down on their luck. Before her father’s incident, she had been Shi Lanhua’s prospective daughter-in-law.
“Is Zhan Lin home? Your father was caught having an affair. You should go find your mother right away.” Shi Lanhua banged on the door and shouted at the top of her lungs.
What could she do about her father being caught? Having already lived through this once, Zhan Lin took it in stride. She turned around, went back to her room, picked up a piece of sponge cake, took a bite, and then fetched a thermos to pour herself a cup of hot water.
In her previous life, Shi Lanhua had spread the scandal of Zhan Guocheng’s affair throughout the entire city in just half a day. This time, she had no intention of stopping her either.
When no one answered, the person outside didn’t persist for long before leaving.
Washing it down with water, Zhan Lin ate three pieces of sponge cake in a row before finally stopping. The saying “food is the fuel of life” couldn’t be truer. With her stomach full, her head no longer felt heavy, her legs no longer felt weak, and she had the energy to move around.
Under the window was a desk with a row of books on it, each of which looked somewhat familiar to her. Flipping through them quickly, she found a few ration coupons and twelve yuan and sixty cents. The notebooks contained nothing tucked inside. The desk drawers held nothing but pens and newspaper clippings.
The cabinets on either side of the dressing table were filled with snacks on the left—two unopened bags of White Rabbit milk candies, half a bag of fruit hard candies, along with dried fruits, fried dough twists, peach shortbread cookies, red shrimp crisps, and sunflower seeds. The right cabinet was packed full of knitting wool.
Pulling open the three-door wardrobe, she saw two new quilts stuffed into the upper compartment, while the middle and lower sections were filled with clothes. Her gaze paused on a leather bag tucked in the corner, and her memories slowly began to awaken.
This leather bag had been brought back from Shanghai by her sister-in-law’s friend when she started working. She had cherished it dearly, seldom using it on ordinary days.
Zhan Lin took the bag and sat down by the dressing table, carefully emptying its contents one by one: notebooks, a fountain pen, a collection of the Great Leader’s quotations, ration coupon booklets, her work ID, nine White Rabbit milk candies, a small coin purse, the household registration booklet, and… the marriage certificate.
The marriage certificate looked brand new. Clutching her lower abdomen with both hands, she stared at the two names printed on it, her heart filled with indescribable emotions.
After a long silence, Zhan Lin smiled. Coming back to life like this wasn’t so bad after all. She sat for a while longer until her sluggish mind gradually regained its sharpness, then went to the bedside, lifted the pillow, retrieved a wristwatch, and put it on.
In fact, in her previous life, after her father was arrested, there was one thing she could never quite understand or make sense of—the family’s savings.
Their family wasn’t an ordinary working-class household. Her father, Zhan Guocheng, before moving the whole family away from the capital, had driven for her grandfather for two years. In 1951, he started working at the Weiyang City Power Plant, also taking on part-time driving duties for the factory. The subsidies he earned were even higher than his regular salary. By 1960, excluding subsidies, his monthly wages had already reached over 70 yuan, and by the end of 1966, he was promoted to deputy factory director.
Her mother, Hong Huiying, had always worked at the neighborhood committee. On the surface, the pay there wasn’t high, but there were some under-the-table benefits to be had.
Especially after her mother was transferred to the Xinhua Road Neighborhood Committee as director in 1965, the matters she handled increased significantly—housing allocations, job placements, sending educated youth to the countryside, and so on.
The family’s expenses were all transparent. Her parents had only two children—her and her older brother. Her brother had been an excellent student during his school years, and the family of the woman he married was beyond reproach, requiring no financial support from their side.
She herself had started working in 1968 without causing any trouble. Although she didn’t contribute money to the household, she also never took any from it.
Yet, after her father’s incident, the savings in their family’s bankbook amounted to less than 1,500 yuan. Zhan Lin furrowed her delicate, slender brows. This matter had weighed on her mind for many years.
Because in her previous life, her father’s troubles didn’t end with his extramarital affair—there was also a massive financial shortfall looming behind it.
To fill that gap, her grandmother, Madam Su Yueyuan, had emptied her entire life savings and even added the Beijing courtyard house left to her by her grandfather.
To help raise funds, her cousin Zhan Ke from her uncle’s family secretly sold his job at the railway bureau and volunteered to go to the countryside, nearly dying in the mountains of Sichuan. Although he was eventually rescued, he was left with a permanent limp in one leg.
Zhan Lin left her room and headed to the master bedroom. The room was tidy, with a thin quilt folded into a neat square and tucked under the pillow. Stains marked the pillowcase, but she didn’t want to dwell on whether they were from drool or tears.
Right now, all she wanted to know was how much money her family had at this moment.
With clear purpose, she began her search—drawers, hidden compartments beneath them, collars, pockets, sleeves, linings of clothes, tops and bottoms of cabinets, spaces behind them, bedposts, bed slats, pillows, pillow stuffing… leaving no potential hiding spot unchecked.
After a thorough search, Zhan Lin tallied up the family's finances: the passbook showed 1,460 yuan, and there was 467 yuan and 80 cents in cash, including 37 Da Tuanjie bills.
Having restored the master bedroom to roughly its original state, she moved on to the study. The study had originally been her brother's room, facing north and about thirteen or fourteen square meters in size.
Her father liked to hide things between the pages of books, so she went through them one by one and found 63 yuan and 30 cents, along with eleven miscellaneous coupons, most of which had expired.
In the cabinet beneath the bookshelf, there were eleven bottles of Maotai, four of which were special supply. Among the six and a half cartons of cigarettes, there were two cartons of Zhonghua—one with filters and one without—three and a half cartons of Da Qianmen, and one carton of Mudan.
Moving a chair, she stood on it to inspect the top of the bookshelf. The top was covered with several layers of old newspapers, which had accumulated a thick layer of dust.
Carefully lifting the newspapers, Zhan Lin found nothing underneath. She gently tapped the wooden board—it was solid wood. She carefully set the newspapers back down and was about to step off the chair when she noticed that the corner of the newspaper near the wall seemed to be stuck together, which piqued her curiosity.
Turning the newspaper around, she lifted one layer with a finger—nothing. Lifting another layer, she found several folded paper packets that children played with, hastily made.
Zhan Lin took out the paper packets, all folded from elementary school textbooks. She unfolded one—nothing hidden inside. Unfolding another, ah… inside was a deposit slip for 600 yuan, under Zhan Guocheng's name.
She had known it—her family couldn't possibly have so little savings.
She continued unfolding the packets, but found nothing. Unfolding another, still nothing. In the last packet, hidden inside, was a larger deposit slip for 1,000 yuan, also under Zhan Guocheng's name.
Zhan Lin carefully folded the two deposit slips, placed them in her pocket, stepped off the chair, picked up a few loose papers from the floor, and tucked them into a book.
In her previous life, after her father got into trouble, no one in the family had seen him until the power plant began investigating the accounts. By the time they were allowed to visit, their home had already been ransacked by Red Guards, and during the visits, Geweihui personnel were always watching.
Grabbing a flashlight, she shone it into the gap behind the bookshelf. With sharp eyes, Zhan Lin spotted two more paper packets tucked near the corner of the cabinet against the wall, though they were difficult to reach.
But she wasn't worried—she had a solution. She went to her room and retrieved her brother's treasured wooden stick, which was just the right length. With a few quick moves, she fished out the two paper packets. Swiftly unfolding them, unfortunately, there was nothing inside.
Undeterred, she still had many places left to search. Returning the stick to her room, she took a quick trip to the bathroom.
Back in the study, an iron box of cream biscuits sat on the desk. These were something only her mother loved to eat, though she herself would crave a couple when hungry. Her father never touched them.
Zhan Lin opened the box. Only a few biscuits were missing. She took one and popped it into her mouth—the creamy flavor was strong, but it was too sweet, almost cloying. Poking the lining paper at the bottom of the box with her finger, she could clearly feel biscuits underneath, but she still wanted to take a look.
She arranged the biscuits from the top layer on the desk and lifted the lining paper. Staring at what lay beneath, Zhan Lin pressed her lips into a straight line. Three-quarters of the space was filled with biscuits, while the remaining quarter was stacked with small bundles of Da Tuanjie bills.
This must have been hidden by her mother, Madam Hong Huiying.
Zhan Lin left the money untouched, placed the biscuits back into the box, and closed the lid. The drawer was locked. Reaching for the pen holder, she grabbed a pen and shook out the small key hidden at the bottom.
The drawer opened, revealing grain ration books, coupon books, household registration booklets, a box of pins, her father's seal, some invalid documents, and a dozen or so blank introduction letters issued by the power plant. There was no money.
The cabinet was also locked, the small padlock still new. In her previous life, the 20-year-old Zhan Lin wouldn't have known how to open it, but now she did. She took a pin from the drawer, straightened it, and within three or four minutes, the lock clicked open.
The cabinet contained quite a few items: three cans of milk powder, two cans of fruit, five cans of meat, a nearly new ladies' Rolex watch, a bicycle coupon, a sewing machine coupon, a radio coupon, and a watch coupon. She didn't know who these coupons were saved for, but she had never seen them in her previous life.
There was also a stack of blank introduction letters and an envelope. The envelope wasn't sealed, so Zhan Lin pulled out its contents. After reading it, her feelings became somewhat complicated.
It was a job introduction letter for the position of accountant-cashier at the Xinhua Lu Xi Zhaodaisuo.
The Xinhua Lu Xi Zhaodaisuo—this was the same old guesthouse Ning Yunshu had mentioned in the phone call before her death.
What a coincidence? She remembered this job well because it was transferred within a month after being taken over.
The position of accountant-cashier at a guesthouse was a very good and respectable job, especially during this special period. Once someone secured it, they wouldn't easily give it up.
And the person who took over this job and quickly transferred it out was closely connected to her family—He Zhengli's stepdaughter, Xu Yanlai.
In her previous life, she had suspected that Xu Yanlai's job was arranged by her mother, but Xu Yanlai denied it. With the money from selling the job, she happily went to work at the Cadre Rest Home.
Comrade Hong Huiying was truly generous to a distant niece without blood ties, making her own biological daughter somewhat jealous.
Zhan Lin tidied everything up, locked the cabinet, and searched a few other places but found nothing of note. She then took the household registration booklet and her father's seal and left the study.
Covered in dust, she put away the items, went to the kitchen to boil water, brushed her teeth, washed her face, changed clothes, and went to the living room to make a bowl of malted milk. Just as she was drinking it, she heard someone call out, "Huiying is back!" followed by hurried footsteps.
With a bang, the front door was pushed open.
Hong Huiying entered, sweating and with reddened eyes. "Linlin, your dad… your dad… he's a scoundrel!"
Author's Note: