“What did you just say?”
Wen Zhiyu’s voice rose sharply as she stared at her stepmother, Lin Guihua. Her expression changed again and again.
Lin Guihua pushed forward the luggage Wen Zhiyu had just brought home.
“I could say it ten thousand times and it wouldn’t change anything. The bride price has already been accepted by the family.
Either you go to the military base and get married, and I’ll hand over your mother’s ashes and belongings.
Otherwise, don’t even think about seeing your mother again for the rest of your life!”
A cold look flashed across Wen Zhiyu’s face.
She was a transmigrator. In her previous life, she had been an orphan who devoted her entire life to medicine. She had been reborn into the harsh 1960s, born to rural parents who met through matchmaking but genuinely loved each other.
As their only child, her parents had sent her to school, and she became the only university student in the entire village.
In that era, that alone proved how open-minded her parents were.
Under such circumstances, she should have lived a happy life.
But when she was a freshman in college, her father, Wen Daqiang, suddenly found the “true love” of his life. After divorcing her mother, he quickly married Lin Guihua.
Lin Guihua already had a daughter of her own, and by the time they married, she was also pregnant with a son.
Back then, Wen Zhiyu had returned home and helped her mother secure five mu of farmland, an old house, and five hundred yuan from the family assets, effectively splitting the Wen family in half.
From that moment on, Lin Guihua hated her.
Wen Zhiyu had always known this.
She simply didn’t care.
Who did Lin Guihua think she was?
What she hadn’t expected was that during her final year, while she was immersed in solving a difficult research problem at school, her mother died—and the Wen family immediately cremated her.
In those days, people were normally buried so they could rest in peace.
Yet the Wen family wouldn’t even leave a dead woman alone.
One moment Wen Zhiyu stepped through the door with her suitcase.
The next, Lin Guihua was threatening her into marriage.
“Zhizhi, that young man has good prospects. Why don’t you at least go take a look?”
Wen Daqiang took a puff from his tobacco pipe. From the moment Wen Zhiyu entered until Lin Guihua started making demands, he hadn’t even stood up from his little stool.
“Bad woman! Go away! Go away! Don’t come to my house!”
Lin Guihua’s young son ran out of the room holding a small hoe and swung it toward Wen Zhiyu.
She dodged.
The boy, however, stumbled and crashed face-first into the doorframe.
Crunch.
“Waaah—!”
His crying instantly filled the house.
Wen Daqiang hurriedly threw aside his pipe and lifted the child by the back of his shirt.
The boy’s mouth was covered in blood.
One of his teeth had fallen out.
“It’s okay, it’s okay. Daddy’s good boy, don’t cry. It’s all the doorstep’s fault!”
His voice was unbelievably gentle.
Wen Zhiyu couldn’t help remembering that before he met his so-called true love, he had once been her father too.
He had once cared for and cherished her just like this.
“Bad woman! Throw her out!”
The boy cried while pointing directly at Wen Zhiyu.
“Big Sister, I’m sorry. My little brother didn’t mean it. He’s just been spoiled.”
On the other side stood Lin Guihua’s daughter, Chen Xiaomei—the classic innocent white-lotus type—offering a timid apology.
Watching the farce unfold, Wen Zhiyu thought:
This entire family is bizarre in their own special ways.
Without hiding the coldness in her eyes, she said directly,
“I can marry him. But besides my mother’s ashes and belongings, I have one more condition.”
“Go ahead,” Lin Guihua said hurriedly.
The bride price had indeed been spent.
She had used it to help her younger brother pay off gambling debts.
Meanwhile, the groom’s side was pressuring them constantly.
Rumor had it that the military officer was seriously injured and close to death.
They were waiting for Wen Zhiyu to marry him and bring him good fortune.
Lin Guihua feared that if something went wrong, the family would come demanding their money back.
That’s why she had immediately played her trump card the moment Wen Zhiyu arrived home.
“I want my household registration transferred out separately.
And I want to sever all ties with the Wen family.”
The room fell silent.
Even after the divorce, Wen Zhiyu had remained registered under Wen Daqiang’s household.
Severing family ties?
No one in the village had ever done such a thing.
If their family became the first, they’d become the talk of the town.
“You’re my daughter! I worked hard to put you through college. I won’t agree to this!”
Wen Daqiang refused without hesitation.
Partly because she was his daughter.
Partly because she was the village’s only college student, something that made countless people envy him.
Lin Guihua, however, didn’t care at all.
She only wanted to solve the problem and send Wen Zhiyu away as quickly as possible.
Wen Zhiyu glanced at her father coldly.
“If you don’t agree, then I won’t go.
Return the bride price.
And prepare a room for me.
Since I’ve come home, I’ll be staying.”
The Wen family only had three rooms.
One belonged to Wen Daqiang, Lin Guihua, and their son.
One belonged to Chen Xiaomei.
The last had been turned into a storage room and didn’t even have a bed.
It was obvious they had never intended for her to stay.
“You—!”
Wen Daqiang was furious.
“Daqiang!”
Lin Guihua grabbed his arm.
“Once she’s married, she won’t be coming back anyway. This talk about severing ties is just anger speaking.
You’re her biological father.
Blood relations don’t disappear.
Is she really going to stop acknowledging you?”
Wen Zhiyu neither agreed nor denied it.
After all, Lin Guihua’s argument worked in her favor.
Sure enough, Wen Daqiang calmed down.
“Besides, have you forgotten? They’re pressing us hard, and we don’t have the money to return the bride price…”
Lin Guihua urged anxiously.
The child in her arms was still whining in pain.
Wen Daqiang felt a headache coming on.
Seeing his wife’s near-panic, he finally relented.
“Fine! But you must leave immediately!”
Wen Zhiyu nodded.
“I’ll leave the household registration transfer to you.
I hope it’s completed before we register the marriage.”
The implication was obvious:
No transfer, no marriage.
Though inwardly furious, Wen Daqiang nodded under Lin Guihua’s insistence.
“Don’t worry.”
The words left a bitter taste in his mouth.
His daughter had once been his precious little sweetheart.
Wen Zhiyu didn’t stay any longer.
She picked up her suitcase and left.
Before departing, she visited the old house—the one that had been awarded to her mother during the property division she had helped secure.
Though old and worn, it was neat and tidy.
Only a layer of dust had accumulated from being unoccupied for so long.
She walked through the main hall into her mother’s room.
The place had clearly been searched.
Anything valuable had likely been taken by Lin Guihua.
As for money, her mother had trusted her more than anyone else and had kept most of it in Wen Zhiyu’s bank account, beyond Lin Guihua’s reach.
Looking at the traces of daily life still left in the room, Wen Zhiyu could almost picture her mother moving about inside.
She sat down.
With a wave of her hand, the suitcase beside her vanished into thin air.
From the moment she arrived in this world, she had known that her medical research laboratory from her previous life had transformed into a portable spatial dimension and come with her.
“Mom, how exactly did you die?
And who was responsible?”
Before returning home, Wen Zhiyu had investigated the matter.
Yet all the evidence suggested that neither Wen Daqiang nor Lin Guihua had anything to do with her mother’s death.