Suzhou City, 1970.
“Good morning, Granny.” Jiang Lizhu, who had just pushed open the door while holding her child, nodded slightly and greeted Granny Li, who was heading towards the communal kitchen.
“Morning…” Granny Li stopped and glanced at the sun, then shook her head repeatedly. “It’s not morning anymore. Still early? I’m about to start preparing lunch.”
Granny Li, who lived alone, was old and not very agile. Even the simplest three meals a day for one person took her much longer than others.
It was just past nine in the morning, and she was already heading to the communal kitchen to start washing various ingredients for lunch.
More precisely, she had gotten up before 4:30 a.m. to cook breakfast, buy groceries, do laundry, sweep the floor… Her slow movements had still managed to get through a lot of housework.
During this time, she had gone in and out of the courtyard and the communal kitchen countless times, but had never heard much noise from the small eastern room where Jiang Lizhu and her son lived, nor had she seen anyone come out.
Clearly, Jiang Lizhu hadn’t kept this kind of schedule for just one day. Granny Li had gone from initially disapproving and unable to resist offering advice, to now gradually becoming accustomed to it and unwilling to comment.
Mainly because she and Jiang Lizhu weren’t related, so she had no right to interfere. Moreover, Jiang Lizhu had always done things her own way, unafraid of criticism, and continued to do as she pleased regardless.
“The sun isn’t too harsh yet; it’s just right.”
Jiang Lizhu smiled again. On her fair, oval face, her bright, clever fox eyes curved slightly. She had a delicate, straight nose and cherry lips – the very picture of a beauty.
She wore a slightly worn blue and white floral dress. Her upper figure was impressive, yet her waist remained slender and graceful.
Jiang Lizhu looked up at the clear blue sky dotted with a few fluffy white clouds. The sunlight, accompanied by a gentle breeze, brought a slight warmth. This time was perfect for both her and her child.
“Ah-yah yah,” the baby in Jiang Lizhu’s arms responded in a soft, milky voice, kicking his little arms and legs happily to assert his presence.
Granny Li’s attention was immediately diverted. She shook her hands dry, tiptoed over, leaned in slightly, and carefully examined the baby in Jiang Lizhu’s arms.
The little one wore a light blue onesie, about seventy percent new. His exposed little hands and feet were tender, plump, and round. His bobbing little head was even more adorable.
His naturally curly, thick black baby hair stuck out in all directions. A pair of beautiful, lively peach blossom eyes looked back at her curiously. His eyelashes were long and dark. His delicate nose, a perfect copy of Jiang Lizhu’s, twitched slightly. His plump, rosy lips glistened, and one could vaguely see two or three creases on his chin.
Setting aside the many things she disapproved of but had no right to comment on, Granny Li had to admit, “You’ve raised him really well. He’s chubby, tender, and very pretty. Takes after you.”
All of Granny Li’s well-intentioned (or at least partially so) remarks about Jiang Lizhu and her son, both past and present, couldn’t compare to this final “takes after you” in making Jiang Lizhu feel pleased and happy.
“Thank you for the compliment, Granny. My baby, of course, takes after me,” Jiang Lizhu said with a smile, her fox eyes curving into half-moons. Her already flawless features became even more radiant, charming, and beautiful.
While Granny Li could find fault with many of Jiang Lizhu’s living habits and ways of doing things, she could never say Jiang Lizhu wasn’t good-looking.
Especially in the past two or three months. Jiang Lizhu had recovered well during her postpartum confinement. After the confinement ended, she had been even more “gluttonous and lazy,” gaining some weight on her face and body. Coupled with the change in her mindset after having the child, her overall temperament had become much gentler.
She was still the same person, but she gave off the impression of being even more beautiful.
Jiang Lizhu unilaterally ended the small talk. Skillfully holding her baby with one hand, she dragged a bamboo chair by the door with the other, pulling it under a magnolia tree against the eastern wall of the courtyard. She placed the chair down and sat holding her child.
The late morning sun shone exactly on the baby’s plump chin and down to her ribs. When the sun rose higher and became more intense, they would still be in the shade of the tree and wouldn’t get burned.
This was the perfect angle and position she had gradually found over the two months since her confinement ended, when she started bringing her child out of their room to sunbathe.
Late at night, over three months ago, in the delivery room of the Obstetrics and Gynecology Department at the Affiliated Hospital of Suzhou University, Jiang Lizhu was reborn into the original host’s body, which was already experiencing dystocia and about to undergo an emergency C-section!
What a tragic situation this was—horrifying and heartbreaking!
But Jiang Lizhu at that moment couldn’t afford to feel any shock, dismay, or panic from transmigrating. Her survival instinct kicked in. Amidst the excruciating pain, just before the scalpel was about to touch her body, she managed to give birth to the child.
In the not-short period from her postpartum discharge to the baby’s completion of one month, Jiang Lizhu was in a daze several times, as if still in a dream.
Her name was also Jiang Lizhu. Born in the year 2000, her family was very wealthy, considered to be from a prominent clan, though the family relationships were quite complex.
The family conglomerate was controlled by her grandmother. Her father was a playboy and a scumbag rich second-generation. He married and divorced three times, each time claiming it was true love, but each time the love didn’t last, and each time there were children left behind. As a result, the legitimate and illegitimate children gradually growing up in the family schemed and fought amongst themselves for inheritance rights.
Jiang Lizhu was the product of her scumbag father’s second impulsive marriage and divorce, left behind in the Jiang family. Being a girl, and with her scumbag father quickly finding new lovers and new children, no one openly targeted her.
She was also clever. From the moment she understood things, she realized the only person in the Jiang family truly worth pleasing was her grandmother. She acted cute, played innocent, and fawned over the old lady, winning her favor.
With the occasional attention and affection the old lady bestowed upon her, Jiang Lizhu’s life in the wealthy clan was no longer miserable or difficult.
As she grew up, her importance in the old lady’s heart increased. Those siblings, as well as the scumbag father she saw only a few times a year, all sought to win her over rather than offend her.
At twenty, Jiang Lizhu, already seen by everyone as the epitome of a standard wealthy young lady, suddenly refused an arranged marriage and went abroad to study.
After completing her graduate studies in Classical Art Appreciation, she continued to enroll in a PhD program in a related field, showing every intention of continuing her studies at prestigious universities abroad indefinitely.
Jiang Lizhu had no intention of getting involved in the third generation’s battle for control of the wealthy clan, nor did she want to become cannon fodder or a stepping stone in their struggles within the family conglomerate.
Jiang Lizhu had her own life plan. The shares and numerous properties left to her in her grandmother’s will before her death were enough for her to live a life of luxury, freedom, and ease.
But her appearance in this world proved that what she considered keeping a low profile and not contending, along with what should have been hers, had still aroused jealousy.
On the day she returned home after graduation, Jiang Lizhu came out of a flower shop she passed on the way from the airport to the cemetery. A small truck swerved and rushed towards her.
The crowd scattered in chaos. Jiang Lizhu couldn’t dodge in time and instinctively only managed to push away a crying baby stroller that no one was attending to.
Jiang Lizhu wasn’t sure which “sibling” had orchestrated this car accident clearly targeting her, but whoever it was, their efforts were in vain. Jiang Lizhu had already made a will when she received her inheritance.
In the event of her death, all assets under her name would not be inherited by any blood relative but would be entirely donated to several officially endorsed public welfare organizations.
Perhaps due to the merit of donating her inheritance and saving a life, Jiang Lizhu was chosen by the Transmigration God and brought back to life in this world!
Yes, transmigrating into a book!
During her confinement month, while struggling to breastfeed her child and recover her health, Jiang Lizhu repeatedly reviewed her own and the original host’s memories. She eventually confirmed that she hadn’t simply traveled from the 21st century back to the 1970s; she had entered a book.
And! Jiang Lizhu hadn’t entered just one book, but a world comprised of two interconnected series of era novels!
One was an era novel about a true and false daughter, and the other was an era novel about a stepmother.
Fortunately, Jiang Lizhu had read both books and still had some impression of the important plots. Unfortunately, the original host she inhabited was not the protagonist of either novel but a supporting character, a vicious villain, and cannon fodder background.
In the era novel about the true and false daughter, the female lead was Xiao Jinzhu, the false daughter with a rough fate, who was intelligent, resilient, kind, and beautiful. Jiang Lizhu was the vicious true daughter antagonist, characterized by her love for wealth over family, selfishness, and ultimately reaping what she sowed.
In this novel, the true daughter Jiang Lizhu was at least a somewhat important supporting character. But in the stepmother era novel, Jiang Lizhu’s fate was much worse—she was background material, even less significant than cannon fodder.
The male lead was a military officer born from humble roots who defied fate and rose step by step through talent and perseverance. The female lead was a divorced village woman who, after being reborn, kicked away her worthless first husband, remarried a military officer, and reached great heights in the business world. Jiang Lizhu was the deceased first wife who existed only in a few sentences of background description from the very beginning of the novel.
Integrating the timelines of the two novels, the story roughly begins in 1965.
At that time, the true daughter, Jiang Lizhu, only fourteen years old, suddenly appeared at the Jiang family in Suzhou City with the joint assistance of police stations across two provinces, returning to her biological family.
Her biological father, Jiang Yuanbai, was a university professor of Chinese literature. Her biological mother, Ruan Yumin, was a medical school professor and a skilled surgeon at the hospital. Her biological brother, Jiang Liuhe, was a researcher on a national key project. The envy and jealousy Jiang Lizhu inspired by being able to return to such a family were matched only by the sympathy people felt for her misfortune of being switched at birth.
However, her enviable good life didn’t last long. Five years after her return, a little over a year ago in real time, several articles and a whistleblowing letter led to Jiang Lizhu’s biological father, Jiang Yuanbai, being imprisoned. He suffered greatly, nearly losing his life, before being sent for reform through labor on a remote farm.
The very month he was sent away, his implicated wife, the medical professor and surgeon Ruan Yumin, quickly completed a divorce and remarriage in one go, hastily transferring out of the city.
The original Jiang Lizhu chose neither to leave Suzhou with her remarried mother nor to seek refuge with her biological brother at the research institute in the Northwest.
Instead, she schemed to trap Gu Mingyan, a subordinate of her father’s old friend who had come to visit on his behalf and was already a military officer, forcing a military marriage to achieve self-preservation and keep her job as a nurse at the hospital.
After marriage, she refused to transfer her job and accompany him to the military garrison, nor was she willing to go live with his family in the countryside. She stubbornly held onto her nursing job at the hospital and frequently provoked Xiao Jinzhu, the female lead who also worked there.
In the novel, Jiang Lizhu’s targeting and provocation of the female lead naturally could never succeed. After repeatedly being publicly embarrassed by the male and female leads, she intensified her efforts. Disregarding her status as a military spouse, she attempted to seduce the male lead’s superior to achieve her goal of framing them. Ultimately, she reaped what she sowed, receiving a public criticism from the hospital and being dismissed.
After losing her job, she had to move out of the hospital’s family quarters. Before she could take her son to join her husband at the military garrison, her son, then five years old, was abducted at the entrance of the old Jiang family home.
Jiang Lizhu first reported it to the police, then frantically searched several cities for her son, her spirit on the verge of collapse. In a daze, she accidentally fell into water and drowned. She died at the age of twenty-six.
Compared to the suffering and tragic end of Jiang Lizhu, Xiao Jinzhu, the false daughter who had returned to her rural family, had an incomparably good life!
For the first fourteen years, she was cherished and raised like a precious jewel by Jiang Yuanbai and Ruan Yumin, known for her talent. Later, even after Jiang Lizhu returned to her biological family, the Jiang parents continued to support Xiao Jinzhu’s education in Suzhou.
When Jiang Yuanbai was reported and sent away, Xiao Jinzhu, due to her rural origins and “red” background, was not affected in the slightest. In fact, her previously criticized rural background instantly became safe and highly sought after.
So much so that last year, when Jiang Lizhu schemed to marry Gu Mingyan, Xiao Jinzhu, who hadn’t even graduated university yet, became publicly engaged to Lin Mojia, the youngest son of Vice President Lin from the same hospital family quarters.
According to gossip that had recently reached Jiang Lizhu’s ears, Xiao Jinzhu had started an internship in the finance office at the beginning of this month. By the time she officially graduated next year, she would almost seamlessly become a permanent employee.
Of course, as a rare university student in this era, Xiao Jinzhu didn’t lack for a formal job, but the quality of such jobs varied greatly.
Outsiders hearing the gossip about the true and false daughters couldn’t help but feel a twinge of injustice for Jiang Lizhu. As the person directly involved in the switched identity, constantly compared to Xiao Jinzhu, how could the original Jiang Lizhu maintain her peace of mind?
No wonder in the novel she gradually moved towards extremes, harming both others and herself, ultimately causing her own son to come to a bad end as well.
In the stepmother era novel, the original Jiang Lizhu’s son was found and rescued three years after being abducted.
The cute, clever little antagonist from the first book reappeared in the stepmother novel as the antagonist stepson, now with a lame leg and a gloomy, indifferent personality.
After growing up, he repeatedly targeted the female lead in the business world, and just as he was about to deliver a fatal blow to her career, he suddenly committed suicide by jumping off a building.
Jiang Lizhu, having died in a car accident in her own world and bizarrely transmigrated into a book at the moment of childbirth, endured agonizing pain. Her survival instinct was greatly stimulated, and she absolutely could not accept the early death ending described in the novel.
Over these past three months, Jiang Lizhu had developed unexpectedly deep feelings for the little one she had fed mouthful by mouthful. She dared not even think about the possibility of him being abducted, abused, and meeting an untimely end as the novel’s antagonist.
The 21st-century Jiang Lizhu had never planned for marriage or children, but now she could understand a mother’s feelings: the blood connection, the bond between mother and child, made it impossible to tolerate anyone harming him in the slightest.
This city no longer held any direct blood relatives of the original host. Having transmigrated into this book, Jiang Lizhu found it basically impossible to adapt to the nursing job with its frequent night shifts, high intensity, and demanding specialization.
At the same time, driven by an inexplicable reverence from transmigrating into the book’s world, Jiang Lizhu dared not risk the consequences of any plot effects: her child being abducted, both of them dying young…
The moment she had a clear understanding of the entire situation, Jiang Lizhu decided to follow the army with her son!
Leave. She must leave!