It was early autumn in 1977, on a dark, windy night!
Lin Wan had passed out from their exertions in bed.
She had never imagined that the man would have such stamina.
Nor had she imagined that she would enjoy it so much that she wouldn’t refuse him, time after time.
The next day.
The sky had only just begun to lighten when a noise woke Lin Wan.
Lin Wan opened her eyes and immediately pulled the quilt around herself, edging toward the corner of the bed.
Sitting in the chair before her was Xie Yanzhou, fully dressed, his expression cold and severe.
His green military uniform outlined his broad shoulders, narrow waist, and long legs.
“You drugged me!” His voice was utterly devoid of warmth, but edged with anger.
Lin Wan pressed her lips together and nodded. “Yes. I want to marry you.”
“Lin Wan!” Xie Yanzhou leaned forward, bracing his hands on his knees as he looked at her. “I promised you and your family that I’d marry you once I’d made sure my sister-in-law was settled. Are you really that impatient?”
Lin Wan watched him with her lips pressed tight.
The sister-in-law he meant was her cousin, Lin Shuhua. Three years ago, she had married Xie Yanzhou’s elder brother, Xie Yanqing. But a year ago, the eldest Xie brother had died in an accident.
At the time, Xie Yanqing’s wife had been seven months pregnant. To reassure her, the Xie family had begged her to have the baby, and they had waited on her hand and foot ever since.
Division Commander Xie and Lin Wan’s father had been comrades-in-arms. After Lin Shuhua married into the Xie family, Division Commander Xie had also taken a liking to Lin Wan. With a wave of his hand, he told Lin Wan’s father, “Why don’t we match your daughter with my second boy, then? I like Lin Wan too. The two cousins could marry two brothers. That would be even better! They’d get along so well!”
Though their parents had arranged the match, Xie Yanzhou was tall, long-legged, and so handsome that Lin Wan was completely smitten with him.
But Battalion Commander Xie, who had distinguished himself in the army, was a distant, aloof man.
They had been formally introduced two years ago, and in all that time, they had never even held hands.
Then, last night, Lin Wan had found Xie Yanzhou, who was home on leave, tricked him into coming to the guesthouse, and given him the tea she had prepared for him…
“We’ve been a couple for so long, but you still won’t marry me. I was afraid you wouldn’t want me anymore.” Lin Wan looked at Xie Yanzhou’s dark expression, raised her chin, and glared at him. “Anyway, you’ve already done this to me. If you don’t marry me, I’ll report you.”
“…” Xie Yanzhou shot to his feet, furious. He went to the bed, knelt on one knee beside it, and reached for his buttons.
“Xie Yanzhou, what—what are you doing? Are you going to hit me?” Lin Wan shrank back into the corner, trembling with fear.
The quilt slipped as she moved, revealing the reddish and bluish marks scattered across her body.
Xie Yanzhou’s gaze froze. The scenes from last night—the repeated, intoxicating encounters—rose vividly in his mind, and a strange, wicked heat surged through his body.
“Weren’t you going to report me? Then why not let me work off some more of this heat?” Xie Yanzhou wore a roguish, wicked look, as if he really meant to lay hands on her.
“N-no! Don’t!” Lin Wan shrank farther back, shaking her head like a rattle drum.
“Hmph!” Having successfully frightened her, Xie Yanzhou fixed Lin Wan with a cold stare.
Over the two years they had known each other, she had always been gentle and innocent. He couldn’t say he liked her, but he didn’t dislike her either.
Two years ago, she had still been in her first year of high school. Now she was nineteen and had graduated. She had filled out since then and grown even prettier.
But her behavior now made him like her a little less.
“Xie Yanzhou, all I want is for you to marry me. Three years. If you still don’t like me after three years, we’ll get divorced,” Lin Wan said, looking up at his cold expression.
“What?” Xie Yanzhou stood beside the bed, looking down at her. For a moment, he couldn’t make sense of Lin Wan’s behavior.
Lin Wan took a deep breath, bearing the ache in her waist and legs and the discomfort in her lower body. She slowly edged to the side of the bed, grabbed the clothes piled at its foot, and hid beneath the quilt as she rustled them on.
Lin Wan had been reborn.
In her previous life, at first, she had kept waiting for Xie Yanzhou.
After Xie Yanqing died, whenever the Xie family discussed arranging an engagement or wedding for her and Xie Yanzhou, her cousin would make trouble.
She did it so often that anyone with eyes could see Lin Shuhua was after Xie Yanzhou.
Because of this, Lin Wan’s father pressured Xie Yanzhou, telling him that his daughter and Xie Yanzhou had already reached the point of discussing marriage. Their relationship was already widely known, and he couldn’t let Lin Shuhua ruin Lin Wan’s reputation.
But not long afterward, the cotton mill where Lin Wan’s father worked as director ran into trouble. He was accused of embezzlement, and the police found a bundle of five thousand yuan in cash and a Plum Blossom-brand watch in his home. Lin Wan’s father couldn’t explain where they had come from, so he was detained for questioning.
Three months later, Lin Wan’s father hanged himself.
A few days after that, Lin Wan’s mother, dazed and distracted, fell from the roof of the apartment block while hanging out quilts. Her spine was broken, and she was left paralyzed in bed.
From then on, Lin Wan’s younger brother, who was in his third year of middle school, and her younger sister, who was in elementary school, were bullied by their classmates over their father’s case. Their family’s property had been confiscated, and with no money for school, the two had no choice but to drop out…
Lin Wan couldn’t find a job because of her family’s troubles, either.
Most of the families of the factory workers in the family housing compound jointly petitioned to have them driven out.
With nowhere else to turn, Lin Wan could only go to the Xie family and Lin Shuhua for help.
Lin Wan’s father’s elder brother and his wife had died years earlier, and Lin Shuhua had grown up in Lin Wan’s home from the age of twelve. It was Lin Wan’s parents who had given her a generous dowry when she married into the Xie family in the military family compound.
They had done it to show the Xie family that, to them, Lin Shuhua was just like their own daughter.
But on that stormy night, when Lin Wan hurried to the Xie home, she was about to knock when she heard them inside discussing Xie Yanzhou’s marriage to Lin Shuhua…
That night, Lin Wan dragged her exhausted body home. She hauled her mother on a handcart and forced her younger brother and sister to come with her. They traveled all night, bringing their mother to her maternal grandmother’s old house, which was already dilapidated and on the verge of collapse.
Lin Wan propped the old house up with sticks she had gathered and broken bricks. It teetered precariously, and whenever the wind blew or rain fell, she had to brace the wall with her own body, afraid it would collapse and crush her mother.
Life like that was unbearable!
Her mother tried to take her own life several times, but Lin Wan found her in time and saved her.
After being missing for half a month, her younger brother returned and told her he had found a lead in the factory district. Someone had seen Lin Shuhua secretly return to the family housing compound before their father got into trouble.
Shocked, Lin Wan warned her brother not to do anything reckless. She wanted more evidence.
But before Lin Wan could go looking for proof, three days later, her younger brother, Lin Xiao, was found dead in an alley in the county town.
Lin Xiao had been beaten to death. At the police station, several thugs gave identical statements: Lin Xiao had been stealing, they had caught him red-handed, and he had tried to flee. They had beaten him to death by accident while trying to catch him.