’98
Li Lanlan had a terrible headache; she didn’t know what was wrong.
She had actually endured a lot of hardship in her early years, but once her children grew up and graduated, the family’s circumstances improved significantly, and they moved into an apartment just like city dwellers.
She and her husband ran a small grocery store, spending their days selling goods and helping with package deliveries—life was going quite smoothly.
Her children were all very dutiful; they kept buying her skincare products and health supplements. Although she and her husband were getting on in years, their lives were much better than before, and their health was better too.
She hadn’t had a headache this bad in a long time. She’d have to go to the hospital to get it checked out. After all, she had the New Rural Cooperative Medical Scheme to cover the costs, so seeing a doctor wouldn’t cost much.
As she thought about it, she drifted off into a daze. She didn’t know what was wrong, but her whole body felt weak, and she was incredibly tired.
“Waaah… Mom, I’m falling, I’m falling… waaah.”
Li Lanlan felt like her head was about to explode, as if someone were dancing on her forehead. There was also a child’s voice—one that sounded so familiar.
It was just the two of them at home. Their children all lived on their own and only came back during holidays; there weren’t any children that young in the house.
The eldest’s child was already in grade school, the second was still single, and the third and youngest were married but hadn’t had children yet.
It was definitely a little girl’s voice—even if it were her eldest son’s child, that would be a little boy.
How strange.
This child was really too loud, making such a racket first thing in the morning; it was truly infuriating.
Li Lanlan, furious, yanked back the covers to see whose child was making such a racket right next to her ear.
There sat a delicate, porcelain-skinned little girl beside her, her eyes brimming with tears. She was so adorable, her tears hovering on the verge of falling. The moment she saw Li Lanlan open her eyes and frown, her crying stopped instantly.
The child was quite pretty, reminding her of her second daughter when she was little.
Wait, this was her second daughter when she was little. Li Lanlan glanced to the side and saw two children sleeping on either side of her—a little boy had already woken up and was sucking his thumb.
Next to him, a little girl about the same age was sleeping soundly. Even after the boy had cried so loudly, she hadn’t woken up—her sleep was truly deep.
And the little girl who had been whimpering just moments ago was sitting right next to her forehead. At home, they slept with their heads facing outward on the kang, so with this child sitting on her pillow, wasn’t she about to fall off?
Once she woke up, the little girl stopped crying. She quietly crawled over to the little boy, gently nudged him aside, and lay down next to Li Lanlan, blinking her eyes.
It seemed she had cried herself to exhaustion; she fell asleep almost immediately. Seeing his sister asleep, the little boy curled up next to her and fell asleep as well.
The little girl next to them never woke up once; even with all the commotion around her, it didn’t disturb her sleep.
Li Lanlan was momentarily dazed. Looking at the earthen cave, which still seemed quite new, she began to realize something: it seemed she had traveled back in time, though she found it hard to believe.
Her second daughter loved reading, and she had read a few books along with her, so she knew there was a genre called “reincarnation.”
But she had never imagined reincarnation herself; her past life had been too burdensome for her, and those days hadn’t been all that wonderful either.
She was the kind of person who could let go of the past. While others who went back in time did so to make up for regrets, she felt she had nothing to regret.
Did she really have nothing?
Perhaps not!
The children were still very young; it must have been around 1997 or 1998, though she wasn’t entirely sure of the exact year.
It was still a bit chilly outside. Li Lanlan had only held her hand out for a moment, but it already felt freezing. It was already light out.
But Li Lanlan still wanted to stay under the covers a little longer.
Before she could even pull the blanket back over herself, there was a knock at the door. Li Lanlan didn’t want to answer it, so she pretended no one was home.
The person knocked for quite a while, but no one opened the door.
The knocking grew louder and louder, accompanied by shouts:
“Lalan, Lalan, open the door!”
Li Lalan jumped off the bed in a huff, kicking up a cloud of dust, and yanked the door open with a slam. “Knock, knock, knock—you’re trying to scare the life out of me first thing in the morning!”
The young man outside didn’t dare knock anymore. Fuming, he muttered, “Well, why don’t you just open the door then!”
Li Lanlan opened the door and shot him a withering glance. Wang Dashan walked in silently and handed her a bag. Li Lanlan glanced inside—it contained two fried dough sticks and a bowl of tofu pudding—and carried it inside, setting it on the small cutting board atop the bellows.
There was a small stool next to the stove, and she sat there to eat her breakfast.
Wang Dashan stood by the stove for a while to warm up, then took off his outer clothes and went over to the kang to check on the children.
“How’s it going? Did she cry when you dropped her off at school?”
The young man saw that Li Lanlan was talking to him and started scampering back over to the stove to chat with her.
“She was actually a bit upset at first, but I gave them fifty cents to buy a pack of instant noodles, and she went off to school all happy.”
“Spring has arrived. What are your plans?” Li Lanlan asked, looking Wang Dashan straight in the eye.
Now that she was back, she hoped to live a slightly smoother life. She was just an ordinary person, capable of only ordinary things.
She didn’t think she could be like others—returning and instantly becoming a force to be reckoned with without any guidance. She just needed to use her foresight to avoid a few minor pitfalls; that would be more than enough.
But she really couldn’t stay in her hometown; she had to go out into the world to make a living.
Wang Dashan was such a good-for-nothing. In his previous life, he’d never liked going out to pursue side businesses; his mind was always filled with thoughts of his wife, kids, and the warmth of his heated bed.
Other people would leave and never come back, not even thinking about home, but this guy—he’d call every other day.
In those days, long-distance calls cost over a yuan a minute. He only made a few hundred yuan a month, and every penny he earned went straight to the phone company.
Just looking at him made her furious.
Seeing Li Lanlan staring at him intently, Wang Dashan huffed and puffed for a while before finally blurting out, “Then let’s go to Wushan. All my uncles and brothers who have side businesses are over there. There are so many scammers around these days; it’s safer to go with someone you know.”
Seeing him so pathetic made Li Lanlan’s blood boil. She couldn’t figure out what she’d ever seen in him back then—was it his face?
His face was certainly handsome, and after serving in the army for a few years, he was in good shape. If they hadn’t had this whole bunch of kids, Li Lanlan figured the first thing she’d do upon returning would be to get a divorce.
She hurried Wang Dashan off to make breakfast. The two of them had already eaten, but the kids hadn’t yet—she’d have to make some steamed chicken cakes for them.
It was still quite cold in the rural northwest at this time of year. The ground was frozen solid, and there wasn’t much farm work to be done. Since she had nothing better to do, she might as well cook.
Li Lanlan rolled up the bedding on the kang and set aside a warm quilt for the three children to cover themselves with.
She dug out the sunflower seeds she’d saved from the New Year and began cracking them open—one of her few hobbies.
As she cracked the seeds, she thought about her plans for the future.
What Wang Dashan had just said made some sense. This era was known to later generations as the easiest time to make money, but at the same time, there were plenty of scammers, and all kinds of crimes were rampant.
Yet making money in this era was indeed much easier than in later times. In her previous life, Li Lanlan had taken what could be described as the most foolish path—working tirelessly her entire life, yet failing to save even enough for a down payment on a small apartment in her hometown’s county seat.
If it weren’t for her children’s hard work, she wouldn’t have known when she’d ever be able to live in an apartment building.
It felt as though she’d missed out on everything; how could she not feel a little regret?
She knew what Wang Dashan had in mind: going to Wushan to work. In her previous life, Li Lanlan had gone to Wushan with him. Compared to Yangshi—this obscure, backwater town in the northwest—Wushan was indeed a big city.
But what could they possibly do there?
In her previous life, when they went to Wushan, Wang Dashan pedaled a tricycle, while she learned the trade of shoe repair.
To be honest, they did manage to earn some money. In just two years, they paid off their old debts and even bought a 24-inch color TV for their family.
But it meant enduring the elements—sun, wind, rain, and cold. Both of them were born and raised in the village. It wasn’t that they couldn’t handle the hardship, but now that she had a second chance, she didn’t want to go through that kind of struggle again. There were clearly better options available—why put herself through that?
In this underdeveloped village in Northwest China, aside from a tiny minority—such as the village head, the team leader, and a few skilled tradespeople—everyone else eventually leaves home to earn a living. The harvests the land yields are simply too meager.
You can’t dig gold out of the soil; for most people in Longshan Province, the fate of a lifetime is to leave this place and head for distant lands.
Li Lanlan and her family were no exception. When they were young, they worked away from home for many years, only returning once their children were old enough to attend school.
She didn’t want her own children to become “left-behind children”—a term she only learned many years later while browsing the internet.
Besides, without parents to watch over them, a group of children wasn’t safe in the village. It wasn’t until she arrived in Wangjia Village that she learned there was a mentally disabled man living there.
He was Wang Dashan’s cousin. His mother couldn’t stand his father’s constant infidelity and divorced him. In rural areas, it’s difficult for a woman to take her son with her when she divorces, so the boy ended up being raised by his father—and eventually became mentally disabled. The other children in the village bullied him too.
A perfectly normal child turned into a mentally disabled person—what a tragedy!
Their family had no elderly relatives to look after the children. Wang Dashan had several brothers and an older sister, and his mother lived with the youngest brother.
This youngest brother wasn’t married yet, so Wang Dashan’s mother had been looking after the other brothers’ children all along. Li Lanlan used to drop her child off there occasionally as well.
But the child came back with bruises all over his arms and legs. When she asked, she found out he’d been bullied by the children in Wang Dashan’s brother’s household. His mother wouldn’t intervene in such matters; if pressed, she’d just say, “That’s how we all grew up.”
Li Lanlan had gotten into several arguments with her sisters-in-law over this, but that good-for-nothing Wang Dashan wouldn’t even stand up for his own child, leaving Li Lanlan seething with anger.
The countryside is just such a closed-off society where the strong bully the weak. In her previous life, Li Lanlan would have argued with these people, but she no longer felt that way now.
After all, sunk costs shouldn’t factor into major decisions; she didn’t want to waste her time on such trivial people and matters.
She’d rather use that time to earn a little more money and raise her children properly.
Four children were indeed a heavy burden, especially since she’d managed to send all four of them to college. During those years, Li Lanlan and Wang Dashan had truly lost a lot of hair from worry.
They couldn’t afford to eat or dress properly, and for countless days and nights, she asked herself, “Is it worth it?”
But seeing her children’s smiling faces brought her great comfort. She hadn’t forced them to drop out of school to work, nor had she made them suffer by marrying off in their teens.
Her children had escaped the life of toiling in the fields, and had finally made it out into the world.
But she would never agree to go to Wushan with Wang Dashan again. In fact, before she went to Wushan in her previous life, there had been another opportunity: her cousin was working as a nanny for relatives in Beijing, and since her cousin was about to give birth, she was looking for someone to fill in for a while.
She remembered her cousin had sent word back some time ago; her due date seemed to be in May. It was now the end of February, so Li Lanlan planned to visit her parents’ home to confirm the news.
She intended to go to her parents’ house after dinner to ask about it.
This would have been a great opportunity, but back then, Li Lanlan didn’t get it because she didn’t know how to cook very well. It actually sounds pretty funny—a girl born and raised in the countryside who doesn’t know how to cook!
If this hadn’t happened to Li Lanlan herself—if she weren’t the one going through it—she would have found it hard to believe it was true.
Li Lanlan’s teenage years were actually pretty good.