A wave after wave of sour, foul stench invaded her nose.
Lin Zhi, who had been sleeping, jerked upright, pressing her throbbing head with her hands while keeping her eyes closed.
It took her a long while before she weakly opened her eyes, her heart sinking as she stared at the filthy, chaotic, and stinking room in front of her.
No matter how hard she thought, she couldn’t understand how she—a young woman who had boldly flirted with handsome men online—could be so unlucky as to suddenly transmigrate into a book.
This “1970s stepmother novel” had been one she’d picked up casually to pass the time. The author wrote well; even the cardboard-like characters in the story had depth and felt real.
She had been so engrossed that she stayed up all night. When she woke up again, she had been transported into the book itself, becoming the counterpart to the heroine—a lazy, troublesome, and malicious biological mother.
In the story, the heroine, Wen Xiuxiu, was kind, diligent, and gentle. After marrying the male lead, she took care of three children meticulously, handling everything inside and outside the home. Not only did she raise the three children to be exceptional, but she also rode the wave of China’s Reform and Opening-up, becoming one of the first to prosper.
By contrast, the original owner of Lin Zhi’s body was utterly despicable.
She had schemed her way into marrying He Ting, the second male lead, when he came home to visit. Once in the He family, she acted tyrannically. After giving birth to twins, she became even more outrageous, treating the entire He household like servants and running them ragged.
When she learned that the heroine had joined the military in the neighboring village, she insisted on going too. The He family, partly fed up with her and partly hoping she would behave once married to He Ting, allowed her to take the children along.
They had hoped that granting her wish would make her settle down, but once she was with the army and had no one to serve her, she became even more unruly.
She neglected the children and the house, spent all fifty yuan she received each month on herself, fattening herself up while the children looked like they’d crawled out of a garbage heap—skinny, small, and perpetually filthy.
He Ting cared for the children, but every time he returned, the original owner caused trouble. After six months of military duty with the original owner constantly making scenes, He Ting finally reached his limit. He left on a mission for three to four months and hadn’t returned yet.
Without a target for her tantrums, the original owner took out her anger on the children. If anyone spoke up for them, she would lash back and punish the kids even more. Over time, no one dared interfere with the two children.
The twins had been beaten and scolded so often that they now hid from anyone, only moving if hunger forced them out of their corners.
Lin Zhi had transmigrated because the original owner, while out shopping, heard someone praise the heroine and belittle her. She argued furiously, became angrier and angrier, and in a moment of rage, her spirit crossed over to Lin Zhi.
When she woke up, she was back—now as herself, from the 21st century.
Lin Zhi sighed at the thought.
The original owner had strutted off, leaving her to clean up the mess. She had just turned 18 when her parents died and only at 28 had she finally managed to have a car and a house. She hadn’t even enjoyed her good life for a few days when a sudden blow threw her back to square one.
And now, this situation was even worse than that.
It was the 1970s—a time of scarcity. Everything required ration tickets, and without proper documentation, you couldn’t go anywhere. Just thinking about it made the future seem bleak.
Her stomach growled, and combined with her aching body and the stench in the room, Lin Zhi couldn’t sit still.
Under the circumstances, there was no going back—she would just have to accept her fate for now.
Dragging her heavy body up, she glanced around the doorway before heading to the kitchen, following her memory.
They now lived in a small courtyard. The living room faced the entrance, with bedrooms on either side and the kitchen on the side.
He Ting was only a company commander, so technically, he shouldn’t have been given a courtyard. But since their unit was stationed in the northwest, where land was plentiful and stone for building abundant, the buildings were numerous. When applying to move with the military, they’d been assigned a small courtyard.
Standing at the kitchen door, looking at the kitchen even filthier and messier than a garbage heap, Lin Zhi wanted to bang her head against the wall to see if it might send her back.
But she didn’t have the courage. She feared she might not return and could end up leaving a hole in her head instead.
Gritting her teeth, she went in to check the cupboards. She found half a bag of flour, two or three pounds of rice and coarse grains, and on the top shelf, a dozen eggs. She breathed a sigh of relief.
Thankfully, the cruel heavens hadn’t taken everything away.
The body hadn’t eaten for most of the day, and Lin Zhi didn’t even remember if she’d eaten the night before. For now, hunger made her vision darken, and cold sweat ran down her body.
Shaking, she washed the filthy pot clean and put all the eggs in to boil. While waiting, she drank a large amount of water.
When the eggs were done, she ate five in a row before stopping. She wasn’t full yet, but she left the remaining six untouched.
After resting a bit on a stool, regaining some strength, she carried the six eggs to another room.
She occupied the room on the left. The small room next to the kitchen on the right was for the twins.
The twins’ names were He Ze and He Run. At only four years old, they had already slept alone for half a year.
The twins’ room was simpler than hers, so it wasn’t as messy, but since it hadn’t been cleaned in a long time, it was still filthy.
Having been scolded that morning, the twins now huddled in a corner behind the door, clinging to each other and motionless.
Lin Zhi held the eggs and stared at them for a moment. Clenching her teeth, she suppressed the violent urge to punish the original owner.
Although the book described the twins’ harsh life, nothing compared to seeing it firsthand.
The two children were huddled tightly, their heads disproportionately large, their bodies as thin as sticks. Their exposed arms bore bruises of varying shades, clear signs of long-term abuse.
Before, Lin Zhi had only seen them as two flat characters in a book, whose suffering was acknowledged but didn’t stir much emotion.
Now, seeing them with her own eyes, her heart ached.
She opened her mouth but, afraid of scaring them, didn’t know what to say and simply stood there quietly.
Fortunately, the twins sensed her presence. They shifted slightly, slowly released their grip on each other, and stood up, breaking the temporary silence.
The children looked like they had come from a refugee camp. Their cheeks hollow, not an ounce of flesh, their lifeless eyes taking up nearly half of their small faces.
Faced with Lin Zhi’s silence, the twins blinked and cautiously moved closer.
Seeing them, frightened yet still approaching, Lin Zhi’s urge to punish the original owner surged again.
When He Ting was away, the original owner didn’t dare hit the children.
Only after he left on missions did she take out her anger on them.
In just a few months, the children had developed a trauma response. That was proof enough of how brutally and frequently the original owner had punished them.