Moonlight spilled over the courtyard like water.
Lin Yujiao sat quietly beneath the night sky, a gentle breeze brushing across her cheeks. On the table before her rested a photograph of a family of three.
The three people in the photograph were smiling happily, yet beneath the pale moonlight, their smiles seemed tinged with an indescribable sadness.
“I don’t know why I came here or why I ended up occupying this body. I don’t know what you would think if you could see everything that’s happening now.”
Lin Yujiao spoke softly to the photograph.
“I’m sorry, but I can only do things according to what I believe is right. Since I’ve been given another chance at life in this body, I’ll do everything I can to live well.”
“I’m going to leave this place.”
Her gaze settled on the man in the photograph.
“I’ll go find the person you arranged a childhood betrothal with for your daughter. I don’t know whether he’s already married, and I certainly don’t know whether we’ll honor that engagement. But I still have to find him, because right now, it’s the only path open to me.”
“If your spirits are watching over me from Heaven, then please bless me and let everything go smoothly.”
A fresh breeze drifted through the courtyard, gently brushing over the top of Lin Yujiao’s head.
For an instant, it felt as though an unseen hand had lovingly patted her hair.
Above her, the crescent moon hung in the night sky, almost as though it were smiling down at her.
Lin Yujiao remained seated in the courtyard, slowly planning what she would do next.
First and foremost, she had to leave this place.
She was not the original owner of this body, so she felt no affection whatsoever for the rest of the Lin family. As for them, by now, they probably felt nothing toward her except hostility.
Second, she needed to find the man from the childhood betrothal.
Judging from the tone of the letter, the bond between Lin Dajun and his former comrade-in-arms had been genuine. Even if the marriage could no longer take place, that man would probably still feel some sympathy for the daughter of his old comrade.
And Lin Yujiao needed precisely that small measure of sympathy.
She could use it to find a new path for herself.
This was an era when a person could hardly travel anywhere without an introduction letter. Without the proper documents, it was all too easy to be treated as an unauthorized drifter.
For Lin Yujiao, surviving alone outside the village would be extremely difficult.
Her many years of experience from her previous life had taught her one thing clearly. If she wanted to succeed, she needed support.
The more support she could find, the better.
If she wanted to climb out of the pit her life had fallen into, she had to seize every rope and ladder within reach.
Perhaps the man from this childhood betrothal would become that rope or ladder.
There was something else she needed to consider.
Lin Yujiao looked around the house, a place filled with the original owner’s precious memories of her parents.
Once she left, if she failed to make arrangements beforehand, the Lin family would certainly seize the house.
After all, everything they had done so far had been intended to force her into surrendering it.
But Lin Yujiao was not someone who could be bullied so easily.
Even if she was leaving, she had no intention of letting them get what they wanted.
There were also the family’s fields and other possessions that could not be taken with her. She needed to make proper arrangements for all of them.
According to the memories she had inherited, the original Lin Yujiao had spent most of her time studying and was not particularly familiar with the other villagers.
It seemed she would have to ask Village Chief Lin for advice.
As for everything she could take with her, that was another matter entirely.
Lin Yujiao retrieved a wooden box from her storage space.
She had found it in Lin Dajun and Jiang Chunyue’s room.
At the time, she had only managed to hurriedly sweep everything into her storage space without getting a good look at what she had taken.
Now, she opened the box.
Under the moonlight, the jewelry inside gleamed softly.
Lin Yujiao remembered these pieces.
The original owner’s mother, Jiang Chunyue, had shown them to her before. They were part of her dowry, more than a dozen pieces of jewelry of various sizes, all crafted from pure gold.
Jiang Chunyue had rarely spoken about the family she came from.
The original owner had never met anyone from her mother’s side of the family. Jiang Chunyue had only ever told her daughter that none of her relatives were still alive.
Looking at the exquisitely crafted gold jewelry, Lin Yujiao suspected that her mother must have come from a prosperous family.
Unfortunately, in those turbulent years, being born into a wealthy household could bring disaster rather than fortune.
Perhaps that was why Jiang Chunyue had never told even her own daughter the entire truth.
Besides the jewelry, the box contained a savings passbook, a stack of banknotes, and several ration coupons that Lin Yujiao had hastily stuffed inside earlier.
She took out the money and carefully counted it.
Altogether, there were thirty-two yuan, five jiao, and three fen.
Most of the coupons were grain coupons, which Lin Dajun had needed for his meals at the factory.
There were also sugar coupons and several industrial-goods coupons, all benefits issued by Lin Dajun’s factory.
Lin Yujiao carefully sorted everything before finally opening the savings passbook.
Her gaze fell upon the string of numbers written inside.
She counted again to make certain.
Four thousand five hundred yuan.
“No wonder they were willing to let the original Yujiao repeat her studies and keep preparing for the university entrance examination…”
The reason was simple.
Lin Dajun and his wife had both earned good incomes.
Lin Dajun was a demobilized soldier and had returned home with a considerable resettlement payment.
He was intelligent and eager to learn. As a skilled technical worker, his monthly wage reached an impressive eighty yuan.
Jiang Chunyue taught at the village primary school. Her basic wage was not particularly high, but once her allowances were included, she earned somewhere between ten and twenty yuan a month.
It was now 1978.
Many villagers did not earn even one hundred yuan over the course of an entire year.
Yet Lin Dajun and Jiang Chunyue together earned nearly that much every single month.
Each month, Lin Dajun gave Old Master Lin and Old Madam Lin five yuan apiece for their living expenses. After covering the household’s needs, he saved nearly everything that remained.
With those savings, they could have supported the original Yujiao through another ten years of studying if necessary.
Apart from spending money on their daughter, the couple had little else they wanted for themselves.
They knew nothing about investments or making their savings grow. Their plan had always been simple.
Once Lin Yujiao entered university, they intended to buy a home in the city and move there together.
Unfortunately, that future had never come to pass.
The money, however, remained.
Looking at the savings before her, Lin Yujiao suddenly understood the bitter meaning behind the saying that sometimes a person died before they had the chance to spend the money they had worked so hard to save.
The original family of three was gone now.
Yet their savings had fallen into her hands.
Lin Yujiao raised the passbook and looked toward the photograph.
“If I don’t spend this money, it’ll only end up in the hands of those people from the Lin family. Would you really be willing to let that happen?”
A faint smile tugged at the corners of her lips.
“You wouldn’t, would you? Then I’ll accept the money.”
“I’m using your daughter’s body now. If I’m going to stay healthy and live a long life, this money will be very useful.”
Lin Yujiao blinked innocently at the photograph.
“All right. Since neither of you objects, I’ll take that as your agreement. From now on, the money is mine.”
Without the slightest trace of guilt, she placed the passbook back inside the wooden box.
The people who had once owned these things were gone.
From now on, she would take care of what they had left behind.
In return, she would cherish this body and live as well as she possibly could.
With these savings in hand, Lin Yujiao felt much more confident about leaving the village and beginning a new life.
No matter the era, having money always made life easier.
By now, the night had grown late.
Lin Yujiao picked up her chair and returned to her parents’ room, where she began taking stock of everything in the house.
There were photographs of the family of three, letters they had kept over the years, and their clothes.
Lin Dajun and Jiang Chunyue had earned good wages, yet they had lived very frugally. There were hardly any clothes in their room that had not been patched somewhere.
Lin Yujiao chose only two sets of clothing and placed them inside her storage space.
She would keep them as mementos.
Then she returned to her own room and opened the wardrobe.
The original Yujiao had many clothes.
Almost all of them were relatively new, and very few had been patched.
In fact, she alone owned more clothes than both her parents combined.
It was obvious just how dearly her parents had cherished their daughter.
Lin Yujiao ran her fingers over the garments.
With the professional eye she had developed in her previous life, she could immediately tell that the fabrics were good quality. The only problem was that the styles seemed rather old-fashioned to her.
Of course, that judgment came from someone accustomed to another era.
In 1978, these were clothes that many people could only dream of owning.
Every garment was evidence of how deeply Lin Dajun and Jiang Chunyue had loved their daughter.
With a sweep of her hand, Lin Yujiao stored every last piece away.
The original Yujiao also had an enormous chest filled with study materials for the university entrance examination.
Those, Lin Yujiao had no intention of taking.
In her previous life, she had already spent years studying relentlessly until she finally entered university.
She did not want to follow exactly the same path in this life.
The experience, knowledge, and ideas inside her mind were the true foundation upon which she intended to build her future.
Lin Yujiao continued sorting through everything, deciding what to keep and what to leave behind.
Eventually, she stood inside the now noticeably emptier house.
Looking at the photograph resting on the table, she spoke to the couple once more.
“I’ve taken everything I can bring with me. As for the things I can’t take, I’ll give them to Auntie Cuihua and her family.”
She smiled softly at the photograph.
“You two would agree with that too, wouldn’t you?”