In August, Pingcheng was at the hottest time of the year. Cicadas droned lazily from the trees, their endless buzzing so irritating it made people want to scream.
“You troublesome dead girl! What do you think the farms in the Great Northwest are, some kind of paradise? I practically threw away my dignity to arrange for you to join the production team in Honggou Village, and now you just decide not to go?”
As Zhao Pinglan scolded, she slammed the water ladle in her hand loudly against the basin.
Even after all that commotion, the dead girl still kept her door tightly shut without the slightest reaction, which only made Zhao Pinglan even angrier.
She felt her life was miserable—marrying into the Zhang family and giving birth to a nest of ungrateful wolves.
Little did she know, the person who truly felt miserable was someone else entirely.
Zhang Yunqing lay on the hard kang bed, staring blankly at the newspaper-covered ceiling, mourning the wonderful life she had lost.
She had worked herself to the bone for seven or eight years. Only after endless effort had she finally managed to buy a home of her own in the capital. Though it was barely over sixty square meters and came with a thirty-year mortgage, she had still been perfectly satisfied.
Who would have thought that on the very first day she moved in, a leaking electric water heater would teach her the meaning of “extreme joy turns to sorrow”?
Before losing consciousness, her last thought had been how socially humiliating it would be if someone discovered her naked body in the bathroom.
But reality hadn’t even given her the chance to suffer that embarrassment.
When she opened her eyes again, Zhang Yunqing realized she had arrived in a completely unfamiliar place.
A broad, sturdy middle-aged woman was jabbing a finger hard against her forehead while scolding her for being stupid enough to lose all sense of direction the moment a man sweet-talked her.
Zhang Yunqing instinctively stepped back, but before she could demand an explanation, a flood of unfamiliar memories overwhelmed her mind.
The original owner of this body had been the third child in the family, with an older brother and sister above her and a younger brother below.
It was now the special period of 1972, and after graduating from high school, she faced the problem of being sent down to the countryside.
Because her parents were ordinary people, arranging jobs for her older siblings had already exhausted the family’s savings and connections.
So when it came to her, the only path left was going to the countryside.
Her mother, Zhao Pinglan, though more partial toward the eldest daughter, had still put considerable effort into helping this second daughter.
She had used every connection she could find to arrange for Yunqing to be assigned to a production team near Pingcheng, only about two hours away by bus.
But just as the date for going to the countryside approached, the original owner secretly went behind her family’s back and changed her assigned location to the Great Northwest.
If someone at the educated youth office hadn’t accidentally let it slip, her parents might have remained completely in the dark until the day she left.
Naturally, the news had thrown the whole family into chaos.
And Zhang Yunqing had arrived right in the middle of this complete disaster.
Her life had suddenly been turned upside down, and she had somehow gained a pair of completely unfamiliar parents.
She had spent two full days lying on the kang bed before finally accepting that she truly could not return to her old world.
Rubbing her painfully hungry stomach, Zhang Yunqing reluctantly climbed off the bed.
In these days, city dwellers might sound respectable, but under the planned economy, even eating a truly full meal was difficult.
During the two days since transmigrating here, even with cornmeal porridge, she could only manage to eat until she was about seventy percent full.
Fortunately, this body was already accustomed to such a diet.
Otherwise, Zhang Yunqing doubted she would even have the strength to stand up.
She casually tied her shoulder-length, dry yellow hair behind her head and pulled a patched dark-blue short-sleeved shirt over her cotton undershirt.
Zhang Yunqing awkwardly hunched her shoulders.
The original owner had a good figure, and in her opinion, the thin cotton undershirt did absolutely nothing to hide it.
But conditions were what they were. Everyone dressed this way, so she could only accept it.
With Zhao Pinglan still noisily banging things around in the background, Zhang Yunqing stepped out of the room and seriously examined the place where she would now have to live.
Pingcheng was in the north, and in the height of summer the weather was dry and scorching hot.
Like the neighboring households, the Zhang family courtyard had two main rooms.
Within the already limited space, two side rooms had also been built, making the small courtyard feel even more cramped.
Digging through the original owner’s memories, Zhang Yunqing realized her family’s living conditions were actually considered spacious for the neighborhood.
Father Zhang had fled here during the wartime chaos. There were no elderly relatives above them, and aside from the eldest daughter, who was already married, the other three children were still unmarried. A family of five living in this courtyard was more than enough.
Unlike some households in the neighborhood where several generations squeezed together under one roof—where even whispers between husband and wife became public knowledge, creating endless daily drama.
“You’ve been lying on the kang all day and you still know how to get up!”
Seeing Zhang Yunqing finally leave the room only to stand blankly in the doorway, Zhao Pinglan snapped irritably.
“You’re going to the countryside next month. Why aren’t you packing your things already? Are you waiting for me to do it for you? Once you’re down there, let’s see who’ll keep serving you. A bunch of debt-collecting brats!”
The more Zhao Pinglan spoke, the angrier she became, reaching out to twist Zhang Yunqing’s ear.
Perhaps thanks to muscle memory, Zhang Yunqing immediately tilted her head aside and avoided the attack.
In her memories, the original owner’s mother was an expert at ear-twisting torture. All the siblings—including Father Zhang himself—had suffered from it plenty of times.
Taking several quick steps behind Zhao Pinglan, Zhang Yunqing shouted:
“Mom, I’m not going to the countryside! You don’t need to pack anything for me!”
“You dead girl, if you’re not going to the countryside, what are you planning to do? If you dare pull anything outrageous, I’ll break your legs!”
Zhao Pinglan’s eyebrows shot up in fury.
Being sent to the countryside was national policy. The names for this batch had already been submitted.
Their family had no power or influence and couldn’t arrange a job for their daughter.
If she wanted to stay in the city, the only options were becoming disabled… or marrying someone with a job.
But what decent employed man would marry a woman without work?
Her youngest daughter was beautiful, that much was true, but beauty alone wasn’t enough. Beauty couldn’t fill a stomach.
Zhao Pinglan would rather see Zhang Yunqing go to the countryside than end up with a crippled son-in-law. If that happened, the neighbors would gossip about their family to death.
Zhang Yunqing shook her head.
“Anyway, I have a way. Don’t worry—I know my limits.”
Before Zhao Pinglan could react, she immediately ran out the door.
If she didn’t run now, that water ladle in Zhao Pinglan’s hand would soon end up smashing against her head.
Only after running out of the alley and confirming nobody was chasing her did Zhang Yunqing finally stop and lean against a wall to catch her breath.
She couldn’t help complaining inwardly that compared to the body she had in her previous life—maintained through years of fitness training because she feared dying from overwork—the original owner’s body was far too weak.
After running only a short distance, she was already gasping like this, yet she still dared volunteer for the Great Northwest. Wasn’t she afraid she’d die there?
Clearly, she had never done farm labor before and had no idea how miserable it was.
When she told Zhao Pinglan she wasn’t going to the countryside, she hadn’t been joking.
In her previous life, she had studied her way out of a rural village. Farming chores like planting vegetables, watering crops, and harvesting wheat were things she had already done more than enough of.
If she had transmigrated a little earlier—before the original owner changed the assignment to the Great Northwest—then maybe following the original arrangement wouldn’t have been so bad, especially with people nearby to look after her.
But unfortunately, she had arrived a few days too late.
The Great Northwest?
Even if it killed her, she refused to go.