Lin Wan was awakened by a violent headache.
She opened her eyes to a mottled, yellowing ceiling, with cobwebs hanging in the corners. The air smelled damp and moldy, mixed with the choking odor of cheap coal briquettes after burning. This was not the warm, well-heated little apartment she had in Northeast China.
“Er Ya, you’re still lying there? You’ve had a fever for three days already, that’s enough.”
An impatient woman’s voice came from outside the door, sounding to be in her forties. “Get up and wash the clothes already. There’s no water left in the vat. Tomorrow the neighborhood committee is coming to verify the list for going down to the countryside. Don’t you dare pretend to be sick to avoid it.”
At that moment, a flood of fragmented memories surged into her mind—
Her father, Lin Jianguo, was a senior mechanic at a machinery factory. Her mother, Wang Xiuqin, pasted paper boxes for the neighborhood office.
Her older brother, Lin Chaoyang, was the eldest son and highly valued by their father. Her younger siblings, Lin Zhaohui and Lin Zhaoxia, were fifteen-year-old twins and the apple of their mother’s eye.
And she, Lin Wan, was the most invisible person in the family.
She did the most work: cooking, washing clothes, hauling water, chopping firewood, serving the entire household.
She wore the worst clothes: always resized hand-me-down work uniforms from her older brother, patched over and over again.
She ate the poorest meals: the thick porridge always went first to her father and older brother, meat never reached her bowl, and half a cornbread bun with pickles was often all she had.
Now that she had graduated from high school, the family had neither money nor connections to secure her a job. After discussing it, her parents directly signed her up—
To be sent down to the countryside.
After hearing the news, the original Lin Wan became even quieter. Three days ago, she caught a chill while washing clothes and developed a high fever.
No one in the family took it seriously. Her mother only gave her two fever pills and said, “Sleep it off and you’ll be fine.”
But once she fell asleep, that eighteen-year-old girl never woke up again.
In her place came the soul of a thirty-year-old woman from the twenty-first century, who had spent fifteen years living in Northeast China.
“So… I transmigrated…” Lin Wan pushed herself upright, her throat painfully dry.
She looked around the tiny room, less than six square meters in size.
Actually, it could barely be called a room at all—just a narrow space partitioned off from the balcony, containing only a wooden plank bed and a broken wooden trunk. It leaked wind in winter and trapped heat in summer.
Old newspapers covered the walls. The date printed on them was late March, 1969.
Outside, her mother Wang Xiuqin shouted again:
“Did you hear me? Hurry up! Your father said the cadres from the educated youth office are coming tomorrow. Behave yourself and don’t embarrass the family. Going to the countryside is supporting national development—it’s an honorable thing!”
Honorable?
Lin Wan curled her lips faintly.
In her memories, her parents had only last month asked around for a job for her older brother, supposedly spending 350 yuan and two cartons of cigarettes.
As for the twins, they had long been told to “study hard so we can find a way for you to stay in the city later.”
Only she was dismissed with a single word:
“Honor.”
She threw aside the stiff, thin blanket covering her and nearly stumbled from dizziness when she stood.
Walking to the cracked mirror by the door, she saw a pale, gaunt face reflected back at her—
Faint eyebrows, large but lifeless eyes, dry yellowish hair. The blue work jacket she wore had been washed until the color faded white, and the cuffs were frayed.
But deep inside those eyes, something had changed.
They no longer held the confused obedience of an eighteen-year-old girl, but the calm, appraising gaze of someone tempered by modern society.
“Since I’m here, I have to survive,” Lin Wan murmured to herself. “And not just survive—live well.”
She began sorting through her memories.
It was now March 1969, with spring still bitterly cold. According to policy, graduates like her—unemployed and not only children—were almost certain to be sent to the countryside.
Her parents had already signed her up. All that remained was the final verification from the neighborhood committee and educated youth office.
“Is there any way to avoid going?” Lin Wan frowned in thought.
In her memories, there were only a few ways to remain in the city: serious illness, disability, being an only child, already having a job, or—
Marriage.
Her eyes lit up slightly.
But she quickly shook her head again.
In this era, marriage depended on family background, household registration, and employment status. She was an unemployed youth with no favor in her family—what kind of match could she possibly get?
Most likely someone equally desperate, perhaps even a widower with children.
The risk was too great.
Then if she had to go to the countryside, where should she go?
In the original owner’s memories, her parents never considered choosing a location. They simply said, “Wherever the organization assigns you.”
But Lin Wan was different—
She knew the Northeast.
In her previous life, she had attended university in Harbin and later worked in Heihe for eight years. She understood the climate, products, and customs of the region.
She knew the land there was vast and sparsely populated. Winters were harsh, but summers were abundant. She knew how to survive there.
More importantly, educated youth settlements in the Northeast usually had relatively better conditions—more land and more food rations. Though winters were freezing, proper preparation made life there easier than in some impoverished mountain regions in the south.
“I’ll go to the Northeast.”
Lin Wan made her first decision.
If she couldn’t avoid it, then she would choose the battlefield she knew best.
She pushed open the thin wooden door and stepped into the outer room.
This was the Lin family’s main living area, about twenty square meters in size, furnished with a square dining table, several chairs, and a five-drawer cabinet, with miscellaneous clutter piled in the corners.
Though still shabby, it was far better than her tiny balcony partition.
No one was home.
Her parents had gone to work, her older brother was nowhere to be seen, and the younger twins were probably at school.