“Hiss—it hurts!” The dull pain at the back of her head came in waves, like a rising tide. Mi Duoduo closed her eyes and tried to reach up to feel it, but her wrist was held down by a warm, small hand.
“Second Sister, you’re awake? Don’t move! Mom said you have a head injury and can’t touch it.” A childish voice sounded in her ear, carrying a hint of cautious joy.
Second Sister? Mi Duoduo was stunned.
In her own family, she was the youngest. Since when did she have a younger brother calling her “Second Sister”?
She struggled to lift her eyelids. The first thing she saw was a thin little boy sitting on the edge of the bed, his dark, small hand tightly gripping her wrist.
The child wore a patched blue cloth jacket, and his face was tanned like a piece of charcoal. Only his eyes were startlingly bright, filled with concern.
Whose child was this? He was so thin…
Before Mi Duoduo could sort out her thoughts, the boy stood up. “Sis, you must be hungry, right? I’ll go heat up some food for you.”
Mi Duoduo nodded instinctively. “Okay.”
“Just lie there quietly. Don’t move your head, and definitely don’t touch the wound,” the boy reminded her again before walking out with light footsteps.
The room finally fell silent.
Mi Duoduo moved her eyes to take in her surroundings. The room wasn’t large. Aside from the hard wooden bed she was lying on, there was only a desk with peeling paint and a stool with a missing leg.
Yellowed newspapers were pasted on the walls, and a pair of blood-stained cloth shoes sat lonely on the concrete floor.
The window was positioned toward the back. Through the glass, she could see a kitchen made of adobe in the backyard, with smoke drifting slowly from the chimney.
The unfamiliar adobe walls, the propaganda poster on the wall that read “Labor is Most Glorious,” the faint smell of coal smoke in the air…
Everything screamed: This was not the world she knew.
Suddenly, a flood of fragmented memories slammed into her mind. The original owner of this body was a girl named Mi Duoduo from the Jiangcheng Textile Mill’s family residential compound. She had just turned fourteen and was in her first year of high school.
It was currently the mid-1970s. Primary school was still a five-year system, followed by two years of junior high and two years of senior high. The national college entrance examination had been suspended for several years, and universities across the country had largely stopped admitting students. Only a few Worker-Peasant-Soldier Universities were still operating intermittently, with students primarily recommended from the ranks of workers, peasants, and soldiers.
The original Mi Duoduo had studied hard in high school, hoping to graduate smoothly and secure a good future with a decent job so she wouldn’t have to suffer by being “sent down” to the countryside.
But the original owner of this body was gone. The one who woke up was the Mi Duoduo who had come from the modern world of 2030.
The original owner’s family was considered quite respectable in the residential compound.
Her mother, Li Xiuqin, was a skilled worker at the textile mill. She was hardworking and capable, consistently earning a monthly wage of forty to fifty yuan.
Her father, Mi Jianye, was a level-four mechanic at the mill. With his excellent technical skills, he earned fifty to sixty yuan a month. In a residential compound where most earned thirty or forty yuan, they were considered well-off.
There were four children in the family:
The eldest brother, twenty-year-old Mi Mancang, nicknamed Xiao Man. After graduating high school, his family used connections and spent seven hundred yuan to secure him a job. He had recently become a permanent employee, earning over twenty yuan a month.
Seventeen-year-old Mi Laidi had graduated high school last year. At the request of her maternal cousin-aunt, Zhang Xiaolian, she had gone to the Supply and Marketing Cooperative to work as a free substitute for a year for Zhang Xiaolian’s daughter-in-law, Sun Ying, who had just given birth.
At the time, Zhang Xiaolian had thumped her chest and promised that once she retired, she would let Mi Laidi take over her clerical position at the textile mill for a “benefit fee” of only eight hundred yuan.
But when she actually retired, Sun Ying used the letter of introduction to take the clerical position for herself.
When the Mi family went to demand an explanation, Zhang Xiaolian’s son, Zhao Yong, stiffened his neck and acted like a rogue. “My mom only said we’d give your family a job; she didn’t say it had to be the clerical job at the textile mill! A job at the Supply and Marketing Cooperative is also a prize. Selling this job to you for eight hundred yuan means Laidi won’t have to go to the countryside. You’re not losing out at all!”
These words instantly ignited the Mi family’s pent-up fury.
Mi Laidi had worked as a free substitute for a year. By rights, Sun Ying should have paid her eight to ten yuan a month in wages. Now, not only had they not received a penny in wages, but the promised office clerical job had also fallen through.
Originally, paying eight hundred yuan plus a full year of free substitution for an office job at the textile mill was a reasonable deal.
But using those same conditions—eight hundred yuan plus a year of free labor—to trade for a job at the Supply and Marketing Cooperative was a total rip-off.
After all, a position at the Supply and Marketing Cooperative currently cost only six or seven hundred yuan, even if someone was willing to sell.
If the Zhao family hadn’t intended to give up the clerical position from the start, they could have just said it was a job at the Supply and Marketing Cooperative. This was a blatant breach of promise, yet they acted as if the Mi family was getting a huge bargain. It was truly infuriating.
Li Xiuqin trembled with rage, Mi Jianye clenched his fists, and the young and hot-blooded Mi Mancang got into a fierce argument with Zhao Yong on the spot.
The dispute snowballed, and in the blink of an eye, they came to blows.
At the entrance of the residential compound, someone had forgotten to take a wooden stool home. They tore the legs off it. Mi Mancang and Zhao Yong each grabbed one, confronting each other with bloodshot eyes, their spit flying everywhere.
In the chaos of the brawl, the original Mi Duoduo saw the stool leg in her brother’s hand flying toward the infant in the stroller belonging to the Zhao family. The baby, still in swaddling clothes, had long been wailing in terror from the noise.
Without thinking, she lunged to stop it, wanting to protect that small life and also fearing her brother would end up with a death on his hands.
Zhao Yong also panicked and swung his stool leg. He had intended to knock the weapon out of Mi Mancang’s hand, but his aim was off, and it slammed squarely into the back of Mi Duoduo’s head.
Blood gushed out, staining the dusty concrete floor and her faded floral shirt.
The fourteen-year-old Mi Duoduo had breathed her last right then.
The one who opened her eyes again was the Mi Duoduo from modern times.
The farce ended with the Zhao family, fearing the matter would escalate, relenting and saying they would transfer the Supply and Marketing Cooperative job to Mi Laidi for only four hundred yuan.
The Mi family grit their teeth and accepted it. If they kept fighting and the job fell through, Mi Laidi would have to go to the countryside, and then they would truly lose everything.
After being bandaged at the hospital, Mi Duoduo was brought home and remained unconscious for a night.
Seeing that she hadn’t woken up but her breathing was steady and she had no fever, Li Xiuqin went to work. The textile mill had been busy lately, and one less person would drag down the production quota of the shift; if she took more leave, her wages would be docked.
Before leaving, Li Xiuqin gave repeated instructions to her eleven-year-old youngest son, Mi Shengcang (nicknamed Xiao Sheng), before finally walking away, looking back at every step.
Xiao Sheng was heart-wrenchingly sensible. He took leave from school and stayed by his sister’s side without leaving for a second, bringing her water and medicine with clumsy but careful attention.
Soon, Xiao Sheng brought over a bowl of white flour lump soup. This was the first meal Mi Duoduo had since transmigrating.
In the large coarse porcelain bowl, a few irregular flour lumps floated in clear water. There was no oil, no egg, not even a single leaf of a vegetable.
Mi Duoduo leaned against the headboard, took the bowl, and had a sip. The bland taste pricked her tongue like a needle, and a wave of bitterness washed over her heart.
She looked at Xiao Sheng standing by the bed, his small hands nervously clutching the hem of his shirt, his eyes full of anticipation as if asking, “Sis, does it taste good?”
The original Mi Duoduo’s memories surged in her mind, letting her know that she had always been closest to this younger brother.
Thinking about how she had inexplicably transmigrated here and taken the original girl’s place in the world, her nose suddenly felt sour. She forced down the rising urge to cry and managed a weak, thin smile. “The soup Xiao Sheng made is really delicious.”
Xiao Sheng immediately smiled, revealing two rows of small teeth. “As long as you like it, Sis. There’s more in the pot. Should I get you some more?”
Mi Duoduo shook her head. Looking at the flour lump soup in the bowl, her heart felt heavy. She really had arrived in this 1970s era where food and clothing were scarce, and people had to fight tooth and nail just for a job.
No cell phones, no internet, and she even had to calculate carefully just to have a full meal.
How would she survive the days ahead? And what if someone discovered she wasn’t the original owner?
Also, she had clearly just been walking on the road after school—how did she end up here?
As her mind wandered, Xiao Sheng picked up the pair of blood-stained cloth shoes by the bed. “Sis, just put the bowl on the desk when you’re done. No one’s at the communal sink right now, so I’ll go scrub your shoes.”
“Okay, go ahead,” Mi Duoduo replied.
[Brain Storage Area]