Chapter 1: Her Fate Was Grim
“Third child, can’t you use your head for once? Mom and Dad won’t let you break off the engagement or go to the countryside, all for your own good!”
Her forehead was throbbing from being poked so hard. As Wei An opened her eyes, she saw a young woman in her twenties, heavily pregnant, scolding her with bitter disappointment.
“I just don’t get it. What did Xie Hongfei feed you to make you so willing to give up the hard-earned job you landed just to follow him to the countryside?”
“Who said I’m going to the countryside?”
A wave of chaotic memories crashed through Wei An’s mind, making her temples pound. She instinctively shot back at Su Yuping, then sat up straight with determination.
“Second Sister, don’t worry. I won’t break off the engagement with Kuang Yunxiao, and I certainly won’t go to the countryside with Xie Hongfei.”
Su Yuping was stunned, her eyes wide with surprise, but she was clearly delighted that her little sister had come to her senses.
“That’s more like it. Listening to those who care about you is half the battle. Think about it—could we, your closest family, ever want to harm you?”
Wei An rubbed her rumbling stomach and nuzzled her head against Su Yuping’s shoulder, looking pitiful.
“Okay, Second Sister. No one in this world loves me as much as you do. Second Sister, I’m hungry. I want your egg noodles.”
Originally, the former Wei An had gone so far as to go on a hunger strike, all to break off her engagement and go to the countryside with her childhood sweetheart.
Su Yuping poked her forehead again, feigning annoyance.
“You deserve it!”
Despite her words, she broke into laughter and switched from poking to gently ruffling Wei An’s hair.
“Go wash your face. I’ll make you some noodles. Honestly, I must have owed you in a past life!”
Wei An closed her eyes and nodded contentedly, as docile as a pampered cat.
Unable to resist, Su Yuping ruffled her hair once more before happily heading to the kitchen.
Watching her sister’s retreating figure disappear at the bedroom door, Wei An immediately got up, closed and locked the door, and then tried closing her eyes and focusing.
Excellent. The space—just over a hundred square meters, able to store only inanimate objects and endowed with a preservation function—had indeed traveled through time with her, still stacked full of supplies.
She had once been a somewhat famous food blogger in the modern world, with nearly a million fans online and a monthly income, from various sources, of at least fifty or sixty thousand. Life had been nothing if not carefree.
Who would have imagined she would wake up in a dream, transported to the 1970s of a parallel world?
No, to be precise, she had transmigrated into a 3-million-word (and still unfinished) feel-good novel set in that era, the kind with keywords like “stepmother raising children + military marriage + face-slapping the awful relatives.”
Unfortunately, she was neither the heroine nor even a major side character, but rather a mere footnote—a cannon-fodder fiancée of a supporting male character.
This ill-fated fiancée came from a well-off family, with good looks and figure to match. Both her parents were government officials.
She was the youngest daughter, with an elder brother serving as a battalion-level officer, a big sister and second brother who had already gone to the countryside, and a second sister who married right after finishing high school.
Her status, in the modern day, would have made her the very image of a privileged “rich, beautiful girl.”
But she scorned the fiancé her family had chosen for her, pining instead for her childhood sweetheart—none other than the novel’s male lead, Xie Hongfei.
Upon hearing from her classmate and supposedly best friend that Xie Hongfei was to be sent to the countryside, she decided to give up her job to her friend and follow Xie Hongfei to the countryside herself.
But she didn’t know that her dear friend and Xie Hongfei had long since fallen for each other; only Xie’s family looked down on her friend’s poor background and refused to permit their marriage.
Egged on by her friend’s encouragement and provocation, she quarreled with her parents over breaking off her engagement and going to the countryside, even resorting to a hunger strike.
Naturally, she achieved her wish.
But only after arriving in the countryside did she learn that Xie Hongfei wasn’t going to the countryside at all—he had signed up for the army.
She was overwhelmed with regret.
She wanted to return to the city, but the village she’d been sent to had been specially chosen by her friend, and she couldn’t swallow her pride to beg her family for help. Thus, she was manipulated into marrying someone in the village.
In the book, her role was only briefly mentioned, and when she did appear, it was already when her daughter had graduated from college and met the heroine’s family.
In short, her fate was miserable:
Widowed young, kept under constant surveillance by her in-laws, unable to even visit the commune without being followed.
She lost her daughter in middle age, with her oppressive in-laws still alive, but her own parents long gone.
Her eldest brother, of course, was nothing but a stepping stone for the male lead’s rise.
Her elder sister and second brother spent their whole lives in the countryside, never returning to the city.
Her second sister was also miserable—after all, she was the wife of the cannon-fodder supporting male character’s brother.
She had a premature birth and nearly lost her child; her husband, implicated by his younger brother, was thrown in prison and executed, leaving her to struggle alone with her son.
Given how things ended for her in the book, Wei An decided she would not break off her engagement with the cannon-fodder supporting character.
Surely, armed with foreknowledge of the plot and the advantages of her new identity, she could change the fate of the entire Su family!
…
After watching her finish her meal with satisfaction, Su Yuping hurried back to work, and Wei An tidied the kitchen before heading to her own job.
To be honest, she hadn’t been to the factory in two days. The thought of her very strict, principled supervisor made her lips twitch.
Truly...
All the trouble wrought by her predecessor now landed squarely on her shoulders.
“Wei An, how did it go? Did your parents agree to let you break off the engagement and follow Hongfei to the countryside? I’ve already spoken to my relatives at the educated youth office—they promised to assign you two somewhere close to home.”
Wei An had barely stepped outside when she ran into Ye Aihua, her supposed best friend, who hadn’t found a job since graduation and was about to be sent down to the countryside herself.
She didn’t miss the flash of anxiety and annoyance in Ye Aihua’s eyes as she looked at her.
“No, my parents absolutely refuse to let me go to the countryside.”
If anyone wanted to go, let them. She certainly wasn’t going.
Wei An shook her head with a hint of regret and sadness, then asked with concern, “By the way, have you found a job yet? Did you talk to your relative, the one who promised you a good placement?”
Relative, my foot—she was just using her looks to get someone to pull strings for her.
Wei An’s words struck directly at Ye Aihua’s nerves.
She was genuinely curious—without this avenue through her, what would Ye Aihua do to find a job and avoid being sent down?
“Of course I spoke to him. I’m just worried something might go wrong on your end.”
Ye Aihua’s expression shifted, clearly not expecting Wei An to bring up her job and the countryside today.
Wei An, ever understanding, replied, “That’s good. Maybe the three of us can be assigned together—it’d be nice to look out for each other.”
Hadn’t Ye Aihua always hinted that Wei An should give her the job after leaving for the countryside? Well, Wei An would give her just what she wanted—never again would she mention who would get her job if she left.
“Yes, that’s what I was thinking too.”
Ye Aihua stood before her, eyes flicking repeatedly to Wei An’s face.
She couldn’t shake the feeling that something was different about Wei An today.