"What nonsense are you saying, Li Jianhua? Have you lost your mind?"
A gentle yet worn voice cut through the air.
"You are already in your final year of high school. The college entrance examination is only half a year away, and you want to quit now?"
Another voice followed, anxious yet restrained.
"Brother, you're the top student in your class. The teachers all say you have hope of entering a key university. Why give up at this critical moment?"
Then came a third voice—harsh, impatient, carrying the weight of authority.
"Enough! What do you people know? He is already seventeen. Shouldn't he start contributing filial money? His father sends only twenty yuan a month. Is that enough for us old people to survive? He must leave school and find work in the county. Books cannot fill empty stomachs!"
The words overlapped, tense and heated.
Li Shuying, still drifting in heavy slumber, frowned.
The voices were familiar.
Yet unfamiliar.
They echoed as though from a distant lifetime.
She did not want to open her eyes.
After learning that her entire life had been nothing more than ink on paper—after discovering that her family had been reduced to cannon fodder in someone else's grand narrative—her heart felt hollow and unwilling. She wanted neither to wake nor to remember.
But the voices persisted.
"Mother," the privious voice pleaded earnestly, "please don't speak like that. My Jianhua is the top student in the class. If he works a little harder, he may enter Peking University. Think of the honor that would bring—not only to our Li family, but to the entire Shitou Brigade. Jianhua would be the first in our village to step into a university."
Peking University.
Shitou Brigade.
The words struck her like a bell tolling in her ears.
Li Shuying's lashes trembled.
Her breathing grew uneven.
That voice—
That was her mother's voice.
A younger version. Gentle, warm. Full of restrained hope.
Suddenly, as though pulled violently from deep water, she opened her eyes.
Light flooded in.
Not the oppressive darkness of before—
But soft, natural daylight filtering through papered windows.
She blinked rapidly, her vision blurred. It took several long moments for her eyes to adjust.
And then—
She saw.
A low ceiling of dark wooden beams.
Walls made of mud bricks, uneven and cracked with age.
A faded red paper couplet pasted crookedly near the doorframe, the ink long since smudged.
The scent of earth and straw lingered faintly in the air.
She was lying on a narrow wooden kang bed, covered by a patched old cotton quilt. The fabric was rough beneath her fingers, the stuffing uneven from years of use.
Her heart began to pound.
No hospital ceiling.
No concrete apartment walls.
No rusted balcony railings.
This—
This was her childhood room.
The mud-brick house in Shitou Brigade.
Her gaze darted around frantically.
In the corner stood a small wooden table, its surface scarred by knife marks. A chipped enamel washbasin rested beside it. On the wall hung a cloth schoolbag, faded blue, carefully patched at the seams.
She knew that bag.
She had sewn that patch herself.
Her breathing grew louder.
Her chest rose and fell rapidly.
"This… this can't be…" she whispered.
Her hands trembled as she lifted them before her eyes.
Not thin, wrinkled hands.
Not spotted with age.
They were slender.
Smooth.
Young.
Her pulse roared in her ears.
Nearly six decades.
Nearly sixty years had passed since she last saw this room.
Since she last lay on this bed, listening to her family argue outside over money, education, and survival.
A wave of dizziness swept over her.
Excitement and panic tangled together inside her chest, almost suffocating her.
Had she returned?
Had Heaven—after all that injustice—granted her a second chance?
Outside the thin wooden door, the argument continued.
"Mother, Jianhua cannot abandon his studies now," her mother insisted. "Education is the only way for our family to change our fate."
Change our fate.
The words struck her heart like thunder.
Tears welled in her eyes—but this time, they were not purely of sorrow.
Her fingers gripped the quilt tightly.
Her breathing was unsteady, almost trembling with disbelief.
She was not in the underworld.
She was not trapped in endless darkness.
She was home.
Her heart pounded so violently she feared it might burst from her chest.
Was this a dream?
Or—
Had fate truly turned?
Just as she was lost in her thoughts, a meek, frail voice drifted through the air—soft as cotton, yet sharp enough to pierce the heart. It made her chest tighten with panic, sorrow… and a blazing anger that rose like fire beneath calm water.
"Aunt Meilan, I know it isn't my place to speak here," the girl said gently, almost timidly, "but you shouldn't place so much hope on Brother Jianhua. Peking University?"
A light laugh followed—delicate, restrained, perfectly measured.
"I heard from my friends in the county that the college entrance examination is like a single-log bridge. Thousands of troops and tens of thousands of horses try to cross, yet only a few make it to the other side. If Brother Jianhua fails, wouldn't the entire year be wasted? And after the exams, those who don't pass will all rush to find work. With so few jobs in our county, won't it be even harder then? I think Grandma is right. Brother should quit school and find work now. Even temporary work is fine. I trust Brother Jianhua. With his diligence, he can surely secure a permanent quota within a year."
The words were soft—so soft they seemed harmless. But beneath them lay blades.
Li Shuying knew that voice too well.
That pretentious, syrupy sweetness. That tone of false concern.
Her fists clenched unconsciously. A sharp light flashed in her eyes as she muttered under her breath, voice trembling with restrained fury.
"Zhao Hongmei…"
She remembered.
She remembered the look of contempt when Zhao Hongmei had once surveyed her cramped apartment in the future—her lips curved in faint disdain. She remembered the smug satisfaction in her eyes when she spoke casually of how she had "merely nudged" circumstances… and how that single nudge had sent Li Shuying's entire family tumbling into ruin.
And then it struck her.
The talk of her elder brother quitting school. The subtle persuasion. The concern disguised as kindness.
This was that day.
According to her memory, today her step-grandmother, Wang Chunhua, and her granddaughter from her first marriage, Zhao Hongmei, had come to persuade her mother to let her eldest brother leave school and find work.
And they had succeeded.
Her eldest brother had long since been swayed by Zhao Hongmei's gentle reasoning. He had already stopped attending school for a week already, secretly searching for employment. Today happened to be the beginning of the month. Her mother, Chen Meilan, had gone to the county to send a letter to her father. On her way back, she had run into her brother's class teacher—and learned the truth.
The shock had nearly made her faint.
Her son, the pride she had quietly placed all her hopes upon, had abandoned school without a word.
When Chen Meilan rushed home, heart burning with fury and heartbreak, Wang Chunhua and Zhao Hongmei were already waiting in the living room—calm, composed, as if they had foreseen everything.
No.
Not foreseen.
Arranged.
Only Li Shuying knew the truth.
This was premeditated. Every word, every timing, every appearance—carefully calculated by reborn Zhao Hongmei.
Without hesitation, Li Shuying pushed herself up from the wooden kang. A wave of dizziness struck her—this body was still weak, malnourished, as it had always been in these bitter years. But she gritted her teeth and steadied herself.
In her previous life, she had been powerless.
In this life… things would be different.
She stepped out into the living room.
The house was small, built of gray brick with mud-plastered walls slightly cracked from years of damp winters. A square wooden table stood in the center, its surface worn smooth by decades of use. A thermos flask painted with faded peonies sat near the edge. Two long benches flanked the table, while a rickety cabinet leaned against the wall, holding enamel bowls and chipped teacups. The air carried the faint scent of coal smoke and boiled cabbage—a poor family's everyday fragrance.
And there they were.
Her mother, Chen Meilan, stood beside the table. Even dressed in a coarse, washed-thin blouse, she still carried traces of the beauty of her youth—delicate brows, clear eyes, a straight back that refused to bend despite hardship. But now those eyes were clouded, heavy with worry. She was thinking. Hesitating. Torn between hope and fear.
Her eldest brother, Li Jianhua, stood stiffly nearby. Thin, darkened by sun and labor, yet his features were upright and resolute. His lips were pressed tight, as though he had already made up his mind. Behind him stood her second and third brothers, Li Jianguo and Li Jianmin, malnourished, skin stretched over bone, their clothes patched and faded. They were young. Their ribs were visible beneath their shirts, their faces prematurely gaunt.
But they were alive.
Alive.
That alone made Li Shuying's eyes burn red.
In her previous life, those thin figures had disappeared one by one beneath the grinding wheel of fate. Regret had gnawed at her heart until it bled.
But now—
They were still here.
Breathing.
Standing before her.
Her gaze slowly shifted.
Wang Chunhua sat firmly on the main seat, her expression heavy with what appeared to be grandmotherly concern. Beside her stood Zhao Hongmei, hands folded demurely in front of her, head slightly lowered, lashes casting faint shadows on her cheeks.
Innocent.
Gentle.
Considerate.
What a flawless performance.
Li Shuying's eyes hardened. The redness in them faded, replaced by something colder—mocking, almost amused.
She could see it clearly.
Her mother's silence. Her brother's wavering resolve. The carefully planted seeds of doubt. The atmosphere in the room was already leaning in their favor.
Halfway to success.
Zhao Hongmei's lips curved almost imperceptibly when she noticed Li Shuying emerge, as though she were watching a trivial extra enter the stage.
In her previous life, she had indeed been nothing more than that—an inconsequential bystander in her own family's tragedy.
But not this time.
In this life, she would tear away that gentle mask.
She would not allow Zhao Hongmei to trample her family beneath her ambitions.
She would not allow her brother to give up his studies.
She would not allow this household—this fragile, struggling, yet still breathing home—to be sacrificed for someone else's rise.
The air in the room seemed to thicken.
Li Shuying took another step forward.
"Oh…"
The single syllable fell lightly into the heavy room, yet it carried an unmistakable edge.
"I am quite touched," Li Shuying continued, her lips curving into a faint smile that did not reach her eyes, "to see such care and affection from my step grandmother and step sister."
She enunciated the word step with deliberate clarity—each consonant crisp, like porcelain striking stone.
A subtle shift passed through the room.
Wang Chunhua's brows twitched almost imperceptibly. Zhao Hongmei's lashes fluttered, though her expression remained soft and composed, as if she had not noticed the deliberate emphasis.
Li Shuying stepped fully into the living room, her thin frame straight despite the dizziness that still lingered. The late-afternoon light filtered through the papered window, illuminating the dust motes suspended in the air. The small space felt crowded.
Her mother turned, surprise flashing across her youthful face. "Shuying? Why are you out of bed?"
Li Shuying did not answer immediately.
Instead, she walked forward slowly, her gaze sweeping once across her family—her elder brother's clenched fists, her second brother's anxious expression, her third brother's hollow cheeks.
Her heart tightened, but her voice remained calm.
"But," she said gently, turning her attention back to Wang Chunhua and Zhao Hongmei, "isn't this merely a small matter? Why must my elder brother, the top student in his class, abandon his studies?"
She tilted her head slightly, as though genuinely puzzled.
"If the concern is filial support," she continued evenly, "then we should address that directly. There is no need to cut off his future entirely."