At the end of June, the midday heat was at its peak. Normally at this time, the commune members of Shanzucun would be taking their afternoon nap, but today they were all gathered in the courtyard of the brigade headquarters, surrounded three layers deep inside and out, completely impenetrable.
A sharp, piercing roar came from the crowd, "You tell him, if he doesn't come back, I will drink pesticide, just wait to collect my corpse!"
"My god, did she really drink it?"
"That is the highly toxic 1605!"
"Oh my niang ah, someone is dying, someone is dying!"
Everyone shouted all at once, and the crowd fell into chaos.
The brigade captain roared, "Are you all his niang's dead? Get the barefoot doctor!"
The party secretary glared and said in a muffled voice, "Go send another telegram, expedite it!"
............
Headache, dizziness, and thirst—these were Lin Lan's strongest sensations of a hangover.
Last night, she was in a bad mood and drank a few extra glasses. She went back to her apartment and fell asleep immediately. She had constant nightmares all night, and the sounds of ringing phones and banging doors kept piercing her ears.
She didn't expect that upon waking up, there would still be buzzing sounds in her ears, disturbing her sweet dreams.
"Erge, do you think niang... really drank pesticide and died?"
"Shh—, keep your voice down, niang is just putting on an act to scare them, she wants die to come home. Let's go cut grass."
Lin Lan tried hard to open her eyes, but her eyelids felt as if they were glued shut by something, and she couldn't open them no matter what.
After a while, another harsh voice came over, "Laosan is in the army, I saw that she was too busy with five children so I helped her out, but look at her, making a fuss all day long. If she doesn't want to live here, she can roll back to her niangjia, no one cares for her! If it's not hanging herself, it's drinking pesticide. She just thinks this laopozi is an eyesore and wants me to die first. Heavens strike me, I've never seen such a vicious erxifu! Wants to split the family? Why don't you just strangle me with a rope? ... Stop standing around, go do your work, don't be lazy and slack off!"
Immediately after, the sound of a door slamming was heard.
What drinking pesticide, what splitting the family?
What a total mess.
Lin Lan's head was splitting with pain, and she had to use almost all her strength just to pry her eyelids open.
What entered her sight was a narrow, cramped room. She didn't see any windows, only a torn straw curtain hanging there. The walls and ceiling were blackened by smoke and fire, with long strands of black soot hanging in the corners. A foul smell mixed with various odors permeated her nose; Lin Lan couldn't even distinguish if it was livestock manure, children's urine, mold, or some other strange smell.
It was simply suffocating and nauseating.
Lin Lan's mind buzzed with a loud boom, like a bolt from the blue—could it be that she had transmigrated?
Lin Lan closed her eyes and waited for a long time. When she opened them again, it was still the smoke-blackened yellow mud wall.
At this moment, she was certain that she had truly transmigrated.
The reason she was so sure was that some information that didn't belong to her had already appeared in her mind, leaving a deep impression as if she had read a book or watched a movie.
The year 1970 in the Huaxia Nation, Di Province, a small northern village—Shanzucun.
The original owner shared her name. Her niangjia was in Linjiatun, her pojia was surnamed Han, and her zhangfu Han Qingsong was a soldier. The two had five children.
The original owner had never been to school, having only attended a literacy class for a few days, and knew no more than fifty characters. Since childhood, she had been competitive and shrewish, with a rather bad temper. Lacking education and worldly experience, she couldn't calmly think of solutions when encountering problems. Her most commonly used method was to make a noisy fuss, which was why she wasn't very well-liked when she was at her niangjia.
She married Han Qingsong at the age of 16. He was away from home all year round, while she was suppressed by her popo and zhouli. Unable to come up with ways to resolve conflicts and ease relationships herself, her temper grew increasingly irritable. She would easily raise a huge row over the slightest thing, and later resorted directly to threatening others with suicide.
Meanwhile, Han Qingsong became a soldier at 17. After more than ten years of hard work, he was now a company commander.
His future was extremely bright.
Because of this, the original owner felt insecure, constantly suspecting that he looked down on her and wanted to climb a higher branch now that he was successful.
Therefore, she kept making a fuss to make him come home to live, lest he be seduced by those educated, young, and beautiful vixens outside.
The reason she staged the pesticide-drinking drama this time was because the original owner heard people discussing a confirmed piece of news brought back by a demobilized soldier—Han Qingsong had someone else outside, and it was a certain commander's guinv!
The thought that Han Qingsong would definitely divorce her became the last straw that broke the camel's back. The original owner ran to the commune time and time again to send telegrams to the army, insisting that her man transfer to civilian work and come home. If he didn't come home, she would die! And she would take the five children to die with her!
When her popo found out about this, Han-laotaitai naturally disagreed. Her son's bright future was the glory and financial pillar of the old Han family. If they brought her son back, wouldn't that mean returning to the pre-liberation days overnight?
Absolutely not!
Then the original owner demanded that her popo give her her man's allowance, otherwise she would force her man to come home and no one would have a good time. If she didn't agree, she would drink poison!
She had her second son, Han Wangjun, quietly pick up an empty 1605 bottle and bring it back. She figured that since there was no pesticide left, no one would be able to tell if she mixed it with water, allowing her to pretend to drink pesticide to scare people.
Of course, she also meant to show the family how fierce she could be.
Little did she know that 1605 was highly toxic. Even if a drop of the liquid accidentally fell on the skin while spraying, it would cause poisoning, let alone directly mixing it with water to drink?
Even though she only took a fake sip, it was enough to poison a woman whose body had been unhealthy all year round.
And so, Lin Lan transmigrated over.
Only, in the original story, the original owner actually succeeded this time.
Her zhangfu Han Qingsong was so troubled that he became disheartened and lost interest in his career. He finally submitted an application for civilian transfer to the army and would be returning home in a few days.
However, his return home did not make this family harmonious from then on; instead, it opened the prelude to a tragedy.
The original owner had originally sworn that as long as her man came home, she would live a peaceful life. But when the man returned, she again suspected that he looked down on her and suspected him of having affairs with other women. As long as he left her sight for the duration of a meal, she would suspect whether he was having a secret rendezvous with someone.
The unmarried girls and young xifu in the village, even the widows, were all targets of her suspicion.
As long as the man did anything that displeased her, she would make a huge scene and threaten suicide.
After transferring to civilian work, Han Qingsong became the director of the commune's public security bureau, and was later promoted to deputy director of the county public security bureau. At that time, the Wen Ge was coming to an end, controls were relaxed, and coupled with the inaction of certain cadres, the public security of the entire county became increasingly chaotic.
He was busy with official duties, beset with difficulties both at home and outside. Finally, after she made a huge scene, he was physically and mentally exhausted and was stabbed to death while performing his official duties.
After his death, she became even more twisted. On one hand, she wallowed in self-pity and took her anger out on the children; on the other hand, she was fiercely protective and spoiled them. She raised all the children to be useless, and in the end, not a single one of them had a good end.
Wait!
Lin Lan suddenly realized that this familiar plot seemed like a novel she had read a long time ago. The male and female leads in the book were childhood sweethearts, busy making a fortune and striving for a well-off life. Among them, a female supporting character left a deep impression because of her relentless trouble-making style. She was the original owner's daughter, Han Maisui, youthful, pretty, and lively in personality. Raised by the original owner since childhood to have ambitions higher than the sky and to be incredibly vain, she always felt she was a princess who must get whatever she wanted, and anyone who wasn't good to her was a bad person. The original owner helped her daughter dedicate herself to pestering the male lead, and her several sons also grew up outrageously crooked, ultimately meeting bad ends.
Tracing it back to the root cause, this was inextricably linked to their twisted family.
She had actually transmigrated into such a family...
What should she do?
Go back? That was impossible now.
Run away from home? Divorce?
In this day and age, no one divorced. If she divorced and only cared for herself, she was afraid even Linjiatun wouldn't tolerate her. For a divorced woman to want to return to her niangjia was impossible in this era; it was just that feudal.
Moreover, at this time, without a household registration, work points, and a letter of introduction, one couldn't go anywhere. She wouldn't be able to find a job or earn money, and even eating would be a problem; she simply wouldn't be able to survive. It seemed she could only continue living under the identity of the original owner.
It was just that if she suddenly turned over a new leaf, she didn't know if others would be suspicious. Even if it did arouse suspicion, she truly couldn't live life the way the original owner did.
An idea suddenly popped into her head: she could use surviving a great disaster and becoming disheartened as an excuse, claiming she had suddenly figured things out, would no longer dwell on the past, and wanted to live a down-to-earth life!
Yes, not bad!
It was nothing more than being suppressed by her popo and her zhangfu having no feelings for her. It wasn't a life-threatening matter. As for living life, she still had many ways to go about it.
To her, the most terrifying thing was—
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