Lin Lan walked out of the courthouse, divorce decree in hand. She glanced at her ex-husband, Liu Jianguo, as he placed a child into the back seat, and her grip on the decree tightened.
"Lin Lan, you barren old hen!"
"So much of the assets are missing! If you don't cough up the money, I'll come to your company and cause a scene every single day!"
The woman standing next to Liu Jianguo was young and stylishly dressed, her shorts so short they barely covered the tops of her thighs. When she saw Lin Lan, she started shrieking.
Liu Jianguo walked over, his face dark. "For the sake of our many years as husband and wife, I can let that large sum of money go, but you have to leave the house. You can't live in such a big place by yourself."
"You were the one who cheated. The court already ruled on it. On what grounds?"
"On what grounds?! On the grounds that in ten years of marriage, you couldn't even produce a single hair!"
Lin Lan stared at him coldly, pulled a lab report from her bag, and slapped it across his face. "You cheated only to end up a cuckold! Liu! Open your damn eyes and take a good look! Am *I* the one who can't have children?!"
Liu Jianguo picked up the report from the ground, feeling as if he'd been struck by lightning. 'Azoospermia! The fertility test he and Lin Lan had done four years ago… wasn't it Lin Lan who couldn't conceive because of a blocked fallopian tube? What was going on…'
"Lin Lan, explain yourself!" Liu Jianguo, furious, chased her to the side of the road and grabbed her.
Lin Lan looked at him. "You're the one who can't have kids. I took pity on you and helped you hide it. Are you satisfied now?"
"You're lying! The report is fake!"
Liu Jianguo shoved her forcefully.
BANG! A loud impact rang out. "Ah~" Lin Lan felt herself fly through the air before she plunged into darkness.
...
BANG BANG BANG! "Lin Lan, pay up! Pay your debt!"
Lin Lan was startled awake by a crow-like cawing. Her throat burned with a searing pain, and she groggily reached for the thermos on her nightstand, only to grasp at empty air.
She opened her eyes and froze, stunned by the sight before her.
A yellowed old mosquito net, patched with wrinkled, blocky pieces of coarse white cloth. A dark blue, homespun quilt cover that gave off a musty stench. Turning her head, she saw a calendar print with a cheerful design pasted on the gray brick wall.
Looking around, she saw exposed roof beams and the gray tiles resting on the rafters. A small wooden window was patched with newspaper, and beneath it sat a rectangular trunk over a meter tall.
Dirty clothes, both adult's and children's, were draped over a long bench. The dirt floor was littered with peanut and sunflower seed shells. In the corner stood a chamber pot, reeking of stale urine...
Horror filled Lin Lan's heart. 'Where am I? Did the car not kill me? Was I kidnapped after I passed out and sold to someone in the mountains?'
BANG BANG BANG! "You widow and your son, get out here! Get out here! Pay up..."
The pounding on the door started again. Lin Lan jumped, listening to the curses from outside. She threw back the covers, intending to go see what was going on.
Suddenly, a sharp pain shot through Lin Lan's head. She clutched her head, her face turning deathly pale as she collapsed back onto the bed.
The intense pain made her ears ring as unfamiliar memories flooded her mind like a tidal wave.
'I've transmigrated!'
Lin Lan's face was pale as she sorted through the new information she had just received.
The original owner of this body was also named Lin Lan. She was twenty-two years old, had a son who was almost four, and her husband, Yang Guangming, had died a few months ago. Her home was in the first group of the Lexing Team in the East Market suburbs, the team closest to the city.
Her maternal family lived in the Shilian Team of Dashiqiao Town. Her father was the Shilian Team's accountant, and her mother was the team's midwife. She had three older brothers and one younger brother. As the only daughter, she was spoiled rotten by her parents, becoming lazy and greedy.
At eighteen, against her parents' wishes, she had stubbornly insisted on marrying Yang Guangming.
Yang Guangming had three older sisters. Two were married into the second and third groups of the same team, and one was married within their own group.
He was the only son in the Yang family and had also been spoiled by his parents. As soon as he was a little older, he started getting into trouble.
While his parents were alive, there was still someone to discipline him. After they passed away, not even his three older sisters could control him.
He spent all day hanging out with the hooligans on the street, getting into fights, gambling—he did it all.
After drifting like this for seven or eight years, he saw that his peers' children were old enough to run errands, while he was still a bachelor. That's when he started to panic.
His three sisters asked everyone they could to act as matchmakers, but families who knew about his reputation refused to marry their daughters to him. Those who didn't know would refuse after making a few inquiries.
This continued until Yang Guangming ran into the original Lin Lan at the department store, where she was shopping with her friends.
Seeing how pretty and charming she was, he shamelessly went up to her and started a conversation. He used every trick up his sleeve to make her and her friends laugh nonstop, and she even told him where she was staying.
Yang Guangming rushed back to ask his sisters for help, and they found a matchmaker to go to the countryside to propose the marriage.
The Lin family's parents saw that he was handsome and that his home near East Market practically made him a city dweller. Plus, their daughter had taken a liking to him, so they agreed to let the two get to know each other.
They also asked someone to inquire about Yang Guangming's character in the Lexing Team.
From the moment the Lin family agreed to let them date, Yang Guangming frequently went over to their house to help with chores. He was very attentive, showing no fear of getting dirty or tired.
By the time the Lin family found someone and learned the truth about Yang Guangming's character, they were against the match. But by then, the original Lin Lan had already fallen in love with the smooth-talking man.
Not only did she refuse to listen to her parents, she even threatened to kill herself, eventually running away to the Yang family against their wishes.
With things having come to this, the Lin family's parents had no choice but to agree to Lin Lan's marriage into the Yang family. She got pregnant in the third month of their marriage and gave birth to a son after the new year.
With a child in the picture, Yang Guangming felt he had her secured. He didn't need to pretend anymore, nor could he keep it up. He went back to hanging out with those hooligans.
When the original Lin Lan argued with him, he would feel guilty and admit his mistakes at first. But later, when he got annoyed with the arguments, he started hitting her. The first time, she fought back, only to receive a more vicious beating in return. After that, she didn't dare make a peep.
From then on, whenever Yang Guangming won money, he would treat his friends to drinks. When he lost money, he would come home to beat and curse her. The more he lost, the more he gambled; the more he gambled, the more he lost. He even gambled away all of the original Lin Lan's dowry, leaving them with nothing but a few quilts and their wedding bed.
In that era, divorce was something one might think about but never dare to do. She could only swallow her teeth and blood—endure the suffering in silence.
One night at the end of February, Yang Guangming, dead drunk from a night out, stumbled headfirst into a ditch outside and drowned.
Yang Guangming's death should have been the end of all their troubles.
But after a person dies, you need money to build a tomb, buy a coffin, burn joss paper, and hold a funeral, all of which cost money. The problem was, aside from a mountain of gambling debts and IOUs, he hadn't left the original Lin Lan a single cent.
In the end, it was Yang Guangming's three sisters who scraped together every penny they had to bury him.
The shouting and pounding from outside continued, but Lin Lan couldn't be bothered to deal with it. She stared at the calendar on the wall, looking at it again and again. Finally, she sighed. There was no going back.
Heaven hadn't been too cruel to her; at least it had given her a healthy body.
The hard part was that she was now penniless, with a son to raise and a mountain of debt to pay off. Even becoming a street vendor required start-up capital, but where would that capital come from?
It was true what they said: even a hero could be stumped by a single penny.
A loud CRASH startled Lin Lan.
A man's arrogant curses came through clearly: "Lin Lan, get out here! You stinking bitch, you whore! Pay up! If you don't, I won't be so polite!"