Xia Xiaolan was woken up by crying.
She remembered leading her team through a tough acquisition, then toasting at the victory party; under her subordinates' incessant toasts, CEO Xia had drunk too much.
Yet she hadn't blacked out. On the way home she overheard her new assistant on the phone: "I'm dropping CEO Xia off—she lives alone, mm-hmm, not married... What's the use of a woman earning so much? She still can't get herself a husband."
Half-drunk, half-awake, Xia didn't confront the assistant.
A high-powered career without the ornament of marriage always invites gossip. With her aggressive style and plain looks, some at the company whispered that she was ugly, old, and picky—destined to stay single. Xia usually ignored personal jibes, but the new hire had a loose tongue and a thick head, thinking her boss too drunk to notice such open gossip.
In a couple of days she'd transfer the girl out and pick a new assistant.
Back home, the housekeeper Auntie Zhang nagged her to drink less and take better care of herself.
Xia Xiaolan flung herself onto the soft bed and fell asleep at once.
She dreamed she had become someone else in the 1980s. Bad things happened; in a rage she rammed her head against a pillar. Xia found it amusing—suicide wasn't her style. From her own climb from nothing, the dream's troubles were nothing.
Yet the dream felt unnervingly real.
A woman's soft sobs drilled into her skull.
The quilt was clammy, clinging uncomfortably, as if soaked with sweat. When she finally pried her eyes open, a sallow face loomed, startling her!
"Xiaolan, you're awake? You scared your ma to death... does your head still hurt?"
A sallow, gaunt face on a body a gust could topple.
Xia thought: Why hasn't this dream ended?
The woman's tears gushed. "Promise Ma we won't do anything foolish again, all right?"
Xia nodded absently; the woman wiped her eyes on her sleeve and managed a faint smile.
"I'll fetch you something to eat—wait here!"
Once the door shut, Xia studied the room through her headache. A dark wooden bed crunched with straw beneath a woven mat; yellowed mosquito-netting hung from iron hooks; the faded quilt bore four patches; a string by the bed controlled a bare bulb.
She tugged the string—the dim bulb, surely under fifteen watts, barely lit the gloom.
She rose, head pounding. The only decent piece of furniture was a dressing table by the window. In its mirror appeared a delicate face: pointed chin, large eyes, straight pretty nose—every feature flawless. Blood-stained bandages added pitiable fragility. Xia gasped—this was textbook vixen beauty!
It certainly wasn't her face!
Had CEO Xia owned even a third of such looks, no one would sneer behind her back.
When Xia smiled, the mirror's beauty rippled, softening any heart; when she grimaced, the face stayed stunning. It felt unfair. Her original self, truth be told, had been plain verging on ugly without expensive grooming.
The higher the echelon, the less looks matter; strength counts.
Yet born poor with no leg up, her early grind had been brutal. While she burned midnight oil mastering products, pretty salesgirls fluttered eyelashes and snatched orders. Had she been a little prettier, maybe twenty years of toil wouldn't have been needed for success.
House, car, savings, position—she'd hardly savored them before waking as another "Xia Xiaolan": eighteen in 1983, a gorgeous vixen-face, who'd tried to kill herself over some scandal.
The original girl had died; for reasons unknown, the CEO Xia thirty years later now breathed in her body, memories a jumbled but vivid flood.
Creak.
The door opened; the scrawny sallow woman carried in a chipped enamel cup.
"Xiaolan, I steamed you an egg—eat while it's hot."
The woman was almost servile—Liu Fen, Xia's mother.
Xia opened her mouth but couldn't voice "Ma".
She didn't know how to treat Liu Fen; the original girl had been cruel. Continue as an unfilial daughter, or feign amnesia and reinvent herself?
Before she decided, the half-shut door burst open.
Several people surged in, led by Xia's grandmother, two other daughters-in-law, and assorted grandchildren, all fierce and hostile.
High-cheek-boned Old Madam Xia's eyes blazed. She snatched the enamel cup and shoved Liu Fen to the floor.
"You birthed a little tramp who shames the family, and you steal eggs for her? Faking a head-bump to scare me? Go jump in the river if you want to die!"