Chapter 1: Record of Moving to the City in the 90s (1)

The moment Su Huandan regained consciousness, she used her mind to take the Coordinate Jade Cocoon out of the Portable Space¹ issued by the Underworld’s Reincarnation Division² and activate it.

When she saw the Coordinate Jade Cocoon turn into a streak of light and merge into her soul, Su Huandan finally let out a sigh of relief. As a member of the Reclamation Group³ under the Underworld’s Reincarnation Division, her job through reincarnation was to help the Underworld lock onto coordinates.

Only after finishing her work did she have the time and energy to look at where she was.

The walls were coated in yellowed paint, clearly old and long in need of fresh whitewash. The roof beams were wooden rafters, and beneath her on the wooden bed was a thick straw mat, covered with a layer of cotton batting. That was how beds were made in rural areas in the 1990s.

Just shifting slightly on the bed produced the distinctive crackling sound of straw. Only in that moment did Su Huandan truly feel it. She raised a hand to cover her eyes. She had really been reborn.

Even if she only got this one chance at reincarnation, even if this was the only time, as long as she could come back alive and see her parents and two older sisters again, she would have no regrets.

In her previous life, she had died before turning thirty, from breast cancer. Back then, in order to keep her alive and pay for treatment, her parents’ savings and even the house they had planned to retire in were all spent. Even her two older sisters had kept giving her money until their in-laws could no longer put up with it, and both ended up divorced.

Could anyone imagine how much regret she carried?

Her family had all been so good to her, giving her everything they had, yet she had become a burden on the whole household. Before Su Huandan died of illness, she had been afraid of death, but even more afraid that once she died, her parents and sisters would not be able to bear it. It had tormented her.

Now, at last, she had been given a chance to start over.

And she had returned to 1990, before the family moved into the city.

The wooden bed was one and a half meters wide and placed against the wall. Su Huandan slept with her second sister, and across from them was another small bed where her eldest sister slept.

It was the dead of night, still far too early to get up. Su Huandan had only just returned from the Underworld, and the strength of her soul was far greater than that of an ordinary mortal, so she was not sleepy at all.

So she rolled over to face the wall, opened the Work Interface, and checked the information.

The so-called Work Interface was virtual, something only Su Huandan could see.

It was about ten inches in size, and it recorded the progress of Su Huandan’s assignment.

After the Coordinate Jade Cocoon was activated, there was also a loading bar. Its duration varied according to the quality of the plane Su Huandan reincarnated into.

Su Huandan had simply been reborn into her original world, an ordinary modern setting, so the loading bar showed only ten years.

In other words, the loading bar would only finish ten years later, and only then would her task be considered fully complete.

That was the job of employees in the Underworld Reincarnation Division’s Reclamation Group.

It might take the longest, and the reward might be the most ordinary and the lowest-tier, but its greatest advantage was safety.

As for the other three groups?

Some of them collected resentment, some plundered the fortune of main characters, and some fulfilled lingering wishes while collecting souls. They were all high-risk, high-reward divisions where people could die at any moment. Su Huandan was timid and preferred the steadier Reclamation Group.

Besides, the rewards those well-born colleagues considered worthless looked like treasures in the eyes of a mortal like Su Huandan.

Perhaps that was simply the difference in choices brought about by different living environments and different life experience.

During the years she had remained in the Underworld after dying in her previous life, Su Huandan had always felt like an odd one out in the Reincarnation Division. Among all the trainees, she was the only ordinary mortal.

The other trainees often said she had somehow wandered into the wrong place.

Su Huandan felt the same way herself.

With no issues on the task side, Su Huandan next looked at the marker for her Portable Space. When she opened it, it displayed everything stored inside.

There was one ton of gold, one ton of silver, and a combined ton of gemstones and jade, all worthless in the Underworld. New employees could claim these for free once from the Underworld Reincarnation Division, and Su Huandan had taken the maximum amount allowed.

Aside from those worldly possessions, there was also a jade basin about the size of a washbasin filled with first-rank Spiritual Spring Water. It was the lowest-grade spiritual spring in the Underworld, and this was the most she could take for free, just in case she needed it later.

Even so, it was enough for Su Huandan to use during the early stage of this reincarnation. Even first-rank Spiritual Spring Water could not be consumed directly by mortals and had to be diluted, at a ratio of one drop to one liter of water. And even after dilution, a mortal could use no more than ten drops’ worth in an entire lifetime.

That alone showed just how fragile mortal bodies were. They simply could not handle too much of good things.

These items were Su Huandan’s greatest source of confidence in this reincarnation.

Tomorrow, once she got up, the first thing she had to do was find a way to dilute some Spiritual Spring Water so she could help improve her family’s health.

After that, she would think of a way to bury some gold around the house.

The more she thought about it, the more excited she became, and sleep was even more impossible, so Su Huandan simply stopped lying there.

But the moment she sat up, her second sister Su Huanxia smacked her across the back.

“What are you doing up instead of sleeping? Go to sleep already. We still have to help our uncle’s family harvest rice first thing tomorrow morning.” After Su Huanxia said that, she rolled over and went right back to sleep.

Helpless, Su Huandan lay back down again.

At this time, there was still no such thing as the May Day or National Day long holidays. That holiday policy would not be implemented until 1999. In these years, during spring planting and autumn harvest, schools run in towns and villages would give students three days to a week off as farm-assistance leave⁴ so they could go home and help their families.

Here in Shangsha Village, rice was usually harvested at the end of September, so the holiday would start on September 30, and students would return to school on October 8.

Su Huandan’s distant memories were stirred awake by her second sister’s words.

But the moment she thought about going to help their uncle’s family again, a wave of disgust rose uncontrollably in her heart.

The three sisters had to go into the fields with sickles and cut rice, while their uncle’s son and daughter hid at home watching television and would not even make lunch.

Su Huandan was fifteen that year, her eldest sister was twenty, and her second sister was eighteen. Their uncle’s two children were twenty-one and nineteen. So why did she, at fifteen, have to work in the fields while those two did not?

Well, this would be interesting.

This year, her mother Jiang Chunhua still had not seen through that whole side of the maternal family. She always thought that as long as her own family suffered a little, the whole extended family could live in harmony.

Even if the three sisters were the ones who had to suffer a little.

Because her mother always said, “Doing a bit more physical work isn’t suffering. Once your strength is used up, it’ll grow back. But making the elders angry, that’s what’s wrong.”

Is that really true?

It is. As the younger generation, they really shouldn’t make their elders worry or get angry.

But there is a condition.

That condition is that the elders have to be fair to everyone.

Su Huandan’s grandma and grandpa were exactly the kind of infuriating old people who only cared about their own twisted logic.

In their eyes, her mother should slave away for her youngest uncle, and the three sisters should also slave away for her youngest uncle’s children.

Wasn’t that infuriating?

Still, Su Huandan wasn’t worried about tomorrow at all, because they were never going to her youngest uncle’s house in the first place.

Her dad was coming back tomorrow.

Her father, Su Dakui, couldn’t stand seeing the three sisters suffer even the slightest grievance. It wasn’t acceptable even in the Su family, let alone at his brother-in-law’s house.

Just wait, tomorrow was bound to be quite a show.

Sure enough, at cockcrow, with the morning star still out and the sun not yet risen, the big iron gate in the yard rattled.

Su Huandan sprang out of bed, threw on an outer jacket, shoved on her shoes, and ran off. Before her mother could get up, she hurried to open the door for her dad.

The moment she saw her father, Su Huandan’s tears came pouring down.

Translator’s Notes