Chapter 1: Back to the Seventies

Chapter 1

A nauseatingly sour stench rushed into her nostrils, causing the unconscious girl's eyebrows to wrinkle tightly. There was also a spicy taste in her mouth, accompanied by lewd laughter.

The bald old man trembled with excitement as he reached out to the girl, trying to unbutton her top, his flushed red face and thick neck showing his arousal.

An ZhiXia suddenly opened her eyes to see the man grinning, baring his rotten yellow teeth as he tried to kiss her. The disgust was so extreme that she nearly threw up.

Seeing that she was awake did not scare the old man at all, it actually excited him more. "Little darling, it's good that you're awake. It's better than being a dead fish with no vigor."

The old man lunged at An ZhiXia, but she kicked him hard in the chest, knocking him flat on his face.

This familiar scene inevitably reminded her of the tragic scene before her death.

An ZhiXia, who had just turned eighteen, was sold by her parents to an old widower in the deep mountains for twenty dollars.

Without even consulting her, they had drugged her. When she woke up, she saw an old man groping her.

Resisting led to An ZhiXia being strangled to death by the old man. After her death, her body was dismembered and buried in the mountains.

Perhaps because she died such an unjust death, her soul did not dissipate. Instead, it floated back to her original home, only to find out that her death had been premeditated all along.

She heard her adoptive parents discussing, "Don't worry, I asked around for that man on purpose. He's ugly and vicious. His former wife was beaten to death by him. That wretched girl Xiao Cao already has a weak constitution. She definitely won't last more than a few days before she's dead. Then no one will know what we did... MeiYun can properly become the precious daughter of the family..."

An ZhiXia was still called Xiao Cao at the time. It was not until decades later when her fourth brother figured out the truth and came here, that she was given the name An ZhiXia. By then, her body had long decayed with no one knowing where the pieces were scattered. Her brother could only grab a handful of soil from the deep mountains and make a symbolic grave for her, and give her a proper name.

To understand An ZhiXia's background, one has to go back eighteen years.

In 1952, the wife of the Gao family had difficulties giving birth, so she was sent to the next village over to the midwife's home to deliver the baby. Coincidentally, the midwife's daughter had a miscarriage from falling over at her own home. The two women gave birth at the same time - one was from an impoverished rural family, the other had married into a family with public employment in the city, the difference in their circumstances was huge.

So Mrs. Gao devised a plan to switch her newborn daughter for the other family's newborn twin girls.

She heard that making wishes when meteors fall is very effective, so every time one passed, she would make a wish for herself, from originally wishing for An MeiYun to meet a horrible end, to later wishing for the An family members to live well. None of the wishes came true.

Now, she only hoped that she could forget the past and re-enter the cycle of reincarnation.

Whether by misfortune or luck, a meteor flew straight at her. No matter how she desperately floated away, it still hit her and knocked her back to the 1970s, the year she turned eighteen.

"Damn you, you little bitch, how dare you attack me! I will make you know your place today..." The man cursed as he climbed to his feet, face twisted in anger as he grabbed An ZhiXia's hair.

The intense pain nearly tore her scalp off, instantly clearing An ZhiXia's mind. She reached up to claw the man's eyes.

After being a ghost for a hundred years, she had seen all kinds of things. She was no longer that timid, helpless victim.

The old man was caught off guard as An ZhiXia jabbed his eyes. He immediately howled in pain as his hands released her hair to cover his temporarily blinded eyes.

At this moment, An ZhiXia was filled with the urge to kill the man, but heat surged through her drugged body, making her dizzy and limp.

"You damn slut, how dare you scratch me. I'll be waiting for the drugs to kick in, then you'll be throwing yourself at me begging me to f**k you..."

The man covered his eyes and laughed manically, "You're lucky I'm willing to sleep with you. Don't pretend to be shy, just satisfy me well and I may show you some mercy, comfort you a bit. If you keep acting coy, I'll break your legs tomorrow and make you lay there like a beast..."

His vulgar curses were cut off as An ZhiXia grabbed the coarse ceramic bowl from the table and smashed it on his head, instantly splitting his forehead and making blood gush out.

Taking advantage of the man's panic, An ZhiXia groped her way to the door, opened it and rushed outside.

The sound of barking dogs came from behind, but An ZhiXia, who had finally regained a chance at life, absolutely could not give in - she would face the same fate as her previous life if she did.

She had to live. She had to properly live this life.

Live to expose An MeiYun and the Gao family's true natures, and take back the life that belonged to her.