Chapter 1: Return to 1960

“Hiss!”

The icy air seeped into his lungs, sending sharp pain through his chest.

Zhang Yang lay still for a long while before finally opening his eyes.

The entire forest was blanketed in pure white snow. The mountain wind howled, making the tree branches creak and groan.

He shivered again.

He realized he was wearing nothing but a thin, tattered coat, his legs buried in the snow, and in his hands was a sharpened wooden spear.

What was happening?

Hadn’t he just won the shooting championship, about to step onto the stage to accept his award, and then accidentally tripped?

How did he wake up to find himself in an utterly different world?

The scene was at once familiar and strange, slowly stirring distant yet profound memories.

“Sister!”

Zhang Yang’s whole body trembled. He shouted, and then, without a second thought, dashed toward the eastern edge of the woods.

He had been reborn!

He was back in his old hometown, Zhang Family Village in Northeast China, in 1960.

December 31st, 1960.

He could never forget this day.

His eldest sister, desperate to feed her child, was ruthlessly humiliated and tormented by her mother-in-law and sister-in-law simply for eating an egg. Even worse, because she’d given birth to a girl, they considered it a waste of food and a burden. Her husband's family, along with her husband, tried to drown the child.

Unable to bear the pressure, his sister finally jumped off a cliff with her baby in her arms, ending her own life.

Her husband’s family felt not a shred of remorse. Instead, they came to demand restitution, and relying on the fact that her uncle was the captain of the militia, they forcibly took away his two younger sisters. Their fate was tragic.

His mother, Li Huifang, was devastated and fell gravely ill, passing away not long after.

Zhang Yang hated them with all his heart, but, weak and powerless, he had no choice but to leave the Northeast, filled with bitter frustration.

Later, riding the wave of economic reforms, he went south, became a renowned tycoon, pushed himself to train his body, learned combat and shooting skills, yearning to make himself stronger. But his family was long gone, and nothing could make up for it.

On the day his sister jumped off the cliff, he had been hunting in the woods less than a kilometer away.

If only he had walked a few steps further, she wouldn’t have died!

He never imagined Heaven would give him another chance.

“Sister, wait for me—please wait for me!” Zhang Yang ran with everything he had, a whirlwind tearing through the forest.

He kept running until his lungs felt like they would burst, and at last, he saw a familiar silhouette.

It was his eldest sister, Zhang Yan.

He dared not call out, afraid to startle her.

Carefully, he approached.

Zhang Yan was holding her swaddled baby, her frail figure standing right at the edge, as if a single gust of wind could topple her.

Yet she stood stubbornly, her clothes ragged, hair a tangled mess.

“Yaya, our lives are too bitter, living only means suffering. Rather than endure this, it’s better to end it all now. Come with Mama, we’ll meet again in the next life…”

Just as she closed her eyes, ready to leap, a pair of strong hands seized her around the waist and pulled her down to the ground.

“Hahaha, I saved her—I saved her!” Zhang Yang gulped air, laughing and crying at once.

A scene he’d relived endlessly in dreams—how could he fail now?

“Yangyang, why are you here?” Zhang Yan stared in disbelief. “Are you alright?”

“Of course I’m alright!” Zhang Yang scolded, “Sister, is it worth sacrificing yourself and your child for a family of beasts? If you can’t live with your husband’s people, why not come back? You have me, Mother, Feifei and Wenwen—how can you bear to leave us behind…”

“Yangyang, I… I didn’t want to, I was forced, I had no other way… sob, sob…” Zhang Yan, seeing her brother, finally found an outlet for all her grievances.

“It’s alright, Sister. If you can’t live with them, then don’t! Come home with me!” Zhang Yang took the baby from her arms, gazing at the tiny, frail child, his heart aching, vowing to raise her strong and healthy.

They trudged through the snow, step by difficult step.

“Squeak, squeak…”

Suddenly, a cry startled Zhang Yan.

But Zhang Yang was thrilled.

A wild rabbit!

It was a trap he’d set earlier. He remembered in his previous life, he’d waited all day and caught nothing.

Did his change trigger some butterfly effect this time?

“Haha, Heaven is kind—we’ll have meat tonight!”

He handed Yaya back to Zhang Yan and pulled the rabbit from the trap.

Goodness, at least five or six pounds!

A cluster of low, mud-brick houses with blue tile roofs made up Zhang Family Village, home to more than a hundred people.

It was mealtime, yet not a single plume of smoke rose from any chimney, filling him with sadness.

In these calamitous years, not only their village, but all across the country, droughts and floods raged, countless died of hunger and drowning.

Fortunately, Zhang Family Village backed up against the mountains, and they could still fill their bellies with wild vegetables and game—not enough to be full, but enough to survive.

“Ouch!”

Zhang Yang had just pushed the door open when he nearly collided with someone. “Mother, what are you doing?”

“Yangyang?” Li Huifang, draped in a shabby coat, was clearly about to head out. She glared at him. “You little rascal, how can you ask what I’m doing! It’s dangerous in the mountains for a day—what if something happened to you, what would I do?”

“Don’t ever go again!”

“Mother, what could happen to me! Look what I brought back!” Zhang Yang shook his prize.

“A… a rabbit?”

Li Huifang froze, her thin body stiffening beneath her battered coat.

The next moment, joy flooded her face.

“We’ll have meat tonight!” Zhang Yang grinned.

“Brother!”

“Brother!”

Two little girls, hair tied in pigtails sticking up, were huddled by the stove baking wild vegetable cakes. Hearing there was meat, they bounced over, each hugging one of Zhang Yang’s legs. “Brother, really, will there be meat?”

“Brother, I haven’t eaten meat in so long!”

One was Zhang Wen, five years old; the other, Zhang Fei, only three.

They were Zhang Yang’s sisters.

Because of malnutrition, both girls were thin, their hair dry and split.

“Tonight, eat your fill—go wild!” he said.

“Yay, I want lots of meat!”

“Brother is amazing!”

Wenwen and Feifei danced with joy.

“Alright, don’t stand in the doorway—it's so cold outside!” Li Huifang pulled Zhang Yang inside.

“Wait, besides the rabbit, look who else I brought home!” Zhang Yang stepped aside, revealing Zhang Yan behind him.

“Yan’er? You’ve come home?” Li Huifang was both surprised and delighted, quickly ushering her in. “Come inside, I haven’t even properly seen my granddaughter yet!”

“Mother, Sister’s in-laws tried to drown her baby, forced her to the edge—luckily I found her in time, otherwise it would have been too late!” Zhang Yang said angrily.

“What? That Wang family is truly heartless! Daughter, it’s all my fault—when your father broke his leg and couldn’t work, we couldn’t even keep food on the table, so I married you off to the Wang family for ten pounds of flour…” Li Huifang was furious, wiping away tears.

The Wang family lived in the neighboring village, Five Mile Post, notorious for their bad reputation.

Ever since her daughter married into that family, she’d heard nothing but stories of her being bullied—a hard-faced mother-in-law, a spiteful sister-in-law, and her husband, Wang Jie, with his foul temper, always ready to hit.

Especially now, after giving birth to a daughter, she was treated with even less respect.

If life had been bearable, she wouldn’t have wanted to jump off a cliff.

“Wah!”

Just then, the baby in the swaddling cloth burst out crying.

“The child must be hungry—quick, feed her!” Li Huifang wiped her tears.

“Mother, my body’s no good—I can’t produce milk!” Zhang Yan’s face flushed with shame.

“What can we do? All we have are wild vegetable cakes, we can’t make porridge!” Li Huifang fretted.