Chapter 106: Liu Yaner’s Nightmare Across Two Lifetimes

At Blackstone Village, at the brigade leader’s house.

When Liu Yaner came home for the winter holiday, she was still half in disbelief after hearing everything her parents had to say.

That overbearing sister-in-law, who always looked down her nose at her, had just died like that?

Liu Yaner asked, “Mom, did her family make a scene?”

Her mother let out a cold snort. “What scene? They were the ones who drove their own daughter out of the house. What does that have to do with our Liu family?”

“That’s right,” her father said with a frown. “That family was hardly human.

“She was dead, and yet they actually carried her body to the entrance of the supply and marketing cooperative to make trouble. In the end, the cooperative director had to step in and pay out a huge sum before they finally backed off.”

Liu Yaner asked, “Wasn’t that guy called Wangcai the cooperative director’s son-in-law? Didn’t he get punished?”

Her mother said, “Of course he did. The cooperative director had his daughter divorce him on the spot, then found a pretext to send him to the labor farm for reform.”

“And the Huang family got their own comeuppance a few days later. Huang the younger was reported for insulting women or something like that, and he was sent to the farm too.

“The Huang family spent a fortune trying to get him out. They emptied the whole household and still couldn’t pull him free. They’re probably sick with regret now.”

At that, her father still felt lingering fear. “Good thing we listened to that girl from the Lin family back then and didn’t go make a scene at the supply and marketing cooperative.

“That director is not someone to cross. He’s got powerful backing, far more capable than a little brigade secretary like me.”

After hearing all that gossip, Liu Yaner hesitated before asking, “Then... what about my big brother?”

She had been home for quite a while, but still had not seen a trace of him. Had he gone back to the army?

Her father said, “The day after that woman died, her family called the army and reported him. Your brother was discharged.”

“What? How could that happen?”

Liu Yaner felt a pang of sadness.

Her big brother had done plenty of foolish things, but they had still lived together for so many years.

Before he got married, he had doted on her very much.

Now that he had been suddenly thrown out of the army, his future had been ruined. What was he supposed to do from here on?

Liu Yaner asked, “Mom, he’s still living at home. Have you forgiven him?”

Nearly a month had passed, and Liu Yaner had thought her parents had come around.

Unexpectedly, the old couple answered in unison, “No.”

Liu Yaner hesitated. “Then meals and everything else...”

Her mother said, “He eats separately from us. I’m not making food for that unfilial son.”

Liu Yaner felt a little awkward. It looked like her mother was still furious.

Just as they were talking, a figure carrying a hoe appeared at the gate.

“Yaner’s back!” Liu Yaner’s elder brother said with obvious delight as he walked over. “Why didn’t you tell me in advance? I could have gone to town to pick you up!”

Looking at how much thinner her brother had become, Liu Yaner could not bring herself to say anything too harsh.

So she explained, “There’s been heavy snow these past few days. The school was worried the roads would be hard to travel, so it let us start winter break early.”

“Oh, oh, so that’s it.” Her brother set the hoe down from his shoulder, picked up the basket nearby, and smiled. “I’m going to the back mountain to dig up some wild ginger root. You love eating that most, so wait for me!”

Without waiting for Liu Yaner to react, he hurried off.

Watching his retreating figure, Liu Yaner felt a little dazed.

Her brother now seemed to have gone back to how he had been when they were children, all tenderness and concern whenever he looked at her. It actually felt rather nice.

Sigh. He did look pitiable.

If she got the chance, she would try persuading her parents again.

But by nightfall, just as she was thinking that, Liu Yaner had an extraordinarily strange dream.

In the dream, she lived through two lifetimes.

In the first life, for reasons she could not understand, she had become infatuated with Chen Guang, a sent-down youth, and had fought with Chu Ling over him until neither would back down.

Of course, in that dream too, there had been the matter of her sister-in-law wanting to marry her off to a fool in her place.

Her family had refused, and so her sister-in-law had made a daily uproar at home, eventually breaking her parents’ hearts and severing ties with her elder brother.

With no other choice, her brother had taken his wife back to the army.

Once there, under his sister-in-law’s coercion, he had begun borrowing money from his comrades everywhere to send to her natal family. Later the army discovered what he had done and discharged him.

Seeing that he was no longer of any use, his wife had simply aborted the child and divorced him. Less than a month later, she remarried.

Unable to withstand the blow, her brother collapsed at once.

Though their parents cared for him with all their heart and soul, he still died a year later.

Her parents were stricken with grief and could not emerge from the sorrow of losing a son for a long time.

In order to cheer them up even a little, Liu Yaner eventually gave up on Chen Guang, who had been stringing her along all along.

Under the matchmaker’s arrangements, she chose a family of decent means and married hastily into it.

After marriage, she kept having children, until she had given birth to five in total.

Every time she returned to her parents’ home and saw her parents surrounded by their grandchildren, that warm and cozy scene made Liu Yaner smile with happiness.

The dream of her first life ended there.

Soon, she dreamed of her second life.

Just like in the first life, she was still obsessed with Chen Guang.

Only Chu Ling had changed.

She looked down on Chen Guang completely and turned around to marry the village strongman, Han Guoqiang.

The two of them were formidable indeed, and they did very well for themselves in the village.

In this life too, her sister-in-law raised the matter of Liu Yaner marrying the fool in her stead.

But after the family refused, the sister-in-law did not make a scene again.

It was Chu Ling who privately talked her down and came up with a rotten idea for her.

That afternoon, on the day she happily returned from town after watching the cultural troupe perform, Liu Yaner suffered the most revolting and humiliating injury of her life.

She fell into the river and was groped by two strangers. After she was rescued to shore, the fool hugged and kissed her.

Under everyone’s watchful eyes, her reputation was utterly ruined.

She had no choice but to marry the violent fool.

From then on, she lived a hellish life, beaten every day by both her mother-in-law and that fool of a husband.

In the end, she could no longer bear it and jumped into the river with her child.

Her death dealt her parents a devastating blow, and within a few short years the old couple also passed away.

When her brother learned the news while on a mission in the army, he was so dazed that he suffered fatal injuries and never made it back alive.

By then, the courtyard of the Liu family had become utterly desolate, never again filled with laughter.

A rooster crowed.

In an instant, it pulled Liu Yaner back into reality.

She lifted a hand to her face.

It was wet with tears.