章)The scorching heat of July was unbearable, the sun baking down as if to melt the very people it touched. Before noon, the stone benches in the pavilion had become scorching hot, and sitting on them felt like sitting on a stove constantly radiating heat. The occasional breeze that blew by was also hot and stuffy, adding to the oppressive heat.
Sitting across from Wendy was a man of twenty-three, who looked more like thirty-two, with a slightly yellowish face covered in a red and purple pockmarked complexion. His oily hair was combed into a 3/7 parting that he seemed to think was attractive, and his slightly drooping, puffy eyes stared straight at her with an oily and lecherous gaze.
Wendy, with her eyes cast down, played with her nails, her fair and slender fingers tapping idly. She could no longer endure the sticky gaze from across the table that made her feel nauseous.
Wendy never thought she would one day be reduced to with someone like him, who she would have found unbearable and eye-sore in her previous life with just a glance.
Half a month ago, she had accidentally slipped and fell in her bathroom, killing herself in the process. Then she found herself transported into the period novel she had been reading before her death, becoming the character who shared her name and who had left her husband, the male supporting character, because she couldnt bear the loneliness and ran off with a literary and artistic educated youth.
The plot of the novel hadnt started yet; the female protagonist hadnt been reborn, and the original body hadnt yet drowned and been rescued by the male supporting character, leading to their marriage.
The original body had just graduated from high school for a year and had applied to the Workers-Peasants-Soldiers University, but her spot was taken by a leader of the commune for their relative. According to the information gathered by the original bodys father, next years spot was also predetermined for someone else.
In summary, the original bodys dream of attending the Workers-Peasants-Soldiers University was shattered.
At her age, if she didnt continue her studies, she was considered old for marriage in the countryside. But the original body had suffered during the famine years, eating too much clay, which had weakened her health. She had been sickly these past few years, barely doing anything but studying and spending a lot of money on nutritional supplements each month. She was known in the village as the sickly beauty.
As a result, when the family announced that they were looking for a match for the original body, no matchmaker was willing to take on the task, even with the promise of a heavy reward. Those who were willing to introduce her were all unsatisfactory.
The original bodys parents were desperate. They made her work during the last busy farming period, hoping to change the villagers perception of her. However, on her first day of work, she wore too many clothes and fainted from the heat, causing a big joke.
The original body, who had already been hit hard by losing her chance at university, became more depressed. After suffering from heatstroke at work and hearing the village children laughing at her, she couldnt take it and cried under the covers until she couldnt catch her breath and passed away, allowing Wendy to take her place.
Due to the severe heatstroke that almost cost the original body her life, Wendys parents and brothers were afraid and heartbroken. They didnt ask her to work anymore and only asked her to learn how to do housework at home.
The Wen family was large, with more than a dozen people from old to young. Cooking three meals a day was exhausting, not to mention washing the clothes of more than ten people, all covered in mud.
Wendy, in her previous life, was a natural homebody, coddled by her grandparents who pitied her for losing her parents at a young age.
Even when they discovered that she had a golden tongue that could taste all flavors and was a natural heir to the familys culinary legacy, they didnt force her. They let her learn if she wanted to, without making her toil in the kitchen.
After her grandparents passed away, she forced herself to be independent.
But that was relative.
She had a large sum of insurance money left by her parents, a large collection of jewelry from her grandmother, her grandfathers private restaurant and some shares.
She had her own restaurant deliver food, used a washing machine for laundry, and hired a cleaning lady for major cleaning tasks. Occasionally, she would cook a couple of dishes to improve her taste, which was already her active response to life. She had never done such chores.
Over the past ten days, she had managed to learn how to cook with a wood-fired stove and adapt to the life of getting up early every day to wash clothes. She had even roughened her once fair and tender hands, only to face an ultimate question.
Marriage.
Wendy was not against marriage. This was not an era where being single was more carefree and happy, like decades later. It was 1975, two years before the college entrance examination. If she didnt get married, the Wen family would become a frequent topic of conversation in the village and surrounding areas, and the Wen family would worry about her to death.
Moreover, there were too many people in the Wen family, and such heavy housework was not something she could bear. The original bodys physique was also poor. Over the past ten days, she had not once finished her work without being out of breath and feeling dizzy.
Marrying a family with a good financial situation and fewer people, she could live more easily.
But she didnt expect the person she might marry to be so unattractive!
If she had to live with such a person, she would rather die again.
"I heard you graduated from high school. Why didnt your family arrange a job for you through connections?"
The mans mother, after introducing her familys "comfortable" conditions, began to pick on Wendy. She looked at Wendy up and down with a pair of drooping, triangular eyes, her gaze like that of someone examining goods for sale.
"What are you doing in the countryside now? Working in the fields or doing housework?"
"By the way, can you do housework?"
The woman said, staring at Wendys delicate, fair face, suspiciously:
"Looking at your face, its not very good. Its pale, not like a real person. Your body is also too thin. Have you been to the hospital? Is there any problem?"
"I dont mean anything else, but Chengcai is the only one in our family for three generations. Its not good to marry someone who is not healthy and cant have children and take them home."
The womans picky and mean face, the constantly searching, picky gaze, were more annoying than Wendys aunt who thought she had inherited too much and took advantage of her cousins, always speaking sarcastically to her.
Wendy felt sick and her fingernail-picking speed increased. This matchmaking was arranged by Wendys mother, who asked her to marry into the citys second aunt. It was said that the conditions were very good, working in the county committee, and the mother was the deputy director of the Ermian Factory. But... it was simply unbearable.
Glancing at her current mother, Su Guilan, and her second aunt, Su Guifen, Wendy saw that their faces were also very ugly, and Wendy felt relieved and a little better in her heart.
"The only one in three generations, with a good family, why bother looking for a rural one? Is there no girl in the city?"
"Your son is already ugly and dirty, and he