“Mmh…”

“It hurts…”

Her throat felt scorched raw, like someone had dragged fire through it. Every breath scraped, and her chest felt fit to burst.

Leanne Fairfax forced her eyes open. What met her was a pitch-dark roof beam and mud walls matted with spiderwebs.

The quilt on her was torn, stiff, and carried a heavy sour smell of mildew.

A flood of memories that did not belong to her came crashing into her head. Her temples throbbed hard, one pulse after another.

She had transmigrated.

And of all things, she had landed inside one of those melodramatic period novels she’d picked up off the office floor after work.

She had only flipped through it because the cannon-fodder supporting girl in the book had the same name as her. After a few pages, she’d thought the plot was so absurd it was almost insulting, so she tossed it onto her desk and forgot about it.

Early summer, 1975. Kaoshan Tun, Ji Province.

Stepmother Vivienne Stanton. Stepsister Bonnie Fairfax. Forced marriage. Jumping into the river. High fever…

Leanne Fairfax wanted to laugh, but her face was so stiff she could barely move a muscle.

One second ago, she had still been sitting in a high-end office tower, the boss of an internet company.

The next, she had become a throwaway female side character in a period novel, the kind who wouldn’t even survive two chapters.

Now that was one hell of a transmigration.

By instinct, she raised a hand and touched her chest.

A faint reddish mark in the shape of a jade pendant rested hot against her skin.

The moment her mind stirred, that stretch of familiar black soil, that house, the warehouse packed to the brim, and the little spirit spring creek all came into her thoughts, clear as day.

Everything was still there.

Leanne finally let out a breath. Her whole body loosened at once, and she collapsed back onto the brick kang.

This was the jade-pendant space she had created in her previous life.

As long as that space remained, even a dead end could be turned around.

“Rex Holloway, you lame cripple, you’ve still got the nerve to loiter in my yard? Why don’t you take a piss and look at yourself first? You think you’re worthy of marrying our Qinghuan?”

The yelling came through the wooden door.

“Get lost, now. Don’t stand here ruining our Qinghuan’s chance to move to the city and live well. The old Chen family has a tiled house and a sewing machine. What can you offer? A few rotten sweet potatoes?”

That shrill, mean voice belonged to Vivienne Stanton.

“Ma, why even waste words on a cripple like him? Just drive him off. He’s bad luck.”

That one was Bonnie Fairfax, the sweet-faced little schemer from the book, the one who climbed upward by stepping all over the original host.

Leanne stared at the blackened ceiling while her mind ran fast.

The original host had been forced to marry Old Chen in the county town, an elderly widower who had beaten two wives to death. In despair, she had thrown herself into the river.

The one who pulled her out was the man outside, the one being cursed at right now: Rex Holloway.

Because he had given the original host mouth-to-mouth and damaged her reputation, Rex had come to the house in person to say he would marry her and take responsibility.

And Vivienne Stanton had driven him straight out.

In the end, the original host was still sent off to the Chen family and tortured to death there.

But what about the man outside?

Right now, he was just a discharged lame veteran nobody thought much of. Later, he would become a major business tycoon and stay unmarried his whole life.

The truth was, even now he was already the boss of the black market. The whole county’s underground trade ran through him.

This was the turning point of the story.

A man like that, a perfect hidden winner, and they wanted to throw him away so she could marry some old monster instead?

Sell her off for cash?

In their dreams.

Leanne braced herself against the edge of the kang and struggled to move her legs to the floor.

The second her feet touched the ground, her vision went dark.

This body was far too weak.

Starved for years, badly clothed, worked half to death, and now hit with a raging fever—this body was like a rag doll ready to fall apart at one poke.

She still couldn’t drink the spirit spring water yet. In a minute, she needed to play pitiful.

If she drank from the spring and recovered too quickly, not only would she fail to look miserable, she might even make people suspicious.

She first took a fever pill and a bottle of mineral water out of her space, swallowed the medicine, then quickly put the bottle back.

No way was she going to let herself get cooked stupid.

Then she gritted her teeth, gathered what strength she had, and slammed toward the rickety wooden door.

Bang!

The door crashed hard into the wall, kicking up a thick cloud of dust.

The cursing in the yard stopped all at once.

Vivienne Stanton, who had been standing there with one hand on her hip and the other flying as she scolded, jumped in fright and whipped her head around.

Bonnie Fairfax had been unwrapping a White Rabbit milk candy. Her hand shook, and the candy dropped to the dirt.

In the middle of the yard, the man in the washed-faded army green jacket had just turned to leave.

Hearing the noise, he stopped and looked back.

He was tall, straight as a pine, though his left leg carried a slight hitch.

His face was sharply cut, his features deep-set. There was a scar across his brow bone, not too deep, not too shallow, but enough to make him look fierce.

One glance told you he was not the sort of man people dared push around.

This was Rex Holloway, twenty-three this year.

A future giant in business.

At present, a newly discharged lame veteran, and in the shadows, the king of the black market.

Only he was still young now, still in that stage where he kept his head down and built his strength.

Leanne held onto the doorframe, almost half her body leaning on it just to keep from falling.

The old clothes on her were patched and hanging loose. She was so skinny she looked like a dry stalk, as if one strong gust could blow her flat.

But she stared right at Rex Holloway, her eyes bright.

“Who said I’m not marrying?”

Her voice was terribly hoarse, but the words came out firm.

“I’m marrying Rex Holloway.”

Rex looked at her. A flicker of surprise crossed those dark, heavy eyes.

Vivienne froze for a beat, then jumped like someone had stepped on her tail.

“You little money-losing brat, has the fever burned your brain out? That’s lame Holloway! What kind of good life can he give you? You want to marry him and live on the northwest wind?”

She rushed over in a few quick steps, raising a hand to shove Leanne back inside.

“I found you a fine marriage and you won’t take it. You’d rather follow this cripple? You trying to anger me to death?”

That filthy hand was just about to grab Leanne’s arm.

If this had been the old Leanne Fairfax, she would already have curled up in fear.

But this Leanne didn’t dodge in panic.

She only shifted slightly to the side, neatly avoiding Vivienne’s hand, then looked coldly at that ugly face.

“A good life? Since it’s so wonderful, why don’t you save it for Bonnie Fairfax?”

Vivienne’s hand stopped in midair.

The neighbors watching from the wall burst into laughter.

“Exactly, Vivienne Stanton. If Old Chen’s family is that great, marry your own daughter over there.”

“I heard the last wife he had got beaten so badly her ribs broke and pierced her lungs…”

The voices came from all directions, buzzing around like mosquitoes.

Vivienne’s face turned red, then white, then red again, like a dye shop exploding across her skin.

She slowly drew back her hand, her eyes darting around. Those triangular eyes were full of calculation.

The two hundred yuan bride price from the Chen family had already been used the other day to help her younger brother Felix Stanton build a house.

And money once spent did not claw its own way back.

If Leanne didn’t go to the Chen family, who was supposed to fill that hole?

No. She absolutely could not let this dead girl ruin things.

Vivienne clenched her teeth and simply went all in.

She turned around, spread her hand toward Rex and the Holloway family behind him, and said, “Fine! If you really want to take her home, then fine!”

“The Holloway family has to pay five hundred yuan in bride price! Not a cent less!”

“Pay the money, and you take her. If you can’t, then she’ll march herself properly into the Chen family!”

Five hundred yuan?

In those days, a city worker only made twenty or thirty a month.

In the countryside, marrying a wife usually meant a bride price of a few dozen yuan at most, and most of that would be returned with the dowry.

Five hundred yuan—that was asking for Rex Holloway’s life.

That was daylight robbery.

Off to the side, Bonnie Fairfax picked up the milk candy, blew the dust off it, and added with open glee, “That’s right. My sister looks like this, five hundred isn’t even expensive. Lame Holloway, can you afford it? If you can’t, then get out of here.”

Rex stood there rooted in place, fist clenched so tightly into the hem of his clothes that the veins stood out on the back of his hand. He looked again at Leanne by the doorway and opened his mouth.

“I can get—”

“No need!”

Leanne cut him off suddenly, her voice colder than before.

She let go of the doorframe and staggered her way to Rex.

Then she stopped between him and Vivienne.

She was all bones and no weight, but standing there like that, she still looked like a wall.