Chapter 1: Traveling Back to the Nineties

Early morning, the bright red sun rose.

At exactly seven o'clock in the morning, the loud sound of a bugle call for waking up rang out from the loudspeakers of the Shinnan Town Middle School.

Day students living near the middle school, urged on by the bugle, quickly got up, put on their white-shirt-and-blue-pants athletic uniforms, hurriedly wiped their faces, grabbed a dime from their drawers, slung their school bags over their shoulders, and dashed toward the school.

In a single-story house, Li Manjun, sleeping in bed, heard a commotion by her ears in a daze. She muttered something, grabbed her thin quilt, and pulled it over her head.

She lazed for a while longer like this before finally stretching a hand out from under the quilt, subconsciously groping around the side of her pillow.

Hmm?

Nothing?

Her palm stretched further, reaching for the nightstand. Her fingers grasped expertly, but she grabbed nothing but air!

Li Manjun was jolted wide awake and sat up in bed, flipping over pillows and throwing off the quilt, frantically searching for her phone!

After searching for a while, just as she was feeling panicked and completely insecure, she suddenly caught sight of a "Little Tigers" poster stuck to the small, empty bed next to hers, and her heart gave a violent jolt.

Where is this?

The tiny room was only ten square meters. With two single beds placed in an L-shape, plus a desk and a double-door wardrobe, it was packed to the brim.

And she was currently sitting on the bed that stood against the door.

The small bed against the window opposite was empty, and the wall was covered with a promotional poster for the Little Tigers, which even included a calendar.

Li Manjun walked off the bed as if in a dream and went to the poster, taking a look at the date on it.

1990?

She rubbed her eyes and looked again—it was still May 1st, 1990!

A wave of strange memories that did not belong to her suddenly surged forward, and Li Manjun clutched her head.

A moment later, Li Manjun let out a long "hoo~" of breath, collapsed back onto the bed, and stared at the wooden ceiling covered with newspaper, her eyes full of disbelief.

She had transmigrated.

Last night, she was still working overtime at a big company, pulling a "007" shift. She had stayed up too late and couldn't help but take a nap on the office sofa.

She never expected that upon opening her eyes, she would be in the year ninety.

The name of this body was also Li Manjun, just like hers.

But one was just over twenty, full of youthful vigor.

The other was over thirty, unmarried and childless, a high-level corporate slave.

This family of five included her father, Li Dawei, who worked as an accountant in the town government office.

At the beginning of this year, the state adjusted the salaries of cadres, raising his pay from 180 yuan a month to 220 yuan. He was the only person in the family with a stable source of income.

Her mother, Wang Xiaojuan, had been laid off in middle age, a huge blow that left her anxious every day about how to get through the rest of her life. She showed early signs of menopause, and her temper was explosive.

Li Manjun was the eldest in the family, with a 16-year-old younger sister and a 14-year-old younger brother below her.

Her sister, Li Lijun, had failed the high school entrance exam and was currently repeating a year, preparing to take the exam again in just over a month.

Her brother, Li Jianjun, was in his second year of middle school and was the apple of Li Dawei and Wang Xiaojuan's eyes.

In a backward town like Shinnan, although everyone publicly agreed with the national policy that "it makes no difference whether you have a boy or a girl," in reality, unless the firstborn was a son, people would continue to have more children.

This mindset had not disappeared even in the twenty-first century.

What Li Manjun felt fortunate about was that although her original parents were determined to have a son, they had still raised their two daughters with care.

Both Li sisters had hit the hurdle of the high school entrance exam. When Li Lijun proposed repeating a year, the couple, caught in the wave of layoffs, still gritted their teeth to pay her expensive tuition.

It was just that with only Li Dawei earning money now, and having to support two children in school, the whole family was facing immense financial pressure.

Li Manjun didn't know where the other Li Manjun had gone; perhaps she had transmigrated into her body.

Thinking of her own high-intensity "007" corporate slave life, Li Manjun observed a three-second silence for this girl who shared her name.

However, the situation of her new identity wasn't much better.

Her original life, tiring as it was, had a car, a house, seven-figure savings in the bank, and no worries about food or clothing.

But now, she had graduated from middle school, failed to get into a vocational school, and had gone to work as a temp at her mother Wang Xiaojuan's textile factory.

In March of this year, the textile factory went bankrupt.

Forced into unemployment and holding only a middle school diploma, it was too difficult for Li Manjun to find a stable job again, and she had been out of work at home for nearly two months.

Consequently, Li Manjun had become the "idle social element" in her parents' mouths, someone who "has hands and feet but is too lazy to move."

Her mother, Wang Xiaojuan, had only one thought now: to marry off this grown daughter so she could go and wreak havoc on someone else's family.

Having received these memories from the original owner, Li Manjun only wanted to say one thing: it turns out you can't escape parents nagging you to get married anywhere!

Li Manjun quickly accepted the fact that she had transmigrated. Looking on the bright side, this might be a chance for her to change her fate as a corporate slave.

She looked down at the old, washed-out pajamas she was wearing, patted her face to wake herself up, and got off the bed to go to the wardrobe.

Her sister, Li Lijun, had slept at a classmate's house last night and hadn't returned.

The sisters had always shared a wardrobe, but when Li Manjun opened it, most of the clothes inside belonged to Li Lijun.

It was with great difficulty that Li Manjun found a pair of pants that belonged to the original owner—a pair of pilling black stirrup leggings.

She looked at herself in the wardrobe mirror: a yellowed white T-shirt, leggings, and thick-soled black cloth shoes. Aside from the fact that her face still looked youthful, this outfit was incredibly tacky!

They say that parents with many children can't treat them all equally, and the Li family was no exception.

During the two years the original owner worked, she handed all her wages to the family, keeping nothing for herself, and usually wore the hand-me-downs of her cousins.

But Li Lijun was completely different. She had three pairs of the currently popular jeans—flared, straight-leg, and skinny, one of each.

She also had a stylish white dress and a pair of the most popular crystal plastic sandals.

These were all things Li Lijun had wheedled out of Wang Xiaojuan and her sister. She had a sweet mouth, and the family favored her more.

Even the desk by the window in the room was prepared specifically for Li Lijun to study.

It could be said that the eldest was the one with the least presence in the family—honest, obedient, and even a bit dull.

She was blunt when she spoke, which didn't make her very likable.

Li Manjun looked at the person in the mirror and sighed deeply.

Afterward, she took the two yuan of private money the original owner had hidden in her pillowcase, put it in her pocket, and opened the bedroom door.

When her mother, Wang Xiaojuan, saw her come out, she glanced at the wall clock in the main room—it was nine o'clock sharp—and immediately couldn't help but nag

"Did I owe you in my past life? Did the heavens send you, this ancestor, to torture me? You don't go to work, you don't do chores, you sleep more than a pig—you're a debt-collecting ghost!"

After she finished nagging, she chased after her daughter with a spatula, asking, "What do you think of that suitor your Auntie Wu told you about last time?"

Li Manjun was a bit dazed: "Who? Which suitor?"

Perhaps because she possessed the original owner's memories, Li Manjun actually felt very familiar with the environment that should have felt strange.

She tugged at her wrinkled T-shirt, picked up the enamel mug placed under the windowsill, squeezed out a bit of Darlie toothpaste, held the toothbrush in her mouth, and went to the sink in the small courtyard to fill a cup with tap water, brushing her teeth with a loud "hulu-hulu" sound.