Reborn in 1975: Shaping the Future of the Countryside

Lin Yu is the scourge of the whole compound. He digs up bachelors’ graves, barges into widows’ homes, steals candy from children, and gropes women. “Hated by everyone” doesn’t even begin to describe him. At last, justice catches up with him: the Red Armbands arrest him and charge him with hooliganism. With his father Lin Qingshan pulling strings, Lin Yu manages to save his life. His sentence is commuted to labor reform, but just as he’s about to leave, he’s sent to the countryside as an educated youth instead. Even in the countryside, Lin Yu refuses to mend his ways. After getting drunk one night, he takes advantage of Jin Tingting, the village secretary’s only daughter. The Jin family is furious and wants to kill Lin Yu, but for their daughter’s sake, they can only beat him severely and let the matter drop. They marry Jin Tingting off to him, and from then on Lin Yu leads a carefree life, eating and taking whatever he wants from his in-laws, with his wife, daughter, and father-in-law supporting him. When he’s in a bad mood, he can even complain to them. But the good times don’t last. The truth comes out that Lin Qingshan turned a hooligan who should have been executed by firing squad into an educated youth, and the family is plunged into turmoil. When Lin Yu hears the news, he loses his greatest support and sinks even further. His wife and daughter become targets for his anger. Two years later, his wife Jin Tingting dies in childbirth. When their daughter grows up, she refuses to acknowledge him as her father and looks at him as if he were her enemy. As time goes by, Lin Yu gradually regrets what he’s done, but it’s too late. Even after he later becomes a powerful figure, every moment away from work is filled with longing and guilt for his wife and daughter. When he falls gravely ill, he wants to see his daughter one last time. But as she says, “Mom hasn’t seen me in so many years. She must miss me terribly,” he dies with boundless regret.