On Hongqi Street in 1986, Xia Chan made the asphalt road sticky. Zhao Jianguo stared at the Erguotou in the enamel basin, as if there was a ball of red-hot coal stuck in his throat - this was his third life. In his first two lives, he either died drunk in the hospital, or fell under the knife of his wife Cheng Xiaomei and her ex-boyfriend.
After his rebirth, he emptied the wine cabinet overnight and was as cold as ice to the always domineering Cheng Xiaomei, but he was especially devoted to the 17-year-old Lin Wanqiu in the store: he never missed the meat buns every Wednesday, and he protected her when he made miscalculations, saying, "Children are bound to make mistakes." No one knew that this was compensation for what he owed in his previous life, but this compensation gradually led to even stranger things.
Cheng Xiaomei suddenly seemed like a different person: she put away her akimbo-swearing temper, hid under the lamp to learn accounting, and even took out her needle and thread to sew Zhao Jianguo's waistband at night; when her ex-boyfriend Zhou Zhiqiang came to the door wearing bell-bottom pants, she actually clutched the corner of Zhao Jianguo's clothes and trembled, even her voice trembled. Even more suspicious is Lin Wanqiu - she always flips through a small book with a worn cover behind the shelf. She clearly remembers what the customer wanted and which account Cheng Xiaomei miscalculated. When she occasionally raised her head, there was a calmness in her eyes that was inconsistent with her age, as if she was observing something.
The lipstick on the ledger had lost all the text, the note sent by Zhou Zhiqiang was secretly burned by Cheng Xiaomei, and a few lines of scrawled words occasionally appeared in Lin Wanqiu's little notebook, which was quickly turned over. The cicadas chirped more and more loudly. Zhao Jianguo touched Cheng Xiaomei's sewn waistband and suddenly felt that this rebirth was like a trap: he wanted to change his destiny, Cheng Xiaomei was hiding a secret, and the little girl who always lowered her head to arrange goods might have seen through everything.
