Lin Wan’s Change of Fortune

From the time Lin Wan could remember, the words “walking disaster” had been stamped on her forehead. She could twist an ankle on level ground, choke on water, and always draw the worst lot. When she and her lucky cousin went to the countryside, everyone said one of them was a born good-luck charm, while the other was doomed to suffer as her foil. Her cousin was reborn, had the script in hand, and knew which mountain hid precious medicinal herbs, which old man had rare stamps tucked away, and which day a benefactor would pass through.

Lin Wan planned to watch her cousin shine while she quietly worked the fields, hoping to earn one extra work point a day. But things gradually started to go wrong... Her cousin confidently led people up the mountain to dig for ginseng, but after hours of digging, they unearthed nothing but a nest of radishes. Meanwhile, on her way home, Lin Wan was knocked unconscious by a wild rabbit. When she woke up, she had a century-old ginseng root in her arms. Σ( ° △ °|||)

Her cousin tried to befriend a young intellectual who would one day become a tycoon, but he brushed her off and instead followed Lin Wan around every day, asking eagerly, “Comrade Lin Wan, do you need anyone to lend you a hand today?”

Her cousin tried to steal the county’s only recommendation slot, but the leader specifically chose Lin Wan, who had “developed a new method for growing sweet potatoes that yields three hundred jin per mu.”

The cousin with the script in hand completely lost it and shouted, “This isn’t scientific! What kind of golden finger do you have?!”

Lin Wan, munching on a sweet potato, looked bewildered. “What’s a golden finger? I’m just not very lucky. Look, this sweet potato’s even a little burnt.”

Everyone stared at the roasted sweet potato in her hand, crispy on the outside, tender on the inside, and wonderfully fragrant, and fell into a long silence.

#I thought I was a walking disaster,