[1990s setting + reborn stepmother + portable space + miniature world of antiques + getting rich from scrap collecting + raising children and changing their fates + face-slapping scumbags + love after marriage]
Only after she died did Jiang Wantang learn that her birth family had leeched off her all her life, and that she had personally failed her three stepchildren.
When she opened her eyes again, it was the twenty-third day of the twelfth lunar month in 1990. Her youngest son was burning with a fever and barely able to make a sound, while her younger brother had snatched the Lu family's last life-saving money to buy a color TV coupon. In her previous life, she had given in through tears, leaving the child with lifelong health problems. This time, she grabbed a kitchen knife and fought back for the money to save her child. Anyone who dared touch her babies would be made to spit back everything they'd taken.
That night, the silver bangle her mother had left behind opened a space for old items. Broken radios could be repaired, busted refrigerators could be fixed, and even torn account books could be restored.
The whole village laughed at her for collecting junk and said it wasn't respectable. A fake white lotus warned her that women shouldn't get their hands dirty, while her birth family called her unfilial and disowned her.
Jiang Wantang just kept records, collected goods, repaired old things, made money, and protected her children.
She repaired a broken radio bought for three yuan and twenty cents and sold it for twenty-seven. She turned a broken refrigerator bought for sixteen yuan into a steady source of rental income. Old factory equipment that others sold as scrap became her first big fortune after she refurbished it.
Later, the three children destined to become villains grew up to be her strongest allies, and her usually cold-faced husband pushed a toolbox toward her. "You collect. I'll fix."
Years later, Jiang Wantang became the county's biggest female business owner in the recycling industry.
Someone asked how she'd gone from collecting scrap to where she was today.
She smiled. "The thing I'm best at in this life is giving a good home to what everyone else has thrown away."
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