"Whoever wants to be a nurse can be one. Not me."
Those were Jiang Zhiyun's exact words when she quit her ICU job at a top-tier hospital.
She never expected to be reborn after suffering altitude sickness on a trip she'd taken after quitting.
She was reborn in 1974 as an educated youth sent to the countryside, assigned to Guangming Commune in Bao'an County.
She'd arrived just yesterday, and on her very first day of work, she suffered heatstroke.
After a full day of farm labor, she changed her tune overnight: Being a nurse was pretty great. At least you had a roof over your head, air conditioning, and set working hours.
To avoid working in the fields, she half-reluctantly became the village brigade's health worker.
Out loud: "Serving the people."
In her heart: "I just want a job where I don't have to bend over in the fields."
Red quotations were her shield, laziness her true nature, and craving tasty food her instinct.
Late at night, she'd shut the door and make sweet potato malt candy. The aroma drifted outside, and children would crouch beneath her window, sniffing.
When she came back from a house call, she'd find a lotus leaf parcel on her door latch. Inside were fat oysters, left by someone whose identity she couldn't guess.
Until one day, the lazy man from the village, who slacked off in the fields, crouched on the ridge and said to her, "You're putting on quite a convincing act."
She froze for three seconds, then smiled.
"So are you."
Only later did she find out that he could repair the commune's truck in half an hour.
When she married him, everyone in the village said the lazy good-for-nothing had married above his station by marrying an educated young woman.
Only the two of them knew that they'd found their own kind.
