Trading Brides in the 1980s: The Newspaper Says I'll Die in Seven Days

Her older sister stole her city-dwelling suitor, but seven days later, she saw in the newspaper that she would die in that marriage. So she turned around and married a discharged soldier with an injured leg, a man everyone looked down on. With an old sewing machine, news from seven days in the future, and her own skill, she slowly turned poverty into a thriving business.

The day before the wedding, her older sister complained that Gu Tingzhou had an injured leg and came from a poor family, then cried and snatched Lin Xiuzhi's city-dwelling suitor.

Their mother forced her to marry the discharged soldier everyone avoided, saying, "You're the most understanding one."

Lin Xiuzhi had been unwilling.

Then an old ledger her father had left behind yielded a copy of the Qinghe County Gazette dated seven days in the future: a fire would break out in the Hongxing Garment Factory warehouse, and a newlywed factory worker would die in the flames. The man Lin Xiuzhi was supposed to marry would also be implicated.

She agreed to the marriage swap on the spot.

Everyone laughed at her hard luck, while her older sister waited to see her struggle through life with an injured husband and a house full of debt. But no one knew that the newspaper from seven days in the future appeared every day.

Fires, shortages, factory closures, disappearances...

The paper could only tell her how the future would turn out. Changing her fate was still up to her.

With an old sewing machine and years of skill, Lin Xiuzhi went from doing alterations at a street stall to running a sewing group. With ledgers, receipts, and good judgment, she repeatedly exposed the traps hidden beneath the facade of a respectable marriage and the glossy image of state-run factories.

As for the discharged soldier everyone despised, he might not know how to sweet-talk her, but he could repair her machine, scout the route, and carefully record every sum of money and every danger.

At first, they agreed only to share a home and get by.

Later, his name appeared in the newspaper from seven days in the future.