A Space for the Female Supporting Character in the Seventies

Coming soon: Marrying a Super Handsome Officer [Joining the Army in the Sixties]. Please add it to your reading list!

Yan Miao transmigrates into a pampered young woman in a novel set in the 1970s. Her family has elders to care for and children to raise, and every one of them is nearly starving, yet they tighten their belts to spend money on dressing her up. And what does she do? Nothing good. She makes a scene at every turn, does everything she can to oppose the heroine, and even fights her for a man.

Yan Miao recalls all the vicious things “she” did in the book and presses a hand to her forehead. Then she looks at her family: her grandparents, brothers, sisters, younger brother, and nephew all dote on her as if she were a treasure, while they themselves are so hungry they have grown pale and thin. Having grown up an orphan, she vows to make sure the whole family lives well!

Luckily, the storage space she has worn since childhood came with her. With the space at her disposal, what do material shortages and grinding poverty matter? None of it is a problem!

But why does the soldier who just moved back in next door keep sneaking looks at her and offering to help with her chores for no reason? Could he have discovered her little secret for getting rich?

Coming soon: Marrying a Super Handsome Officer [Joining the Army in the Sixties]. Please add it to your reading list!

After years of supporting her husband, Jiang Jian'an, through college, Xu Mingzhu is met with his disdain and cold treatment. In despair, she goes to the water's edge, but dies trying to save a child who has fallen in.

By a stroke of fate, she is reborn in 1960. The short, stout body everyone looked down on has grown taller, and her skin has become smooth and delicate.

Just then, Jiang Jian'an's mother comes to propose with a meager dried fish. Xu Mingzhu grabs the door bar and promptly beats the two of them out!

Jiang's mother stands at her gate, furious, and curses, “You stinking butcher! With looks like yours, you had to get incredibly lucky just to marry my son, and now you don't know what's good for you. Just wait, you'll grow old and alone. Let's see who'd want to marry you!”

“I will.” A pleasant, magnetic voice rings out from among the onlookers.

Xu Mingzhu and everyone else turn to see a tall, handsome man in a crisp military uniform, his looks putting Jiang Jian'an to shame.

As if afraid she might refuse, the man introduces himself: “My name is Gu Baichuan. I was just promoted to battalion commander. I'm usually stationed with my unit. If you don't want to live with my family, you can stay in your own home. The wedding gifts will include the three major items and the bicycle, radio, sewing machine, and watch. Nothing will be missing. Oh, and I earn eighty yuan a month. You can have all of it.”

Eighty yuan a month could buy more than a hundred jin of pork! Xu Mingzhu agrees at once. If she turned down a man like this, what could she possibly be waiting for?

>>>

On the first day after the wedding, Xu Mingzhu thinks that since she has married into a wealthy and influential family like the Gu family, she should get up early and make a good impression. But when she opens her eyes, the sun is already high in the sky.

Gu Baichuan rolls up his sleeves and carries a basin of water to the bedside, smiling. “You're awake, you sleepyhead. I've brought you water. Get up and wash up.”

Xu Mingzhu blushes scarlet.

On the third day after the wedding, Gu Baichuan returns to his unit.

A month later, letters start pouring in from the army like snowflakes. Xu Mingzhu can't read, so she takes them to ask her next-door neighbor, Auntie Zhang, to read them aloud.

Auntie Zhang holds a letter up to the light, squints, and reads: “To my dear Ms. Xu Mingzhu, I hope this letter finds you well. We have been apart since the third day of our marriage. I wonder if you think of me in your spare time. I miss you very much, your lovely face, your smooth skin, your snow-white...”

Those few short lines leave the butcher, who has slaughtered countless pigs, so embarrassed she wishes the ground would open up and swallow her. As the watching aunties burst into laughter, she snatches the letter and flees through the door.

She has to join the army! She has to go right away! She can't stay here another day!

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