Back to the City in the 1980s: My Whole Family Transmigrated

Completed novel: Six Zero-Era Reconstituted Family

I revise this story constantly, so the version on Jinjiang is the authoritative one.

Story blurb: After finishing her quick transmigration missions, Yang Bao is sent by the System into the world of a book. According to the plot, the college entrance examination will be reinstated this year. At the end of the year, her mother will receive an acceptance letter from a university in the capital, while her father, who hates studying, will somehow secure a chance to return to the city. The two will divorce by agreement, each taking one of her older brothers, and leave her behind at the farm.

On her first day after transmigrating into a book, her father climbs out of a ditch and rushes to the hospital. Standing beside her bed, he whispers, "Mingzhu, is that you?"

Yang Bao's long lashes flutter. In the first world she transmigrated into, she saved a corrupted prime minister, and her prime minister father named her "Mingzhu."

On the second day, her mother wakes from a coma and hugs her, sobbing, "Zhuzhu..."

Only her powerful mother in the wasteland used that nickname, because both mother and daughter had been going crazy with their craving for meat.

On the fourth day, her eldest brother comes to see her at the town hospital and carefully asks, "Yang Bao, do you remember the first mech I made for you?"

On the Nth day, some children from the farm corner Yang Bao by a stream. Her second brother dashes over, gets down on all fours in front of her, and barks furiously at them. Could he be her twin brother from the world of animals, a Shar-Pei?

At first: Dad only wants to make life better for the family and give his daughter a good home. He submits articles, goes to school, stays on as a teacher, then starts a law firm.

Mom's goal is to have meat at every meal, but after finding a copy of The World Wildlife Alliance in the wasteland, she starts raising one rare animal after another.

There aren't many toys for children in the 1980s, and Big Brother doesn't want his little sister to miss out on anything in her childhood, so he makes toy after toy for her.

Little Brother has an exceptionally keen nose, but he's quite playful and just wants to spend every day having fun with his sister.

Later: Dad becomes a famous lawyer and professor at home and abroad.

Mom becomes an environmental ambassador and horticulturist.

Big Brother joins the gifted youth program early, then goes on to graduate school and a research institute.

At eighteen, Little Brother enlists and is stationed on the frontier. To major criminals, he's known as the "King of Hell."

Reader's guide: Ensemble cast, cozy everyday life

Next novel: The Return-to-the-City Years

Yang Qiudie is born into the year 1956, but can never fully control her own body. She is developmentally disabled and slow to speak. After her parents pass away, she lives with her grandparents.

In 1972, her grandfather dies saving a sent-down youth named Chu Chen. Her grandmother falls ill soon after and never recovers. To repay the family, Chu Chen agrees to marry Yang Qiudie at her grandmother's bedside.

When the college entrance exams arrive, their daughter is already three, and Yang Qiudie is pregnant again. Chu Chen hesitates over whether to take the exams, but Yang Qiudie picks up a pen and writes one character: "Take them."

The university acceptance letter arrives: Peking University. Everyone in the village worries Chu Chen will leave and never come back, but he decides to take his wife and children with him to study.

In her previous life, Yang Qiudie was a perfumer. Before leaving, she insists on packing half a sack of rotten wood (agarwood) and bringing a pot of broad-leafed plants (orchids).

That autumn, a flower shop and an incense workshop open on a street not far from Peking University.

Reader's guide: Primarily everyday life

Coming soon: Wilderness Survival in the Entertainment Industry

A washed-up actor and actress fall out of love. As they divorce, they accidentally sign up for a family edition of a wilderness survival show.

The actor puts on an act, the actress is a diva, their son is rebellious, and their daughter is unruly.

When Jiang Han arrives, the whole internet is jeering and mocking them. Netizens are singing the family's swan song.

Roll up her sleeves and get to work. Farming, catching snakes, killing chickens, crossing cliffs: could any of that be harder than living in the wasteland?!

He Qie was born into an aristocratic family in the Western Jin dynasty. Blunt, unrestrained, handsome, and unconventional, he likes drinking, philosophical conversations, and roaming the mountains and rivers. Then, in a single day, he transmigrates through time and finds himself under the spotlight. Netizens mock him for getting two characters wrong in an idiom, say he's pretending to be cultured while forgetting the lyrics to a song, and blast him for lecturing his daughter. What a hypocrite!

Come on, let's learn traditional characters and seal script. Let's learn about the erhu, xiao, flute, xun, sheng, and drums.

Theme: May the nation grow prosperous and its people strong