My Grandfather’s Youth

[Complete | Bonus extra at the end]

As a child, Xia Le heard her grandfather recount countless old stories.

Those ancient tales were nothing like the world she knew. She listened for fun, sometimes getting bored, and never paid them much attention.

Until her grandfather died unexpectedly.

The light in Xia Le's life was gone.

After his death, everyone had something to say, and everyone blamed her.

Her grandfather's death became the deepest wound in her life, one that never healed with time.

At twenty-five, Xia Le was an adult, yet she stubbornly refused to forgive her younger self, keeping everyone forever shut out of her heart.

Then, when she suddenly opened her eyes, she had returned to the little village where she'd grown up, to the day of her grandfather's funeral.

It was like a dream. She had transmigrated.

The date was 1949, an era no one would ever forget:

Her grandfather's old world.

-

She did everything she could to stay by her grandfather's side in this era, determined to change his death.

But she had never imagined that her gentle, kindly grandfather had been... a cold, handsome young man in his youth.

Nothing seemed to be the way she'd imagined.

"My grandpa could've been a top-tier star in the modern era with a face like that!"

"What? My great-uncle, the ultimate free spirit, actually competed in the Olympics?!"

"My great-aunt wasn't Grandma's best friend back then, but her love rival?"

After everything she went through, Xia Le finally understood him, understood them, and understood that era.

Years later, Xia Le sat alone on the bamboo chair in the old house. The air was thick with the musty smell of age. Facing the light that slipped through the cracks, she repeatedly stroked an old photograph of six people.

"My grandfather... my grandfather really suffered his whole life..."

In the photograph, her grandfather only smiled gently, looking at her with the warmest light in the world in his eyes.

He said all that mattered was for Lele to be happy.

·Warnings·

1. This is not a wish-fulfillment story and has no golden finger. Its focus is healing and redemption.

2. The encounters between the characters and historical figures or events in this story are fictional.

3. Life was hard in that era, but I've made a few changes to the setting. At least people have enough to eat and wear, and everyone has a home.

4. For the sake of the plot, the author has made the elementary school curriculum the same as it is today, with Chinese, math, and English. This was not historically accurate.

5. There are both joys and sorrows. Simply surviving back then was difficult.

-2023.2.13-

[Serial novel: The Cheat-Code Darling of a Period Drama. The author is working hard on it. Please add it to your favorites!]

>>>Blurb:

Wen Jia, heir to a famous publicly traded conglomerate, transmigrates into a period novel as the unlucky female side character who dies young.

Just as her awful relatives take her property and poverty leaves her skin and bones, she unexpectedly awakens a farming skill.

Thanks to this skill, Wen Jia's savings grow steadily, and she gradually becomes healthy, rosy-cheeked, and plump.

The villagers look down on the Wen family, then suddenly realize that the family has produced a stunning beauty. She's gentle and kind, like a white lotus in clear water.

They can't sit still, and soon they're all rushing over to ask for matchmaking introductions.

The Wen family elders smile from ear to ear as they count the money, while her green-tea cousin points out the richest drunkard and tells Wen Jia to hurry up and marry him.

But Wen Jia, the little white flower who seems so easy to bully, casually pulls out a bankbook:

She has more money than the entire village put together!

Wen Jia: "Thanks, Cousin. If you like him, you can marry him yourself."

*

Song Xuting and Wen Li are the two men in their regiment that everyone knows not to mess with.

One is a young master with such powerful connections that even his superiors have to flatter him; the other is the young master's sworn brother.

One day, Wen Li, who's always been a free spirit, suddenly starts sobbing and begs for leave to go back to his hometown. When he returns to the regiment, he announces that he wants to introduce Song Xuting to someone:

The girl is supposedly his long-lost biological younger sister, named Wen Er Ya, and she's said to be good at farming.

Looking at Wen Li, the hopelessly doting brother, and the old-fashioned name Wen Er Ya, Song Xuting firmly turns him down.

Until much later, when the crops grown by the regiment keep failing and over a thousand people can't get a single vegetable to eat, Wen Li brings in his sister, who's supposedly good at farming.

The withered vegetable seedlings come back to life right in her hands.

Even the political commissar is alerted, and the higher-ups come in person to award the young woman.

Yet Song Xuting can't take his eyes off her as soon as he sees her.

Wait...

Isn't she Wen Jia, his fiancee from the twenty-first century in his previous life?!

Theme: Look back on the past and cherish the good life we have today.