Raising Kids in the 1990s

The long-form 1990s child-rearing novel in my column, Little Genius Loves Science, is complete and ready to read! My upcoming novel, Raising Kids on a 1970s Island, is open for preorders. Please add it to your favorites.

Chen Meiting would never forget that cold interrogation room in America. She had gone to visit her client, just as she always did.

Zhou Run had an exceptionally handsome face. Every piece of evidence from a cryptocurrency theft on Wall Street a few days earlier pointed to him. Zhou Run calmly accepted the charges and appointed Chen Meiting as his defense lawyer.

Zhou Run was the most capable hacker around. If he had not gone astray, he would have had a bright future. Now, with almost no way to clear his name, he would spend the rest of his long life in prison. Chen Meiting looked at him, weeping uncontrollably.

Zhou Run folded his hands and calmly asked, "Why are you crying, Mom?"

When Chen Meiting woke again, she had returned to the eve of her departure overseas. In that parallel timeline, after her divorce, she had cruelly left her five-year-old son behind to study abroad. Remembering what Zhou Run would become, Chen Meiting tore up her passport, picked up her luggage, and went home.

Not long after Chen Meiting returned home, she saw little Zhou Run talking into a toy phone as if it were real. "Big brother, you're lying! My mom has come back! She didn't abandon me!"

Please add my upcoming novel, Raising Kids on a 1970s Island, to your favorites!

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The beautiful Zhang sisters were famous far and wide. The elder sister, Zhang Chunhua, married a regiment commander. Though she became a stepmother, she lived in splendor as the wife of a senior officer. The younger sister, Zhang Chunling, married the son of a local factory owner. After China's economic reforms began, her husband was among the first to go into business, making a fortune and becoming one of the country's first newly rich.

Zhang Chunhua returned to the 1970s. When the Song family's matchmaker arrived with a marriage proposal, her mind filled with memories of the barren island, the cold man, and the troublesome children from her previous life. Meanwhile, Zhang Chunling lived in a mansion, and all her children had promising futures.

Given the chance to start over, Zhang Chunhua took her younger sister's life without hesitation.

Zhang Chunling followed her new husband to the island, while Zhang Chunhua got her wish and married the future richest man in the country.

During the difficult years, Zhang Chunhua's in-laws were branded capitalists, and the whole family was sent to live in a cowshed. She gritted her teeth and waited for better days. But she waited and waited, and more than a decade after the economic reforms, her husband was still down and out, with nothing to his name.

Meanwhile, after arriving on the island, Zhang Chunling used her knowledge to lead the island's soldiers and civilians in clearing land and growing grain. She also established a seafood processing plant and built a thriving life. She had her cold military-officer husband completely wrapped around her finger, and her three clever, lively stepchildren introduced her to others by saying, "She's my real mom. She gave birth to me!"

Theme: Family is the most precious thing in the world