A Roughneck from '99 Reinvents Himself as a Translator [Period]

Zhao Ling transmigrates to 1999, just before the millennium.

The good news: She's from a wealthy family and can go wherever she wants.

The bad news: She seems to have been laid off from the art factory.

She heads south to visit relatives and stays with them for a while, but she never expected to find a neighborhood full of northerners tucked away in a small southern town.

After asking around, she learns it's a construction company that works all over the country, constantly traveling to build cities. The smelters, power plants, staff housing, and school buildings in province after province are all their work.

Everyone in the neighborhood knows one another inside and out. Before Zhao Ling even arrives, word of her has already spread. Zhou Guangcheng, whom she met as a child and had long since forgotten, is curious about her too.

Zhou Guangcheng is tall and a first-rate mechanic at the factory. When it comes to car repairs, he's the most reliable man around. She'd thought he was a very tough guy, but when he realizes Zhao Ling doesn't remember him at all, he hunches over in the sunset looking so sad and a little aggrieved. But when someone calls him back to repair a vehicle for transport, he's immediately back in work mode.

Zhao Ling wonders if it's too cruel to forget a friend, but when she sees how quickly he returns to work, she turns away without a second thought, looking cold and indifferent. "Never mind. I'll save the comfort for next time."

Zhou Guangcheng has always remembered Zhao Ling, even though he hasn't seen her for about ten years. Most of his memories of her are really his own imaginings. When they meet again, it's love at first sight, and his feelings only grow stronger from then on.

She once worked as a painter at the art factory.

Lately, she's taken to writing and often submits her work for publication.

Zhou Guangcheng thinks it over. There's no time for him to learn to paint, so he decides to put his English to good use and translate books for her. When he learns that her new work has been published in a magazine, he offers a simple congratulations. Not long after, he brings her a translated manuscript. Zhao Ling looks at the English text, hesitates for a moment, then nods along with him.

He says, "I want to stay by your side forever, and be your translator forever."

Reader's guide:

1. I really do love stories about rough, tough guys! So I cooked this up myself. Please enjoy!

2. The heroine writes novels and the hero translates them. It's all about the literary journey. Ha ha, a rough guy doing literary work, quite the contrast, right?

3. Anyway, if you enjoy reading it, I'll enjoy writing it.

4. I've included recommendations for some TV shows, movies, and cartoons I watched as a kid. If you've seen them too, all the better! (Works can be from any country. The date a work appears in the story may not match its actual release date. For instance, a show released in December 1999 might show up in this novel in August. Just call it a parallel universe!)

Theme: The literary journey