I Got Blown Up and Became Zhang Xueliang's Older Sister

The heroine initially wanted to slack off, but later turns evil and hits back hard!

Huo Yu is a half-baked agent doing under-the-table work for Russia against Ukraine. But fortune is against her: a bomb goes off on the Russian-Ukrainian battlefield and blows her to pieces!

No matter. She's lucky enough to get another chance at life after being killed. But Heaven didn't even ask her first. When she wakes up, she's become the daughter of the Northeastern warlord, Zhang Xueliang's older sister, a woman whose place in history is summed up in just a few lines: “Her father died, she lost her influence, and she spent her final years in misery.”

Although Zhang Zuolin is the emperor of the Northeast, and his daughter Zhang Shoufang is, by any measure, its princess, this is the Northeast during the Republican era. Warlords are fighting within, the Northern Expedition is bearing down, and Japan, Russia, and other nations are watching hungrily from without. The region is teetering under internal and external threats!

The more Huo Yu thinks about it, the worse a deal it seems.

And then there's her “bonus” of a wastrel little brother, who will pursue a policy of nonresistance, refuse to fire a single shot, and let 300,000 Northeastern troops retreat without a fight, handing the Northeast to the Japanese.

After much effort, Huo Yu finally convinces herself to look on the bright side. She got another life, and that's enough. She can save some money and run away when the time comes. But when she opens her eyes, she sees the still-teenage Zhang Xueliang leaning over her bed, his eyes as big as eggs, asking if she wants a roasted sweet potato. Ha! She can't help smacking him on the back of the head, then faints again before she can catch her breath.

Roasted sweet potatoes! Roasted sweet potatoes!

All he can think about is roasted sweet potatoes!

No wonder everyone in the future curses you!

Once she settles in, she plans to lie low at the Marshal's Mansion for a while, save enough money, then escape to some unknown little country and live out the rest of her life in comfort. But after only a few peaceful days, the man who is her father in name wants to marry her off to the Bao family, whose patriarch is the military governor of Jilin. This is utterly ridiculous. As a modern, independent woman who can lift a cauldron and carry two men on her shoulders, she's obviously going to loudly refuse an arranged marriage! Forget waiting until she's saved enough money: she grabs a suitcase and runs. Before she can even get to the station, she's stopped by the head of the Marshal's bodyguards.

Well, damn. She can't even run away.

Back home, she throws a tantrum and refuses to obey. The Marshal has no choice but to cancel her engagement. Huo Yu is happy on the surface, but secretly keeps looking for a chance to escape.

Goddammit! The Marshal loses his temper and orders her to report to his headquarters and work as his secretary, so he can keep an eye on her personally and make her give in.

Huo Yu is stubborn as a mule. Fine, she'll go. Who's afraid of whom?

And so she becomes the secretary to the man who is her father in name. At headquarters, she meets all the famous Northeastern officers from history: Zhang Zuoxiang, Yang Yuting, Guo Songling, and many more.

Gradually, she realizes that the Northeastern Tiger, feared throughout history, isn't the power-hungry man who grovels to Japan, as portrayed in TV dramas.

Nor is Marshal Zhang Xueliang, cursed by Northeasterners everywhere, as useless as people say.

History is clouded by war and conflicting accounts. She'd rather trust her own eyes.

The First Zhili-Fengtian War

The Second Zhili-Fengtian War

The advance into the Central Plains

The Huanggutun Incident

The Northeast Flag Replacement

The intervention south of the Great Wall

The September 18 Incident

She never left.

At first, she couldn't leave. Later... she didn't want to.

The smiling faces of Northeastern children on the streets, the warmth of Northeastern women at the stalls, and the courage and loyalty of Northeastern men in the army all remind her that history isn't just a few lines on a page. These are real, living people!

Huo Yu: I grew up in an orphanage. As an adult, I did under-the-table work for various countries, and I felt no connection to this era. On countless lonely nights, I angrily asked Heaven why it was punishing me by sending me to this chaotic age. Later, when I raised my gun against the invaders in front of me, then turned to look at the people of the Northeast fighting with their lives to defend their homeland, I finally understood the answer. I came here for them...

Xiao Liuzhi: It's easy to judge my mistakes after I'm gone.

But hard to stand in my place and do what I did.

Marshal Zhang: Whatever I can't do, I agree to. Whatever I can do, I refuse!

What is the jianghu? Damn it, the jianghu isn't about fighting and killing. It's about human relationships!

The moon brushes the flowing years, and as we stumble along, farewells we can't let go of flicker and fade...

The mottled years refuse to be forgotten, leaving two or three volumes of quiet joy, enough to blur the eyes...

We pick up old memories and talk about the past. Between drunkenness and sobering up, so much tenderness remains, impossible to end, impossible to make whole...

The bookmarks of memory, the dreams that refuse to be put away. I dip my brush into poetry and fill a few pages with sorrow...

(Lyrics excerpted from the Marshal's March, which is very popular online.)

Author's note: Because of her childhood environment, the heroine isn't a good person in the traditional sense. She's extremely selfish and self-serving. If she sees a child with candied hawthorn on a stick, she'll snatch it without a shred of guilt and eat every last bit. She's shameless.

Theme: Defend our homeland!