I'm a Cook at a State-Owned Factory [The 1970S]

[Updates every night at 9 p.m. unless something unexpected happens, six thousand words a day] Ming Yuezhao has barely transmigrated when she is faced with the urgent prospect of being sent to the countryside. In her reconstituted family of four children, only she has a father who doesn't care for her and a mother who doesn't love her. Her stepbrother has secured a formal job, taking the place of her birth mother's original owner's mother. Her stepsister has found a man and married him, stealing the original owner's fiance. Her younger stepbrother is still a child, but the family has already started pulling strings to secure his future, using the original owner's savings. Only the original owner, who has been bled dry, is left. In the dead of winter, she jumps into a river and is rescued. Still sick and weak, she is bundled up and prepared to be thrown onto the team heading to the countryside. Heartbroken, the original owner takes her last breath and dies. Ming Yuezhao opens her eyes and, dragging her sickly body along, finds Fu Anhe, a gloomy young man next door who suffers from anorexia. They strike a deal: Ming Yuezhao will help improve his appetite, and Fu Anhe will marry her so she can weather the crisis at hand. Ming Yuezhao can turn the simplest ingredients into the most delicious food. After they register their marriage, Fu Anhe, who had been little more than skin and bones, develops a voracious appetite and steadily gains weight. But he gradually realizes something is wrong. Ming Yuezhao's cooking skills fluctuate wildly. After observing her closely, he discovers that her mood affects how well she cooks. Whenever she is unhappy, her food is unbelievably awful. The worst part is that Ming Yuezhao is always getting upset over things she has no courage to confront. She doesn't dare stand up for herself, so she takes it out on him and his coworkers in the factory cafeteria, ruining their taste buds or shaking so much that only a tiny portion ends up on their plates. So when his mother-in-law tries to take something from his wife, Fu Anhe takes something from his young brother-in-law, scaring him every day at the crossroads he must pass on his way to and from school. When his sister-in-law brings his wife's former fiance around to show off, his coworkers put a sack over the sleazebag's head late at night. When his wife's older brother slanders her, several of the factory managers take turns making his life difficult. Their cook is timid and weak, so everyone has to protect her. Ming Yuezhao has had a short temper since childhood and antisocial tendencies. To help her cultivate patience and self-control, her family named her "Ming Yuezhao" and raised her to immerse herself in cooking from an early age, so she could calm herself. But her cruelty is innate and difficult to correct. Whenever she gets angry, she has to suppress her temper until the veins in her temples bulge and both her hands tremble. She shakes salt and sugar into the food, then trembles while dishing it up until only a few pieces are left. Every time she represses herself to the breaking point, thinking she's about to lose control and do something terrible, someone steps in and handles the problem for her. Though they act too mildly and timidly, when she sees their eyes shining as they wait for her praise, and the troublemakers looking furious and frustrated, the hostility in Ming Yuezhao's heart gradually fades. It seems she's not quite so angry anymore. Completed Period novel: How Can You Be Like This, Mother-in-Law? A new Period novel is coming soon. Add it to your collection: After the System Binds to the Wrong Female Lead [Period]. One-line pitch: If you give it to me, you can't take it back~ System 996 binds to a Host who is weak and easily bullied, someone everyone walks all over. Every day, 996's mission is to encourage its Host to stand tall. After all, she's the beloved female lead of a Period novel! The human and the System diligently complete their daily missions, and their lives keep getting better. Their only problem is that... The System seems to have a bug, and the mission rewards never come through. 996 goes back to check the bug. If only it hadn't checked. Once it does, its whole world collapses. It bound itself to the wrong female lead! The one who should have been bound is the current Host's cousin, the beloved darling of her entire family! If it severs the bond, it'll be sent back for reconstruction, while its Host will be destroyed in the name of humanity. But 996 can't bear to abandon the Host it's spent so long with. If they're not going to let them play by the rules, then they'll flip the board together. The female lead's status? They don't care about that anymore. The human and the System fix their eyes on the throne of the protagonist, their gaze full of ambition and desire! [The female lead's perspective] I thought I was the beloved female lead of a Period novel, so every man who looked down on me was just playing hard to get. I thought I was the darling of a Period novel, so every woman who was against me was a snake with a Buddha's heart. I thought I was the strongest female lead in a Period novel, so everything that stood in my way would become a stepping stone on my path to greatness. I thought... well, I thought everything good belonged to me! Then the System told me I was just a minor character who'd be killed off early? Me: Ha! If people treat me like a beast of burden, I'll change the world itself! Anyone can climb to the summit. Why shouldn't I take the protagonist's place? A low start, then a wild rise: an ambitious, growing female lead X a high start, then a steep fall: a sickly, scheming male lead who is everyone's beloved white moonlight. Theme: Life holds more than one possibility.