Chapter 1: Fortune Smiles Upon the Ancestral Tomb

Stunned and half-conscious, Su Qiao heard someone speaking beside her.

“I told you to bring back one troublemaker. What did you drag this woman here for? Are you trying to make this a buy one, get one free deal?”

“It wasn’t like that, Boss. I never expected that troublemaker, even on the verge of death, would grab a poor soul to take down with her.”

“And you couldn’t stop her?”

“She hit the accelerator and sent this unlucky woman straight over here.”

Su Qiao was dumbfounded. She was just an exhausted office drone, broke and worn to the bone. If she was hearing words like this, there was only one possibility: she was dead.

“Boss?”

Ming Qi felt a headache coming on. “You’re not planning to leave me with not even a scrap of my private savings, are you?”

“Boss, do we really have to pay her?”

“Not pay?” Ming Qi thought of the consequences if this were exposed, and kicked Yin Jiu hard on the backside. “I’ve spent eight hundred years clawing my way up to this position.”

“Then—” Yin Jiu suddenly had a flash of inspiration. “Boss, by normal reasoning, this unlucky soul’s spirit will cling stubbornly to the entrance of this supermarket and refuse to leave. Why don’t you work some magic and just give this place to her as compensation?”

“Here?” Ming Qi sized up the building and agreed at once.

Without dipping into his own funds, he solved the problem. Ming Qi was so pleased he slapped his thigh again and again. The force of it was a little too much, and the flickering spirit beside him was knocked flying.

“Hey! Hey!”

When Su Qiao opened her eyes again, the sharp smell of disinfectant hit her nose and she broke into a fit of coughing.

“Cough, cough, cough—”

“Mom, you’re awake.” A handsome young boy in a navy-striped undershirt saw his mother wake and excitedly gripped Su Qiao’s hand, refusing to let go.

Su Qiao was stunned all over again. She was a forty-year-old single woman—where had she gotten such a grown son from?

When Fang Xiaofeng saw his mother staring blankly at him, fear also rose in his heart. “Mom? Mom?”

Seeing the boy calling her mother again and again, Su Qiao’s confusion layered over itself, then rapidly stirred up two different sets of memories.

Su Qiao: so this was what it felt like for her ancestors to finally bless her. She had only gone to the supermarket, and the entire place now belonged to her.

She just did not believe it.

Oh, but this supermarket was not given to her for free. It was said to be compensation for an accident.

Su Qiao glanced at the fifteen- or sixteen-year-old boy by the bedside, and everything became clear.

She had crossed into a parallel-world China in the nineteen seventies. The original owner was a widow who happened to share her name.

She had become a mother without pain or effort. A forty-year-old unmarried woman had transmigrated into a thirty-six-year-old widow with a son and a daughter.

Judging by the age, this was quite a bargain.

A widow was fine. She had been single from the cradle for forty years, and had never really known how to get close to a man. This identity suited her rather well.

Only—

Thinking of the reason the original owner had collapsed, Su Qiao could not help clenching her fists.

The original owner had one son and one daughter. Her daughter was eighteen this year, her son sixteen and in the first year of high school.

Last year, the daughter had been secretly signed up by her heartless grandmother and aunt to go down to the countryside in place of her cousin. By the time those shameless people had nearly spent all the relocation money, the original owner was finally informed.

She had known there was nothing she could do to change it and had nearly cried herself unconscious in the bathroom.

It was only after her parents rushed over upon hearing the news that they acted decisively: using Fang Old Woman’s registration of Fang Xiaoying for the countryside as leverage, they helped the family split apart and also took back the house that had been occupied by the Fang Third family for ten years.

The original owner had sent her daughter off on the train in tears, repeatedly telling her not to find a man there, and never to marry there; she would find a way to bring her home.

After seeing her daughter off, the original owner had sunk into despair for many days before forcing herself to recover. She still had a son; life had to go on.

Then, only a few months after the daughter went down to the countryside, a telegram came saying she was going to marry. Her fiance was an active-duty soldier.

At the time, her son had a high fever and she could not leave him, and since the other party was a soldier, she sent her daughter one hundred yuan as dowry, also telegraphing her to keep whatever bride price the man’s family gave her.

The original owner worked in the cafeteria of a state-run machinery factory. Not only was her salary high, but there was plenty of extra food and supplies, making countless people green with envy.

Even Fang family’s two sisters-in-law and one married sister had coveted it for years. If the original owner had not had a father who was decisive and formidable, that job might well have been taken by the Fang family already.

Originally, the original owner had planned things fairly well. Once her son’s illness improved and she had saved up a few months of leave, she would go see her daughter.

But then something utterly unacceptable happened: not long after the daughter married, a female sent-down youth who had gone there with her sent a telegram to the original owner saying that her daughter was critically ill.

The original owner could not accept it and, in a daze, lost her life.

And then this body was handed over to Su Qiao.

“Mom, Mom, why aren’t you saying anything?” The boy’s loud cry pulled Su Qiao back from her thoughts.

She shifted her gaze and met the boy’s worried eyes. “Mom, are you feeling better?”

“Much better. Don’t worry, Xiaofeng.” Su Qiao endured the pungent disinfectant smell and tried to think about what to do next.

Fang Xiaofeng held her hand tightly, afraid to let go. “Mom, your hand was freezing just now. You scared me half to death.”

Looking at the boy’s pale face, frightened to the point of losing all color, Su Qiao hurried to comfort him. “Mom’s fine.”

“Mom, you’re really okay?” Thinking of how his mother’s eyes had been tightly shut before, no matter how he called, she would not wake, the boy’s hand was still trembling.

“Mom is really fine. But you should go to school and ask for leave first—take a week off for now. Also tell your uncle, and then we’ll go see your sister together.”

“Mom, I’ll go to school right now.” The boy was still worried about her and kept looking back every few steps as he left.

Seeing the empty bed in the ward, Su Qiao struggled to sit up. But just as she got up, dizziness hit her so hard she nearly fell back down again.

Sister Huang came in carrying an enamel mug, and the moment she saw this, she was so startled she almost dropped it.

“Xiao Qiao, you mustn’t force yourself. Lie back down quickly.”

“Sister Huang, I have to go see Xiaoying. The child is still waiting for me.”

Seeing Su Qiao like this, Sister Huang could only sigh inwardly. “Xiao Qiao, I know the child needs you, but you have to take care of yourself first. Look at you now—before you even see the child, you’re the one collapsing. If you go down like this, who’s the child supposed to rely on in the future?”

“Sister Huang—”

Perhaps because of the original owner’s emotions, tears began to fall from Su Qiao’s eyes without restraint.

“Xiao Qiao—” Seeing her like this, Sister Huang felt miserable too. But she had no better solution for the moment, so she could only hold the enamel mug out toward Su Qiao. “Xiao Qiao, have some brown sugar water first. It’s just the right temperature.”

“Okay.”