Chapter 1: No Longer Bringing Him Trouble

“Mu Chenze, I’m sorry! About what happened yesterday—you don’t need to take responsibility for me. I only schemed to kiss you because I was after your family’s money. Now I know I was wrong. You should go. I won’t marry you.”

Under the big locust tree, Chu Xuan hung her head low.

She was too ashamed to look at the man in front of her.

In her previous life, she’d been bewitched. Egged on by her grandmother, Feng Chunhua, she’d plotted to kiss Mu Chenze in public and then clung to him.

She’d even threatened that if he didn’t marry her, she’d kill herself.

The Mu family, being decent people, agreed.

Feng Chunhua demanded a bride price of 2,000 yuan, and the Mu family agreed to that too.

Even though she brought no dowry at all, the Mu family never looked down on her.

But she lost her mind after marrying in—lazy, gluttonous, quick to curse her in-laws at the slightest displeasure, and willingly became a “brother-supporting demon,” constantly sending money back to her own family.

In the end, Feng Chunhua spoiled Chu Feng rotten—he drank, gambled, visited prostitutes, did it all. At twenty, Chu Feng committed a crime and spent the rest of his life in prison.

To get her brother a lighter sentence, Chu Xuan begged her in-laws to pull strings everywhere.

Her in-laws, despite everything, agreed. They spent money, called in favors, but on the way, there was a car accident. Her father-in-law and Mu Chenze died on the spot. Her eldest brother-in-law, Mu Chenfu, was paralyzed for life. Her sister-in-law lost both legs. Chu Xuan herself was blinded. Her mother-in-law, Qin Mahua, couldn’t take the blow and died of a heart attack. Her nephew was only five…

It was only then that Chu Xuan finally felt guilty toward her husband’s family. Blind, she groped her way back to her own family, hoping they’d help her and her in-laws—after all, she’d sent them thousands over the years. But to her shock, Feng Chunhua and her second uncle, Chu Zhi, tricked her into taking a boat to the county bank, then pushed her into the sea halfway there.

In the end, she drowned. When she woke again, it was 1983. She was twenty.

She hadn’t yet ruined anyone’s life.

Seeing Mu Chenze remain silent, Chu Xuan grew anxious. Tears of guilt welled in her eyes as she stared at him. “Just go! I don’t like you, and I’m not dead set on marrying you. I’ll tell everyone that yesterday I tripped and accidentally bumped into your lips. It was just a misunderstanding.”

She knew herself well—fat and ugly as she was, her expression in Mu Chenze’s eyes was definitely not pitiful, but annoying.

That was exactly what she wanted.

A clean, decisive rejection was the only way to make up for what she owed Mu Chenze and his family in her previous life.

But after she spoke, she didn’t see annoyance on his face—only that he was struggling to contain his anger.

Yesterday had been Mu Chenze’s first kiss, lost to a scheme. He was furious, veins bulging on the back of his hand as if he might hit her.

But Chu Xuan was sure he wouldn’t. Even in her last life, as badly as she behaved, he’d never raised a hand to her.

Sure enough, he quickly composed himself. “Plenty of girls are after my family’s money. Yesterday your grandma came to my house and said that after what happened, if I didn’t marry you, you’d kill yourself. I’m here today to propose. I truly want to marry you. Are you really not going to?”

Chu Xuan’s heart trembled. Such a good man—she absolutely couldn’t ruin him again in this life.

She forced herself to sound firm. “That’s right. I’m not marrying you.”

She didn’t say, “You deserve a better wife.”

Instead, she added, “I can swear to the heavens, I, Chu Xuan, will absolutely not kill myself.”

Hearing this, Mu Chenze couldn’t help but touch his own face. With looks like his, he’d been set up and then rejected by a girl?

Luckily, Mu Chenze was easygoing and quickly let it go.

But it only confirmed for him that “women are trouble” was the truest saying of all.

Oh well. Whether he married or not, it didn’t matter to him.

“Then let’s do as you say.”

He couldn’t be bothered to argue with this woman.

He comforted himself—so what if he lost his first kiss? He was a man, it wasn’t a big deal. If anyone was to blame for being tricked, it was himself for not being careful enough. He’d learn his lesson and never let a woman get the better of him again.

He waved, picked up his gifts, and walked back the way he came.

Just then, a breeze blew, and locust blossoms swirled down from the tree.

Chu Xuan stood serenely in the rain of flowers.

This scene happened to catch Mu Chenze’s eye as he looked back.

But he quickly turned away and headed home…

After watching Mu Chenze leave, Chu Xuan didn’t go home.

She went straight to Aunt Hua’s house next door and deliberately told her that what happened with Mu Chenze yesterday was just a misunderstanding—she wasn’t interested in him at all.

As for why, it was because Mu Chenze was too good-looking. Even though he went out to sea all the time, his skin was still so fair—pretty boys couldn’t be relied on.

Who was Aunt Hua? The village’s biggest gossip. Within half an hour of Chu Xuan leaving, the whole village knew.

Chu Xuan wasn’t interested in Mu Chenze?

When this reached Mu Chenze’s mother, Qin Mahua, she couldn’t help but mutter, “How did that fat girl Chu Xuan have the nerve to say that? Our family never minded her being ugly, but she’s complaining my second son is too handsome?”

But muttering was all—Qin Mahua wasn’t one to stir up trouble, so she said nothing more.

The Chu family was the last to know.

After leaving Aunt Hua’s, Chu Xuan went straight to the old Chu family house, about a twenty-minute walk from the beach. The house was in disrepair—four rooms in total, two still barely livable with some repairs, the other two had collapsed.

It was time to split the family property.

Only after that could she raise her little brother herself. Even if he’d already started down the wrong path, there was still time to set him straight.

Her father had long since passed away, her mother had remarried and cut ties.

Her grandfather, Chu Dashan, her uncle, Chu Zhi, and her little brother, Chu Feng, went out to sea every day.

Thinking of her twelve-year-old brother working like an adult on the boat, all his earnings handed over to Grandma Feng Chunhua, made Chu Xuan’s heart ache.

She didn’t plan to fix the roof herself—at over two hundred pounds, she’d break the ladder if not the roof.

As for living in the old house, it was because it was close to the beach—convenient for foraging at low tide.

Living off the sea.

Once she got the house, she’d fix up two rooms to live in, tear down the other two, and build a new house on the old foundation.

She didn’t have money now, but soon she would.

Around five this afternoon, when the tide went out, a giant mackerel would wash ashore, with a gold ingot in its belly. Selling it would not only pay to repair the old house, but also build a new one.

In her previous life, she’d found that fish in this northern fishing village, but foolishly handed both the fish and the gold ingot to Feng Chunhua. The gold ingot sold for over two thousand yuan, and she didn’t get a cent.

If nothing went wrong, she’d find it again this time.

She wouldn’t be so foolish again."