Volume One, Chapter One: Reborn in 1986

"It's all done, why are you still here? Planning to be a leech?"
"Tiger, as a man we have to keep our word. We agreed this would be the last time—after this, we're done."
"Get out!"
Lin Hu only felt a sharp kick, followed by a chill that swept over his whole body. He jolted awake.
The sharp, distinct smell of the countryside rushed into his nostrils.
He snapped his eyes wide open.
Before him stood a young woman, not a single thread on her body, clumsily struggling to put on an old-fashioned cloth bra from the 1980s.
Her cheeks were flushed with anger, her pale arms covered in scratches, and her long white legs bore the marks of last night's frenzy—bruised and mottled.
"Liu Ying?"
He was looking at his first love from when he was eighteen.
Lin Hu was dumbfounded.
Such a scene, enough to make one’s blood boil, only made his mind clearer.
Dried corn cobs lined the windowsill, white paper pasted over the window fluttered with a tear.
The walls were covered with yellowed newspaper, a faded "Good Fortune" poster, a rusty sickle hanging nearby.
In the corner sat a jar of pickled vegetables, a broken wardrobe, ceramic bowls, an aluminum lunch box...
Every object, every detail, yanked him back to the wild days of his youth.
"Ying... is it really you?"
To be sure,
Lin Hu reached out to pinch her again.
"Yah!"
Liu Ying shrieked, and with legs as strong as a bicycle pedal, she kicked him off.
"You scoundrel! You promised this would be the last time, and you still want more! Are you even a man? Boohoo... Can't you let me live? Maybe you don't care about your reputation, but I do!"
Lin Hu was finally sure.
He really had been reborn.
His vision blurred.
Recalling the absurdity of his life, he slapped himself across the face.
He was born in a small village in the northeast, into an ordinary farming family, but with a rather peculiar family structure.
His parents, driven by tradition, desperately tried for a son—ten children in all, every one a girl except the last, with two dying young.
Even the village's workhorse wouldn't be expected to bear so many, but in those days, it was nothing out of the ordinary.
He had eight older sisters, and as the youngest, the only boy, his status in the family was self-evident.
From a young age, he was spoiled rotten.
All the good food went into his bowl, new clothes on his back, and if he ever got into fights, his eight sisters and parents would all back him up.
He grew up selfish, sly, lazy, and cunning.
In the countryside, he was the textbook troublemaker.
A regular farming family, bled dry by someone like him—what else could the outcome be?
As his sisters one by one married out, fleeing the family's poisonous favoritism, their family's standing in the village plummeted.
In the end, his parents died in a fire, all for a few grains of food.
He still remembered their six acres of land never yielded a full harvest; it was all stolen.
Everyone in the village knew the culprits were the Ma family, but in those days theft was hard to prove—there was nothing to be done.
His parents, desperate to protect their grain, built a shack in the fields to keep watch, but during the autumn harvest disaster struck, and both were burned alive in their shelter.
Back then, he was too young to see the truth—who would kill for a few grains?
But the truth only came out the day his fourth sister was killed in a traffic accident: “Tiger, you have to avenge our parents. I can’t rest in peace. It was Ma Biao who killed them.”
“Father, Mother—”
“I swear I’ll avenge you!”
Thinking of how his parents had been burned to death, rage for vengeance burned in Lin Hu’s eyes, his nails digging into his palms.
“It’s all my fault…”
Karma did catch up with him.
After being driven out by the Ma family, he was forced into the city to find work.
He toiled on construction sites, did manual labor, even waited tables in restaurants.
But his darkest days came when he fell in with the gangs.
First, he lost a hand.
Then, caught between two crime bosses, his Achilles’ tendons were cut—after that, he could only beg for scraps on the streets.
In the end,
It was only with government help that he ended up in a nursing home, barely scraping by.
After decades adrift, his body gave out, and he died at fifty-six, full of regrets.
“Song the Fourth!”
“Qiao Erbin!”
The turf war between these two county bosses left him crippled and crawling like a dog for half a lifetime.
Lin Hu’s hatred was bottomless.
“All of you, just wait. Every debt you owe, I’ll collect—one by one!”
Just then,
Liu Ying, furious, whipped him with her old bra.
“Lin the Ninth!”
“Don’t you dare bring up your parents again. Even if you dug up their bones, it wouldn’t matter.”
“I only care about money now. If you can put a dime in front of me, I, Liu Ying, will stay by your side today.”
“Can you?”
The contempt in Liu Ying’s eyes was unmistakable.
“Don’t look at me like that. It’s not like you lost out. How many times have you let me have my way these past two years… You know how many people, inside and outside the village, are talking behind my back? Calling me shameless and loose?”
Tears welled in Liu Ying’s eyes as she hurriedly pulled on her undershirt.
Lin Hu couldn’t blame her for wanting to break up. Suddenly, he paused, his eyes unfocused.
“The last time… Today’s the day we break up, isn’t it?”
“But didn’t you… jump into the well today?”
The memory struck him.
Liu Ying really had inexplicably thrown herself into the well today.
“Heh—”
Liu Ying sneered, “Lin the Ninth, you’d curse me dead just to keep me? Me, jump into a well for you?”
“Heh—”
“You think you’re worth that?”
“With your lying ways, you’ll never even taste a proper meal.”
At that moment—
There was a sudden knock on the window, and a voice, hoarse with impatience, called in.
“Tiger, that’s enough. Get out here and buy me a pack of smokes.”
Though the curtain was drawn,
The voice was all too familiar.
“Damn you!”
“Ma Da-Donkey, you bastard!”
Suddenly it all came back.
That day, Ma Da-Donkey had sent him out to buy cigarettes, and at the supply co-op he’d run into his cousin Li Er and a few others who beat him up.
By evening, news came that Liu Ying had jumped into the well.
Looking back, if it wasn’t Ma Da-Donkey bullying Liu Ying, what else could have driven a girl to such desperation?
But before Lin Hu could get out of bed,
Liu Ying burst into tears.
“Lin the Ninth… Just look at what you’ve done… letting Ma Da-Donkey climb onto our windowsill…”
She was so aggrieved she could barely curse, hurriedly pulling on her flowered shorts.
“You’re not a man at all. From now on, we’re strangers. If I so much as glance at you again…”
“If I do, I, Liu Ying, will be nothing but a dog.”
Liu Ying wobbled, finally spitting out her final words, trembling.
“Ying, wait—”
“I didn’t know, it was that bastard who came here himself!”
Lin Hu scrambled off the kang, chasing after her. “Ying, let me explain, from now on I’ll never side with that animal again—”
But as soon as he reached the door,
Ma Da-Donkey blocked his way. “Tiger, aren’t you being unfair? Didn’t you promise me last night, after one last time, you’d let me have a go?”
At those words,
Lin Hu’s eyes bulged with rage.
“I’ll show you, you son of a bitch!”
“You threatened me!”
Whack—
He landed a heavy slap.
Ma Da-Donkey clutched his face in disbelief. “Lin the Ninth, you dare hit me!”
“I’ll hit you again, you bastard!”
Just as Lin Hu grabbed a nearby shovel, a voice sounded in his mind.
[You’ve turned over a new leaf and slapped the village bully. This righteous act has awakened your innate skill: Arm Strength.]
Then,
A window appeared before his eyes.
[Skill: Arm Strength (Novice)]
[Proficiency: 5/100]
[Effect: None]