Autumn of 1985,

Dongjiazhuang Village.

“Raising her all these years, you think it’s been easy? She’s eaten up plenty of food for nothing.”

“She’s just a girl. If marrying her off can get her brother a wife in return, then at least we didn’t raise her for free. Otherwise, what’s the point of keeping her?”

“That Bao old man is only a bit over fifty, just got a bad leg. He’s got more than a dozen sheep. She marries over, she’ll hardly starve.”

“That damn girl still dares to complain? Doesn’t she know what she’s worth?”

The woman finished cursing and spat on the ground.

She turned to the man beside her, lowered her voice, and said, “Go lock her door. If that doesn’t work, force some medicine down her. They’re coming tomorrow to settle things, and she’s not running off again.”

This woman was notorious in Dongjiazhuang for being tough as nails, backed by ten burly brothers from her maiden family.

The man didn’t dare argue. He nodded over and over.

She grabbed a handful of sunflower seeds and shot him a glare. “Still standing there? Move!”

“Yeah, yeah, going now.”

The man stepped outside to the girl’s door and peered in.

Seeing her curled up on the bed without any movement, he sighed and quickly locked the door.

Hearing the noise outside, Keira Summers slowly opened her eyes.

Her phoenix-shaped eyes were icy cold.

She had once been a top-tier powerhouse in the post‑apocalyptic world, a senior national development advisor.

She had just finished an experiment, gone home, soaked in her bathtub with a glass of wine, enjoying life.

Then she opened her eyes again and—well—she’d crossed over.

And crossed straight into a retro-era revenge-and-romance military novel… becoming the tragic contrast to the fake heiress.

The fake daughter was living comfortably in a military family compound in the capital.

Meanwhile, the real daughter was stuck out on the North China Plain, in some poor little mountain village.

The fake one had her parents and brothers doting on her, carrying her along like she was made of porcelain.

The real one? Her clueless foster parents smacked her around every few days.

They’d even snapped several feather dusters on her. Her whole body was covered in bruises; only her face still looked halfway normal.

The fake daughter studied at Minghua High School, one of the top schools in the whole country.

After graduating, she went abroad, got herself a fancy degree, came home, married a senior officer,

then popped out three kids in a row and lived like the heroine of some feel‑good novel.

And the real one?

Her foster parents only kept her in school through high school because they wanted a higher bride price later.

Before she even finished school, they tried to marry her off to a lame widower.

After she moved in, her belly didn’t give them a child, so the man beat her every day.

When she turned twenty‑five, her biological parents finally discovered the fake daughter wasn’t theirs.

They traveled all the way out to find the real one.

But by then, she’d already lost her mind.

In her second year of marriage, every sheep that old Bao raised caught some disease and died overnight.

That was when he realized that even if she couldn’t have children, she was incredibly pretty—

especially her figure, that waist, slim and soft like some temptress.

Any man who’d seen her—whether from the same village or the next—

none of them could crawl into bed with their own wives without having at least once thought of her.

Pak laotou cooked up a way to make a quick buck in no time.

After that, he’d drag out a little stool and sit by the sheep pen in his yard every day,

tilting his ear toward the house and grinning while he counted the money till his fingers cramped.

The real daughter had been ruined so badly she went mad.

Her biological parents were heartbroken, sure, but what scared them even more was taking her home

and having everyone in the compound whisper about the shame.

So in the end, they didn’t bring her back at all.

They just led her out of that mountain village and dumped her in a mental hospital.

That hospital was even worse than Pak laotou.

From the director to the patients, from the cleaners to the gatekeeper—everyone found a way to bully her.

One day, that poor girl suddenly snapped back to clarity.

She twisted her pants into a rope and hanged herself beside the bed.

Thinking about all this, Keira Summers felt a heavy pressure in her chest.

She was only in her teens now, still a first‑year in high school.

This was exactly the time when the original girl had dropped out—

all because her brother had gotten some girl pregnant,

and the family needed money fast for the wedding.

Her foster parents didn’t hesitate for a second.

They ran straight to Pak laotou and knocked ten yuan off the price,

selling her for four hundred ninety like she was livestock.

When Keira had first landed in this body,

those two foster parents had barged into her classroom,

kicked and dragged her all the way home like she was an animal.

These past couple of days, she’d done nothing but eat and sleep,

sleep and eat, trying to get her weak body back on track.

Tomorrow was the day she was supposed to “marry” Pak laotou.

So tonight, she had to run.

At least now she’d eaten enough to keep her legs steady.

And that lock on the door? Just a plain old iron one.

As long as you knew the trick, a bit of wire was enough to pop the lock.

So when her foster father locked the door earlier, she hadn’t said a word.

Now the night was deep and pitch‑black, quiet as could be—

perfect time to slip away.

Killing someone was against the law, so that was off the table.

Sure, she knew a few rough moves, and now that she’d finally eaten her fill, taking down one person was doable.

But this body had been starved for years, thin as a dried reed.

If she woke those two half‑mad old folks,

she wasn’t confident she could drop them both without stirring up the whole yard.

The book had said those two hid the money they got from old Bao under the big water jar in the kitchen.

Keira Summers crept inside, moving slow and light, and it took all her strength to nudge the massive jar aside.

Down in the little pit beneath it, she found a bundle wrapped in blue cloth.

Inside were the bride‑price bills, a handful of loose change, a few ration tickets, and a pair of gold earrings—

probably something that crazy old woman planned to pass to her future daughter‑in‑law.

Keira didn’t bother being polite.

She rolled everything up, tied it with the rope, stuffed it into her pocket, and slipped out.

Dongjiazhuang was dozens of li from the county seat. With how weak this body was,

reaching the train station before dawn would already be impressive.

Once those two woke up and realized she was gone,

they’d definitely run to the village head and rally everyone to drag her back and marry her off to old Bao.

Men were expected to marry, women were expected to wed, and on paper she was their daughter, her name printed right there in black and white.

If those two really decided to shove her into some marriage, the police wouldn’t step in, the village wouldn’t care, nobody would.

So on the road, Keira Summers didn’t dare stop for a single breath.

When hunger clawed at her stomach, she gnawed a couple bites of the cornbread she’d swiped from the kitchen.

When she was thirsty, she could only force down her own saliva and keep going.

She finally reached the train station before dawn.

In a place this poor, troublemakers popped up everywhere.

Here, even if she were a piece of gold, she would still get trampled.

She couldn’t just sit around waiting for her biological parents to show up.

She had to head to Jingshi herself and find them.

She had no household booklet, no introduction letter.

Buying a ticket the proper way was impossible.

All she could do was slip into the crowd heading into the station and hide in some shadowy corner where nobody would notice her.

By afternoon, she saw the police walking around the station with those two crazy women, searching every corner for her.

Good thing she was small; no matter how they looked, they couldn’t spot her.

After dark, coal trains rumbled in one after another.

The moment people weren’t paying attention, Keira moved fast, climbed up, and clung tightly to the pitch‑black carriage, wind roaring past her ears.

She didn’t care where the train was going—getting away from here was all that mattered.

Before entering the station, she had already bought enough food from nearby stalls to last four or five days.

She even spent fifty cents on an enamel cup from a street vendor.

She couldn’t waste time going to the supply and marketing cooperative. She had to reach Jingshi as soon as possible.

There was something far more important waiting for her to take care of…