"What on earth did Captain Chen marry? She should take a look at herself, she's overweight and neglects her hygiene."

"Exactly! She's always squabbling with everyone, like a shrew. Captain Chen is a good man, it's a shame that he's like a fresh flower planted in a pile of cow dung because of her."

"Her plan to sneak off to find her educated youth lover is so scandalous. If this was the old society, she would've been thrown into a pig cage."

"It's incredibly shameful. His wife is thinking about another man and she's of loose morals. How will Captain Chen save face in the residential area from now on?"

"If my daughter did such a disgraceful thing, I'd guarantee I'd hand her a rope and let her hang herself right away."

....

These nasty words made their way into Xu Zhaodi's ears, as she stood expressionless, watching the gossiping women under the tree.

If it were under normal circumstances, the owner of this body would have already rushed forward, pulling their hair and starting a fight.

But now... this body was occupied by her soul.

She had just wrested control of her company from her stepmother two days ago, only to be kidnapped by her stepmother’s family on her way home from work. Half an hour ago she was dismembered and woke up in the married, overweight body of a woman who shared her name, Xu Zhaodi.

She thought it was just a dream and decided to wander around, but after half an hour, she realized that she had really been reborn in the year 1977.

It was a time of new hardships, revisiting old hardships, and barely scraping by. A time when daily necessities were rationed and you didn't know where your next meal would come from.

Xu Zhaodi comforted herself—being a little heavy was no problem, being a shrew was also no problem, but why did she have to be reborn in the body of a married woman?

The original owner, also named Xu Zhaodi, was 18 years old. Despite her lazy and overweight appearance, and her frequent squabbles in the village, she had high standards.

Her first pick was an educated youth in the village, but her father borrowed a hundred yuan from Chen Jianguo's family and couldn't pay it back. As a result, she became Chen's wife as part of a debt repayment, and six months after their marriage, she moved to the army's residential compound with Chen Jianguo.

In this era, people are so poor they can't even lift the lid off their pot, where would they get money to repay debts?

In the village at this time, anyone who could cough up a hundred bucks was undoubtedly rich.

By reason, Chen Jianguo, being a company commander, should find it easy to marry.

However, he had neither status nor background. He was the eldest in the family, with two younger brothers and sisters.

His elder sister was already married. His brothers were saving up to get married. His second brother and sister needed money for studies. There were many needs for money. His monthly allowance was insufficient. He was genuinely impoverished.

The original body always harbored feelings for a certain educated youth, and didn't think highly of Chen Jianguo, a soldier.

Furthermore, she was forced to marry him by her own parents, who hadn't raised her for a single day and favoured boys over girls, so the relationship between the couple was not good at all. Constant cold war was the norm; there wasn't a single normal conversation between husband and wife, as if there was an insurmountable Yalu River blocking them.

They even slept in separate rooms, and Xu Zhaodi even set up another stove in her room with a kerosene burner.

Chen Jianguo always had a stern face, akin to a ten-thousand-year-old iceberg, and neither of them paid any attention to the other.

When the original body entered the military compound, the relationship with the people in the compound was unspeakable.

To sum it up, her bad reputation was even worse than in the village.

With these thoughts, Xu Zhaodi begins to feel a throbbing headache. Having been hungry for the whole day, she didn't have the mood to quarrel with them anymore and turned around to return to her room.

The moment she pushed the door open again, Xu Zhaodi couldn't accept what she saw.

In the living room lay a few wilted cabbages. The pickle jar next to it was horribly filthy. Garbage was piling up at the door. Even in March, you could vaguely smell a sour odor. What would happen when the weather got warmer?

Pinching her temples, Xu Zhaodi headed towards her bedroom once more.

In a room no more than a dozen square feet, an old bed of one and a half meters is squeezed in. The bedding on it is in a terrible shape, soiled beyond recognition and even stained with spots of grease. Beside the bed is a tattered cupboard, its original color hidden under a layer of grime and peeled paint. Next to the cupboard, there's a small kerosene stove and a huge steel pan. Dirty dishes from the last meal are still inside the pan.

Seeing this, the clean-freak Miss Xu almost fainted on the spot; she rolled her eyes and pinched herself in the pressure point in the center of the person to stop herself from fainting.

The adjacent room is slightly bigger, with a one-point-two-meter bed covered in neatly folded, military-green quilt, its edges sharp and corners square. Even though there’s a wardrobe as well with peeling paint, it is far cleaner than the one in her room.

On one side, a desk and a chair are positioned neatly. The desk surface is quite tidy and free from dust.

Distinctly, this has to be Chen Jianguo’s room.

After she left Chen Jianguo's room, she took a deep breath.

This man is not entirely a bumpkin. At least, he seems to be someone who likes to keep things clean.

Xu Zhaodi walked in the kitchen and was surprised to find it spick-and-span. It was apparently Chen Jianguo’s responsibility to cook.

Relieved, she breathed a sigh of relief. She decided to clean herself thoroughly first.

She went back to the room and approached the wardrobe. On choosing and changing into relatively decent clothing, she noticed, at the bottom of the wardrobe, a few old and worn-out clothes.

It is most likely due to the prevalent use of the kerosene stove that these clothes reeked a strong odor of kerosene.

Xu Zhaodi sighed softly, gathering all clothes and bed sheets with the kerosene smell, and tossed them into a basin in the washroom, adding washing powder and soaking them in water.

Next, she ignited the cast-iron stove in the kitchen using matches, filled the pot with tap water, and waited for it to heat up. Once it did, she took it to the washroom, cooled it down with cold water, and bathed.

As she scrubbed herself, long tug-shaped dirt peeled off every inch of her body.

Ugh...

Xu Zhaodi spent a long time vomiting in front of the squat toilet bowl in the bathroom.

Now she can't even value herself, never mind expecting others to.

Eventually, she boiled some hot water and washed herself several times over, even cleaning her hair with laundry detergent.

Having gone through all these routines, she felt much lighter overall but was also completely exhausted.

She moved the dirty kerosene stove from her room to the kitchen. After cleaning the stainless steel pot and bowls, she finally took a break.

Then, despite her sore back and waist, she went back into the bathroom to do laundry.

After washing the clothes four or five times until the water in the basin was clear, she wrung them out and hung them on the iron railing of the balcony to dry.

One thing for which she felt lucky was that this was a two-bedroom apartment in the military residential block, modest in size, with a kitchen and bathroom, and a balcony surrounded by iron railings where she could normally dry clothes.

Her eyes fell on the only two cabbages left in the living room, and she dumped them both into a basket and placed it in a corner of the kitchen.

She went up and down the stairs three to four times to throw the garbage in the trash can downstairs, and by the time she returned to the apartment, she felt all her strength was drawn out.

She had never been this fat in her previous life. Now, she was so fat, so lazy, and so plump that she felt some physical discomfort doing such work.

At this moment, her stomach growled with hunger. As she was about to go to the kitchen to get herself something to eat, she heard the sound of the door lock turning from behind.

Xu Zhaodi's back stiffened, and she became entirely tense...