Compared to Taohua Ying's hundreds of years of painful memories, the female ghost's recollections were much simpler.
She was a girl born in a rural village, with an older sister above her and a younger brother below. In that era of patriarchal preference, she clearly understood her place – a trial-and-error result born solely to produce a male heir.
Her brother was showered with affection, and her sister, being the first child, received more care than her.
As the girl caught in the middle, she was destined to be raised roughly from birth.
On one hand, she had to wear her sister's hand-me-downs, and on the other, she had to save every penny to buy new clothes for her brother.
Fortunately, she was quite intelligent, and her grades were much better than her sister's, offering hope of getting into a prestigious university. However, precisely because of her sensible nature and intelligence, she lacked even more family affection.
She studied with exceptional diligence and hardship because she saw many different destinies in books. She longed to go to a big city and strive to live a different life in a relatively fair environment.
But her parents didn't see it that way. Especially after hearing relatives say that girls would eventually get married, and that educating her was just raising a money-losing burden.
Her brother was also about to start high school, and since his grades were poor, he could only attend a private high school. Private high schools had exorbitant tuition fees, which their aging parents and her eldest sister, who was studying beauty and hairstyling, could not afford.
Her eldest sister was soon married off to the son of a contractor from the same village. After the wedding, the couple went to the city to work together.
On the day her eldest sister left, she cried inconsolably. Relatives said she and her sister had a deep bond, but that wasn't the case.
She hated her eldest sister because she spent her life picking up her sister's cast-offs; she hated her sister because after entering society, her sister always mocked her hard work and diligence with the tone of an experienced person, believing that studying wouldn't lead to success; she hated her sister because her sister always wanted to marry her off, to exchange her bride price for her brother's tuition, although in the end, it was her sister herself who was married off.
The reason she cried so heartbrokenly was that she saw her own future – marrying a man she had known for less than a month, and thus settling her lifelong fate.
After her eldest sister got married, the family's difficulties eased. She studied even harder, wanting to escape this village in the mountains.
After the college entrance examination, she, as she wished, was admitted to a prestigious university. With the persistent persuasion of the school leaders and teachers, her parents finally agreed to let her go to university, but they were only willing to cover her first year's tuition. She would have to find the rest of the money herself.
Despite the uncertain future, she was overjoyed.
Carrying hope and a simple suitcase, she arrived in the big city she had always dreamed of.
Everything in the big city was new to her. People here didn't like to sit on thresholds with their bowls to eat; they didn't spit casually. Everyone restrained themselves with something called "etiquette." She loved the clean and tidy big city, so she straightened her slightly hunched back and tried to blend into this unfamiliar environment.
In university, she met all sorts of people, good and bad, but the bad ones were not excessively so, at most being a bit petty. Her university years were relatively pleasant.
The girls in the city were all radiant, displaying their fair, slender legs without reservation; the boys in the city were all elegantly spoken, never using vulgar language, and occasionally showcasing small talents. Both boys and girls made her yearn for them.
She also gradually learned to dress up, started discussing celebrity gossip, disdained the tea from her hometown, forced herself to drink bitter coffee, fiddled with her clothes in front of the mirror, applied bright lipstick, and took selfies from various angles with a borrowed phone, pairing them with some incomprehensible "tragic literature" captions and posting a few updates on her Moments.
But the likes she received were few and far between.
Despite her efforts to blend into the big city, wearing glamorous clothes and drinking bitter coffee, she always seemed unable to shake off her rural demeanor, appearing out of place in the big city.
She felt disheartened, especially when she saw the exorbitant bills she couldn't afford.
Although her life in the city was repeatedly frustrating, she never considered returning to the countryside. She would do whatever it took to stay in the city.
At a chance gathering, she met a senior student who had already graduated. The senior was tall and handsome, driving a black Mercedes, the center of attention. The junior girls looked at him with admiration, while the junior boys pretended to be mature as they toasted him, promising to keep in touch. The senior smiled and agreed, appearing at ease in front of a group of students.
She was no exception and developed a crush on this senior. Thinking her own circumstances were no better than those of other girls, she gritted her teeth and took a gamble, initiating a kiss with the senior during a game of truth or dare.
This remarkably brave act actually flustered the senior, who kept looking at her during the subsequent singing session.
When the gathering ended, the senior even offered to drive her back to her dormitory.
Sitting in the senior's Mercedes, her eyes were hazy. For the first time, she felt the wild pleasure of city dwellers, especially after outshining the other girls that evening.
She said, "I don't want to go back to the dorm."
The senior understood, turned the steering wheel, and drove her to a hotel.
That night, she experienced intimacy for the first time, feeling so much pain that she almost begged him to stop, but she endured it because she thought she had found true love and would soon integrate into this unfamiliar city.
The next day, however, he was gone.
She inquired everywhere and learned that the senior was also from a rural background, his family's financial situation even worse than hers, and he owed debts unknown outside.
His clothes were counterfeit, his car was rented, and even the money for the hotel room the previous night was waiting for her to pay.
Deceived and terrified, on her best friend's suggestion, she went to the hospital for a check-up.
The result was that she was not pregnant, but she had contracted a sexually transmitted disease.
She hated that man to death, and even more, she hated her best friend, because shortly after her test results came out, the entire school's teachers and students knew about her situation, and it was all spread by her best friend.
Her parents, back in their hometown, took a train overnight to the city. When she saw her parents, her father's facial wrinkles had deepened considerably, and her mother's eyes were red and swollen with regret.
Her father slapped her several times in public, calling her a bastard, a shameless slut. Her mother clung to her, shielding her from her father, and eventually even bit her father.
Lying in the hospital receiving treatment, she stared blankly at the ceiling, her mind repeatedly asking herself.
What kind of life do I want?
Is this how my life will be?
Why is heaven so unfair? Why do all the bad things happen to me?