Reborn, no more Mr. Nice Guy

Northern Xinjiang, 1981, the twelfth lunar month.

Snow nearly half a meter deep blanketed the fields.

Alternating heat and cold had melted the snow on the kitchen roof, leaving icicles nearly a meter long dangling from the eaves. They looked dangerous.

Li Long, who had come outside to pee, glanced up, looked around, then picked up a shovel from the foot of the wall and knocked all the icicles down.

He vaguely remembered that this seemed to be the year his niece, Li Juan, had been struck on the head by a falling icicle. It had taken her ages to recover, and even afterward, a scar remained on her face. People had mocked her for it, leaving her with a serious inferiority complex.

Now that he had been reborn, he couldn't let that tragedy happen again.

Li Long had no idea how he had been reborn. He only remembered dying, then a moment of haziness before finding himself back here.

In his previous life, Li Long had lived to sixty-seven without illness or disaster. While swatting flies at home, he had jumped, suffered a brain hemorrhage, and died on the spot. At least he hadn't suffered.

But his older brother, Li Jianguo, who had doted on him, had fallen to his death at an early age because of him. His sister-in-law, niece, and nephew had treated him like an enemy afterward. Although they lived in the same village, Li Long had lived like a man without family. Even when he later found someone to share his life with, the lack of family had left him feeling like he had no place in the world.

Heaven had given him another life. He would never let those things happen again.

First, though, he had to solve the problems of fuel and food.

Northern Xinjiang was bitterly cold. Before winter, the production team distributed two hundred kilograms of coal to each household for heating.

That was nowhere near enough. Li Long remembered that in later years, every household stocked seven or eight tonnes of coal. After all, they needed to keep their fires burning for half the year.

With coal in short supply, families would head into the sandy wastes to the north before winter to dig up Red Willow roots and saxaul for firewood. In later years, those practices would be considered terribly destructive to the environment, but right now, they kept people alive.

The Li family's coal, together with the firewood they had dug up, should have lasted them through winter.

But Li Long had come home.

Before winter, Li Jianguo had paid to get Li Long a job at the August First Food Factory in Wu City. Becoming a factory worker was a great honor in those days. Of course, what really made people envious was the pay: tens of yuan in cash every month, to spend however you pleased. What could be better?

Working for the production team, before land was contracted out to individual households, meant toiling all year and receiving your grain and a little money only when the accounts were settled.

Many farming households even ended up owing money. Work points were counted strictly, and if you didn't work well enough, or the team had a poor harvest, there would be nothing to distribute.

For a while, Li Long had been the envy of the team's young people. In his second month at the factory, Wu Shufen, the prettiest girl on the team, had taken the initiative and started dating him.

But now Li Long had been fired from the food factory. He knew that in two days, once the team's loudmouth, Gu Ermao, spread the news of his dismissal, Wu Shufen would come to break up with him.

In his previous life, that had dealt Li Long a heavy blow. It had even shaped some of his behavior and indirectly contributed to Li Jianguo's fatal fall.

Now, though, it was a trivial matter. Li Long was back, and he thought breaking up with a vain woman like Wu Shufen was for the best. Even if she didn't bring it up, he would.

He couldn't share one heated brick bed with his older brother's whole family, either. He had returned at noon, and that afternoon, Li Jianguo had cleared out the east room where he used to live, set up a stove, and heated the brick bed for him. But that meant the family's coal and firewood definitely wouldn't be enough. Forget lasting until spring in March; even making it to the New Year would be difficult.

When Li Long was twelve, his father, Li Qingxia, had brought him from their hometown and entrusted him to his older brother, Li Jianguo. Li Long clearly remembered what his father had told his brother and sister-in-law:

"We can't afford to feed everyone back home anymore. As long as you take good care of Xiao Long, I'll have nothing left to worry about. You don't need to support me in my old age or handle my funeral. Looking after Xiao Long will be enough to fulfill your duty to me."

Li Jianguo had another younger brother and a younger sister back home. Li Long was the youngest and his parents' favorite, but there was little farmland in their hometown, and life was harder there than here. That was why they had sent him over.

Li Jianguo had done exactly as Li Qingxia asked, looking after Li Long with all his heart. Eight-tenths of the grain allotted to their household was coarse grain, and two-tenths was refined grain. Li Jianguo and his wife, Liang Yuemei, ate only coarse grain, leaving all the refined grain for Li Long, his niece Li Juan, and his nephew Li Qiang.

A growing boy could eat his father out of house and home. Li Long was still growing, and he ate even more than Li Jianguo. His brother had found every possible way to scrounge up good food for him, sometimes even at his own children's expense.

Liang Yuemei had argued with him over it many times.

But Li Jianguo had taken the saying "an eldest brother is a father" far too seriously. It had even cost him his life.

This time, Li Long would never let that happen again!

Fortunately, Heavenly Mountain wasn't very far away. Besides endless windfallen timber, the mountains held red deer and brown bears, valuable from head to toe, as well as wild boar, Mongolian gazelles, and those goofy marmots that would become internet celebrities in later years.

Before wildlife protection laws came into effect, all it would take was a little hard work and some quick thinking to build a household worth ten thousand yuan within two or three years!

Oh, first I need to pee!

Li Long hurried along the path trampled through the snow to the reed-built outhouse outside the yard, undid his trousers, and sprayed freely onto the snow.

Yellow marks immediately appeared, forming an odd shape that looked a little like an S and a little like an 8.

He shivered after finishing, quickly fastened his padded trousers, and turned to run back. At more than thirty degrees below zero, the cold could chill a man to the bone in no time.

When he reached the door, before he stepped inside, he heard his older brother, Li Jianguo, and his sister-in-law, Liang Yuemei, talking in the west rooms.

"Didn't you say Xiao Long wasn't coming back? Now he's here, what are we going to do when we run out of coal? We can't dig up Red Willow roots in the dead of winter!"

"Leave it to me. I'll find a way," Li Jianguo said, his voice subdued.

"Find a way, my ass! Borrow from the team? We'd need at least five hundred kilograms of coal! How would we pay it back? A whole year's earnings wouldn't cover it!"

"I told you to leave it to me. I'll figure something out. We can't let Xiao Long freeze!"

"He had a perfectly good job. Why did he come back? And fired, at that... What decent person gets fired from a factory? Didn't you ask why they fired him? You spent fifty yuan getting him in. Can we get that money back?"

"It's already been spent. How could we get it back?"

"Then ask Xiao Long how much he earned these past few months. If he has anything left, we could use it to buy some..."

"What's the point of asking? If he had money, wouldn't he have brought it out already? He was all alone in Wu City, in an unfamiliar place without anyone he knew. How could he avoid spending money? Don't ask. I told you, I'll find a way!"

"Fine, fine, keep playing the big shot! I don't care how you do it, but you're not letting Juan and Qiang freeze again..."

"Mom, I want meat..." His nephew Li Qiang's voice rang out, silencing his brother and sister-in-law.

Li Long sighed, pushed open the door, and entered his east room.

The west side was the main living quarters. The entrance led into a passage that also served as a cooking area, with a few windowless rooms used as a bedroom, a kitchen, and a spare room for storage. The bedroom doubled as a sitting room. The east room had originally been a storeroom. It was only one room, but it had a stove, a heated wall, and a heated brick bed.

Feeling the warmth inside, Li Long knew he needed to carefully plan what to do next.

In his previous life, he had taken his brother and sister-in-law's sacrifices for granted, never considering how much his brother scrimped and saved for him.

Li Long had also been somewhat vain and softhearted. In modern terms, he had been a bit of a bleeding heart, often taking things from his brother's household to help other people.

As a result, he had been played for a sucker time and again.

He would never do that again in this life.

That was what he thought, but other people wouldn't see it that way.

Li Long had barely begun to form a plan when hurried footsteps sounded in the yard, followed by someone knocking on the door next door.

Li Jianguo opened it, saw that it was Gu Ermao, a young man from the team, and asked:

"Ermao, what is it?"

"Jianguo, I heard Li Long's back. Where is he?"

"Over there. What do you need?" Li Jianguo didn't trust Gu Ermao. The fellow was a layabout in the village, and he wanted to find out exactly what he was here for.

In Li Jianguo's eyes, Li Long was still a child, too unreliable to handle things on his own. He needed someone looking out for him.

Hearing their voices, Li Long pulled his door open, letting in a blast of icy wind.

"Ermao, what is it?"

"You really are back?" Wrapped in a ragged padded jacket, Gu Ermao brightened at the sight of Li Long. He sniffed hard and pushed him into the east room with one hand.

"Come on, let's talk inside!"

Li Jianguo had intended to follow them, but Gu Ermao pulled the door shut as soon as he went in.

Behind him, Liang Yuemei complained:

"Will you shut the door already? You're letting all the heat out!"

Li Jianguo closed the door.

In the east room, Gu Ermao said to Li Long:

"Li Long, your buddy's in a bind. I need your help."

"What is it? Tell me first, but I might not be able to help." Li Long smiled as he spoke, already on his guard. Gu Ermao might have been a layabout, but he had a silver tongue. He had often flattered Li Long until he was thrilled, making him believe Gu Ermao truly admired him.

Only later had he realized that Ermao simply wanted to sponge off him.

"How much money do you have on you? I'm going to the Third Team tomorrow to meet a potential bride, but I don't have any money to buy gifts. Lend me some."

He said it as though it were perfectly natural, as though Li Long lending him money was simply how things ought to be.

In his previous life, Li Long had wanted to look generous, so he had lent Gu Ermao all the money he had on him-more than ten yuan. With no money left at home to buy coal, Li Jianguo had borrowed some from the team, and it had taken three years to pay off the debt.

But Gu Ermao had never repaid his loan, not even by the time Li Long died.

Would he lend him money again in this life?

Not a chance.

Put away the urge to rescue everyone. Let people live with their own fate.

(End of chapter)