ARC 2: Stepmother in the Seventies ✦ c71~116 (46)
✦ END ~
Translator: InkyDragon (https://inkydragontranslation.wordpress.com)
Li Dan Yang sighed inwardly, her impatience growing.
“Wei Guo,” she began cautiously, “have you considered branching out? So many from the village are doing business in the city now. I hear they’re making a good living, even more than factory workers.” She hinted.
She couldn’t fathom her husband’s lack of interest. In her past life, he’d left the factory to become a successful businessman. Yet, in this life, he seemed content, even proud, to remain a simple worker. Any mention of business was met with resistance.
“Business? What nonsense! I have a respectable job. Why lower myself to peddling on the streets?”
“But it’s not like that anymore,” she argued, her frustration rising. “Things are different now. The country’s encouraging private businesses. People are selling everything – vegetables, clothes, food – and nobody bats an eye. Now’s the time, before the competition gets too fierce.”
Her words fell on deaf ears. Zhou Wei Guo only heard criticism, a judgement on his meagre earnings.
He felt a familiar anger flare. “Why do you keep pushing this? Are you ashamed of my salary? Do you envy those making more money? Too bad, it’s too late to regret now. You marry into the circumstances, you stay with the circumstances. Since you’ve married me, stop thinking about how others are doing. This is how my family is…”
His outburst silenced her. Defeated, she retreated, her mind churning. In her past life, she’d only learned of the Zhou family’s fortune after they’d become provincial giants. Interviews with Zhou Wei Guo revealed the year they struck gold, the year their business empire began.
But what those interviews failed to mention, what Li Dan Yang hadn’t known, was the true architect of their success. It was Gu Shi Chu who’d first dared to venture out. She started small, selling homegrown vegetables. Then, inspired by others, she’d journeyed south, returning with a treasure trove of clothes that sold like wildfire.
Each profitable trip fueled her ambition. Soon, she was investing everything, bringing back even larger shipments, her profits multiplying with every venture. It was only then, witnessing the sheer scale of her success, that Zhou Wei Guo finally abandoned his factory job to join her.
And as the business flourished, he burnt the bridges behind him and ensured Gu Shi Chu’s entrepreneurial spirit was extinguished, relegating her back to the role of a housewife.
Li Dan Yang still believed it was Zhou Wei Guo who’d started the family business. She was wrong. He simply didn’t have that kind of fire in him and balls to dare. Her dreams of him becoming a roaring success were fading fast, replaced by a growing unease.
Not only was her dream business faltering, but the four stepchildren she’d envisioned as future triumphs were turning out to be anything but. Jian Hong, the eldest, treated school like a suggestion, skipping class, ignoring homework, and generally wreaking havoc. His grades, naturally, were abysmal. And his bad influence was rubbing off on his younger siblings, dragging them into his orbit of truancy, poor performance, and stubborn disobedience. They were a collective headache, a storm cloud hanging over the household.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. Li Dan Yang distinctly remembered them as bright, eager children, destined for greatness. The reality, however, was a cruel parody of her memories. Their elementary school grades were a disaster zone. Junior high and high school seemed like insurmountable hurdles at this rate. College? Unthinkable.
But if they didn’t go to college, how could Jian Hong become the business tycoon she’d foreseen? How could Jian Ying become a renowned doctor? How could Jian Zhan become a brilliant scientist? How could Jian Fang become a star that shone bright for all to see?
The realisation that her stepchildren were veering so drastically off course hit Li Dan Yang like a physical blow. It left her reeling, questioning everything she thought she knew.
Regret, however, was a luxury she couldn’t afford. She had to salvage the situation. She doubled down, pushing them to study, keeping a constant eye on their progress. But years of appeasing their every whim had fostered a deep-seated resistance to discipline. Her attempts to rein them in were met with open rebellion, fueling their defiance and pushing them further down a path of truancy and delinquency.
Li Dan Yang knew that a child’s success was a delicate dance between family and school. But the family’s rhythm was disastrously offbeat. Mother Zhou, blinded by love, coddled her children relentlessly. Li Dan Yang, initially hesitant to discipline, now found herself powerless to do so. Zhou Wei Guo, a fleeting presence at home, had neither the time nor the energy for parenting. Zhou’s siblings, left to their own devices, were growing up like weeds, wild and untamed.
Without discipline, without boundaries, the children ran wild, their studies falling by the wayside. Truancy soon escalated to defiance, their teachers’ authority shrugged off with disdain. School, it seemed, had little to offer them. Success, for Zhou’s siblings, felt as distant as the stars.
In her past life, Gu Shi Chu hadn’t indulged the children. No, she’d ruled with an iron fist, tending to the house and fields with tireless efficiency, all the while keeping a watchful eye on their studies, pushing them to excel. She’d been a true stepmother, sacrificing herself for their betterment. But her reward? A life of hardship and an unsatisfying end.
She’d burned bright, illuminating their paths, only to be consumed by the flames. Li Dan Yang hadn’t possessed that kind of unwavering resolve. She’d chosen a different path, and now she was reaping the consequences.
The contrast was thrown into sharp relief when Gu Shi Chu and Ji Ming Tao returned to their hometown, a vision of success and contentment. They were a handsome couple, their daughter, Little Star, a radiant princess by their side.
Li Dan Yang glanced at her own brood, a pack of unruly dirty monkeys, and a wave of disbelief washed over her.
“How can this be?” she muttered, her voice laced with despair. “Why hasn’t the Zhou family prospered? Why are they living so well? Did I make the wrong choice again?”
This time, with a different woman at the helm, Jian Hong wouldn’t become a titan of industry. He’d end up a small-time hoodlum, his days a blur of petty crime, his future shattered when a rival broke his leg before he even turned thirty. Jian Ying wouldn’t be a doctor, either. She’d barely scrape by in primary school before heading south for work, her life an endless cycle of arguments with her factory worker husband.
Jian Zhan, at least, wouldn’t turn to a life of crime. He’d follow in his father’s footsteps, disappearing into the vast sea of ordinary workers. And Jian Fang? Her dreams of stardom would fizzle out in a city salon, her heart stolen by a small-time crook who’d whisk her away, never to be seen again.
Meanwhile, Gu Shi Chu and Ji Ming Tao would build their careers in the capital, their family growing from three to four with the arrival of a son. Their lives, a testament to hard work and unwavering love, were everything Li Dan Yang had hoped for but failed to grasp.
─── ❖ ── ☆ ── ❖ ───
- (TN: Another ARC ends, hooray! How did you like it?
- I feel somewhat sorry for Li Dan Yang. She was only a bit greedy in wishing to live a good life and “stole” Gu Shi Chu’s marriage, for which she felt guilty. She did not harm the children or mistreat Gu Shi Chu in any way. Her only fault was not realising that she could be more than just a stay-at-home mom. As a frog at the bottom of the well, she couldn’t imagine a bigger life and only clung to the one a husband could give her.
- The next ARC will be about ancient China again, but this time, finally, MC won’t be a stepmother… but, gasp, a 【 censored】!! Oh, that is a mini spoiler. I guess you need to wait and read it to learn more. *Wink wink*. The new ARC title will be “The General Got His Second Chance in Love.” The basic translation of the arc would have been: “Reborn Husband,” but it doesn’t fully fit in English. He is more accurately described as a Regressor/Time Traveler, as he goes back in time to relive his past few years, rather than being reborn as a child. So I played with translating it as “Husband Got His Second Chance in Life”, but then one of my MTL translated “Husband” into “General” and it fit better. Plus, I was reading at that time chapter where the word “Love” is mentioned multiple times, so that is how the ARC’s name was localized XD.
- As mentioned before, I’ll take a small “break” from posting new chapters to translate the entire ARC and then edit it.)
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(๑✪ᆺ✪๑)
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