Lin Qingping was dead. She died at sixty-eight. She had been sick, but it wasn't the illness that killed her. It was her darling nephew, who had pulled her oxygen tube. The eldest daughter, she had spent her entire life supporting her family, propping up her younger brother. Her own mother had wheedled her into buying houses and cars for her brother, her nephew, her niece; wheedled her into drawing up a will that left everything to them; and wheedled her with promises that they would care for her in her old age. But when she fell ill, she didn't receive so much as a single bowl of hot soup from them. Instead, her darling nephew pulled her oxygen tube. Her illness, the doctors had said, was treatable. It would just cost money. Her darling nephew couldn't wait. He slipped into her private hospital room in the dead of night and disconnected her from the machine. The suffocating feeling woke her. She tried to call for a doctor, but his hand clamped over her mouth. His face twisted into a vicious sneer. “Auntie, you’re almost seventy. Everyone has to die sometime, so why waste more money? You have to understand, every day you lie here in this hospital, you're wasting *my* money! All of it is mine!” A single tear slid from the corner of her eye… Did she have any regrets? Oh, yes… Her greatest regret was how she had treated him—her husband, Gu Junsheng. The soldier who had died so young. In all the years that followed, she had never met a man as good as him… The nephew’s vicious face blurred before her eyes, and in her final moment, another face emerged from the haze—his. Dark and resolute. “Gu Junsheng…” The name flashed through her mind, and then she knew no more. In that instant, a crushing wave of remorse filled her heart. *Gu Junsheng, if I could do it all over again, I would never treat you that way…* But Lin Qingping never imagined that she would actually get that chance. She was lying on a bed in Gu Junsheng’s old family home, staring, disoriented, at the double-happiness character pasted on the window. She had returned. Forty-eight years into the past, to the year she turned twenty. This was the year her mother had taken a one-hundred-dollar bride price from the Gu family and forced her to marry him. She had married into the family resentfully, finding fault with everything about her husband, the second son, Gu Junsheng. She hated his dark skin, hated that he was seven or eight years older than her, hated his coarse, soldierly manners. She hated that he came with a child, hated how far away he was stationed, leaving everything—including the child—in her hands… She had raised hell in the Gu household, turning it upside down, all while funneling their possessions back to her own family. A few years later, Gu Junsheng was killed in action. And yet, despite everything she’d done, his last will and testament had left his entire death benefit to her. He had even apologized for wasting these years of her youth. The money he had paid for with his life became the seed money for her future—the capital that allowed her to open a small diner, then expand from the county to the city, and finally to the metropolis… Lying in bed, Lin Qingping’s thoughts were a tangled mess. Night had fallen long ago, but Gu Junsheng still hadn’t come into the room. She remembered how, six months ago, after their unwilling marriage, she had deliberately exposed herself to the winter cold and caught a fever just to avoid their wedding night. The next day, he was recalled to his unit for an emergency mission. Nothing had ever happened between them. Gu Junsheng was a sharp man; he could see right through her. He knew she didn’t want him, which was why, in her past life, he had found an excuse to sleep in a separate room during this visit. Would he do the same this time? A quick calculation sent a chill through her. He only had four years left. If this life was destined to end the same way, then she would spend these few years making it up to him, no matter what. After a moment of fierce debate with herself, she threw back the covers and rushed out. Gu Junsheng was bathing. She knew it. She could hear the splashing of water from the shower stall next to the pigsty. Taking a deep breath to steady her nerves, she marched over and pushed open the rickety, useless door. And then her eyes went wide. She had been married to him for a lifetime and never known his body was this… perfect. His skin was dark, yes, but he was a soldier. It was the healthy, masculine vitality of him, the flawless lines of his muscles, a body that could have been carved from stone. *I must have been blind to ever find fault with him,* she thought. Her gaze glued itself to him, following the beads of water as they trickled down his skin, lower and lower. Right then, she wished she were one of those water droplets. But Gu Junsheng was faster, whipping a towel around his waist. “Get out!” he commanded, his voice cold and sharp. “I… I came to get your dirty clothes!” she stammered, her face flushing. She grabbed a bundle of clothes—any clothes—and fled, smacking her arm hard against the doorframe on her way out. A sharp pain shot through her. Back in the room, her heart was still hammering against her ribs, the image of water rolling over his bronze skin seared into her mind. With a soft whimper, she slid under the covers, and the throbbing in her arm intensified. Damn it, she thought, a handsome man really does cloud your judgment. She’d completely forgotten about the arm she’d injured that morning. She had run into the village loafer in the mountains, and while escaping his advances, she'd fallen and scraped a huge gash on her arm. The bleeding had stopped earlier, but after banging it twice, the wound had started to seep again. She was hissing in pain when she heard the door creak open. He was back. She quickly lay still. The door opened, and there he was. He was bare-chested, an old cloth wrapped around his waist. Lin Qingping stared at the cloth, a strange flicker of disappointment in her heart. His face, however, was dark as he spotted his clothes on the table. “You took my clean clothes,” he said, his voice cold. Lin Qingping was speechless. Her mind had been a complete mess; how was she supposed to tell clean from dirty? It was just an excuse anyway! But she wasn't about to admit he was right. “Who… who told you to be so mean to me?” she stammered, her eyes welling up with tears, looking utterly wronged. “When you yell at me, I just… I just…” Gu Junsheng was at a loss for words. Speechless, he snatched his clothes and went back out. When he returned, he was wearing pants and an army-green tank top that left his arms and shoulders bare. A few stray drops of water still clung to his skin, tracing the lines of his muscles… Lin Qingping was lost in the sight until he stopped right beside her bed, and she snapped back to reality. He stood over her, his eyes narrowed slightly, as if studying her. She held her breath. This hadn't happened in her past life. Suddenly, the air felt thick with damp heat, making it hard to breathe. “You—” she started to say, but was cut off by a sharp gasp as he suddenly grabbed her arm. She cried out. “Does it hurt?” he asked suddenly. The unexpected sound of his low, gravelly voice cut through the chaos in her mind.