A teenage Gao Chang climbed up a slope, put Rhubarb on the ground, touched its head, and said: “I’m going home. You can’t follow me this time, do you hear me?”
“Woo……” Rhubarb lay on the ground listlessly and whimpered softly in response.
“Do you agree? Then I’m leaving.” Gao Chang stood up and walked down the mountain for about ten steps. Seeing that Rhubarb didn’t follow, he stood there and hesitated for a moment, and then turned back.
“It’s getting dark, you have to find a place to stay. The dew is heavy at night, and you’re already running a fever.”
“Woo woo……” Rhubarb glanced up at Gao Chang and then continued to lie down.
“I almost forgot. There’s still a piece of candy in my pocket. I’ll help peel it open for you. I’ll go after you finish it.”
“Woo……” Rhubarb stuck out his tongue and licked the candy cube. Then picked it up, chewed it twice, and swallowed it.
“Rhubarb, you’re so obedient. if only you didn’t get sick……”
Seeing that it was getting dark, Gao Chang touched the puppy’s head and stood up. He walked forward slowly and after walking a few steps, he couldn’t help but look back. Rhubarb was squatting on a small dirt mound. His eyes were wet and watery, looking extremely pitiful.
Because he was looking back, Gao Chang didn’t look carefully at his feet, stumbled over a protruding stone, and slammed his forehead on the dirt road with a loud “Bang”. It took him some time before he could stand up again. He looked at his surroundings dizzily, then looked at the puppy behind him, before finally figuring out his situation a little bit.
Gao Chang walked back to in front of the small dirt mound in two or three steps[mfn](三步并做二步, sān bù bìng zuò èr bù) moving forward at a fast pace[/mfn]. This little black dog squatting in front of him, which was only as big as an adult man’s palm, named Rhubarb, was the creditor who made him feel guilty for more than ten years in his previous life. At this time, it was sick and had a high fever. When the wind blew, it sneezed sharply. The tip of its nose was wet, the eyes were also very moist and red, and the fur on it stuck to its frame, making it look quite sick and a little frightening.
Gao Chang was in a pretty good mood right now. He bent down and hugged the puppy into his arms: “Let’s go Rhubarb. Let’s go home.”
Gao Chang really didn’t expect that such a good thing as rebirth would happen to him. It seems that the heavens had discovered that he had been treated too badly over the years, and finally decided to make some compensation. Gao Chang was in a good mood and humming a little tune on the walk back home. However, before entering the village, he still covered the Rhubarb in his arms with his clothes. He couldn’t let those people know that he had not sent away Rhubarb, otherwise they would chirp crookedly for a long time.
As for why Rhubarb[mfn](大黄,dàhuáng) Big yellow[/mfn] was called Rhubarb and not Dahei[mfn](大黑, dà hēi) Big black[/mfn] was because Gao Chang listened to his grandma’s word. When he brought the puppy back at first, he originally wanted to name it Xiao Hei[mfn](小黑, xiǎo hēi) Small Black[/mfn], but Grandma Gao told him that all the local dogs when young have black fur but when they grow up, their fur turns yellow. It was really awkward to call a yellow-furred dog Xiaohei, so Gao Chang changed its name to Rhubarb.
After returning home, Gao Chang brought Rhubarb in his room. The Sanheyuan[mfn](三合院, sānhéyuàn) is a historical type of residence that was commonly found in China. Sanheyuan has structures on three sides of a courtyard, forming an inverted U-shape, resembling the character: 凹 (āo). There is normally a wall linking the two forward-thrusting side wings.
[/mfn] house at the corner of the village was theirs. The two outer walls of their courtyard were adjacent to the walls of the neighbors’ homes and the front of the house only had a small door more than one meter wide.
The house was quite wide, but it only had one floor. The courtyard in the middle had a little soil patch, which was open to the kitchen. The room was paved with wooden planks, but it is unknown which year these wooden planks were laid, they were very rotten, with many holes in the floor. At night, mice would scurry back and forth in their house, making a lot of noise, creating so much noise that it was nearly impossible to fall asleep.
At dinner that night, Gao Chang brought some rice to Rhubarb. But it barely licked a few mouthfuls of rice with its tongue and refused to eat anymore. Gao Chang had no choice but to take the leftovers to the backyard to feed the chickens.
Outside their courtyard were large tracts of bamboo forest, and there were some collapsed stone houses in the bamboo forest, which looked very old. Grandma Gao planted some pumpkin seedlings by the stone wall. There were pumpkin sprouts to eat in the spring, pumpkin blooms to eat in the summer, and actual pumpkins in the fall. In addition to pumpkin seedlings, there were also some vegetables commonly eaten by country folk, all of which were good and easy to grow. Planting whatever they want, just enough for grandparents and grandchildren to eat for a year.
He also raised a group of chickens and a group of ducks. They did not keep the chickens and ducks at home at night and had built a shed with bamboo sticks and straw beside the stone wall. There was also a water channel behind the house. The water flowed from the pool directly behind the house, passing through the outer wall of the Sanheyuan, and entered a large ditch at the entrance of the village. There were also screws[mfn]snails[/mfn] and loaches in the ditch, and the ducks loved flopping around in it.
For the first meal after his rebirth, Gao Chang ate a lot. The scrambled eggs with chives made by his grandma were really delicious. The leeks were planted in his backyard, and the eggs were laid by his own old hens, healthy and pollution-free.
“Chang A[mfn](啊, Ah) They put 啊 in front of someone’s name to express casualty and familiarity. It can also be used to create a nickname[/mfn], why did you bring rhubarb back again?” Almost all of Grandma’s teeth were gone and her words were leaky[mfn](漏风, leaky). Speaking indistinctly due to missing teeth.[/mfn].
“Grandma, it’s okay. I’ll let Rhubarb stay in the room and not go out. Just don’t let them see it.” In his last life, he felt guilty for this reason for many years, so he would do whatever it took to keep Rhubarb in this life. After all, he is now a twenty-eight-year-old grown man. If he couldn’t even keep a dog, it would really be laughable.
“Then you have to be more careful.”
“Got it.” As he spoke, Gao Chang took another big mouthful of rice into his mouth. He hadn’t eaten rice to his heart’s content for a long time. It was so fragrant and sweet. He ate bowl after bowl, but he didn’t want to stop his chopsticks at all.
At night, Grandma lit a dim lightbulb to make a lantern. These days people no longer use lanterns on ordinary days anymore. They are only used during funerals. In his past life, Gao Chang didn’t have any relatives in the city for many years, so after being reborn, when he looked at his grandma he could not help feeling intimate. He didn’t want to go back inside the house, so he moved a stool and sat next to her to help with the work.
“Don’t do this work. You still have classes tomorrow. hurry up and read a book.”
“Tomorrow is Sunday.” He released Rhubarb on a Saturday evening. This, Gao Chang, has always remembered. But it has been more than ten years since he last went to school, who knows what lesson he had been taking?
“Even so, don’t do this work. Grandma can do it alone.”
“I’m not doing it for you. I’m doing it for myself.” Gao Chang spoke with a grin.
“Bah! Child, don’t talk nonsense.” Grandma Gao’s face changed suddenly.
“The money earned is for me to spend anyway, so I’m earning it for myself.” Gao Chang wasn’t stupid either; he naturally knew what Grandma Gao was avoiding. Their family was already very thin, and they were very superstitious about life and death. If it weren’t for the fact that they really have no financial resources, Grandma Gao probably wouldn’t be willing to do this either.
“Doing this work won’t earn you much money. Be obedient and go back to your own room.” Grandma Gao had made up her mind not to let Gao Chang do this. He had no choice; if he kept pushing, the old lady would get anxious. So he had to go back to his own room and stay there.
Inside the room, there was only Gao Chang and Rhubarb, one person and one dog. Rhubarb was in poor spirits and was sleeping on his stomach. Gao Chang was lying on the bed with his arms as a pillow, daydreaming about how to live in this life. First of all, he definitely couldn’t go to the city like in his previous life. No matter how bad the village was, there were always crops growing in the fields, unlike in the city where once the stores closed, everyone is only left to gnaw on tree roots and eat tree bark.
Tsk, speaking of food, Gao Chang still felt a bit hungry again. He was only seventeen at this time, which was the period when he was growing the most. The dinner he had just eaten rolled around in his stomach a few times and was quickly mostly digested. Having been reborn with great difficulty, Gao Chang was determined not to mistreat himself again. In this life, without mentioning anything else, he would definitely eat and drink well and live a long life.
But eating and drinking require money. Gao Chang glanced at the sick little black dog in the corner, that guy also needed some nourishment. It couldn’t eat rice, but if he could boil a few ribs into soup, it might be able to drink a little. Thinking of ribs, Gao Chang couldn’t help but swallow his saliva. He hadn’t eaten meat in a long, long time. Of course, earthworm meat certainly couldn’t be considered meat; that stuff wasn’t even as good as insects.
In order to earn some food for himself and Rhubarb, the next day Gao Chang wandered around the streets of their town, circling back and forth. There were plenty of spare ribs in the vegetable market, but unfortunately, he just didn’t have the money to buy any.
It’s not that they really have no money at all; although their family is very poor, Grandma Gao would still put some pocket money in Gao Chang’s pocket. But this money can’t just be spent like that. Gao Chang wants to keep the money to make more money, but how to live like this? In their remote mountain town, where birds don’t shit [mfn](个鸟不拉屎, niǎo bù lāshǐ) means a place is so remote or desolate that even birds don’t visit.[/mfn] Gao Chang can’t think of any other way to make money except playing slot machines. Of course, he can’t play the slot machines either, as the odds of winning are too low.
This stroll lasted from eight in the morning until half past ten. If you were to ask Gao Chang when the best time to be rebirth is, he would definitely tell you that the best time is now, when the sunlight is still orange, and if you stay out for too long, the most that can happen is a bit of sunburn.
Spinning and spinning, from the center of the small town to the surrounding neighborhoods, Gao Chang then made his way to the largest senior activity center[mfn](个鸟不拉屎, niǎo bù lāshǐ) also commonly referred to as Senior Community Centers, which provides a place for seniors to socialize, learn, and have fun.[/mfn] in their town. Although it was said to be an activity area for the elderly, in fact, it is a place where people gather to play mahjong. Looking around, there were mahjong tables everywhere. Hearing the sound of mahjong tiles clacking from outside, Gao Chang didn’t think twice and went in. Back in the day, he was invincible all over the dormitory building.
After looking around, he found that the way they play is quite similar. Most of the people from their town who come here to play mahjong are elderly men and women, there are also some housewives. They don’t bet much, usually playing for ten or twenty yuan a round, with a hundred yuan in total, and each bet is worth a few jiao. The wins and losses are not significant; it’s just a way to pass the time. If they want to play big, they can, but not here. This senior activity center is in a public place, and the police officers often come by to check.
Seeing someone stand up, Gao Chang went over and sat down. The people at the table were all middle-aged women. When they saw a young boy come to the senior activity center to play mahjong, they all found it quite unusual. They asked him if he was in school, where he lived, and what his parents’ names were. Gao Chang hummed and chirped[mfn](哼哼唧唧, hēnghēngjījī) means softly murmuring.[/mfn] and didn’t really answer directly, just focusing on playing mahjong. Winning two or three ribs to take home would be enough to consider his task for the day complete.
There are quite a few idlers in the town. Some people play mahjong while others watch. Today, there are quite a few people gathered around Gao Chang to watch the fun. “Hah, this kid even knows how to row a boat.[mfn](还会划船呢这小子, háihuì huáchuán ne zhèxiǎozǐ)someone, especially a young person, has skills or talents that might not have been expected.[/mfn] ”
“The young guy plays pretty well, huh? Take it easy, it’s already the tenth or so round.”
These people were watching and talking at the same time, sometimes revealing Gao Chang’s cards. Gao Chang wondered if they were trying to bully him a bit. He secretly noted the loudest of the bunch and thought, damn it, next time it’ll be my turn to watch you play cards.
I see that there has been a new chapter released for this novel recently. In the past I have read the manhua, but I definitely prefer reading novels, so I would be really excited if this would be considered for a full translation. Completely understand if that decision is not made if the demand is not there, but I just wanted to say that there is at-least someone out there that would love to read more of this.
Ah sorry, looking at it again it seems a duplicate link was uploaded on NU, this isn’t a new chapter, and the book has not been updated in a couple of months. If the translator is reading this, could they know if this has been dropped? Sorry, I was excited for a second that this may be getting a translation finally – its fine if its not, but I do think this is a really great novel.