In the early spring of 1975, in Bellrise County of Riverveil Province, over at the Triumph Commune’s Southern Bridge Production Team, the season was just warming up. The sunset lit the sky red, and thin trails of cooking smoke drifted lazily from every household.

Marcus Fletcher had just returned to the village and was heading toward the team office when he caught something in the corner of his eye. Over by Misty Bridge, near the Northern Bridge Production Team, a commotion was rolling this way. Three people were running hard.

In front was a young man.

Behind him, a middle‑aged woman scrambled along.

And at the very back was a girl of seventeen or eighteen, left hand gripping a firewood chopper, right hand holding a kitchen knife, charging after the pair with pure fury in her eyes.

A bunch of curious villagers trailed behind them, eager for a show.

The girl shouted as she ran, breath full of rage: “Stop right there! If you’ve got guts, don’t run! Your whole family must be blind for eight generations, slandering my name like that! See if your ancestors’ graves don’t start smoking black!”

…

As the group got closer, Marcus recognized the fellow in the lead—Ethan Garrison, one of the neighborhood’s well‑known troublemakers. Then his gaze landed on the girl with the knives. He knew her too: Luna Morrison, his childhood fiancée.

And after thinking over her choice of words, Marcus didn’t hesitate. He stuck out a leg. With a heavy thud, Ethan crashed face‑first into the dirt, grimacing in pain.

Luna caught up instantly. She swung a kick right at Mrs. Garrison’s backside, flipping the woman flat onto the ground.

Then she tossed both blades into the grass by the roadside, climbed onto the struggling woman, and began slapping her with sharp, echoing cracks.

Mrs. Garrison thrashed and cursed between breaths. “Luna Morrison, you little tramp, you—”

“Who are you calling a tramp? This filthy mouth of yours—let’s see if you still dare talk nonsense, keep talking, go on!”

…

Ethan tried to get up when he saw his mother taking the hits. He barely pushed himself off the dirt before Marcus planted a foot square on his back and pressed him down again.

Ethan opened his mouth, ready to spit something back, but one look at Marcus’s expression made him swallow every word.

Luna was still fuming, her slaps landing sharp and hard.

Just then, the Northern Bridge Production Team’s captain arrived with a crowd of villagers. They all rushed over, talking over each other.

“Luna, if you’ve got something to say, say it calmly, don’t be rash.”

“Luna, that’s enough. Keep going and she’ll lose every last tooth she’s got left.”

"What's going on with Luna?"

Pinned down by two people, Luna Morrison was still kicking hard in Mrs. Garrison’s direction, cursing as she struggled.

"You nasty piece of work, always running that mouth of yours. Think you can smear me just ’cause my folks ain’t around? Didn’t you tell Mrs. Stanton I was sneaking off with some man in the bamboo grove? Didn’t you say a man climbed into my yard in the dead of night? And didn’t Ethan Garrison swear he saw it with his own eyes?"

"Fine. Since everyone’s here, go ahead and tell us—who’s that man supposed to be? If you can’t name a soul, every time I see you, I’ll make sure you regret it."

As soon as she finished, she shook off the people holding her and strode to the ditch to pick up her two knives.

The crowd, hearing all that, shot Mrs. Garrison and her son looks full of disgust. Stuff like this wasn’t something you could just make up. A girl’s reputation could be ruined for life. It was downright wicked.

Voices in the crowd rose, scolding the mother and son from all sides.

Captain Armstrong of the Northern Bridge Production Team heard the commotion, and his face darkened like burnt iron.

Mrs. Garrison, covering her face and lifting her chin stubbornly, snapped, "What’re you staring at? What’re you yapping for? I ain’t making it up. Ethan really did see it—just couldn’t make out who it was ’cause it was dark."

"Yeah, I—" Ethan Garrison tried to chime in from under the boot pinning him down, but the pressure suddenly increased. Pain shot through him, and he shut up fast.

Luna pointed a knife at Mrs. Garrison.

"Oh, so he ‘didn’t see clearly,’ and you’re still spreading this garbage? Anyone can make up stories. Should I start on you then? You—yeah, you—you don’t just fool around with half the men in your own family's entire production team, you don’t even spare the animals! I saw you hugging that boar, calling it ‘baby’s daddy’ over and over. Don’t you feel sick?"

A few laughs slipped out from the onlookers.

"You’re spouting nonsense! You cursed brat—" Mrs. Garrison shrieked.

Seeing the two getting louder and nastier, Captain Armstrong finally bellowed, "Enough! All of you, shut it!"

The whole place quieted down. He continued, "Mrs. Garrison, apologize to Luna right now. If you don’t, I’ll dock your work points. Everything you said was nonsense, and you’re supposed to be the elder here."

But Luna wasn’t about to let it slide.

Plenty of young women had their whole futures wrecked by gossip like this. She wasn’t going to let this pair walk away without paying for it.

She spoke firmly, "It’s pure luck I caught them today. If I hadn’t heard it myself, they’d keep whispering behind my back, and no matter how many times I'd try to clear my name, it wouldn’t matter. By then, what could I do? Die just to prove I’m clean? They’re trying to push me to the edge. This isn’t something a simple ‘sorry’ can fix."

Captain Armstrong looked at her. "Then what do you want?"

Luna replied, "They’re paying me two hundred yuan. If not, we’re marching to the Commune right now. I’m sure the Commune will stand up for a martyr’s child."

Yes, the body she’d ended up in after crossing over was indeed a martyr’s descendant. The Morrison Clan had always been thin on heirs—ten generations and never more than a single child—so by the time it came to the original girl, it was still just her alone.

Her life had been rough from the start. At six, her mother died in service. At nine, her father went missing. At twelve, her grandmother passed. By fifteen, even her grandfather was gone.

Now the house held only her and a four‑year‑old little brother, a kid her grandfather had picked up in Bellrise County and brought home to raise.

After her mother passed, the state had issued a sizable compensation payment.

And that was exactly what Mrs. Garrison and Ethan had been eyeing. Just last month they’d even sent someone to propose, wanting her to marry Ethan. She’d shut that down right away.

Now they were smearing her name—most likely because she’d turned around and gotten engaged to Marcus Fletcher instead. They were bitter and wanted to ruin it for her.

Mrs. Garrison jumped up and yelled, “No way! We don’t have that kind of money. Quit dreaming. You’re basically robbing us!”

Luna Morrison let out a cold snort. “Then let’s head to the commune. I’m engaged to Marcus Fletcher now. We may not be married yet, but that still makes me half a military family member. And I’m a martyr’s daughter on top of that. What you’re doing is persecuting a martyr’s descendant, persecuting a military family, and wrecking the unity of the Southern Bridge Production Team. Stack those charges together—if we go to Triumph Commune, you two are bound for the labor farm. Who knows how many years you’ll stay there. Hah.”

To be honest, she wasn’t totally sure how the commune would handle a rumor‑spreading case like this. Probably just a few days locked up, a warning, and then released.

Which was exactly why taking money was a much cleaner solution.

The moment Captain Armstrong and Mrs. Garrison heard “labor farm,” their faces went pale. Everyone knew the Bellrise County farm held labor reform convicts—people worked like beasts there. Stay for two months and you’d come out a different person. Stay a few years and you might never come out alive.

Mrs. Garrison burst into loud sobs on the spot. Her family didn’t have that kind of money. Forget two hundred—she couldn’t even scrape together fifty.

No money?

Perfect. Whatever they had, they’d hand over first. The rest would be deducted from their work points until the full two hundred was settled.

Seeing Luna’s firm stance—and not wanting to make trouble with the Fletcher Clan, given that he was just a small team captain while Marcus’s grandfather was the big brigade leader—Captain Armstrong could only agree to resolve it with money.

Terrified of the labor farm, the Garrisons hurried to nod. But they could only come up with forty yuan.

Only then did Luna, who’d kept a stiff face this whole time, finally smile.

“Good. Since you agree, we’re making this official. We need a written statement—everything spelled out clearly: what happened, when and where, how you’ll repay it, by when, plus the witness signatures. Three copies. One for me, one for your family, one for the brigade office. Captain, you’ll write it.”

She pulled paper and a pen from her trouser pocket and handed them to Captain Armstrong.