1960s: I Receive Three Salaries at the Factory All By Myself

Gu Panyao, a sixteen-year-old girl living in a cramped courtyard in 1970s China, dies a miserable death in her previous life after being betrayed by her stepmother, Wang Zhaodi, and her stepsister, Zhang Yuanyuan. After her father dies in a work accident, the Zhang family moves in, and Gu Panyao is systematically stripped of her inheritance, job, and dignity. She is forced to take her stepsister's place in rural labor, where she is framed, assaulted, and abused by a widower arranged by Zhang Yuanyuan. Just before her death, she discovers a mysterious spatial dimension that allows her to return to the past, reborn on the day of the factory recruitment exam.

Upon waking, Gu Panyao realizes she has been given a second chance. She immediately identifies the toxic dynamics within her household. Zhang Yuanyuan attempts her usual tactic of feigning weakness and guilt after failing the exam, expecting Gu Panyao to yield her job quota. Instead, Gu Panyao coldly refuses to comfort her and publicly announces that Zhang Yuanyuan must go to the countryside if she fails. This shocks the stepsister and sets the stage for a complete reversal of their power dynamic.

Gu Panyao’s first major move is to secure her father’s hidden family fortune. While her stepmother and stepsister are distracted by their affectionate reunion, she retrieves a wooden box containing gold bars and silver ingots from under her bed and stores them in her spatial dimension. She also steals Zhang Yuanyuan’s household registration page, a critical document needed for future maneuvers. Her next target is the family home. She approaches Director Wang of the neighborhood committee and, with the complicity of her stepfather Zhang Jiawang—who wants her out of the house—successfully transfers the property deed into her own name.

Simultaneously, Gu Panyao addresses her employment situation. She visits the Steel Rolling Mill and speaks with Director Yang, the factory director. She offers to sell her father’s Level 6 worker job quota, which was intended for her inheritance, in exchange for cash and ration coupons. Director Yang agrees to pay her twelve hundred yuan and two valuable tickets, which he intends to give to his nephew. In return, Gu Panyao secures a position as an accountant at the mill, a stable and respected job that she passes the exam for. This transaction not only provides her with financial independence but also places her under the protection of a powerful factory official.

Back at home, Gu Panyao confronts her family about the misuse of her father’s death benefits. She publicly accuses Wang Zhaodi of spending the money on the Zhang family, causing a scandal that draws the attention of neighbors. To save face and avoid further damage to Zhang Yuanyuan’s marriage prospects, Gu Panyao forces the stepsister to wash her father’s dirty work clothes in the freezing snow. This act humiliates Zhang Yuanyuan, whose delicate hands are exposed to the cold, damaging her carefully cultivated image of fragility.

Gu Panyao continues to dismantle the Zhang family’s control over her. She uses her new position and financial resources to isolate her stepsister from potential suitors, particularly Sun Dawei, a local troublemaker who had targeted Zhang Yuanyuan in her previous life. By manipulating social interactions and exposing the family’s hypocrisy, Gu Panyao ensures that her stepsister faces the consequences of her own laziness and deceit. The story follows Gu Panyao as she builds a new life, leveraging her knowledge of the future and her spatial abilities to outmaneuver her enemies and reclaim the life that was stolen from her.