Non-BL Reading List (BG novels, Non-Romance)

155. Back to 1998

Translator: N/A

Title: 重回1998

Chapters: 146 + 2 Extras

Tags: rebirth, poor to rich, BUSINESS MANAGEMENT

CP: Chi Mo (ML) x Lin Qing (FL)

Synopsis:

When Lin Qing accidentally slipped down a mountain, she recalled her life.

When she was eighteen, she received a college acceptance letter, but did not go to college.

Holding her breath, she wanted to make a lot of money so she could show up her biological father who abandoned his wife and daughters.

When she was finally financially free, she turned around and found that her mother was so old and her little sister had changed.

Lin Qing bought food for her mother and wanted to take her to see the world, but her mother said: "The doctors don't let me eat these and I just want to rest at home now."

Lin Qing asked her adult sister to change her surname to her mother's, but her sister said: "Dad told me that if I retained his surname, he would buy me a house. It's okay to change my surname, but you must also buy me a house."

She made money, but missed ten years of time.

---

Opening her eyes again, Lin Qing returned to the summer of 1998.

This time, she wanted to earn money and but also wanted to study, and take good care of her mother and sister, and if her sister grows crooked, she will... beat her up a few more times!

She will never take another look at her Dad's shameless family.

Impressions: Very female lead-centric. The ML is really more of a supporting role XD

So our MC goes back to when she just graduated from highschool. In the previous life, she didn't enter into her first choice University (Acceptance letter is from her 2nd choice) plus the expensive tuition fees and also wanting to faceslap her Dad, anyways, for various reasons, our MC chose not to go to College but to start working/earning money.

After many many years of struggle, MC can now be considered rich and now she wanted to spend time with her family but found out that everything has changed. Her mom is old and her lil sis is distant to her. MC gets into an accident and was reborn. 

This time, she chose to go into college, knowing that her 2nd choice would be merging with three other schools and it would become a huge University.  She also starts earning money thru some small businesses like selling fried yoghurt, freshman maps, dorm necessities etc. Then she opened a rental shop for formal suits as well as a 'training' center for college tutors who work part-time. There's being a brand agent of a cosmetic brand she wasn't able to get in the last life. Anyways, our MC immediately starts earning money during her freshman year. She buys her family a house, gets a Beijing household residency etc, getting richer and richer. She is also very concerned with her sister's education, making sure she doesn't grow up spoiled in the future.

She meets ML early, he is the owner of the building MC rented for the part-time tutors. MC actually notices ML early for his beautiful hands. Anyways, they are ambiguous for a period of time before MC firmly says no, wanting to make a career first. ML also backs off after finding out that MC is still a student. 

Anyways, MC gets richer and richer, buying houses and opening new businesses. Her friends/colleagues come and go. Although she is concerned with her family, the bulk is still more on her career. Love is waaaayyy below on her priority list. It's only later during the SARS and MC found out that ML put her in his will that MC accepted ML. Laters, she had a premonition that ML is going to propose marriage and she shot that down too. And laters, she also proposed marriage when she felt that the time is right. The End.

Hmm... like I said, very female lead-centric. ML only shows up when MC remembers him. He is always the one adjusting to MC, making way for her career. And its okay, I mean, there are many poor to rich romance stories with a businesswoman female lead. It's just that author-sama seems to like emphasizing that its okay for the wife to be working, while the husband is in charge of the home. I think there are 3 couples like this here where its always the right 'choice' that the wife is main workforce. Y'know, in case the readers forgot~~ 

Then there is MC's colleague who resigned to be a housewife (cute child, loving husband, good parents and parents-in-law) and I feel like author-sama is showing that people have different kinds of happiness. MC is happy with her career, she gets fulfillment from it while others get it from their families, but nooooppeeee, her colleague's husband start to cheat, her in-laws start getting sick one after another, our last look is that colleague is struggling to find a job cos she has stopped working for awhile. Lesson seems to be: she should not have resigned from MC's company, shouldn't have children so early so she missed the best opportunity to be promoted.

MC's other colleague who started up with her also became greedy and finally, #spoiler was sued by MC for leaking company secrets. There is also MC's college roommate who was rich when they were in college and even became MC's small investor, her family suddenly went bankrupt and finally, she had to work for MC's company instead. How to say... I guess it's very...realistic, I mean, not everything goes well for everyone but as the people around the female lead, who are 'good' to her, can't author-sama allow them a little bit of buff from the heroine's halo? XD

Same with her family/ML's family, despite repeatedly implying that women should have careers, MC's mom resigned from her job and has since become dependent on MC after they moved places. MC's lil sis seems to be on the right track, going for the sports routes instead of academic achievements, but noopeee, she gets sick too and had to stop her sports career, becoming an ordinary student. Lastly, there's implied yuri that ML's lil sis seems to be on unrequited love with MC's lil sis (shown in the Extras at Lil Sis's wedding). 

Hmm... I guess it just feels off to me, when the Happy Ending is really just for the MC while the other people around her are...not so happy. I guess I'm just used to comparison tropes where the 'villains' are suffering while MC is happy so it feels a bit strange when there are no miserable villains around and MC's life is being compared to her friends instead. 

Uhm, anyway, read this for career-oriented MC~~ and gentle ML~~