Rebirth in the Era of Wildfire

In the summer of 1989, the rain poured down in torrents.
Lu Kun sat on the threshold, puffing away at his water pipe, but his thoughts were far from the act.
His expression was dazed, with a trace of disbelief lurking deep in the corners of his eyes.
...
Bang!
“All you do is smoke, smoke, smoke. Is there anything else you’re good for besides smoking? …Oh, my poor child, how did you end up with a father like this!”
The woman inside the house, Liu Liping, was Lu Kun’s wife from his previous life.
Her wailing blended with the relentless drumming of rain, the heavy atmosphere pressing down upon the chest like a stone.
Lu Kun was twenty-three years old this year, but in this era of early marriages, he was already the father of three children.
He was a typical rural man, shaped by the times, carrying a certain preference for sons over daughters.
The first two children were girls; the third, at last, a boy. The eldest daughter was already seven, the second four, and the youngest boy had died just after his second birthday.
By rights, for someone like him—without parents or brothers to lean on, his only sister long married off, and himself wandering idly every day—finding a wife at a young age was close to impossible.
But Lu Kun had his ways. He whistled at pretty girls, flirted shamelessly, though his hands were always clean—never leaving evidence before others.
At just sixteen, Lu Kun had been loitering in the neighboring village when he saw Liu Liping carrying two buckets of water along the road—he was instantly