At this moment, Jolene wished she could just shut the kid up. She had no choice but to stop reading and retort, “Why don’t you read it, then? I remember you’ve seen this book many times. I’m sure you’d tell it way better than I do!”
Ben immediately shook his head and waved his hands frantically. “No, no, that’s so childish. I can’t talk like that. You keep reading.”
Jolene: “Oh, so what if I stop doing the animal voices?”
“No way, keep doing them. The narration is too boring on its own. I like it when you read like this,” Ben rejected again.
Jolene: “Alright then! So I’ll keep going?”
Ben nodded eagerly. “Hurry up, hurry up!”
Jolene stifled a laugh, pressed down her smile, and continued reading in her own way.
Actually, she used to read in a flat, plain tone before. But today, a sudden idea struck her—reading that way felt a little dull—so she tried voicing each animal like they did in audiobooks. She never expected Ben to actually argue with her about it.
Emma, on the other hand, seemed to love Jolene’s reading style. Her eyes sparkled as she looked up at her mom, then down at the animals’ expressions in the pictures. Her breathing quickened a little—clearly thrilled.
As agreed, after three readings, Ben had to go to sleep.
The little boy hugged his thin blanket, pouted, hopped off the bed, and headed back to his own room.
“Brother?” Ben opened the door and was surprised to see his brother, whom he hadn’t seen in a while. “Aren’t you busy with work tonight?”
Raymond curled his lips slightly, glanced toward the bedroom direction, then looked away a little awkwardly. “Are you going to bed now?”
“Yeah, I promised Jolene I’d go to sleep early,” Ben said. He had wanted to play with his brother, but then remembered his promise to Jolene about going to bed on time. He dropped his gaze and reluctantly added, “We pinky-swore. If you break your word, you get your eyes poked out. Whatever, I’d better go to sleep now. Brother, remember to take me out this weekend!”
Raymond nodded. “Sure. I’ll take you to the museum this weekend.”
He had been avoiding his little brother for days, and guilt had been eating at him, so he readily agreed.
The little boy pushed open his bedroom door and said, “Good night, brother!”
“Good night,” Raymond said with a smile.
Raymond glanced again at the closed door. He hadn’t expected that his lucky guess at the rehab center would actually uncover such a gem.
Ben had been way too dependent on him lately, to the point where Raymond had almost grown afraid of his own little brother—caught between guilt and fear. But now that Ben seemed less clingy, the guilt and unease took over. He decided he’d definitely take his brother to the museum on Saturday.
Once the kids were asleep, Jolene grabbed a stack of blank paper and a marker pen, lay down on the coffee table on the first floor, and started writing her first three chapters.
For online novels, the first three chapters had to grab the reader’s attention immediately and keep them turning the pages.
But since there were no online novels yet, Jolene had to be patient and carefully figure out how to create major conflicts quickly, establish the story’s background efficiently, and give readers the urge to keep reading.
This was also Jolene’s first time handwriting her manuscript. She kept writing until midnight and barely managed to finish the first chapter—and the page was full of scribbles and cross-outs, an absolute mess.
Thankfully, she had inherited the original owner’s memories and basic English skills. Although the original owner had grown up in foster care, she had still finished high school, so she had basic language proficiency—and high school required reading plenty of books, so she was by no means illiterate.
And Jolene herself was a seasoned author. She was well-versed in the patterns of popular, trendy topics from later years, and many tropes that would later become overused were fresh and groundbreaking in this era.
All she needed to do was polish her prose and make it suitable for print publication.
She copied the final version of the first chapter onto a fresh sheet of paper, turned off the lights, and went back to her room to sleep.
Early the next morning, Jolene received a call from the rehab center. When she had moved to the Inner Sunset District, she had updated her contact information so they could reach her anytime.
The center informed her that she needed to attend a mutual support group meeting at 3 PM.
Jolene had no choice but to call her employer and explain that she had to attend a support group meeting every week—it was mandatory.
Raymond was understanding. “Okay, I got it. I’ll pick Ben up from school in the afternoon.”
With her work arrangement settled, Jolene took Emma to the meeting.
Emma was too clingy to leave with anyone else. Although it wasn’t ideal to bring a child to a rehab facility, Jolene didn’t feel comfortable leaving her with strangers either.
So Emma came along with her mom to the rehab center.
There were ten members in her group. They all sat in a circle and took turns sharing the consequences alcohol had brought to their lives, their experiences with successful sobriety, the difficulties they’d encountered, and so on.
The depressed original owner had probably passed away because of drinking. Jolene could no longer feel the original owner’s presence anymore, and she had no idea where she had gone—could she have ended up in her body instead?
Before the transmigration, Jolene had been staying up late writing her novel. She had flopped several books in a row, and this one was finally picking up, so she wanted to update more while it was on a good recommendation list. In the end, she collapsed from exhaustion.
She just wondered—if the original owner had actually transmigrated into her body, what on earth was she supposed to do in China?
Jolene may not be the most accomplished person, but after all these years of writing full-time, she still had several hundred thousand in savings. She wasn’t much of a spender anyway. As long as the original owner stayed away from alcohol, she could get by just fine—whether she kept working as a nanny or did anything else.
She got a little lost in thought—and the next thing she knew, everyone in the group was staring at her.
“What?” Jolene was startled and blurted out.
“Mom, the aunties and uncles want you to share your success story with sobriety,” Emma tugged at her mom’s sleeve and whispered.
Jolene felt a little embarrassed. She hadn’t been paying attention and had to be reminded by her own daughter.
Usually, kids weren’t allowed here, but Jolene had explained that she had no one to watch Emma and that the child lacked a sense of security and didn’t want to be separated from her. So Emma had been allowed to come in and sit quietly off to the side.
Who would’ve thought that in the end, Emma would be paying more attention than she did.
“Ahem, as you all probably know, I’ve had pretty good results with staying sober. The main thing was that my landlord literally yelled some sense into me. I had my daughter with me, and I was broke. If the church hadn’t taken us in, I probably wouldn’t have made it…” Jolene embellished her story a bit and continued, “So you have to ask yourself—if you’re drunk all day, what’s going to happen to your kids? Are you even going to live your life? You need a goal in life. You have to look forward. Nothing is more important than earning a living and staying alive…”
Jolene fabricated a whole story about herself and wrapped up her contribution to the support group. To her surprise, maybe because she had indeed stayed sober, the rehab center staff seemed to treat her as a positive role model to encourage the other members.
So when she finished, everyone in the room burst into enthusiastic applause.
“Clap, clap, clap—”
“That’s great. I need to think about my son too. His father is a jerk. If I keep drinking, I won’t be able to raise him anymore…”
“Yeah, I’m the backbone of my family. If I fall apart, my whole family will starve. I can’t keep drinking…”
“Alcohol is a demon. Jolene, next time I want to drink, I’ll think of you and your daughter and tell myself I can do it too…”
Jolene: “…”
Next, a middle-aged woman began crying as she talked about why she started drinking—her husband was abusive, she got divorced, she drank every day, and because of her drinking, her husband won custody of their children…
Jolene fell silent. She really could empathize with this woman. At least Emma didn’t have a father fighting for custody—the only entity she had to worry about was government agencies.
Everyone was sharing their struggles with sobriety, why they couldn’t stick with it, and reflecting on what went wrong.
Truth be told, if Jolene were still the original owner, quitting alcohol would have required immense willpower and determination. Her success came entirely from the fact that she was now a completely different person inside—how could she possibly be an alcoholic?
Looking at all these people who had voluntarily come to the rehab center seeking help—they all genuinely wanted to quit. But it wasn’t as simple as outsiders imagined.
Some had lost their jobs, collapsed on the roadside, and nearly been run over before they suddenly realized they couldn’t keep going.
Others had quit alcohol entirely, but then relapsed in agony after just one social gathering where alcohol was present.
Jolene set aside her casual, detached attitude.
If the original owner were here, she’d probably be struggling and suffering just as much.
“How about we set up a check-in system?” Jolene suddenly thought of her past life. To prevent herself from losing direction and self-discipline after writing full-time for too long, she had joined many writing groups where authors would “clock in” together and push each other to write. It really did work for mutual supervision and encouragement. So she made the suggestion out of the blue.
In a later era when everyone had smartphones, they could just create a group chat. But right now, Jolene was still using her employer’s landline—she had no idea how to set up this kind of check-in group.
“A check-in system? What’s that?” asked the woman who had lost custody of her children.
“It’s like—well, we draw a chart now. Everyone makes a copy and takes it home. At the top, write the date. If you don’t drink today, draw a checkmark. If you do drink, draw a red cross,” Jolene tried to explain. “Next time we meet, we’ll bring our check-in charts and count who has the most checkmarks. We can all chip in for a prize to give them as a reward—recognizing them as the best performer of the week!”
It was a mutual supervision mechanism—it meant someone was watching. If you performed the best that week, lots of people would encourage you. Having people who cared whether you drank or not was naturally more effective than having no one care at all.
As for how effective the supervision would actually be, Jolene couldn’t guarantee it. But it was just a suggestion—she genuinely wanted her fellow recovering alcoholics to get back to normal life. After all, everyone who showed up here truly wanted to get better.
“Sure, that sounds interesting. But,” the woman suddenly asked, “how do we make sure no one cheats?”
That was a fair point. Anyone could lie—what if everyone just made things up?
Suddenly, Emma held up her right pinky finger and said to the group of adults, “Everyone can pinky-swear! My mom says that if you pinky-swear and lie, you’ll get your eyes poked with a needle!”
Everyone: “…”
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