Zhou Yunting’s cold voice broke the silence.
“Grandpa, you can’t eat bran.”
Commander Zhou chimed in quietly,
“Father, Zhixia is right. When the cart reaches the mountain, there will always be a road ahead.
For now, let’s just make do with corn porridge.”
A trace of bitterness filled Old Master Zhou’s mouth as he slowly closed his eyes.
That night, even sleeping arrangements became a problem.
The tiny thatched hut was barely thirteen square meters in size, with wind leaking in from every direction.
It was already cramped for a family of four, let alone with a young man and woman sharing the same room.
There wasn’t a single partition for privacy.
Noticing the awkward situation, Zhou Yunting said nothing and walked outside.
He returned carrying bundles of straw. Using hemp rope, he painstakingly tied them together into a makeshift curtain.
The four of them spread a straw mat across the floor, then covered it with a bed sheet riddled with holes.
The straw curtain divided the room into two small spaces.
Old Master Zhou, Commander Zhou, and Zhou Yunting slept on one side, while Liu Zhixia occupied the other.
It was crude, but at least they had somewhere to rest.
Liu Zhixia couldn’t help sighing.
Just yesterday, the Zhou family had been one of the most prestigious households in the capital.
Now, they could barely survive from one day to the next.
Lying quietly on the straw mat, she closed her eyes.
Yet even then, the guilt-filled expressions of the three Zhou men seemed to linger before her.
Silently reciting the internal cultivation technique from her previous life, Liu Zhixia gradually drifted into sleep.
Listening to the soft, even breathing from the other side of the curtain, Zhou Yunting grew increasingly restless.
Should he really go through with the decision he had made?
Commander Zhou gently nudged his son’s shoulder, lowering his voice.
“Yunting… is something bothering you?”
Thinking of the bright and graceful young woman, as refreshing as a gentle breeze beneath the moonlight, Zhou Yunting felt a dull ache in his chest.
He had already made up his mind.
But now…
The words refused to leave his lips.
In a subdued voice, he murmured,
“I want to give her her freedom…
She’s like a lily raised in a greenhouse. She can’t endure too much wind, frost, and rain.
She deserves to grow toward the sunlight. If…”
“That child isn’t a lily.”
The old man’s aged voice interrupted him softly.
“She’s a rose… with thorns.”
His words quickly faded into silence.
Had both father and son not heard it themselves, they would have thought they had imagined it.
Perhaps because she had only just transmigrated, combined with the exhaustion of the previous day’s journey, Liu Zhixia slept surprisingly well.
As she reached beneath her and felt the cold, hard, slightly damp straw mat, the reality of her transmigration truly sank in.
She resigned herself to getting up to cook breakfast.
Even for someone like her, who had struggled her way up since childhood, life like this wasn’t easy to adapt to.
Looks like I’ll have to find a way to eat something decent as soon as possible. Otherwise, this body won’t last.
Breakfast ended in complete silence.
Without being asked, Zhou Yunting took it upon himself to wash the dishes.
The man whose hands had once held a rifle now quietly scrubbed several chipped bowls over and over.
There was an unbreakable strength in his eyes.
Liu Zhixia’s gaze unconsciously drifted toward the tall, elegant figure standing at the doorway.
His breathtakingly handsome appearance seemed completely out of place with the shabby surroundings—and with the cracked bowls in his hands.
Like a deity who had descended from his pedestal.
Even covered in dust, he remained untouchably noble.
She stared a little too long.
Suddenly, his cool gaze met hers.
Embarrassed, Liu Zhixia rubbed her nose awkwardly.
In doing so, she completely missed the faint upward curve of his lips.
The Zhou family wasn’t assigned to work that day.
As for tidying the hut…
There really wasn’t much to clean.
They had already organized everything they owned the previous night.
The most urgent problem now was how they would survive in the days to come.
After informing everyone where she was going, Liu Zhixia hurried out of the hut.
It was work time, so aside from the elderly, the sick, and children, there was hardly anyone left in the village.
Unfortunately, her appearance attracted attention wherever she went.
Her graceful figure, fair skin like polished jade, and naturally rosy complexion stood out even without makeup.
Her autumn-like eyes shimmered with quiet beauty.
Even coarse homespun clothing couldn’t conceal her extraordinary elegance.
People stopped in their tracks one after another.
“She’s beautiful. Truly stunning. What a pity.”
“I heard she’s a newlywed who was exiled here with her husband’s family.”
“Yeah… We’d better keep our distance.”
“…”
“…”
Pretending not to hear the whispers behind her, Liu Zhixia turned and smiled.
Her smile shone as brilliantly as the stars.
The onlookers froze once again, momentarily dazed.
By the time they recovered, she had already disappeared.
After walking around the village once, Liu Zhixia had a rough understanding of its layout.
Although her steps appeared leisurely, she moved with astonishing speed.
She was actually using qinggong—her lightness skill.
Only then did she realize why she had left the village so quickly.
For a brief moment earlier, she’d felt like an animal on display in a zoo, being stared at by everyone.
Wanting to escape the attention, she had unconsciously used her martial arts.
To her surprise…
Her lightness skill hadn’t weakened at all.
It was every bit as powerful as it had been in her previous life.
Back then, her abilities had rivaled even the head of a hidden martial arts clan.
The discovery filled her with excitement.
A bold thought surfaced.
If my qinggong has fully returned… then what about my internal energy?
When she had first transmigrated, she had sensed that only about half of her former internal energy remained.
She had already considered herself fortunate.
But now…
Her heart raced with anticipation.
She carefully circulated her qi.
An instant later, she clearly felt the immense, surging internal energy from her previous life flowing through her body.
Had she not remembered she was still inside the village, she might have leaped into the sky and performed several aerial flips on the spot.
Suppressing her overwhelming excitement, Liu Zhixia shot into the endless mountains surrounding the village like a gust of wind.
Near the forest entrance, two young girls suddenly felt a strong breeze rush past.
For a fleeting moment, they thought they saw a human figure.
Then they shook their heads, assuming they had imagined it.
With a light tap of her feet, Liu Zhixia landed silently.
Two quails suddenly burst into flight.
Caught off guard, she immediately leaped onto the highest treetop.
Her ears twitched slightly.
Voices drifted toward her.
Growing closer.
“Comrade Wu, it was only two quails. There’s no one here.”
“Looks like I was being overly cautious.
But since this concerns the Zhou family, we can’t afford to be careless.”
“I’ve already contacted the person in charge.
The three members of the Zhou family will never leave this village alive.
Here, they’re tigers without teeth.
They’re no threat at all.
The troublesome ones are the Liu family…”
Liu Zhixia’s eyebrows lifted slightly.
These two are plotting against both the Zhou family and the Liu family…
Who are they?
Quietly changing positions, she carefully memorized both men’s appearances.
She planned to ask Zhou Yunting later whether he recognized them.
She remembered that in the original novel, if Zhou Yunting hadn’t been injured, he might have had a chance to return to the capital after about a year of exile.
But because he had suffered a serious lumbar injury, he had remained bedridden and paralyzed on the heated brick kang.
It wasn’t until three years later, when the Zhou family was officially rehabilitated, that they were finally allowed to return.
And according to the original story…
The novel’s male and female leads had also arrived in the countryside at around this time.