Jiang Wanning lay on the straw mat, tossing and turning.
The mat in this dilapidated thatched hut was as hard as stone, and the pillow was nothing more than a folded bundle of old clothes, carrying an indescribable stale odor. She could not fall asleep.
She stared at the crooked wooden beams overhead. The thatched roof rustled softly in the night wind, and from time to time, a speck of dust slipped through the gaps and landed on her face.
The current situation gave her a headache.
It was not fear. She had stockpiled so many supplies in her previous life, and with the space in her possession, she had confidence.
But confidence was one thing, reality another.
Right now, she was a newly “awakened” fool living in a broken thatched hut.
Around her was a group of impoverished relatives, their grain jar nearly empty. She had taken a glance that afternoon, and it would probably last only three to five days.
And these people had still given her the porridge they had saved from their own mouths.
Jiang Wanning turned over, facing the wall. Much of the mud plaster on the earthen wall had already fallen away. She stared at the cracks as her mind raced.
She could not continue pretending to be a fool.
What happened that afternoon had already made it certain. Everyone had heard her speak in full sentences. Everyone knew that Wanwan had “become aware.” It was both a good thing and a problem.
The good thing was that she no longer had to force herself to speak vaguely. She could express herself openly, give directions, make decisions.
The problem was that she needed a reasonable explanation for this “awakening.”
Someone taught her in a dream?
Jiang Wanning narrowed her eyes, suddenly recalling what her grandmother had said that afternoon.
“My Wanwan has come back.”
Come back.
Not “she’s better,” not “she can speak now,” but “she has come back.”
The wording was strange. It was as if, deep down, her grandmother had always known that the original Wanwan was “not there,” and now another Wanwan had “returned.”
Jiang Wanning turned onto her back, staring at the thickest beam above.
What did grandmother mean?
She turned the words over in her mind again and again, sensing that something was hidden within them. In the fragments of the original owner’s memories, her grandmother had never been someone who spoke carelessly.
She was old, hunched, reliant on a cane to walk, yet her mind had always been clear. The village accounts, the clan’s exchanges, who owed whom how much grain, all were recorded by her.
A person like that would not casually say “come back.”
Could it be that, in her grandmother’s eyes, the original Wanwan had been “lost”?
Jiang Wanning shook her head. The memories she had inherited were too fragmented to form a complete picture. She would have to ask slowly when the opportunity arose.
The most urgent matter now was something else.
She was hungry.
Not the mild kind of hunger where one simply wanted to eat, but the hollow, gnawing emptiness that sent sourness rising from her stomach.
She had only drunk that bowl of thin porridge in the afternoon, bland as dishwater, and it had long since been digested.
This body was already malnourished, thin as paper. If she did not eat, she might not even be able to stand.
Jiang Wanning listened carefully to the sounds outside.
The thatched hut was silent, with only the occasional rustle of wind brushing through the treetops.
At this hour, everyone should be fast asleep.
With a thought, her consciousness entered the space.
Within the vast white expanse, everything was as usual.
Grain was piled like small hills, salt stacked neatly, the furniture in the glass house untouched. The piglets huddled together snoring, and the chickens scattered across the grass, chirping from time to time.
She found the prepared food she had stored earlier, steamed buns and milk. The buns were still soft in her hands, and the milk felt cool, exactly as it had been when she placed it inside.
The space preserved everything perfectly.
Jiang Wanning took a bun and a bottle of milk, and with a single thought, they appeared in her hands.
She tore off a piece and put it into her mouth, chewing twice. It tasted like a normal bun, not sweet, but filling.
She unscrewed the milk bottle and took a sip. The cool liquid slid down her throat, and her stomach immediately felt more at ease.
One bun only barely took the edge off. She took another and ate it along with the milk.
By the time she was halfway through the second bun, a sense of fullness finally began to settle in.
She stored the remaining half bun and the bottle back into the space, wiped her mouth, and leaned against the wall. Her stomach felt warm, and for the first time, she felt a trace of steadiness.
Once she was full, her mind became clearer.
Closing her eyes, Jiang Wanning began to organize the scattered fragments of memory left by the original owner.
These fragments were like a puzzle that had been broken apart. She needed to piece them together bit by bit to understand the world she had fallen into.
Tianqi Nation, the Dayong Dynasty.
That was the name of this era. The original owner had no real understanding of it, having only occasionally heard the term in casual conversations among the clan, phrases like, “Taxes in the Dayong Dynasty have increased again.”
But from those scattered conversations, Jiang Wanning pieced together a vague outline.
This was a world where women held higher status. Or rather, a world of slight female dominance.
Women stood above men. They could inherit family property, become officials or generals, conduct business, and travel far and wide. Within a household, a woman could be the pillar, while a man could manage the inner affairs.
Men were gentle and well-mannered, able to marry or be married. More often, they were married off, while only wealthy families could afford to take women as wives. A single woman could have multiple husbands, while a man could have only one wife.
At the same time, this world was not like those described in certain stories where men were physically weaker. Here, men were strong, but women were also strong.
Jiang Wanning processed this information. It was a strange kind of world, not quite like the matriarchal stories she had read in her previous life. Yet it undeniably favored women.
She thought of the boy standing at the doorway that afternoon, Jiang Baizhou, thin and timid, his eyes slightly red. Though he was half a head taller than her, the way he looked at her was cautious, as if afraid of displeasing her.
This was not just his personality. In the original owner’s fragmented memories, many men in the village were like this, speaking gently to women, willingly handling chores like cooking, washing, and childcare, treating women’s words as commands, and never daring to harm them.
Jiang Wanning frowned. She could not quite describe her feelings. It was unfamiliar, difficult to adjust to, though she did briefly wonder if this meant she could marry many handsome men.
But she quickly thought of another question.
Has this world always been this way?
The fragments gave her an answer.
No!
A hundred years ago, this world had been male-dominated.
Much like the ancient societies she knew from her previous life, where men ruled and women were expected to manage the household and bear children, where failing to produce a son could result in being cast aside, and married daughters were considered as lost as water poured out.
So what had changed everything?
Jiang Wanning found a vague memory among the fragments.
It was something her grandmother had once said while chatting with an aunt. The original owner had been playing with mud nearby and did not understand, but the sounds had been recorded and stored in memory.
“…cursed.”
“Ever since that great change in the heavens, fewer and fewer girls have been born. Out of ten children, nine are boys, and one is a girl. Later, even that one became rare…”
“Heaven has no mercy. If this continues, women will disappear…”
“So that’s why women’s status is so high now?”
“It’s not about status. It’s because their lives are precious. When women become scarce, they naturally become valuable. It’s not that men yield to women, but that heaven does not allow men to have women.”
Jiang Wanning opened her eyes, staring at the ceiling as she turned these words over in her mind.
Few women, many men. Very few girls were born.
Was this the fundamental reason this world had become female-dominated?
Not because of progress or enlightenment, but because women had become a scarce resource.
She recalled certain social phenomena she had heard about in her previous life. In regions where the gender ratio was severely imbalanced, bride prices would skyrocket, and women’s status would rise relatively, because scarcity increased value.
This world was likely an extreme version of that.
But another question arose.
If there were so few women, how did they give birth?
Jiang Wanning continued searching through the fragments and found an even vaguer piece of information, likely overheard from idle conversation.
Childbirth here was simple.
So simple that it was almost unbelievable.
She nearly choked on the thought herself.
But the memory told her this.
In this world, women did not suffer the hardships of pregnancy and childbirth she had known before. There was no morning sickness, no swelling, no tearing pain.
When the time came, they simply found a place, crouched down as if relieving themselves, and the child would be born. Clean, quick, without even requiring assistance.
As for determining the father, that was often unclear. There would be a first husband, a second husband, a third husband, and so on, arranged by the order in which they entered the household.
Though in wealthy families, there were said to be ways to verify it.
Of course, this was only information Jiang Wanning had pieced together. It might not be entirely accurate.
But one thing was certain. The way reproduction worked in this world was completely different from her previous life.
As for why, there was no answer in the fragments. Perhaps the physical laws of this world were different, perhaps it was a side effect of the “curse,” or perhaps it required no explanation at all.
This world was chaotic, overwhelmingly so.
But soon, the disasters would arrive, and when that happened, there would be no distinction between male dominance or female dominance.
Only the strong would prevail.