Ignoring whatever rumors the gossiping woman might spread, Chen Yuan returned to the dilapidated hut at the foot of the mountain and entered her Storage Space.
From now on, she intended to focus on recovering her health, restoring her energy, and raising her daughter properly.
No—her daughter had a new name now. She was no longer Daniu. Chen Yuan had renamed her Niuniu, and had even given her a formal name: Chen Qingyou.
She hoped the little girl would live her entire life in peace and contentment.
With the immediate crisis behind her, it was time to think about the future. If she planned to leave this place, she first needed somewhere to settle down.
Jingshi.
The city where Chen Yuan had once lived.
She was going back.
She still had a debt to collect on behalf of the original owner of this body.
The original Chen Yuan had been the legitimate daughter of the Anping Marquis’s Manor.
Her father, Chen Ping, had lived up to his name in the worst possible way. His entire life had been utterly ordinary, accomplishing nothing of note. He had inherited the title of Marquis solely because of the achievements of his ancestors.
By the time the marquisate had fallen into his hands, the estate was already in decline. Chen Ping himself was mediocre and incapable of managing its affairs, and under his stewardship the household’s finances only worsened, with expenses constantly exceeding income.
That was when the Old Madam of the Marquis’s Manor set her sights on the Lin Family, one of the Empire’s wealthiest imperial merchant families.
The Lin Family had only one daughter.
If Chen Ping married her, wouldn’t the Lin Family become the Marquis’s personal treasury?
So the old madam and her son staged a carefully orchestrated “hero saves the beauty” incident.
Chen Yuan’s mother, Lin Wan, came from one of the richest imperial merchant families in the Yuansheng Kingdom. After being “rescued,” she fell hopelessly in love with Chen Ping, insisting that she would marry no one else. She even did something scandalous, consummating the relationship before the wedding.
With no other choice, Old Master Lin agreed to the marriage alliance with the Marquis’s Manor.
Although he had never truly approved of the match, he still doted on his only daughter. When she married, he gave her one-tenth of the Lin Family’s fortune as her dowry.
The lavish wedding procession, with its miles of crimson bridal trousseau, became the talk of Jingshi.
Unfortunately, the happiness didn’t last long.
When the original Chen Yuan was born, the celebrated marriage quickly became a source of ridicule.
The Chen Family had passed down its bloodline through a single heir for three generations. They could not allow the family line to end with Chen Ping.
So, under the Old Madam’s orders, Chen Ping took his mother’s niece, Liu Manman, as a concubine.
As the saying went, three women under one roof meant endless drama. One could easily imagine the chaos that filled the Marquis’s inner residence.
Only seven months after entering the household, Liu Manman gave birth to a pair of twins—a boy and a girl.
Her status immediately soared. Anyone who didn’t know the truth might have assumed she was the lawful wife.
The twins had clearly been born at full term, yet they all insisted they were premature.
“They” included the Old Madam of the Marquis’s Manor, Chen Ping, Liu Manman, and even the household physician.
Lin Wan eventually realized she had been deceived, and bitterly regretted her choices.
But there was nothing she could do.
She had already boarded the Marquis’s ship.
Her natal family could not openly interfere, and she alone could never fight against the entire Marquis’s Manor.
Little by little, she withdrew into the Buddhist hall, spending her days chanting scriptures and praying to the Buddha.
When the original Chen Yuan was twelve years old, Lin Wan unexpectedly became pregnant again.
No one imagined that the delivery would end with both mother and child dead.
Back then, Chen Yuan had never understood it.
Her mother had always been healthy, and it was her second pregnancy. How could she have died so suddenly in childbirth?
Later, by chance, she overheard servants talking.
That was when she learned the truth.
Her mother had been murdered by those people.
After Lin Wan’s death, Liu Manman was elevated to the position of lawful wife.
It truly was the perfect embodiment of a popular saying from Chen Yuan’s previous life:
Spending the first wife’s money, sleeping with the first wife’s husband, and abusing the first wife’s child.
From that day onward, the original Chen Yuan lived even more cautiously than before.
Beatings and verbal abuse became part of her daily life.
Yet even that wasn’t enough to satisfy Liu Manman.
When the original Chen Yuan turned fourteen, the Prince of Wu coveted the wealth of her maternal family. Working together with Chen Ping, he plotted to destroy the Lin Family.
In a single night, her grandparents’ household was wiped out.
Yet, just as suddenly, every last coin of the Lin Family’s fortune vanished without a trace.
After expending so much effort, the Prince of Wu had gained absolutely nothing.
His fury was easy to imagine.
Chen Ping, however, vented all of that anger on his own daughter.
He publicly announced that Chen Yuan had died of illness.
Then he handed her over to Liu Manman and washed his hands of the matter.
Liu Manman was utterly ruthless.
She hired a human trafficker and sold the fourteen-year-old girl beyond the frontier, intending for her to be violated by the nomadic tribes.
On the day they were about to leave the borderlands, as they passed through the area near Zhang Family Village where Chen Yuan now was, the original owner lost all hope of living.
She threw herself off a cliff.
That led to Zhang Laosan rescuing her.
Only, she had escaped one tiger’s den only to fall straight into a wolf’s lair.