Chen Yuan was awakened by the loud cries of a baby.
Her entire body ached as though she had been run over by a truck, and her throat burned as if it had been scorched by fire.
Is this what dying feels like?
But… where is that baby crying coming from?
She struggled to open her eyes.
The first thing she saw was a battered, broken window. Beneath her was a heated earthen kang bed, while several large cracks ran through the mud walls surrounding her. Spider webs hung from the corners of the room, complete with their eight-legged occupants.
What kind of place is this…?
Don’t tell me the underworld is this rundown?
She was exhausted.
She was in pain.
She was starving.
And she was desperately thirsty.
The moment she thought of her storage space, she instantly appeared inside it.
Without caring about anything else, she rushed to the spiritual spring and drank greedily.
Only after gulping down mouthful after mouthful did she finally feel alive again.
Before she even had a chance to eat anything, an angry voice shouted from outside the storage space.
“The third son’s wife! Are you dead? Can’t you hear that worthless little girl bawling? She’s going to drive me to my grave! If she wakes my Jinju, I’ll skin you alive! You cursed jinx! Born to collect debts from this family!”
Chen Yuan hurried out of the storage space.
The moment she returned, she saw a baby lying on the kang, crying her heart out.
I knew I hadn’t imagined it.
There really is a baby.
At that moment, a flood of memories that didn’t belong to her poured into her mind.
She had transmigrated.
She was now living in Yuansheng Kingdom, Hedong Prefecture, Songshan County, Zhang Family Village, as the wife of Zhang Laosan.
The original owner’s name was…
Xiao Yanyan.
Chen Yuan blinked.
Wait… Xiao Yanyan?
Did I transmigrate into the Empress Dowager? Does that mean I can spend the rest of my life taking it easy?
A second later, she silently dismissed the ridiculous thought.
Yeah, right.
Would an Empress Dowager live in a crumbling shack like this and get cursed at all day? Stop dreaming.
The original owner actually had the same name as her—
Chen Yuan.
She was only fifteen years old this year.
Her husband, Zhang Laosan, was already thirty.
Last year, while gathering firewood in the mountains, Zhang Laosan had found the original owner wandering around after she had lost her memory.
Ignoring her wishes, he forcibly brought her home.
Then, despite the fifteen-year age gap between them, he violated her and forced her to become his wife.
Afterward, he gave her the name Xiao Yanyan.
The baby lying on the kang was the daughter she had given birth to just eight days ago.
After an extremely difficult labor, the original owner had finally delivered a baby girl weighing only 2.8 jin.
Zhang Laosan had been deeply disappointed.
He couldn’t even be bothered to think of a proper name, casually calling the baby Daniu instead.
Then the midwife delivered even worse news.
The difficult childbirth had severely damaged the original owner’s body.
She would most likely never be able to have children again.
Filled with rage, Zhang Laosan had waited until the dead of night, when no one else was around, before venting all of his anger on her with a brutal beating.
Zhang Laosan was nothing more than a coward who only bullied those weaker than himself.
To outsiders—and even to the rest of his family—he appeared to be an honest and dependable man.
Only in front of the original owner did he reveal his vicious nature.
Whenever he suffered any grievance outside, he would come home and beat or curse her to vent his frustration.
He hadn’t even spared her during her pregnancy.
The original owner had already been badly injured from childbirth.
After enduring such a savage beating, her body became even weaker.
She couldn’t produce a single drop of breast milk.
On the baby’s very first day of life, she went hungry.
On the second day, with no other choice, the original owner endured the pain and carried the baby to a household at the entrance of the village that also had an infant.
She knelt on the ground and begged until they finally agreed to let Daniu nurse once.
But after she returned a second time with the child, they refused to help anymore.
No matter how hard she kowtowed—even after her forehead was split open—they wouldn’t let her through the door.
There was nothing they could do.
It was a famine year.
Food was already scarce, and even their own child barely had enough milk to drink.
How could they continue feeding someone else’s baby?
After that, she went to several more households.
Every single one drove her away.
The hungry baby cried without stopping.
In desperation, she begged her mother-in-law for a little millet so she could make some thin millet soup for the child.
Her mother-in-law, Old Madam Zhao, immediately erupted in curses.
“A worthless little girl wants millet soup? That millet is for my precious Huzi! Why don’t you take a piss and look at yourself first? Does that little money-losing brat deserve something so precious? If you ask me, you should’ve tossed her into the back mountain to feed the wolves. It would’ve saved us all the trouble!”
With no other options left, the original owner could only feed Daniu wild vegetable porridge three times a day along with herself.
Miraculously…
The poor little girl survived.
Although she was in terrible condition.
She must have been starving again now.
That was why she was crying so desperately.
Chen Yuan hurriedly took out a baby bottle, some infant formula, and a bottle of water from her storage space before mixing up a bottle of milk.
As for sterilizing the bottle…
At a time like this, who had the luxury to worry about that?
She picked the baby up, only to immediately get a handful of urine on her hand.
She didn’t even have time to care.
She quickly put the bottle’s nipple into the baby’s mouth.
The instant it touched her lips, Daniu latched onto it with astonishing accuracy.
Gulp.
Gulp.
Gulp.
The little girl drank greedily without pausing for even a second.
Good grief…
She sucked so hard that the bottle’s nipple caved inward.
In one uninterrupted breath, she finished the entire bottle.