Night had fallen, and Wenhe Village was completely quiet.
Lin Suhe carried a small bundle on her back and quietly slipped out of the small thatched house. Following the memories of the original owner of this body, she headed toward the home of the unmarried hunter, Jiang Wangchuan, who lived halfway up the mountain.
Without electricity, the ancient village was dark and silent at night.
Lin Suhe was scared. Her heart pounded as she ran up the mountain in the darkness. Halfway there, she tripped and fell.
Her hair became messy, and dust covered her clothes.
Panting heavily, she knocked on Jiang Wangchuan’s door.
Jiang Wangchuan had already gone to bed. Wearing a rough cotton shirt, he sleepily opened the door.
He saw Lin Suhe standing outside his house with messy hair and watery eyes. In a soft voice, almost like a kitten crying, she asked,
“I heard you need a wife. Do you think I would?”
…
Lin Suhe arrived in this world less than a day ago.
When she first woke up in the darkness, she faintly heard two people talking.
“Has that girl Lin Suhe still not woken up? The slave trader is waiting to look at her.”
“Not yet. I’m afraid she may never wake up.”
“She’s so useless! She only kept mourning for her short-lived father for seven days, and she already fainted.”
“If she dies, that beautiful face of hers will go to waste.”
Lin Suhe struggled to sit up. She found herself lying on an old wooden bed that hurt her bones.
Looking around at the broken thatched house, a flood of unfamiliar memories rushed into her mind.
Only then did she realize…
She had transmigrated.
She had entered a dynasty that never existed in history, called Great Yu, and had become the daughter of a poor farming family.
The girl’s name was also Lin Suhe.
According to the memories, Lin Suhe’s mother died while giving birth. Her father raised her alone through many hardships.
Although they lived in poverty, her father loved his only daughter very much.
He would rather work from dawn until night farming and hunting than let her suffer even a little.
But now…
Her father was dead too.
While hunting in the mountains, he accidentally fell from a cliff. A young hunter from the same village found him and carried him home.
His injuries were serious.
The family was too poor to hire a doctor.
With tears in her eyes, Lin Suhe begged everyone in the village for help.
Only the old village chief and the young hunter lent her a few copper coins.
Even then, it was too late.
By the time the doctor arrived, her father had already died.
Lin Suhe sold the family’s farmland to pay for his funeral.
She neither ate nor drank as she mourned beside his coffin for seven days.
In the end, she collapsed from exhaustion.
The people talking outside earlier were her second uncle and second aunt.
Because she had inherited the original owner’s memories, Lin Suhe was filled with anger.
Her father’s body was barely buried, yet her uncle and aunt were already planning to sell their own niece to a slave trader.
They had completely lost their conscience.
She looked down at her patched coarse clothes and then around the empty, broken house.
Tears filled her large eyes.
I’m going to be sold… What should I do?
Before transmigrating, Lin Suhe had been the pampered daughter of a wealthy family.
She never worried about food, clothing, or shelter. Servants took care of everything, and she had never known hardship.
Perhaps Heaven thought she had lived too comfortably.
After one sudden transmigration, she became a poor country girl with no parents and no money.
She sat silently on the old wooden bed and cried for a while before quietly getting up.
She was starving.
She wanted to find something to eat.
When she stood up, her legs felt weak, as if she were walking on cotton. Her head spun with dizziness.
She had never experienced hunger before.
Supporting herself against the mud wall, she walked to a copper basin and looked at her reflection in the dirty water.
Her face was exactly the same as before she transmigrated.
She only looked younger.
Her cheeks were thin, making her look badly undernourished.
Before transmigrating, she had been twenty years old.
This body had just turned sixteen.
There was no food anywhere in the house.
Only a clay jar sat on an old wooden table with peeling paint.
She looked inside.
There was water.
She smelled it.
There was no strange odor.
With no other choice, she picked up the jar and drank several mouthfuls to ease her dry throat.
She was so weak that she lost her grip.
The clay jar fell to the floor and shattered.
The sound caught the attention of the two people outside.
The wooden door creaked open.
A large middle-aged woman and a skinny man walked in.
“Oh! Suhe, you’re finally awake! Your second uncle and I were so worried.”
The woman was Zhao Qiuju, her second aunt.
The skinny man was her second uncle, Lin Qingshan.
Pretending to be concerned, Zhao Qiuju hurried over to help her.
“You’re so weak. Sit down quickly before you faint again.”
She helped Lin Suhe back onto the bed, held her hand, and wiped at tears that didn’t even exist.
“Poor child. Your father really left you all alone.”
Then she patted the back of Lin Suhe’s hand.
“But your second uncle has a kind heart. He has already found you a good marriage. Soon you’ll be married and live a happy life.”
When the original Lin Suhe begged them for money to save her father, they refused to give even a single coin.
Now they were pretending to be kind.
Fortunately, Lin Suhe had overheard their conversation earlier.
She already knew they planned to sell her.
But she was so hungry that she could barely walk.
She had no strength to fight them.
For now, she decided to pretend she knew nothing.
“Thank you, Second Uncle. Thank you, Second Aunt.”
She looked at Zhao Qiuju with her large, bright eyes.
Her voice was as soft as a baby kitten.
“I’m so hungry. Is there anything to eat?”
“Yes! Of course!”
Zhao Qiuju glanced at Lin Qingshan.
He immediately understood and hurried out of the room.
A few moments later, he returned carrying several things.
He placed them on the table.
“Come eat, Suhe. I just brought these from home.”
Zhao Qiuju helped Lin Suhe sit on the only wooden stool beside the table.
On the table were two flatbread cakes, a clay jar, and a chipped bowl.
Lin Qingshan poured water into the bowl and pushed it toward her.
Lin Suhe eagerly took a bite of the bread.
It was so hard she almost broke a tooth.
The bread was as hard as stone.
It was obviously old and made from coarse grain, making it rough on her throat.
But she didn’t care.
Right now, all she wanted was to survive.
She slowly chewed each bite, swallowing it with water while thinking of a way to escape her situation.
She wasn’t strong enough to do heavy work.
And with such a beautiful face, it would be difficult for her to survive alone in ancient times.
If she didn’t want to be sold…
She needed someone powerful to rely on.
A handsome face appeared in her mind.
It belonged to Jiang Wangchuan, the young hunter who had carried her father home from the mountains.
From the original owner’s memories, she knew he had quarreled with his family and moved out.
He now lived alone halfway up the eastern mountain.
Because he was poor, he was already twenty-one years old and still unmarried.
The villagers often mocked him for it.
Even so, he had still lent the original Lin Suhe ten copper coins so she could hire a doctor for her father.
Jiang Wangchuan was a good man.
A good man could become her protector.
Having made up her mind, Lin Suhe looked at her uncle and aunt.
“Second Uncle, Second Aunt, I’m full now. I’d like to sleep a little longer.”
Zhao Qiuju smiled.
“Of course. Have a good rest. Tomorrow you’ll need your energy to meet the matchmaker.”
Lin Suhe obediently nodded.
She waited until night fell.
Then she quietly climbed the mountain and knocked on the door of the unmarried hunter, Jiang Wangchuan.