1974, China, An County, Changxi Commune, Tashan Production Brigade.
Lin Ran stared blankly at the woman in blue sitting by the bed, her voice choked with emotion.
“Mother, is it really you? Your daughter isn’t dreaming, is she?”
Shen Wenfang was taken aback by this form of address, but she didn’t take it seriously, assuming her daughter was just acting spoiled after being mistreated.
She pulled Lin Ran into her arms, her face filled with heartache.
“Ranran, you’re finally awake! Mom was worried to death! From now on, don’t go to work in the fields anymore. You have three brothers at home to earn work points, and your father and I can afford to support you. Don’t listen to your second sister-in-law’s nonsense!”
Lin Ran hugged Shen Wenfang tightly, desperately feeling for her mother’s body heat.
It was warm! Her mother wasn’t dead!
In her half-asleep and half-awake state just now, she had already received the memories of the original owner. She knew she had truly crossed through time and space and arrived in the world of her ancestor.
This must be the “transmigration” the ancestor spoke of, right?
However, this place seemed a bit different from what the ancestor described; it was somewhat poor.
But since her mother was here, this was her home!
And even if others were poor, she had money!
Right, was her space still there after transmigrating?
Thinking of this, Lin Ran immediately sensed her dimension. After confirming the space had come with her, she finally let out a long sigh of relief.
With the space, the lives of her and her mother were no longer a concern!
Shen Wenfang continued to nag and advise Lin Ran, but Lin Ran didn’t find it annoying at all; on the contrary, she relished it.
How wonderful, Mother is still alive!
Lin Ran was so afraid this was a dream that she kept her eyes fixed on Shen Wenfang.
She noticed her mother’s skin was somewhat coarse, with some sun-reddened spots, and her complexion was a bit sallow—completely unlike her previous snow-white skin and flower-like beauty.
Even her tied-up hair was frizzy and dry.
Combining this with the original owner’s memories, Lin Ran’s heart felt bitter.
Her mother must have suffered a lot!
Lin Ran burrowed into Shen Wenfang’s embrace again and made a solemn promise:
“Mother, your daughter will definitely nourish you back to your original self!”
Shen Wenfang had spent a long time advising her, talking until her throat was dry, only to receive this single sentence in response!
Well!
All that talk was for nothing!
But she didn’t have time to continue talking now.
“Ranran, you rest well at home. Mom is going to work first. When I come back tonight, I’ll steam some egg custard for you to nourish your body.”
It wasn’t yet time for the afternoon shift to end. If Lin Ran hadn’t fainted while working in the field, Shen Wenfang wouldn’t have come back.
After saying this, she helped Lin Ran lie down, stroked her head, and left in a hurry.
Lin Ran didn’t try to make her stay; after all, there would be plenty of time in the future.
Her mind was a bit of a mess right now, and she wanted to straighten things out alone.
From the original owner’s memories, she learned that it was currently 1974, more than a thousand years after her previous life.
And the era the female ancestor was from was forty or fifty years after this.
The original owner’s father—no, she should call them Dad and Mom now.
The original owner’s father, Lin Weiguo, was the brigade leader of the Tashan Production Brigade.
Thinking of Lin Weiguo, Lin Ran felt conflicted.
She still remembered how she had retaliated against that “good father” of hers, the Dingyuan Marquis, before transmigrating.
Fortunately, the father in this life was not the Dingyuan Marquis; he was very good to both her mother and herself.
In this life, her mother had raised three sons and one daughter, which could be seen as making up for the regret of having difficulty with offspring in her previous life.
The original owner was 17 years old this year. As the youngest daughter of the family, she had always been raised with great affection. Even though current conditions were difficult, her parents had still provided for her until she graduated from junior high school.
If the original owner hadn’t failed the high school entrance exams due to poor grades, she wouldn’t be idling at home now, getting on her second sister-in-law’s nerves and being criticized with sarcasm every day. This was why the original owner had wanted to prove herself by going to work in the fields.
But the original owner had never done farm work since childhood and had a delicate constitution; how could she endure the hardship?
She had gritted her teeth and persevered until the afternoon before finally being unable to take it and fainting.
Having finished sorting through the original owner’s memories, Lin Ran’s heart was still leaping with joy.
She hadn’t expected to be reunited with her mother.
Not only that, she also had a father and three brothers who doted on her in this life.
As for the second sister-in-law who was looking for trouble…
She had worked so hard for this reunion and would never allow anyone to destroy it. Otherwise, they shouldn’t blame her for being heartless!
After thinking through these matters, Lin Ran couldn’t wait to understand this world as quickly as possible.
She quickly got out of bed and went to the desk.
The desk was covered with the original owner’s textbooks.
She randomly pulled one out and flipped through a few pages, discovering that the characters on them were “missing arms and legs” compared to those in her previous life.
However, using the original owner’s memories, she could still barely recognize most of them.
But the original owner might truly not have been very clever; there were many parts she completely failed to understand even when retrieving the memories.
Forget it, she would learn slowly later.
She was actually quite interested in going to school in this era.
Because here, a woman with a high education could not only become a teacher at an academy but could even become an official.
These were things she wouldn’t even have dared to imagine in her previous life!
Therefore, she really wanted to try and see how far she could go!
By the way, she wondered if the storage room in the space contained any books the ancestor had collected from the 21st century.
Forget it, it was getting late; she would look for them when she had free time later.
Lin Ran put down the book and finally felt that she was indeed a bit dizzy. She quickly drank some spiritual spring water and then lay down to rest.
She felt the hard wooden board bed beneath her and looked around.
Only then did she notice that her room was actually built of red bricks mixed with yellow mud, and there were even quite a few spiderwebs on the ceiling beams.
It seemed this home was far poorer than she had imagined!
As Lin Ran watched, her eyelids began to flutter, and she soon fell into a dreamland.
She didn’t know how long she had slept, but she was eventually woken up by a sharp female voice.
“I’m truly cursed to have met such a lazy sister-in-law! She stays at home and doesn’t even know to cook!”
“I worked hard all day, and I can’t even get a hot meal when I come back!”
“What kind of girl acts like her?”
Shen Wenfang scolded angrily:
“Wang Zhaodi, shut your mouth!”
“Don’t you know Ranran fainted this afternoon?”
“She’s not feeling well, and you still want her to work while sick?”
“Is this how you act as a sister-in-law?”
Wang Zhaodi sneered:
“Oh, she’s just so precious, isn’t she!”
“Look at the way she acts, I can’t even bear to look at her!”
“How much work did she even do today before collapsing?”
“Go ahead and keep pampering her. I’ll see what kind of family dares to marry such a lazy, useless girl!”
“Why you, Wang Zhaodi!”
“…”
The argument continued outside.
Lin Ran’s head throbbed as she listened, and she couldn’t help rubbing her brow.
This Wang Zhaodi was the original owner’s second sister-in-law.
Recently, for some unknown reason, she had been targeting the original owner all day, finding her eyesores.
If she hadn’t been making a scene at home, the original owner wouldn’t have gone out to work today.
Suddenly, she felt that having brothers was also quite troublesome; her mother had to handle the mother-in-law/daughter-in-law relationship, while she herself had to handle the sister-in-law relationship.
This was a challenge she had never encountered in her previous life.
However, hearing Wang Zhaodi repeatedly talk back to Shen Wenfang, Lin Ran’s expression turned cold, and she immediately got out of bed and walked out.
She looked at Wang Zhaodi, who was standing in the fenced yard with her hands on her hips and a pockmarked face, and said in a cold voice:
“Since you look down on the Lin family, then scram back to your Wang family!”
“Your Wang family likes to suck their daughters’ blood, but our family doesn’t follow that style!”
“You… you…”
Wang Zhaodi pointed at Lin Ran, a mix of rage and shock on her face, but she was speechless.
Because her Wang family was exactly like that; even though she had already married out, she still couldn’t escape that group of leeches.
In her previous life, she had been stupid and naively believed her parents’ words, thinking her natal family was her only reliance, allowing them to cling to her and suck her blood.
This had led to the subsequent series of tragedies.
Living a second life, she would absolutely not be stupid again, and she certainly didn’t want to go back to the Wang family.
But Lin Ran…
At the thought of how Lin Ran had been pampered in everyone’s palms in her previous life, Wang Zhaodi became indignant!
Why was it that they were both girls, yet she had to work herself to death like an old ox since childhood, while Lin Ran could do no work at all and live like a young lady!
Just why!
She refused to accept it!
In this life, she wanted to live her own life well and not let anyone take advantage of her.
But Lin Ran spent all day eating and drinking for free at home, and the second branch of the family had to bear part of the cost of the advantage she was taking. How could she possibly endure this?