The Bracelet Connects to the Modern World?
1: Chapter 1: Certain Death in the Blizzard!
The Bracelet Connects to the Modern World?
“Zhen Niang, as long as I marry Lord County Magistrate’s daughter, I can study at the county academy.
I might even be taken in as a student by the highly respected Mr.
Xu.
Mr.
Xu has taught several successful imperial candidates.
I don’t want to give up this opportunity.
You are a gentle and virtuous woman, but what I want is a wife who can help my future prospects!
“The County Magistrate’s daughter will not accept me having another woman and child, so you and Xiaobao will have to suffer a little for now.
“Rest assured, once I make it big in the future, I will definitely bring you and Xiaobao to my side.”
The biting cold wind pulled Yun Zhen back to reality from her dream.
She was not a scholar’s wife; she was a discarded woman whose husband had used and abandoned her.
“Mother, Xiaobao is cold.
Xiaobao’s tummy is empty…
It hurts…”
Yun Zhen hugged her daughter tightly, curled up on the rock-hard wooden bed.
She wrapped the two of them in a beast-skin quilt like a tight bundle, but the hide was stiff and heavy, failing to lock in even the slightest bit of warmth.
The icy wind squeezed through the cracks, leaving the mother and daughter shivering violently.
Her daughter whimpered in her arms, crying out about the cold and hunger.
Her small body felt like a block of ice, her little face scrunched up with furrowed brows, and her lips were an unnatural shade of white.
Yun Zhen’s heart bled for her child.
She wished she could hack that fickle, abandoning man into a thousand pieces!
She had woven cloth at the town’s fabric shop to support her husband, Chen Tong, in his studies.
After he passed the exam to become a Scholar, he caught the eye of the County Magistrate’s daughter.
To marry the wealthy heiress, he callously kicked Yun Zhen and their young daughter out the door.
His family had sold their old house in the village, moving to the county town to enjoy a life of luxury without leaving her or their daughter a single copper coin.
Left with nowhere to go, Yun Zhen wept all the way back to her maiden home with her child.
Her parents’ home was dirt poor.
Her father had his leg broken by a wild boar on the mountain in his early years, and her mother was too frail to do heavy labor.
Yun Zhen’s past wages had been scraped clean by her harsh mother-in-law, so her parents had survived solely by foraging for wild vegetables and relying on the villagers’ charity.
After being divorced and sent back, she had originally hoped that her weaving wages would make her family’s life a little easier.
However, her despicable former in-laws spread rumors that she had been divorced for lacking womanly virtues.
Not wanting his shop’s business to suffer, the fabric Shopkeeper had no choice but to fire her!
Without a source of income, the family had to drastically tighten their belts.
Yun Zhen was filled with guilt and self-blame.
She was a divorced woman who had lost her livelihood, only to return with a child and add to her parents’ burdens.
To make matters worse, this year’s winter was unusually harsh!
The first snow had been falling continuously for almost a whole month without any sign of stopping.
The snow on the ground was deep enough to bury a person’s thighs.
Most of the village’s livestock had frozen to death, and old houses in disrepair had collapsed under the weight of the snow.
The heavy snowfall sealed off the mountains, making it completely impossible to distinguish directions outside the village.
This was a blizzard disaster rarely seen in a century!
In the face of such a catastrophic calamity, ordinary commoners had absolutely no power to resist.
“Zhen Niang, your father went out to look for food.
It’s been over an hour, so why isn’t he back yet?” Yun Old Lady’s anxious and weak voice drifted from the next room.
Yun Zhen’s heart hung in her throat.
The family’s surplus grain was all eaten, and their firewood was entirely used up.
The dilapidated thatched cottage was as cold as an ice cave.
If they couldn’t find a way to start a fire soon, the whole family would freeze to death in this ruined house.
Her father had said he was going to the foot of the mountain to look for edible grass roots and gather some firewood along the way.
The foot of the mountain wasn’t far from home.
With so much time having passed without his return, an ominous premonition settled in her heart.
She slipped out from under the hide quilt, wrapped her whimpering daughter tightly in it, and handed her over to her mother in the next room.
“Mother, hold Xiaobao.
I’ll go to the foot of the mountain to look for my father.”
Yun Zhen was wearing several layers of tattered cloth garments.
Her eyebrows were frosted over, and her sunken cheeks from hunger made her eyes look unusually large.
Yun Old Lady hugged her granddaughter tightly and tried to stop her.
“The snow outside is so heavy and the wind is fierce.
Don’t go out.”
“I’ll just go to the foot of the mountain to see if my father is there.
If he is, we’ll come back together.
If he isn’t, I’ll come back on my own.
I won’t go far.”
“Sigh!” Yun Old Lady worried that something had happened to her old man, but also ached for her daughter braving the severe cold in the heavy snow.
“Then go and come back quickly.
Xiaobao and I will be waiting for you.”
“Okay!” Yun Zhen exhaled.
Rubbing her hands together, she opened the door, only for a powerful gust of cold wind to nearly blow her over.
She hurriedly pulled the door shut behind her.
Outside was a vast expanse of white, making it impossible to distinguish landmarks.
The biting wind felt like it could scrape a layer of skin right off a person.
Staring at the heavily falling snow, Yun Zhen’s heart felt incredibly heavy.
If the snow didn’t stop soon, they really were going to die!
Where was her father?
With his bad leg, if he fell in this heavy snow and couldn’t get up, would something terrible happen to him?
Relying on her memory, she trudged with heavy steps toward the foot of the mountain.
“Father!” Upon reaching the foot of the mountain, Yun Zhen didn’t see any sign of him, so she ran a few steps forward.
“Ah—” Suddenly, her foot slipped, and she fell hard onto the ground.
Her left hand was scraped by sharp gravel.
She lifted her hand to inspect it; the wound wasn’t deep, but the pain made her bare her teeth.
Blood trickled down her arm and was quickly absorbed by the wooden bracelet on her wrist.
The bracelet twitched twice, as if it had come to life.
“This…” Yun Zhen was stunned by the sight before her.
A blood-sucking wooden bracelet?
Was she freezing to death and having hallucinations?
Suddenly, the wooden bracelet emitted a blinding white light.
She instinctively squeezed her eyes shut.
Before long, a clamor of noisy human voices drifted into her ears.
She opened her eyes to look, only to be met with a completely unfamiliar scene.
Scattered snowflakes drifted down from the sky, but the ground was flat and entirely free of accumulating snow.
Crowds of people bustled back and forth, their faces carrying an unhurried ease unburdened by survival—a stark contrast to the villagers of Taoyuan Village, who were so hungry they were close to gnawing on tree bark!
The people here looked vibrant and rosy-cheeked, like the lords, ladies, young masters, and misses of wealthy households.
Many held glowing slabs in their hands.
Some stared at them and laughed out loud, some poked and tapped on them, and others held them against their ears while speaking.
They wore clothes that looked thick yet strangely lightweight.
Wait, no!
Yun Zhen spotted a woman running around wearing a thick garment on her upper half, but with her legs completely bare!
The surrounding people didn’t look the least bit surprised or scandalized by this.
Yun Zhen was so shocked her jaw nearly dropped to the floor!
Back in their village, running outside with bare legs was something only a village idiot would do.
Otherwise, a woman’s family would be gossiped about and condemned for the rest of their lives.
In severe cases, she would be beaten and driven out of the village.
This was a strange place.
Not only were the people odd, but the objects were equally bizarre.
The massive, towering walls were covered in clear, bright “water mirrors.” Glowing, multicolored large bugs ran wildly across the ground with a loud VROOM and CLATTER.
When they passed by Yun Zhen, she distinctly felt the ground tremble beneath her feet.
HONK!
HONK!
BEEP!
Yun Zhen covered her ears.
The cries of these glowing big bugs were simply atrocious.
Suddenly, she saw a large green bug stop right in front of her.
Terrified, she quickly scrambled away and hid behind a wall to peek.
She watched as a decently dressed man climbed out of the large bug’s belly, followed by a beautiful, fair-skinned woman climbing into it.
Yun Zhen watched the scene in utter horror.
She then noticed an absurdly large house across the street.
Its wide doors were thrown open, revealing shelves packed with all kinds of goods.
There were rice, flour, grain, and oil that Yun Zhen recognized, alongside many strange things she didn’t.
GRUMBLE.
A wail of hunger echoed from her stomach.
She touched the two copper coins in her pocket, let out a sigh, and stubbornly turned her head away.
She saw that some stalls had little bell-like objects sitting with their heads raised, from which all sorts of chaotic noises were emitting.
These little bells could actually speak human words!
Had she arrived in the Immortal Realm?
Or was this all a hallucination as she froze to death in the snow?
She wondered where this place was.
She had only taken a tumble, yet she had ended up in this strange place.
Was she…
dead?
No!
Yun Zhen’s face turned stark white with fear.
If she were dead, what would happen to her parents and her daughter?
SMACK!
Lost in her thoughts, a soft and fluffy object suddenly struck her.
Weak from hunger, Yun Zhen was knocked straight to the ground.