Su Wanqing struggled to open her eyes. Before her was a yellowed, peeling ceiling.
A thick, musty smell permeated the air, making her frown.
This wasn’t her laboratory.
Her last memory was of a pressure gauge spinning out of control during an experiment and a deafening explosion.
She should have been blown into powder. How could she still open her eyes? And yet, upon opening them, she wasn’t in a hospital.
Su Wanqing struggled to sit up, but her movements felt incredibly heavy.
Had her body been severely injured?
What came into view were two extremely thick arms and a massive belly.
She whipped her head around and saw a completely unfamiliar face in a grime-stained mirror.
It was a face so bloated with fat that her features were distorted.
Her skin was sallow, and her greasy hair clung to her scalp.
She had been 168 cm tall and 50 kg, with lean muscle and clearly visible abs—a figure many envied.
How could she have turned into this greasy, obese body? Had she died and transmigrated?
She glanced at the calendar on the wall: October 3, 1983.
She really had transmigrated.
“Mama… hungry…”
A thin, weak cry came from the bedside. Su Wanqing stiffly turned her neck and saw three children.
The oldest boy, about five or six years old, kept his mouth tightly shut, glaring at her with eyes full of wariness and resentment.
He shielded two smaller ones in his arms—a boy and a girl. They were as thin as bean sprouts, their faces streaked with tears as they sobbed softly.
All three children wore tattered old clothes. Their small faces were filthy, but their eyes were large and bright, currently filled with terror.
Just then, a sharp pain pierced Su Wanqing’s brain.
Countless chaotic fragments of memory surged in like a bursting dam.
She had transmigrated into an Era novel she had recently been reading called My Research Big Shot Husband. She was the cannon fodder original wife of that Research Big Shot. She had even complained before about how this fat wife shared her name.
The original owner of this body was also named Su Wanqing. She was twenty-two, married, and a mother of three.
She was lazy and gluttonous. She spent all the family’s money on food for herself, which was how she became so fat.
As for the children, she ignored them as much as possible, leaving them to live like little beggars.
Her indifference toward her children made her a loathed figure in the Family Compound.
Her husband, Lu Changfeng, was a promising physics engineer, but he was incredibly busy and away from home most of the year.
The Lu family didn’t live in Jiang City. Seeing how miserable the children were, they had tried to take them away, but the original Su Wanqing refused, even holding a knife to her own throat. The Lu family grew frightened and never returned.
The neighbors all said that Lu Changfeng must have been cursed with eight lifetimes of bad luck to marry such a ruinous woman.
And just yesterday, because of her greed, the original owner had eaten an entire bowl of braised pork. She had eaten so fast that she couldn’t catch her breath and choked to death.
“Hungry…”
the little girl’s cry pulled Su Wanqing back to reality.
Looking at the three gaunt children and then at her own rolls of fat, a surge of inexplicable anger and guilt welled up in her heart.
Even though she wasn’t the one who did this, the body was hers now.
She would have to take the blame for this mess.
“Stop crying.”
Su Wanqing spoke, her voice thick and heavy.
At her shout, the three children trembled violently. Their crying stopped instantly, as if a pause button had been pressed.
The eldest son, Lu An’an, tucked his younger siblings further behind him, looking as if he were prepared to die.
Su Wanqing realized her tone was wrong.
She took a deep breath and tried to soften her voice, but coming from this throat, the effect was still poor.
“I’ll go make food.”
With that, she braced herself against the bed frame and laboriously climbed down.
The moment her feet hit the floor, she felt the entire wooden bed shake.
This weight… she must be at least 180 jin.
In this era of scarce resources, to be able to eat oneself into this state—Su Wanqing was truly impressed by the original owner.
She dragged her heavy body to the kitchen.
The so-called kitchen was empty, devoid of vegetables and rice. It was also terrifyingly greasy, with almost no place to step.
Su Wanqing’s brow furrowed into a knot.
This was the home of an engineer? It was abstractly poor.
She rummaged through the corners and finally found half a bag of moldy flour and a few sprouted potatoes.
In her time, these would have been classified as top-tier carcinogens.
But now, they were life-saving rations.
“Aflatoxin, Alternaria toxin…”
Su Wanqing’s brain automatically began analyzing the toxic components.
She found a kitchen knife and precisely shaved off the sprouted parts of the potatoes, cutting deep enough to ensure the solanine content was minimized.
She poured out the flour, carefully removing the visible mold clumps, and gave it a sniff.
Fortunately, it was only slightly moldy. Most of the toxins would decompose after high-temperature treatment.
Her movements were crisp and efficient. From the corner, the three children watched in disbelief.
Was this still their mother?
Soon, the potatoes were shredded (though not very finely), and the flour was mixed with water into a batter.
She started the fire, heated the pan, and greased it with the last of the lard in the house. Then she mixed the batter with the potato shreds and fried them into several small pancakes.
The aroma of food quickly filled the cramped little house.
The three little ones, who had been shivering in the room, twitched their noses in unison.
They peeked through the crack in the door and saw their mother—who usually did nothing but lie down and curse—standing before the stove, focused on frying pancakes.
The golden-brown potato pancakes emitted an enticing fragrance, a scent they had never smelled before.
Su Wanqing carefully washed a plate. Given the original owner’s hygiene habits, she was genuinely worried they would get food poisoning if she used it as it was.
She placed the fried pancakes on the plate, washed three pairs of chopsticks, and carried them out. The chopstick holder had also been sickeningly filthy.
“Come and eat.”
She tried her best to make her expression look kind.
The three children looked at each other, none of them daring to move.
In their memory, the food their mother made was never given to them willingly; they only got the leftovers.
Had the sun risen from the west today?
Or were these pancakes poisoned?
Su Wanqing saw their hesitation.
She picked up a pancake and took a small bite in front of them.
The crust was crispy and fragrant, the inside soft and tender. The taste was actually quite good.
Though Su Wanqing didn’t usually cook, her manual dexterity had always been excellent, and she had loved watching food videos in her past life.
Seeing her eat, the children’s guard lowered slightly.
Hunger eventually triumphed over fear.
The youngest sister, Lu Tiantian, was the first who couldn’t resist. She ran over on her short legs, grabbed a piece of pancake, and stuffed it into her mouth. She puffed out hot air from the heat but refused to spit it out.
“Yummy…” Lu Tiantian said indistinctly.
With a leader, the two boys immediately crowded around and began devouring the food.
Watching them eat as if they were starving ghosts, Su Wanqing felt a mix of emotions.
How exactly had the original owner functioned as a mother?
She studied the three children.
The eldest son, Lu An’an, was steady beyond his years.
The boy of the twins was Lu Pingping; he seemed introverted, keeping his head down as he ate ravenously.
The girl was Lu Tiantian, who looked the most like her—or rather, like her past self. She wondered if she would look like her old self once she lost weight in this era.
She felt a hint of anticipation.
Lu Tiantian’s large eyes were watery and very cute.
If she could be fattened up a bit, she would look just like a doll.
The plate of potato pancakes was soon cleared.
After eating, some color finally returned to the children’s faces.
Lu Tiantian even let out a small burp, looked at Su Wanqing timidly, and whispered, “Thank you, Mama.”
Su Wanqing reached out, wanting to pat the little girl’s head.
But Lu Tiantian flinched like a startled fawn and ducked behind her brother.
Lu An’an shielded his siblings again, watching her warily as if she were a predatory beast.
Su Wanqing’s hand froze awkwardly in mid-air.
She silently withdrew it.
It seemed the road to redemption would be long and difficult.
The original owner’s sins ran too deep; repairing the relationship would take time.
The urgent priority now was survival.
The house was out of supplies. Her husband, Lu Changfeng—according to the book—was supposed to return from the Research Institute today.
The thought of facing her husband in name only made Su Wanqing, a woman who had been single since birth, feel a massive headache coming on.
Based on the plot, Lu Changfeng already detested her to the extreme, and their relationship had hit rock bottom.
In the book, the original owner was already dead at this point, and Lu Changfeng had only returned briefly to handle the funeral.
She didn’t know how she was supposed to face Lu Changfeng now that she wasn’t dead.
While she was pondering her strategy, the sound of a key turning in the lock came from the door.
The door opened.
A man wearing a white cotton silk shirt and black trousers walked in.