Zhou Wansui opened her eyes.
How cold.
Her entire body was drenched. When she raised her head, she saw a middle-aged woman.
“Awake? If you’re awake, hurry up and get up. The Li family’s sedan chair has already arrived at the village entrance.”
After speaking, the woman casually set down the wooden basin.
Zhou Wansui didn’t move. The memories that had suddenly appeared in her mind were tangled into a mess.
The original owner was also named Zhou Wansui, and she was seventeen years old.
Her parents had died of illness one after the other half a year ago, leaving behind her and a pair of seven-year-old fraternal twins—a younger brother and sister. The family’s three mu of poor farmland had been seized by her Eldest Uncle, Zhou Mang, and the three siblings had survived for half a year on wild-vegetable gruel.
Today, her Eldest Aunt, Shen Guixiang, had brought the professional matchmaker Granny Zhao to their home. They intended to sell her to Squire Li from the town as a concubine.
The original owner had resisted with all her might and slammed her head against the doorpost.
Then she had become Zhou Wansui.
Voices came from outside the courtyard. The middle-aged woman’s voice was shrill and loud, clear even through the door.
“Granny Zhao, don’t rush. That girl hasn’t eaten for two days. Just drag her out and stuff her into the sedan chair later.”
Another unfamiliar woman’s voice followed. “Shen Guixiang, let me tell you, if Squire Li hadn’t specifically asked for someone young and pretty, I wouldn’t have come to this godforsaken village of yours. There isn’t even two ounces of flesh on your niece. I’m offering five taels only because I’m doing you a favor.”
“Yes, yes, five taels is quite a lot already.”
After listening to them, Zhou Wansui braced herself against the doorpost and slowly straightened.
The wound on the back of her head still hurt, and this body was terribly hungry. Her hands and feet felt weak.
But she noticed something else.
She curled her fingers into a fist. Her knuckles crackled twice. The strength in her palm was not something a person who had gone hungry for several days should possess.
In her original apocalypse-ravaged world, she had worked as a porter at a base. She had always been considerably stronger than ordinary people. Now, that brute strength seemed to have followed her soul here.
Before she could think it through, a sudden heat spread across her wrist.
She lowered her head and saw the old silver bracelet left behind by the original owner’s mother glowing brightly.
The light was not harsh. It was warm instead.
In the next instant, her consciousness was pulled into a strange world.
Beneath her feet was a mu of black earth. At the edge of the field stood a well, its water barely two feet below the rim, clear enough to see the bottom.
An indescribably sweet and refreshing scent floated in the air. After breathing in just once, most of the fatigue left her body.
“Spirit Spring space.”
Those four words surfaced in her mind.
Zhou Wansui crouched beside the well, scooped up some water, and brought it to her lips.
The water slid down her throat and into her stomach. Almost immediately, a wave of warmth surged from her abdomen throughout her body.
The wound on the back of her head stopped hurting, and a solid strength flooded into her limbs.
She stood and clenched her fists again.
The strength was even heavier than before, yet her punches felt lighter and quicker.
“Zhou Wansui, are you dead in there?”
Shen Guixiang’s voice came from outside the courtyard.
Zhou Wansui withdrew her consciousness from the space and surveyed her surroundings.
Half a bundle of straw was piled inside the woodshed. A chipped sickle leaned against the corner, and several spiderwebs hung from the rafters. A thick iron chain had been nailed across the door and locked from the outside.
Besides Shen Guixiang and Granny Zhao, two thin, trembling cries could be heard outside.
“Let me in! My sister’s head is bleeding!”
“Sis, Sis, say something!”
It was Zhou Xiaohe and Zhou Xiaomiao—the seven-year-old fraternal twins, and the original owner’s younger brother and sister.
Zhou Wansui walked to the door, gripped both ends of the iron chain, and pulled them apart.
The chain snapped. The broken ends were perfectly clean.
She looked down at her palms. There were only two faint red marks, neither painful nor irritating.
She simply raised her foot and kicked the door.
The door flew straight out and crashed into the stone table in the middle of the courtyard. A crack split across the tabletop, running from the center all the way to the edge.
The courtyard fell utterly silent.
Granny Zhao had been sitting on a stone stool, cracking sunflower seeds. Before she could split open the one in her mouth, the door flew over her head and smashed into the stone table behind her.
Her mouth hung open, the seed stuck to the roof of her mouth. She could neither swallow it nor spit it out.
The five taels of silver in Shen Guixiang’s hand slipped through her fingers and rolled into the chicken coop.
The old hen in the corner pecked at it once. Discovering that it wasn’t corn, she disdainfully walked away.
The two seven-year-old children stopped crying and stared blankly at their older sister as she walked out of the woodshed.
Zhou Wansui stood in the doorway and looked over the people in the courtyard.
Shen Guixiang and two village women who had come to watch stood on the eastern side. Granny Zhao sat on the western side with a broad, muscular man.
A large red bridal sedan chair stood in the center of the courtyard, mandarin ducks embroidered on its curtain.
Her younger brother and sister were so thin that their features seemed to have been carved onto their bones. Their clothes and shoes were full of holes.
Shen Guixiang recovered and shouted, “What are you doing? Did smashing your head make you stupid? I’m telling you, the Li family will be here any minute. Don’t cause any more trouble for me. Get into the sedan chair obediently, and everyone can save themselves the hassle.”
Zhou Wansui ignored her and first walked over to her younger siblings, then crouched down.
She pulled a small bamboo tube from her sleeve. It was filled with Spirit Spring water she had conveniently drawn from the space earlier. She held it to the children’s mouths.
Xiaohe took a sip, his eyes widening. Xiaomiao also took a sip, then tipped her head back and drained the tube before letting out a loud belch.
“Sis, what kind of water is this? It’s so sweet,” Xiaomiao said, licking her lips.
“Well water.”
Zhou Wansui put the bamboo tube away. “You’ll have it to drink every day from now on.”
“Zhou Wansui!”
Having been ignored, Shen Guixiang charged over in three steps. “I’m talking to you! Are you deaf?”
She reached out to yank Zhou Wansui’s ear.
Zhou Wansui stepped sideways and avoided her.
Shen Guixiang missed and stepped onto the wet mud left by the spilled water. Her whole body slid forward, and she fell face-first onto the pile of rotten straw by the woodshed door.
At some point, a chicken had left a dropping in the straw. It smeared across half her face.
The two village women who had come to watch covered their mouths, struggling to hold back their laughter.
Shen Guixiang climbed out of the straw pile, wiping her face as she cursed, “You little good-for-nothing orphan! Squire Li is willing to take you, and that’s your good fortune. Do you think every family would be willing to spend several taels of silver on an orphan girl? Don’t be so ungrateful!”
Zhou Wansui straightened and looked at Shen Guixiang.
First, she walked over and lifted the door from the stone table.
It was solid wood and weighed at least thirty or forty pounds.
She grabbed one corner with one hand, raised it upright, and leaned it against the wall.
Then she walked over to Granny Zhao.
Granny Zhao had finally pried the sunflower seed from the roof of her mouth and was just about to speak when Zhou Wansui reached out, gripped the edge of the stone table, and lifted the entire thing.
The stone table rose two feet off the ground.
The tabletop still bore the crack from where the door had struck it.
Holding the table, Zhou Wansui moved it three steps to the left and gently set it down, positioning it directly in the path Shen Guixiang would have to take if she charged at her again.
Then Zhou Wansui sat on the stone stool opposite Granny Zhao and dusted her hands.
“The table was in the way,” she said indifferently.
Granny Zhao stared at the stone table. Sunflower seeds lay scattered across the ground.
The table had been left over from the construction of the ancestral hall the previous year. Four strong men had carried it in using a carrying pole. Now, a girl so thin she seemed to have no flesh on her bones had lifted it with one hand and moved it as effortlessly as if she were carrying a tea tray.
The sedan bearer reacted even more slowly than Granny Zhao. He was still staring blankly at the crack running across the tabletop. Granny Zhao reached out and pinched him. He yelped in pain and finally came back to his senses.
“Shen Guixiang!”
Granny Zhao stood up, her voice more than an octave lower than before. “I’m not taking this niece of yours!”
“Granny Zhao, don’t go! We can negotiate the price. Three taels would be fine too.”
Shen Guixiang chased after her.
Granny Zhao didn’t even turn her head. After walking for a while, she suddenly broke into a run.
The sedan bearer hoisted the carrying pole onto his shoulder and followed. Before leaving, he gave Zhou Wansui another look and nearly tripped over the threshold.
Shen Guixiang chased them to the courtyard entrance, but Granny Zhao had already disappeared around the bend in the village road.
Her final words drifted back on the wind.
“Three taels isn’t even enough to buy my coffin!”
Shen Guixiang stood in the courtyard with half her face covered in chicken droppings.
She turned around and glared at Zhou Wansui. Just as she opened her mouth, she realized Zhou Wansui was no longer there.
Zhou Wansui had picked up Xiaomiao with one arm and Xiaohe with the other and was walking toward the courtyard entrance. When she reached it, she paused and glanced back at Shen Guixiang.
“Eldest Aunt, wipe the chicken droppings off while they’re still fresh. They’ll be hard to wash off once they dry.”
“Hahaha!”
The two village women finally lost their composure and burst out laughing.
Zhou Wansui led her younger siblings out of the courtyard.
Xiaomiao lay across her shoulder and leaned close to her ear.
“Sis, which way is our house? I don’t recognize the road anymore.”
Zhou Wansui’s footsteps paused.
She looked toward the distant end of the village, where a cluster of crooked old houses stood.
She didn’t know which one was theirs.
“Just follow me,” she said.
The two children clutched the corners of her clothes as Zhou Wansui continued walking.
The crowd behind them gradually dispersed.
No one noticed the young hunter standing around the bend at the alley entrance, a roe deer slung over his shoulder.
He had witnessed the entire scene but remained where he was.
The roe deer slipped a little from his shoulder. He reached up to steady it, his gaze still fixed on the thin figure walking away.
Only after Zhou Wansui and her younger siblings had gone far did he start moving.
The roe deer bounced twice on his shoulder. He walked slowly, and when he passed Zhou Mang’s courtyard entrance, he glanced inside.
The stone table, its crack running all the way across, still sat crookedly where it had been left. Four fresh holes marked the muddy ground beneath its legs.
He withdrew his gaze and walked toward the outskirts of the village.