Snow fell in thick, goose-feather flakes.
In the small village at the foot of Mount Qi, everything was silver-clad and wrapped in white. Wisps of smoke rose from chimneys, but few people were seen walking outside.
“Yanyan! Go feed the chickens!”
“Got it, Mother!”
A heavy door curtain was pushed aside, and out came a young girl wrapped in a tattered, thick cotton coat.
Though she was still young, her features were exceptionally refined—a beauty in the making. Even the ragged, bulky coat couldn’t hide her loveliness.
The girl breathed out puffs of white mist, her hands tucked into her sleeves as she headed toward the kitchen to grab some rice husks and bran to feed the chickens.
However, the wind was sharp and the snow heavy in the small courtyard. The girl’s feet slipped, and the back of her head slammed hard against the ground. She blacked out.
…
“Husband, it’s not that I’m being a heartless sister-in-law, but Little Sister has been unconscious for three days now. We’ve already spent five taels of silver on her medicine alone. The family only saved up that little bit of money over the years, and it’s all gone into her mouth. How are we all supposed to live after this?”
“Enough, shut your mouth! We can’t just watch Little Sister stay unconscious like this and do nothing! And don’t you dare say this in front of Mother. Little Sister is Father’s posthumous child; all these years, Mother has treated her like the apple of her eye. If you dare say a single word against her, Mother will skin you alive!”
“No, Husband, what I mean is that this medicine clearly isn’t working. How about we invite the spirit medium from the southern hills to perform an exorcism for Little Sister?”
“Don’t even mention that spirit medium! Didn’t Brother Li from next door almost die just the other day after drinking that woman’s talisman water? He was vomiting and purging until he was nearly gone!”
“The spirit medium said that was an accident, just an accident!”
The fragmented voices by her ear made Song Yanyan, who was lying on the heated brick bed, feel as though her head was splitting apart.
She wanted to open her eyes and tell her eldest brother and sister-in-law to stop arguing—she was fine, better than she had ever been!
But her unconscious body wouldn’t obey her; she couldn’t wake up, and she couldn’t move!
It was as if an invisible force was restraining her very soul!
Song Yanyan had been “unconscious” for three days.
No one knew that during these three days, Song Yanyan had found a blessing in disguise. In her stupor, she remembered that she was a lone soul from the twenty-first century.
However, that wasn’t the most pressing matter right now.
The most critical thing was that during these three days of unconsciousness, Song Yanyan had lived through the brief, tragic life of the common farm girl Song Yanyan in a dream!
—The suffering of Song Yanyan’s entire family began with the adoption of Luo Jinyu.
This Luo Jinyu was just like the female lead in those “True and False Young Lady” stories Song Yanyan had loved to read in her previous life. Her biological mother was a noble Princess, but she had been switched at birth by a malicious person. The true young lady of the household had been left to wander the common world, suffering every hardship.
Later, the true young lady, Luo Jinyu, went through countless trials to acknowledge her ancestors and return to her clan. The first thing her doting mother, the Princess, did was settle scores.
She liquidated Song Yanyan’s entire family, who had once taken Luo Jinyu in!
—Song Yanyan’s entire family was slaughtered one rainy night by hidden guards dispatched by the Princess, wiped out to the last soul.
Even Song Yanyan’s infant nephew and niece couldn’t escape the disaster; their blood dyed their swaddling clothes red!
The extreme agony of a sharp blade piercing through her body was nothing compared to the pain of seeing her mother stand in front of her to protect her, only to be run through together by those hidden guards, their blood soaking into each other’s skin!
Thinking of this, Song Yanyan, still unable to wake up on the bed, was consumed with anxiety.
Recalling everything she had experienced in the dream, the time when her mother picked up the true young lady, Luo Jinyu, was right around this point in time during the heavy snow.
While Song Yanyan was still trying to come up with a plan, she heard the heavy door curtain being lifted from the outside, and her mother’s voice rang out: “…Eldest Daughter-in-law, come here and give me a hand.”
The sister-in-law, Qi Lian, rose with a rustle and then gasped. “Mother, where did you pick up this little girl? Why is she unconscious too?”
Song Yanyan’s heart sank.
It was bad. From the sound of it, her mother had brought back that jinx, the true young lady Luo Jinyu!
Tian Denghua and Qi Lian worked together to place the unconscious girl they had found onto the bed, not far from Song Yanyan.
Tian Denghua was clearly very frustrated. “I don’t know where this little girl came from… I was thinking of going out to get more medicine for Yanyan, but as soon as I opened the door, I saw this girl fainted right at our entrance! With Yanyan unconscious as she is, I figured we couldn’t just stand by and watch her die. I didn’t want to ruin Yanyan’s luck.”
Song Yanyan screamed in her heart, No, my dear mother! Ruining my luck is nothing; this wretched girl will cost us our entire family’s lives!
But no matter how she screamed internally, her body lay on the bed like a dead fish, unable to move at all.
Qi Lian poured a bowl of hot water. Tian Denghua propped the rescued girl up and helped her drink it.
After a bowl of hot water, the girl showed faint signs of movement.
Even Qi Lian, who had some grievances about her mother-in-law picking up people from outside, couldn’t help but show a hint of joy. “Mother, she looks like she’s about to wake up?”
Tian Denghua was even more delighted.
This was a good omen. Perhaps her Yanyan would wake up soon too!
Before long, the girl Tian Denghua had picked up indeed woke up, her whole body trembling.
Once the girl realized her surroundings, she struggled to kneel on the bed and kowtowed to Tian Denghua. “Kind Auntie, thank you for saving me.”
Though Tian Denghua had a pungent personality, she was an honest farm woman. Seeing the girl kowtowing so vigorously, she was startled and quickly held her back. “Little one, get up, get up… Where is your home? You look very unfamiliar; you don’t seem to be from any of the nearby villages. Why were you fainted outside my house?”
The girl wept. “I escaped from human traffickers. They were going to sell me to a brothel… I escaped with my life, but I didn’t expect to faint outside your door.”
She sobbed, her voice trembling, looking incredibly pitiful.
“Auntie, I could tell you were a good person just by looking at you. Fainting outside your home must be because the Heavens saw how much I’ve suffered and pointed me toward my last chance at life. Please, I beg you, please take me in. I can do any kind of work, and I don’t eat much. I’ll be your servant and wait on you, I’ll serve you like an ox or a horse…”
She kowtowed to Tian Denghua again and again, pleading through her tears.
Song Yanyan, unable to move, was dying of anxiety hearing this!
Mother, don’t believe her!
This wretched girl doesn’t have a single word of truth in her mouth!
She claims she was kidnapped by traffickers, but in reality, she and the procuress who raised her were being hunted by enemies and fled all this way!
Just to find a place for herself, this girl didn’t care at all if she brought a lethal catastrophe upon the family that took her in!
And what was that about serving like an ox or a horse—
Ha!
She talks a good game now, but if my mother really believes her, she’ll just be waiting to be liquidated later!
Luo Jinyu, the true young lady who was switched at birth and left among commoners, claimed she would work like an ox or a horse and do any chore. In reality, she remembered every single task the Song family ever made her do!
But our Song family was just a poor, ordinary farming household. We weren’t well-off. Children of farmers—is there any such thing as not doing whatever chores you can? Even I, the Song family’s own daughter, was often ordered around by my mother to run here and there. So what if this true young lady Luo Jinyu lived with us and did some farm work alongside us!
But for a “true young lady” who was raised from childhood on fine food and silk to be a shouma, getting up early to cut pig grass was “bullying.” Helping to stoke the fire while cooking at noon was “abuse.” Washing and drying the clothes for the men who worked in the fields was an unbearable “humiliation”!
Every single one of these instances became ironclad evidence of the Song family “abusing” Luo Jinyu after she regained her status as the Princess’s daughter!
In the end, these became the executioner’s blades that swung down on the entire Song family!
Thinking of the blood that flowed through the entire courtyard, and the pain of that sharp blade piercing through her and her mother, Song Yanyan struggled with all her might. She wanted to scream, but she couldn’t move.
Lying on the bed, she felt utterly hopeless, and a line of tears escaped her eyes.
Tian Denghua did feel a surge of compassion, but just as she was about to agree, she suddenly noticed a glistening trail on her unconscious daughter’s face!
Tian Denghua looked closer—it was actually a tear!
Her unconscious daughter was crying!
Tian Denghua immediately threw everything else to the back of her mind and lunged to the side of Song Yanyan’s bed.
“Yanyan! Yanyan! Can you hear me?!”
Seeing her daughter crying with her eyes closed but unable to move, Tian Denghua couldn’t help but start crying as well.
“Yanyan, my Yanyan…”
Tian Denghua’s tears fell onto Song Yanyan’s cheek.
Song Yanyan only felt a faint sound of something shattering in her mind, as if some shackle had been broken.
“Mother—”
Song Yanyan opened her eyes and called out weakly.