Elena was busy contrasting her living conditions while the adults were busy discussing affairs.
She was told this room belonged to Lily and the house had only so many rooms.
One belonged to Thomas and Mary, another to James and Sarah and the last room to Lily and Emma.
Naturally the two were sisters so it was okay to share a room since Emma was only seven.
For now though, Elena was alone in the room with little to no impression of the Bennet family.
All she knew were they were simple honest down-to-earth humble farmers who relied on their land to live.
From the novel’s description, she knew that they wouldn’t stay so poor forever.
James would end up working eighteen odd jobs to fund Lily’s University and Emma’s schooling.
Thomas and Mary would barely tend to their land with difficulty and make ends meet with James helping out whenever possible.
This was so as to give the best to their children.
Technically, if Elena wanted to go to university, they would’ve scraped together everything to send her to the National Capital University.
But she had herself dropped that plan.
In the future, the worth of a degree would be nothing more than a degree so it wasn’t worth the hassle.
What mattered was money, power, and connections.
And she lacked all three now.
But given the current circumstances, the Bennet family couldn’t afford it even if they sold their land.
And loaning money for education wasn’t even heard of in this day and age.
No matter how much scholarship she could get by herself, the living expenses and travel expenses would be more than the Bennet family’s savings.
All in all, her path to University was cut off the moment she made this choice.
Fortunately, she had already come to terms with it and made plans for her future.
After all, she knew the trends.
She could do multiple things to earn money so that wasn’t an issue.
The only problem was inital capital and where to get it from.
No one would give it to her given her complicated background and the Bennet family was poor.
"Haa... Just how am I supposed to win this?"
She wondered aloud, sighing in exasperation as the cards dealt to her were clearly the worst.
In the countryside, girls here age had kids and now with her city like appearance, there would be many matchmakers coming.
Elena wasn’t stupid and wasn’t one to waste time.
From the day she knew she had transmigrated into a novel, she had been planning her next steps and today was the first step.
It was to get away from the original female lead and their family and live with her biological family.
It had gone smoothly for now.
No matter what others saw, she could see that her biological parents were happy to see her.
Although they were heartbroken over Lily, they could understand her choice to leave the countryside for the city where she belonged.
Now, next step was settling in.
Just as she was unpacking, a little girl came into the room, curiously peeking at her.
The girl barely reached her waist and had braided black hair.
She looked clean and tidy at first glance.
If one looked close enough, there was some resemblance to Elena and the baby fat on her face gave her an adorable appearance.
It was Elena’s first time meeting Emma and she failed to notice the curious spark in the little one’s eyes.
Emma had never seen these types of t-shirts, jeans, and dresses that Elena was unpacking.
Her eyes were glued to the different items Elena had unpacked, be it stationary, notebooks, pens, make-up items and everything else.
Even a pair of sunglasses was novel to the little girl.
She hadn’t seen much of the world and now suddenly knowing her sister wasn’t her sister, she didn’t know what to do.
She was suddenly supposed to share a room with a stranger.
It was awkward.
But her curiosity won over as she wobbled over in a daze.
Elena finally noticed the little one and her dazed expression made Elena’s lips curl upwards.
"Emma, right?" Elena called out.
"Mhm," hummed Emma as she didn’t know what to say, her lips pursed and her eyes fixed on the new stuff she had never seen before.
She hadn’t even begun elementary school yet and there were no kindergarten in the rural regions.
She was just a big toddler.
"Uhm, sister?" Emma timidly called out, checking Elena’s expression from the corner of her eyes.
Being the little child she was, it was easy for Elena to see through it but she didn’t reveal it.
With a simple smile, she replied, "Yes? I’m your sister. My name is Elena Sh–Elena Bennet."
With that Elena extended her hand to shake hands wih the little girl.
It wasn’t a cultural thing, she just felt like teasing this adorable softball.
Imitating the adults as she had seen, Emma shook hands and said in her childish voice, "Hello sister, Emma is Emma."
It seemed she talked in third person.
But that was fine.
She just hadn’t had education yet and was just a child.
In the depths of Elena’s heart, she vowed to send this child to school.
Her going to University didn’t matter but this child ought to go to school.
In the original, the Bennet family had scraped together every penny to send Elena to National Capital University.
They had even starved and reduced to only two meals a day and stopped Emma’s education while selling off a portion of their land.
They had it rather tough.
In lieu of their actions for a complete stranger, Elena vowed to help raise them from poverty and ensure this innocent little one could go to university.
It wasn’t that she was weak to cute children.
No, she didn’t like children.
The only acceptable child in her eyes was Ethan Cole’s elder brother as he was mature and somewhat of a genius so he saw the world differently and was never bratty.
As to why she didn’t like Ethan, needless to say, they were into petty rivalry since they were kids.
The two had competed in every aspect.
It was impossible for Elena to even find him tolerable.