A monthly salary of forty yuan was a staggering amount. In this era, the average wage hovered around thirty yuan, and a production team would only distribute about ten yuan a year to each farming household. One could easily imagine how high this income truly was.
Logically, with a salary and allowance like her husband’s, their standard of living should have been among the best.
But it wasn’t.
The original owner of this body had lived a miserable life. Her parents-in-law ran the household, holding all of her husband’s earnings in a tight grip. To make matters worse, they were incredibly biased. They used his entire salary to subsidize the other branches of the family, acting exceptionally harsh only toward Bai Jiu and her two children.
Since the original owner had been a total pushover, anyone could walk all over her. She let her children be bullied by the whole family. They were forced to start working at a very young age, going to the back mountain every day to cut pigweed, all for a meager two work points a day.
Three months ago, the Gao family received news that Gao Zhijun was missing in action. From then on, life became even harder for the mother and her two children. Because Gao Zhijun’s salary had stopped coming in, the family wouldn’t even give the three of them a decent bowl of watery porridge.
These memories matched exactly what she had dreamed. In the dream, watching the original owner fail to stand up for herself had made her angry, but mostly she just hated how spineless the woman was. Now that she had actually become her, however, Bai Jiu felt a murderous rage bubbling up inside.
Sighing, Bai Jiu thought, "No matter what era it is, people will always take advantage of the kindhearted."
Fortunately, her personality was the exact opposite of the original owner’s. Otherwise, this mother and her two children wouldn’t have survived much longer.
Based on Bai Jiu’s understanding of this era, food and clothing were scarce. Everyone worked together collectively in the production team, and they only received their grain and money shares at the end of the year. Her grandmother used to tell her countless stories about this period, and having listened for so many years, she had retained quite a bit. Now, this dilapidated, drafty room was going to be her home.
After taking a look around, Bai Jiu immediately remembered the interspatial dimension she had obtained. The moment the thought crossed her mind, the space appeared in her consciousness—along with the massive stockpile of supplies she had spent her entire fortune to acquire.
At this point, she couldn’t help but be grateful to her own body. Fortunately, the space had transmigrated with her. Thinking of all the goods she had purchased, she felt a strong sense of confidence about her future. Those supplies were more than enough to ensure she could live a comfortable and wealthy life in this impoverished era.
Just as Bai Jiu regained her bearings, a crying wail rang out from outside.
"Mom, Mom, please save my sister! Save her!" The original owner’s son, Gao Zhengyang, rushed in frantically, crying out to the person lying on the bed.
Bai Jiu recognized him at once—perhaps the original owner’s consciousness still lingered. She immediately sat up. "What’s wrong?"
"Mom, Grandma is going to give Xiuxiu away! Go quickly!" Four-year-old Gao Zhengyang cried, dressed in tattered rags that barely covered his body.
The original owner had caught a severe cold and was currently running a fever. Even though Bai Jiu had taken over, the body couldn’t recover instantly. After fighting off a wave of dizziness, Bai Jiu grabbed her son’s hand and dashed outside.
Meanwhile, in the courtyard of the Gao family, the original owner’s mother-in-law, Song Caihua, was forcefully dragging the original owner’s daughter, Gao Xiuxiu.
In the original owner’s memories, this mother-in-law had often threatened to give Xiuxiu away. According to her, Gao Xiuxiu was just a girl—a waste of food to raise. Since she would eventually marry into someone else’s family anyway, it was better to give her away early and save the grain.
If Song Caihua were genuinely trying to find a good home for the girl, it would have been one thing. But she hadn’t found a good family. Instead, she had sought out a household with a mentally handicapped son, a family looking to buy a child bride to carry on their family line. When the original owner found out about this, she had defied her mother-in-law for the very first time. To her surprise, the old woman was now bringing it up again.
Even setting aside the original owner’s objections, Bai Jiu could not stand to witness such vile behavior. It was one thing to favor boys over girls, but ruining a child’s life like this was completely unacceptable. If Gao Xiuxiu went to that family, how could she ever have a good life? Not only would she be treated like a beast of burden, but she would also have to suffer the abuse of the entire household. Married off to a fool, her whole life would be destroyed.
"No! Waaah... Grandma, I don’t want to go! Mom, save me! I don’t want to leave home!" Gao Xiuxiu sobbed and struggled. But how could such a tiny child be any match for a sturdy old woman?
Song Caihua cursed as she pulled. "You money-losing wretch! You just eat and do no work. The Gao family doesn’t raise useless mouths. Finding you a family is already good enough. Otherwise, I’d throw you to the wolves in the back mountain!"
Bai Jiu charged out of the house and immediately started wailing on Old Lady Song. Because she was sick, her strength was somewhat diminished, but the original owner had done hard labor year-round, so even a weakened blow stung fiercely.
After delivering several resounding SLAPS, Bai Jiu pulled Gao Xiuxiu behind her. "You old hag! If you dare give my daughter away, I’ll sell yours! Being stuck with a grandmother like you is eight lifetimes’ worth of bad luck!"
Song Caihua’s face burned with a fiery pain, and her whole body ached terribly. She had been so stunned while getting beaten that it took her quite a while to process what had just happened.
Her third daughter-in-law had actually hit her! This was utter rebellion!
Normally, this daughter-in-law was extremely cowardly, not even daring to breathe loudly in her presence. The loudest she had ever raised her voice was that one time they discussed giving the money-losing girl away. But today, she had actually gotten physical, acting like a completely different person.
"You dare hit your mother-in-law? Aren’t you afraid of getting struck by lightning?!" Song Caihua shrieked in exasperation.
Bai Jiu wasn’t a pushover like the original owner. "I’m hitting you, you wretched old woman! Giving your own biological granddaughter away—who else should I hit but you? If the heavens had eyes, they would have struck you dead with lightning a long time ago!" With that, Bai Jiu pushed her daughter into her son’s arms and added, "Zhengyang, take your sister back to the room."
Watching her son lead his sister inside, Bai Jiu glared at Old Mrs. Song and laid down a vicious ultimatum. "Xiuxiu is my daughter. If you dare give her away today and force us to our deaths, then no one in the Gao family is making it out alive either. My husband is gone anyway. If we’re going to die, we’ll all die together!"
As she spoke, Bai Jiu exuded a fierce, commanding aura that instantly intimidated everyone in the courtyard.
Even a cornered rabbit will bite. Old Mrs. Song started to feel a twinge of fear, genuinely terrified that the third daughter-in-law might actually drag the whole family down with her. It wasn’t completely unheard of. Something similar had happened in the village in the past, though it had been so long ago that people had mostly forgotten. An entire family of over a dozen people had all been killed by a new daughter-in-law.
Thinking back on that incident, Old Mrs. Song softened her tone. "Third Daughter-in-law, Xiuxiu is just a little girl. Even if we raise her, she’ll just be married off eventually. It’s better to give her away now to save the family some grain. You know how times are; we really don’t have enough food to go around.
"If our family had money, it’d be fine, but we’re so poor we can barely put a pot on the stove. She just eats and doesn’t work. What’s the point of raising her? Besides, the family I found for her is well-off. Xiuxiu will definitely live a better life there than with us.
"Think about it. Xiuxiu will have plenty to eat and drink in the future. As her mother, wouldn’t that make you happy? Besides, she has to marry sooner or later. The son of that family might be a bit slow in the head, but it’s not like he doesn’t know how things work."