“You worthless girl, born to a life of misery! You eat bran while Jinbao eats grain—how dare you steal a steamed bun? I’ll beat you to death!”
Old Mrs. Yuan cursed as she swung her leather whip, lashing her eldest granddaughter again and again.
Yuan Ni sobbed, clutching her head as her arms were whipped raw and bleeding. Soon she could no longer stand and collapsed stiffly to the ground.
Old Mrs. Yuan was vicious at heart. She didn’t stop, continuing to lash the girl. “You damned girl, you worthless life—why didn’t you go die with your whore of a mother?”
Just as the little girl was about to be beaten to a pulp, Yuan Ni’s tightly shut eyes suddenly flew open. She shot out a hand and grabbed the whip mid-swing.
No one knew that at this very moment, the little girl being mercilessly beaten had already left this world forever.
A wisp of a soul from another world had taken over her body.
This soul from another world was no ordinary one. She came from the apocalypse. Though she shared the same name as Yuan Ni, her temperament was completely different.
She didn’t know the meaning of yielding.
Her time surviving the apocalypse hadn’t been for nothing. Though her body was weak and frail, her skills remained. Yuan Ni grabbed the whip, gave it a slight tug, and Old Mrs. Yuan was yanked to the ground.
“Have you grown a leopard’s heart and bear’s gall? You dare fight back? I’ll beat you to death today!”
Old Mrs. Yuan never expected that her always-weak eldest granddaughter would resist. She lay on the ground wailing, her dull old eyes glaring venomously at Yuan Ni.
Yuan Ni ignored her, instead lifting her head to survey the small mud-walled courtyard before her.
The yard was dilapidated, the walls built from yellow earth mixed with straw.
A faded calendar was pasted on the main hall door, and written across it in bold characters were the words: 1978.
Seeing those words, Yuan Ni finally confirmed that she—who should have died in the Moshi Shouchao—had been reborn.
The original owner’s memories remained. The vicious old woman before her was the original owner’s biological grandmother, Old Mrs. Yuan.
Old Mrs. Yuan favored boys over girls. Because Yuan Ni had eaten a leftover steamed bun, she had beaten her nearly to death.
This was a society governed by law, and Yuan Ni didn’t want to kill someone the moment she arrived. But she also had no intention of letting the old woman off so easily.
Seeing Old Mrs. Yuan struggle to her feet and charge at her with claws bared, Yuan Ni gave a faint cold smile. She sidestepped, easily grabbed Old Mrs. Yuan’s small bun of hair, and—amid the old woman’s shrieks—flipped her over and slammed her to the ground.
Old Mrs. Yuan’s head hit the ground, and she immediately passed out.
Yuan Ni had come from the apocalypse; fighting skills were the one thing she had in abundance. If she weren’t worried about being unfamiliar with her surroundings and landing herself in legal trouble right after arriving, she could have killed the old woman in one blow.
Yuan Ni checked Old Mrs. Yuan’s injuries. Good—she’d be bedridden and unable to speak for at least three days.
Three days was enough time for her to familiarize herself with the environment and figure out her next move.
The original owner’s body was far too frail. After even that simple exertion, cold sweat poured from every pore. Seeing that no one else was in the courtyard, Yuan Ni slipped into the kitchen.
The wall beside the stove was blackened with soot. Inside the big iron pot, a bowl covered steamed sweet potatoes and a boiled egg.
Yuan Ni grabbed a sweet potato and took a bite. Delicious—floury, dry, and sweet.
In the apocalypse, she hadn’t tasted something this good in a very long time.
She wolfed down the sweet potato, then peeled the boiled egg and stuffed it into her mouth in a few quick bites.
These two things were too dry to swallow. On the table in the main room sat a celadon teapot with cooled boiled water inside.
Yuan Ni grabbed the teapot and gulped straight from the spout.
Only after she had drunk her fill did she notice something was off—why was the hand gripping the teapot burning hot?
She set down the celadon teapot and examined her right hand over and over again. Aside from a few old scars, there was nothing special about it.
Just then, a thought flashed through her mind. To test her theory, she picked up the teapot again, and sure enough, her right hand grew hot once more.
She immediately emptied the water from the teapot and carefully studied the inscription on its base.
It was six characters in regular script, arranged in two lines: Made in the Shunzhi reign of the Great Qing.
Yuan Ni blinked. Before the apocalypse had arrived, she had studied archaeology. Though she never ended up working in that field, she still had the basic knowledge.
Those six characters indicated that this blue-and-white porcelain teapot was produced by the imperial kilns during the Shunzhi reign of the Great Qing. By age alone, it qualified as an antique.
She set the teapot down again, and the burning sensation in her right hand vanished.
Yuan Ni scrutinized her right hand carefully. Could this be a Yineng granted to her by her rebirth?
She needed to find another antique to verify the ability in her right hand.
But the Yuan family was far too poor. Even this blue-and-white teapot had been acquired when the family’s property was redistributed from the local landlord. Finding another antique was easier said than done.
Suddenly, she thought of something—that was…
Just then, the courtyard gate creaked open. Yuan Ni quickly hid behind the door.