After Gu Wan left, Li Mingyue and Zhang Xiaowei looked at each other, both feeling somewhat puzzled.
Had they forgotten to say something just now?
The job!
Damn it! All that posing had been for nothing.
Her bout of dry heaving had completely thrown everything off.
Looking at the closed bedroom door, they decided to forget it for now and bring it up later.
“Ow!”
Zhang Xiaowei clutched his burning neck and began howling again. Li Mingyue immediately jumped up in concern and hurried to find some medicine and gauze for him.
After entering her room, Gu Wan immediately locked the door from the inside. She looked around and quickly found a chair to sit on.
She had been forcing herself to hold on this whole time.
The wound on her head throbbed painfully, and the dizziness was so intense that she nearly fell over.
She pressed a hand against the wound, and the still-wet blood stained her palm.
Gu Wan had no time to worry about any of this. She had no time to deal with those two people. All her attention was focused on the jade pendant she had just obtained.
She took it out and carefully examined the patterns and inscriptions on it. Beneath the tail of the kui dragon on the side of the jade plaque were two raised seals. The upper seal was round and the lower one square, each engraved with the characters “Zi” and “Gang.”
It really was the Ming-dynasty white jade landscape-and-poetry pendant bearing the “Zi Gang” mark!
She never expected to see the actual artifact here!
Previously, even the official promotional photographs had been so blurry that the details of the carvings could not be made out.
In ancient books, she had only been able to find relatively clear rubbings. Now, not only could she see this treasure with her own eyes, she could even hold it in her hands and examine it.
This transmigration had been completely worth it!
Gu Wan excitedly ran her fingers over the intricate carvings on the jade plaque, failing to notice that the blood on her hand was being absorbed by the jade until not a trace remained.
Suddenly, a flash of white light swept past.
The next instant, everything went black before Gu Wan’s eyes.
When she opened her eyes again, she found herself lying on a hillside. There was a thatched cottage on the slope, with an ancient tree beside it. Not far from the tree was a pool of clear spring water.
The scenery here was exactly the same as the scene carved onto the jade plaque!
Had she entered some kind of immortal realm inside the jade pendant?
Perhaps because she had lost blood, Gu Wan felt thirsty. She went to the ancient spring and scooped up a handful of water.
The spring water was cool, clear, and sweet.
The dizziness caused by her blood loss eased considerably.
Gu Wan remembered that ancient springs often had miraculous healing properties and wondered whether it would work on the wound on her head.
She dipped her fingers into the spring water and applied some to the wound.
Very quickly, the wound stopped bleeding and even showed signs of healing.
Gu Wan immediately became excited. She drank several more handfuls of spring water and also used it to wash the wound.
Internal and external treatment—double the effect!
Sure enough, the wound healed rapidly. Her body also felt lighter and more relaxed than ever before.
However, her skin had become sticky and greasy, which was extremely uncomfortable. It felt as though all the impurities inside her body had been expelled through her pores, making her desperately want to take a bath and clean herself.
If she wanted to do it, she might as well do it!
Gu Wan jumped into the pool nearby and happily began washing herself.
Afterward, she felt refreshed and invigorated, as if she had endless energy.
Gu Wan casually poured some spring water onto the nearby ground. The grass there began growing rapidly, quickly blossoming and bearing fruit.
This… really was a spiritual spring!
Gu Wan looked at the ancient tree and poured some spring water over its roots as well.
The branches of the ancient tree visibly turned greener, sprouting fresh, tender leaves.
She wondered what kind of tree it was. Would it bear fruit?
Gu Wan entered the thatched cottage and discovered that it really was nothing more than a thatched cottage. There was absolutely nothing inside.
Gu Wan thought that if she could get out, it would be great if she could move the bed in her room into this place.
The moment she had that thought, the surroundings changed again, and Gu Wan found herself back in her bedroom.
Could this jade pendant space… actually be the legendary spiritual-spring space?
Gu Wan conducted many experiments, eventually proving that this really was a space where she could store things and grow crops.
She could enter and leave freely with her mind.
This ability was simply incredible. At a critical moment, it could even save her life.
The novel had never mentioned this spiritual-spring space, and it had also been vague about what happened to the inheritance.
It seemed highly likely that Li Mingyue and the others had discovered this jade pendant space and stored the entire inheritance inside it. Then, when the wave of economic reform and opening-up arrived, they gradually took the treasures out and sold them off one by one.
That was how they had obtained their billions in wealth!
This time, she had discovered the space first. There was no way she was going to let her possessions fall into the hands of people with ulterior motives!
The novel had only vaguely mentioned that her grandfather had left her a large inheritance, without specifying exactly what it included.
Looks like she would have to pay a visit to Butler Chen when she had the time. He had served as her grandfather’s butler for his entire life and had watched her grow up. He should be trustworthy.
Just as Gu Wan was thinking about this, a knock came from outside the door.
“Wanwan, are you rested? Dinner is ready. Come out and eat.”
“You’re already a grown woman, yet you still need Aunt Liu to call you to dinner. The older you get, the less sensible you become.”
“Don’t criticize the child. She’s pregnant. If she’s tired, let her sleep a little longer.”
“You’re the one who spoiled her!”
“All right, stop arguing. Let’s go downstairs first.”
Gu Wan could tell that the people putting on this performance of loving mother and daughter and devoted husband and wife outside the door were her scumbag father, Li Fugui, and her stepmother, Liu Jihong.
Back then, her grandfather, Gu Bingsheng, had wanted to bring a live-in son-in-law into the family for his daughter, Gu Yuyao, so that someone could inherit his enormous family business.
But Gu Yuyao, blinded by love, had fallen for the scumbag Li Fugui’s pretty-boy face and insisted on marrying him no matter what. To preserve his dignity, she was even unwilling to make him marry into her family as a live-in son-in-law.
With only one daughter, what could Gu Bingsheng do other than indulge her?
So he bought them a house, gave his daughter a generous dowry, and personally arranged the wedding before marrying her off. But he had one condition: their first child had to carry the surname Gu so that the child could inherit his family business.
The following year, Gu Yuyao gave birth to a daughter, Gu Wan, but died from postpartum hemorrhaging.
A white-haired parent had to bury a child. The devastating blow caused Gu Bingsheng to fall seriously ill. For years afterward, he remained bedridden and was unable to care for his granddaughter.
To prevent anyone from secretly harming Gu Wan, he made a will stating that all his property could only be inherited by Gu Wan. If Gu Wan died, the entire inheritance would be donated to the state.
In order to obtain the inheritance, Li Fugui brought Liu Jihong, who was still breastfeeding, into the family to serve as Gu Wan’s wet nurse. She brought along her daughter, Li Mingyue, who was two months older than Gu Wan.
The following year, Li Fugui married Liu Jihong.
Ever since this stepmother entered the family, she had always acted meek and submissive, appearing to treat the original Gu Wan even better than her own child. Even after giving birth to a chubby son for the scumbag father, she continued taking care of the original Gu Wan as before.
The original Gu Wan regarded her as her own mother and had absolutely no defenses against her.
But from childhood, Liu Jihong had been deliberately spoiling the original Gu Wan in a way that would ruin her. She never disciplined her, indulged her every desire, and let her do whatever she wanted.
She raised her to be crude and ill-mannered, spoiled and willful, and completely reckless, leaving her with an extremely poor reputation.
In sharp contrast was Li Mingyue, who was quiet, modest, kind to everyone, gentle, pleasant, and extremely popular.
Whenever people compared the two of them, Liu Jihong would always put on a guilty expression and say,
“It’s all my fault for not raising this child properly. Being a stepmother is really difficult. I’m always afraid that if I’m too strict with her, people will criticize me.”
Everyone would sympathize with Liu Jihong and dislike the original Gu Wan even more.
After the original Gu Wan followed her grandfather’s wishes and married Li Xiaoyu, gaining the right to inherit the family fortune, the family’s plans began to take shape.
Her scumbag father would constantly complain that her grandfather had never taken care of her, yet had insisted on interfering in her marriage. He portrayed him as an old-fashioned patriarch who had always made decisions unilaterally, causing the original Gu Wan to begin doubting her grandfather’s decision and become increasingly dissatisfied with it.
Her stepmother, meanwhile, pretended to be concerned and advised the original Gu Wan not to follow her husband to his military posting, saying it was just a small, poor, and difficult city. Why leave the comfort of North City?
Li Mingyue, on the other hand, constantly talked to her about the beauty of free love. She even introduced Zhang Xiaowei to her, repeatedly encouraging her to have an abortion, get divorced, and pursue the supposedly wonderful freedom of love.
The original Gu Wan was persuaded. She had a huge argument with Li Xiaoyu, declaring that she would have an abortion and get a divorce and absolutely refused to follow him to his military posting.
Furious, Li Xiaoyu returned to his unit that very night.
Thinking about all this, Gu Wan couldn’t help sighing.
The original owner really had been blinded by love, mistaking deception for genuine affection.
But Gu Wan herself was no fool.
What you ate of mine, spit it back out.
What you took from me, return it all!