The dilapidated hut at the foot of the mountain did not even have a complete door panel.
The north wind, carrying tiny pellets of snow, poured through the cracks in the walls like blades.
Lu Yuan sat collapsed on the ground, which was covered with only a thin layer of rotten straw, tightly holding the trembling Lin Qingyue in his arms.
It was freezing.
This kind of cold was something a modern person sitting in a heated room could never imagine. It was the kind of despairing cold that could freeze even the marrow in one’s bones.
“Husband… I’m so cold. My stomach keeps tightening…”
Lin Qingyue curled herself into a ball, her lips purple from the cold as tears rolled down her cheeks.
As she cried, she nervously stroked her heavily pregnant belly and murmured to herself.
“My child, my poor child… Mother is sorry. If you’re born in this freezing weather, you won’t even have proper clothes to wear…”
Hearing his wife’s despairing murmurs, Lu Yuan felt as though something had clenched his heart painfully.
Without hesitation, he pulled open the already inadequate cotton coat covering his chest.
“Husband! What are you doing? You’ll freeze to death!” Lin Qingyue cried out in alarm.
Lu Yuan said nothing. He firmly grabbed her feet and tucked them directly against his chest, pressing them against the warmth of his body.
“Hiss—” The icy sensation made Lu Yuan involuntarily suck in a breath.
But his movements remained extremely gentle. He wrapped both arms tightly around her, using his clothes to cover her feet and keep them warm.
Lin Qingyue froze.
Feeling the scorching warmth coming from the man’s chest, her eyes reddened, and her tears began flowing even more heavily.
Lu Yuan struggled to raise one hand and gently wiped the tears from her cheeks with his rough fingertips.
“Don’t be afraid. With your husband here, I absolutely won’t let anything happen to you or the child.”
His voice was hoarse, but it carried a reassuring strength that she had never heard from him before.
As he watched the foolish woman in his arms gradually calm down, Lu Yuan’s mind was churning violently.
He was a modern materials science researcher, with countless chemical formulas and physical theories in his head.
Yet at this moment, facing this drafty broken temple and the heavy snow outside, he suddenly felt deeply powerless.
Even the most skilled housewife could do nothing without rice. He had a head full of knowledge and talent, yet in this ancient winter, he could not even manage to start a fire!
He frantically searched through the original owner’s memories, trying to find someone they could turn to for help.
The result only made his heart sink.
The original owner had been timid and withdrawn. Before the age of fifteen, he had been a bookworm who knew nothing but studying. After fifteen, his stepmother had tormented him until he became a taciturn man who only knew how to bury himself in work.
Let alone a close friend, he did not even have a relative he could talk to.
When they had supported each other out of the village earlier, several villagers had actually seen them.
But those people had merely glanced at them from a distance before slamming their courtyard doors shut.
Lu Yuan did not blame them.
In this ancient winter, every household was struggling to keep enough food on the table. No family was well-off.
Besides, everyone knew that Lu Yuan’s stepmother, Madam Zhao, was a difficult and aggressive woman. No one was willing to get themselves into trouble for a sickly man who had just been thrown out of his family.
Damn it, this was so frustrating!
Lu Yuan clenched his teeth and slammed his fist against the cold ground.
He knew he could not simply sit around and wait to die. If they endured the night like this, there would be two frozen corpses lying here by tomorrow morning!
“Husband…” Feeling his frustration, Lin Qingyue stretched out her stiff, frozen hand and gently placed it over the back of his hand.
“I don’t regret marrying you. I really don’t.”
She bit her cracked lips, determination shining in her eyes.
“I chose you as my husband. Even if we have to beg for food, I’ll hold my broken bowl and beg alongside you.”
After saying this, she paused, and a complicated trace of resentment appeared in her eyes.
“I’m just… just angry that you used to listen to your father and that vicious woman too much, letting them bully and mistreat us.”
“If you’d been as strong-willed as you are today earlier, our child wouldn’t have had to suffer like this…”
Hearing his wife’s complaint, Lu Yuan did not argue. Instead, he pulled her even closer.
“I was blinded before. I won’t make the same mistake again.”
To prevent their body heat from escaping too quickly, Lu Yuan forced himself to stand.
He carried several large stone slabs scattered around the ruined hut and arranged them into a semicircular windbreak in the corner.
Then he gathered all the dry grass he could find and piled it underneath them and around the sides.
A crude “windproof insulation pit” was completed.
Although they could not make a fire, using the stone slabs to block the draft and the dry grass to trap the heat produced by their bodies at least eased the biting cold somewhat.
The two squeezed tightly into the small pit.
Lin Qingyue watched her husband desperately trying to survive, and a strange feeling quietly emerged from the depths of her despair.
Her husband seemed… truly different from before.
The old Lu Yuan would only sigh whenever he encountered difficulties, blaming fate and complaining about his circumstances.
But today’s Lu Yuan had dared to fight back against his own father’s beating and had refused to give up even when faced with such a desperate situation.
Gradually, a little warmth accumulated inside the pit.
Lin Qingyue leaned against Lu Yuan’s shoulder, listening to his steady heartbeat. Her mind involuntarily drifted back to the time when they had first met.
Before she married, she had also been doted on by her family.
Although her family was desperately poor, her two older brothers always protected her, and her parents cherished her like the apple of their eye.
Her name, “Qingyue,” had even been chosen by her father after he risked freezing to death in the middle of winter to wade into the river and catch a large carp. He then asked an old scholar in town to give her a proper name.
For a farmer’s daughter, having a respectable name was a tremendous honor.
She and Lu Yuan had met in Yuanhe Town, which lay between their two villages.
It had been raining heavily that day. She was carrying a heavy bundle of firewood to town to sell.
As she passed a horse-drawn carriage whose horse had suddenly bolted, she was frightened and fell to the ground. The dozen or so copper coins she had painstakingly saved scattered everywhere and fell into muddy puddles.
None of the pedestrians taking shelter from the rain were willing to dirty their clothes to help a poor village girl covered in mud.
Only Lu Yuan did.
At that time, Lu Yuan had immediately crouched down.
Using his clean sleeve, he picked up the copper coins one by one from the muddy water, wiped them clean, and handed them to her with both hands.
“Miss, these are your coins. Take good care of them.”
That gentle smile, combined with his handsome, scholarly face, instantly captured the heart of Lin Qingyue, who was just beginning to experience romantic feelings.
Later, when she reached marriageable age, she ignored her parents’ objections and asked someone to inquire about Lu Yuan.
She had assumed that since he was a child scholar, he would certainly look down on an illiterate peasant girl like herself.
Unexpectedly, Lu Yuan’s stepmother had agreed immediately just to avoid paying a bride price!
Her parents were heartbroken, but they could not change her mind. They could only give her the little savings the family had left as her dowry.
Unfortunately, that pitiful dowry was completely stripped away by Madam Zhao as soon as Lin Qingyue entered the Lu household, with Madam Zhao coming up with all sorts of excuses to take everything.
Life after marriage was unbearably difficult, but whenever Lu Yuan secretly left half a coarse flour cake for her at night, she felt that everything was worth it.
She did not want her parents to worry, so she gritted her teeth and never once returned to her parents’ home.
Even when her older brother traveled a long way to visit her, she would force a smile and make up an excuse to send him away, afraid that he would see how miserable her life had become.
A gust of cold wind blew into the ruined hut, pulling Lin Qingyue’s thoughts back to the cruel reality.
She looked at the increasingly violent snowstorm outside and then at her weak, panting husband. Finally, she made up her mind.
“Husband…”
Lin Qingyue bit her cracked lips, her voice trembling slightly.
“Let’s… let’s go back to my parents’ home.”
In ancient times, a woman was expected to follow her husband after marriage.
If a man reached such desperate circumstances that he had to seek refuge with his wife’s family, he would be mocked by everyone as a “live-in son-in-law” or a “freeloader.”
Lin Qingyue knew that the original owner was a sour, rigid scholar who valued his dignity and pride more than his own life.
So when she said these words, her body trembled slightly, afraid that her husband would respond by angrily scolding her.
However, Lu Yuan’s reaction left her completely stunned.
“Alright. Let’s go back to your parents’ home.”
There was no anger and no reprimand, only an extremely calm and decisive answer.
Lu Yuan naturally used their near-death experience that day as the perfect excuse for his change in behavior.
“We’ve just walked through the gates of death together. Your husband has finally seen the true coldness of the world.”
Lu Yuan smiled calmly and gently straightened the stray hair at her temples.
“What good is the so-called dignity of a scholar or that intangible pride? Can it be eaten? Can it shield you and our child from the wind and snow?”
“Compared with saving face, I only want the two of you to live safely.”
Lin Qingyue’s eyes widened as tears burst forth.
Her husband had truly changed!
The rigid scholar who had cared more about his pride than his own life was gone. The man who remained was responsible, decisive, and willing to stand up for his family!
From Lu Family Village to Qingshui Village, where her parents lived, the distance was a full twenty li. They also had to pass through Yuanhe Town.
Under normal circumstances, an adult man could make the journey in about two hours.
But now, it was the middle of a snowy night, with the mountains sealed by heavy snow.
Lu Yuan was still seriously injured and running a fever, while Lin Qingyue was heavily pregnant and close to giving birth.
This journey was practically like walking back and forth through the gates of hell.
The two supported each other as they walked. With every step, their legs felt as heavy as lead.
The snow reached above their ankles, and the bone-chilling cold crept up through their trouser legs, almost robbing them of all sensation.
Lu Yuan gritted his teeth tightly. The powerful willpower of a modern man was pushed to its absolute limit at this moment.
He could not fall.
If he fell, three lives would be lost here.
Lin Qingyue was in even greater pain, cold sweat covering her face as waves of tightening pain periodically came from her abdomen, yet she stubbornly remained silent.
Three hours.
An entire six hours of struggling for their lives.
When a faint glow of dawn finally appeared on the eastern horizon, a quiet, ancient village emerged at the end of the snowy landscape.
Qingshui Village.
Relying on the tiny fragments of the original owner’s memories from his wedding, Lu Yuan made his way toward an old earthen house.
This was the Lin family.
They were just as desperately poor. The courtyard walls had been built from mud and broken stones, and some sections had already collapsed halfway.
“We’re here… Qingyue, we’re here.”
Lu Yuan let out a long breath and turned to look at his wife.
“Husband…”
The moment Lin Qingyue managed to say those two words, the tension she had maintained throughout the entire night finally snapped.
Her vision went black, her legs gave way, and her entire body uncontrollably fell forward.
“Bang!”
Her forehead struck heavily against the rusty copper door knocker on the Lin family’s wooden door, and she immediately passed out.
“Qingyue!”
Lu Yuan was terrified. Summoning the last bit of strength in his body, he lunged forward and caught her in his arms.
Just then, the old wooden door creaked open from the inside.
A woman with graying hair and dressed in coarse cloth stepped out, carrying half a basin of leftover slop from the previous night.
It was Lin Qingyue’s biological mother, Madam Wang.
She rubbed her sleepy eyes and casually complained about the terrible weather.
But when her gaze landed on the two figures in the snow, looking like snow-covered people, and she recognized the heavily pregnant unconscious woman—
Madam Wang’s entire body suddenly stiffened, and her pupils widened in shock.
“Clang!”
The wooden basin in her hands fell straight to the ground, splashing the foul water everywhere…