“So dizzy!”
Zhao Yaoyao forced her eyes open, and by the dim, pale moonlight, she saw the man who was hard at work.
The man had a massive build and a body so scorching hot it was frightening. His warm breath grazed against her ear. She reached out to push him, but her hands were caught by his burning-hot, large palms, pinned and fixed above her head, leaving her completely unable to budge even an inch.
Instantly, she wanted to cry out, but the man’s warm lips pressed down, sealing hers. Amidst her struggles, he made a forceful and rapid demand, quickly carrying her up into the clouds and devouring her entirely.
In the silent night, only the sound of muffled sobbing and pleading remained…
After who knows how long, her vision gradually blurred, the moon outside the window vanished, the sky turned the color of a fish’s belly, and she finally couldn’t hold on any longer, fainting away.
West Room of the Shen Family, Huaihua Village.
Zhao Yaoyao woke up from the rock-hard bed. When she turned over and sat up, her whole body ached as if her bones had been taken apart and reassembled, hurting terribly.
She looked around the unfamiliar environment, which could only be described as completely bare with four walls. Her gaze shifted back to the bedside, and she truly couldn’t keep it together when she saw the bizarrely ugly cloth doll sitting right there on the edge of the headboard.
“Crap, even transmigration can happen like this?”
She had simply been staying up late reading a 1910s-period romance web novel out of boredom, so how was it that when she woke up, she had transmigrated right into it?
The original owner shared her name, Zhao Yaoyao, and was ranked second in her family. Unloved by her father and neglected by her mother, the environment she grew up in not only fostered a deeply suspicious, sensitive, and insecure personality, but she also had the delicate physique of Lin Daiyu, constantly soaking in medicine pots and panting just from taking two steps.
Three years ago, she had been drugged by her own eldest sister and married off to her current husband, Shen Shuxing. Three years ago, Shen Shuxing was still a penniless outcast relying on hunting to survive. Three years ago, he went to enlist in the military, fought his way up to the position of deputy battalion commander, and handed every single cent of his eighty-yuan monthly military allowance over to the original owner. In turn, the original owner turned right around and gave it all away to subsidize her natal family and her beloved—even though that beloved had already married her sister.
She could truly be called the pinnacle of brainless simps and the fighter jet among door-mats.
While the original owner was timid and obedient at her natal family’s home, she ruled the roost with an iron fist at her husband’s home. Because she hadn’t been willing to marry Shen Shuxing in the first place, no matter how well he treated her, she never once gave him a pleasant look, turning the Shen family upside down every single day until the elderly couple’s peaceful first half of life felt like undergoing a trial by fire in the second half.
This time, it seemed she had staged a suicide attempt at home to force the male lead into a divorce. When the male lead refused, she slipped a sleeping pill into his water with the intention of doing away with him, but because she wanted a bargain and bought a fake, it turned out to be an aphrodisiac instead—which led to the events of last night.
When reading the book, she liked to skim and skip parts, so she couldn’t remember the middle plot very clearly. After the original owner drugged him, the male lead became heartbroken and agreed to a divorce. Immediately after the divorce, the original owner hooked up with her brother-in-law, cuckolding her own elder sister, and was caught red-handed in bed, completely ruining her reputation. Upon returning to her natal family, she was married off by her parents to a sixty-year-old old man and ultimately met a tragic end, beaten to death.
A year after divorcing the original owner, the male lead met the female lead in the military. The two chased and pulled at each other in a game of emotional tug-of-war for several years, and the male lead rose all the way from deputy battalion commander to the position of military region commander, living a sweet and harmonious little life with the female lead.
After sorting out the chaotic storyline in her head, Zhao Yaoyao couldn’t help letting out a long sigh. Turns out, she was simply that disposable cannon-fodder female supporting character.
What a tragic life this was—just let it all be destroyed!
Turning her head, she spotted the hideously ugly cloth doll again and swept it off onto the floor with a wave of her hand. This cloth doll was the exact reason why the original owner kept funneling money to that scumbag; it was just something the scumbag had casually picked up off the roadside, yet he lied to the original owner and claimed he had sewn it himself. The original owner had always treasured it like a precious treasure, bringing it everywhere she went—even when sharing a bed with the male lead, she would bring the cloth doll along, imagining the male lead to be that scumbag instead.
Screeech—the dilapidated wooden door was pushed open. She raised her eyes and looked over, the handsome and striking facial features of the man leaving her momentarily speechless. How could there be such a good-looking person? The man was nearly one meter ninety tall, with sword-like brows, starry eyes, broad shoulders, and a narrow waist. Even wearing clothes, his muscular contours were hard to conceal—no wonder he had been so forceful last night, leaving her unable to put up a defense.
Nüwa really wasn’t fair when shaping humans. In the modern world, she had been utterly plain-looking. Even though her medical skills had reached the pinnacle of perfection and she had become a revered divine physician, she still harbored a few regrets and would occasionally send regards to Nüwa.
“I agree to the divorce. I’ll take you to town in a little while,” Shen Shuxing said, his tone flat and distant, looking as though he had already grown utterly disappointed in her.
Originally, Zhao Yaoyao had planned to do the same, but upon seeing Shen Shuxing in the flesh, she instantly changed her mind. In the modern world, she had been single for twenty-six years from birth, and having just tasted forbidden fruit for the very first time, how could she easily let it go?
Besides, she was completely unfamiliar with the place here, and her natal family was hovering like tigers watching their prey. If she got divorced now, she wouldn’t even have a place to land on her feet.
Her mind spun, and a lame excuse was freshly baked on the spot.
“Can we wait a bit? You hurt me yesterday, I…”
The second half of her sentence trailed off softly. Shen Shuxing couldn’t hear clearly, so he frowned and leaned closer, asking, “What did you say?”
Zhao Yaoyao’s weathered old face flushed red, and mustering up her courage, she said, “I said you hurt me yesterday, so I can’t go to town right now.”
The only bicycle at home had been sold by her a few months ago to subsidize that scumbag, and nowadays going to town meant walking on foot—a journey that took several hours just one way.
Noticing Shen Shuxing’s ears turn red at a speed visible to the naked eye, Zhao Yaoyao lowered her posture and said softly, “Husband, I don’t want a divorce anymore. Let’s live our lives properly. I’ll take good care of Mom and this home. We won’t make a fuss anymore, okay?”
Her voice was soft and gentle, like an unreachable cat suddenly acting spoiled toward its owner, striking straight into his heart and melting it into a pool of softness.
She had never spoken to him this gently before, not even once.
Yet, lingering in that gentle warmth for only a moment, he instantly snapped out of it and sobered up from the honeyed trap. He turned his head away, his tone carrying displeasure mixed with anxiety: “There’s nothing left of any value in our family worth you expending any effort on. Aside from four bare, bleak walls, there’s nothing left at all.”
Uh…
Meeting his eyes made Zhao Yaoyao’s scalp prickle a little. And you couldn’t really blame Shen Shuxing for talking like that; it was mainly because the original owner’s previous actions had been far too partial to her natal family.
Not only did she send them money and grain, but just two days ago, even the very last laying hen they had was slaughtered and sent over to nourish her natal family’s sister-in-law.
You have to understand that three years ago, Mother Shen had raised over a dozen chickens, saying they were being kept just in case Zhao Yaoyao got pregnant so she’d have them for her confinement month. Yet over the past three years, Zhao Yaoyao hadn’t gotten pregnant at all, but every two months she would slaughter a chicken and carry it over to her natal family. All the regular eggs she accumulated until she had fifty at a time were taken back to her natal family all at once—even though that natal family didn’t treat her well at all.
The more unloved a person was, the more they wanted their parents to open their eyes and look at them, craving that tiny shred of nonexistent familial affection. Yet this frantic, unrequited devotion exchanged nothing in return but the cold stares of her parents.
According to the original book, the original owner’s parents had a daughter as their firstborn. Because she was the first, they loved her dearly and named her Zhao Mingyue, doting on her immensely. When pregnant with the original owner, they hoped the child would be a boy, but it turned out to be a girl instead, whom they deeply despised.
They named her Zhao Yaoyao, meaning they hoped she would drop dead early since there wasn’t enough food in the household to eat and they wanted one less mouth to feed. Barely a month after giving birth to the original owner, the original owner’s mother got pregnant again. With three children spaced just a year apart, all attention went to the third child, Zhao Youwang, while nobody cared whether the original owner lived or died. Yet somehow, she managed to survive anyway.
The original owner’s mother frequently scolded the original owner for having a stubborn, hard-to-kill life, saying she shouldn’t exist and was a jinx bringing bad luck.
Seeing her fall silent, Shen Shuxing felt a pang of disappointment in his heart. It looked like he had hit the mark. Standing up, he said, “Tomorrow, I’ll go borrow a bicycle from my older cousin to take you to town and get this divorce over with, returning your freedom to you.”