It was dusk.
The Xiao household in Li Family Village was a flurry of activity, with people coming and going in a chaotic mess. A group of curious villagers crowded around the doorway, their voices rising in a discordant chorus of gossip.
“How is it that Li Miaomiao didn’t die from that fall? She’s truly wicked to the core,” one remarked.
“Tell me about it,” another chimed in. “She was the one who clung to Xiao Xian like a leech, demanding to marry him. But once she realized his legs were crippled and beyond repair, she tried to pack up his money and bolt. She’s lower than an animal.”
Inside the humble thatched cottage, the very woman they were calling “lower than an animal”—Li Miaomiao—was beginning to stir on the wooden bed.
The doctor, who had been on the verge of offering his condolences, suddenly froze as he saw the woman’s eyelids flicker. Shocked, he pulled back her eyelid and checked her pulse and breath. Finding signs of life, he turned to the man sitting on a wooden bench with his legs bound in splints.
“She has regained consciousness,” the doctor said slowly. “A few days of rest, and she will fully recover.”
Upon hearing she was out of danger, Xiao Xian sat on the bench, his gaze indifferent as he looked at the woman on the bed. His eyes darkened slightly.
“Thank you, Dr. Cui,” he said calmly.
He reached into his purse, handed over a few copper coins, and the doctor packed his kit and left. Outside, the villagers heard that Li Miaomiao hadn’t died and immediately began chattering again.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk. She didn’t die after all. Looks like Xiao Xian is in for a miserable life.”
“Let’s go, let’s go.”
The gossip outside sounded like a flock of noisy sparrows. Li Miaomiao’s eyelids twitched.
Xiao Xian? Who is that?
In the next instant, a splitting headache tore through her skull. A flood of memories that did not belong to her surged into her mind.
The original owner of this body shared her name. After losing her mother at a young age and having her father remarry, she had been abused by her stepmother for years. This had twisted her personality into one of blind rage and ignorance; she couldn’t understand reason, and she had spent her life bullying even the innocent children in the village.
She had been betrothed to the son of the Lin family, Lin Dalang, while they were still in their mothers’ wombs. He had grown up handsome, and as childhood sweethearts, the original owner had set her heart on him, eagerly waiting for the day she could become his wife.
But after her father passed away, Lin Dalang had become entangled with her stepsister.
Even then, the original owner was willing to endure anything just to marry him. But what she never expected was that on their wedding day, her stepsister would hang herself. Upon hearing the news, Lin Dalang had abandoned the original owner right in front of all the wedding guests.
Humiliated and exposed to the finger-pointing of the entire village, the original owner had snapped.
Xiao Xian, who had just happened to be attending the wedding feast, became her target after her stepmother, Li Dalan, whispered a few venomous suggestions into her ear. In a heated fit of madness, she had rushed at Xiao Xian, clinging to him and tearing open her collar, insisting that he take responsibility for her.
She had threatened to jump into the river if he didn’t.
With the village elders and the entire town watching, Xiao Xian—a newcomer to the area—had no choice but to swallow his pride and take her as his wife.
A single day later, after a brief visit from her stepmother, the original owner had packed her bags to leave. Xiao Xian, already feeling that the marriage was a farce, hadn’t stopped her. While leaving, she had loudly broadcasted to the crowd that Xiao Xian was “useless” and a cripple, and that she was going back to be a concubine for Lin Dalang.
In her manic state, she had tripped into a river ditch, been rescued by the villagers, and hauled back to the Xiao household.
As the last of the memories settled, Li Miaomiao rubbed her head and sat up. No sooner had she leaned back against the headboard than she heard the man’s cold, crisp voice:
“You can go now.”
Li Miaomiao looked at the face just inches from her own. Even though she had already seen his handsome features, she couldn’t help but be struck by them as he opened his eyes.
His eyebrows were sharp as if carved by a blade, and his eyes were deep, shaped like peach blossoms with slightly curved corners, holding a gentle, jade-like clarity.
She pulled her gaze away, frowning slightly. Her heart felt a complicated tangle of emotions.
Go?
Where could she possibly go? The only place the original owner knew was Li Family Village. In her memories, the county town was essentially non-existent. She was now in the same desperate situation as Xiao Xian, possessing nothing but a healthy body. Besides, she was married; she had no home to return to in the village.
As she pondered her next move, the man’s cold, crisp voice cut through the silence once more.
“You’ve achieved your goal. As you can see, this courtyard is falling apart. I can barely take care of myself, let alone provide for you.”
The message was clear enough. Li Miaomiao looked at him deeply. Seeing that he had no intention of relenting, she sighed, slowly climbed off the bed, and walked toward the door clutching a small wooden box—the only thing the original owner had left behind.
Listening to her retreating footsteps, Xiao Xian’s expression remained utterly blank. Only the small stone he was rubbing between his fingers betrayed the killing intent beneath his calm facade.
Five more steps and her right foot will be out the door.
The crime of murdering one’s own wife would be a hundred times more severe than the fate he had dealt to those two idiots back before he arrived here. Thinking about the potential punishment, he curled his lips in a faint, light smile—an expression as gentle as a breeze, yet laced with a dark, twisted expectation of death.
Just as Li Miaomiao’s right foot was about to cross the threshold, Xiao Xian stared at the back of her head with predatory intensity, the stone ready to fly.
Suddenly, Li Miaomiao pivoted. She faced the broken door, crouched down, and set the wooden box on the ground.
She remembered that this door had been kicked in intentionally by the original owner before she’d tried to run away. The original owner had done it just to spite Xiao Xian, thinking that a man who couldn’t even walk properly would never be able to fix it—the goal had been to make his life as miserable as possible.
Li Miaomiao pried the box open and pulled out a small knife.
I’m not leaving.
She might be laid-back and prone to playing the “salted fish,” but she was also incredibly thick-skinned. Desperate times called for desperate measures. As long as she was alive, even the worst situation could be improved.
As she laid a wooden plank on the floor, she snuck a glance at Xiao Xian and caught a flash of disappointment in his eyes.
Go ahead and be disappointed, she thought. You’re my legitimate husband now. As long as I stay thick-skinned and refuse to leave, there’s nothing you can do about it.
Xiao Xian lowered his gaze, dropping the stone. A flicker of regret passed through him.
How boring.
Li Miaomiao paused her work, watching as he picked up the two straight poles leaning against the wall. He tucked them under his armpits and dragged his broken body back into the room.
Her eye twitched involuntarily. Those poles were roughly a meter long, with no padding—they were digging straight into his flesh. Yet, he seemed to feel no pain at all. Furthermore, he looked to be over 1.8 meters tall; his entire lower body was effectively dragging across the ground.
Seeing him like this, a flicker of sympathy stirred in Li Miaomiao’s heart.
I’ll head up the mountain tomorrow, cut down a tree, and make him a pair of proper crutches.
With her mind made up, she went back to using the small knife to hollow out the hole. Before she had transmigrated here, her family had been carpenters for three generations. As an only daughter, her grandfather hadn’t cared about the old tradition that prohibited passing the craft to women; he had taught her every technique he knew.
Xiao Xian’s house used a simple single-panel wooden door. It had fallen because the pivot—the wooden hinge—at the top had snapped. In this era, there were no metal hinges; doors relied entirely on these wooden pivots. A piece of wood with a rounded hole was mounted on the top of the door frame, and a groove was chiseled into the stone threshold below, matching the protrusions on the top and bottom of the door panel.
You simply tilted the door into the slots, and it would swing. It wasn’t as efficient as a modern hinged door, but it worked.
The broken wood was still lodged in the pivot hole. She worked carefully, digging out the hole until she could finally pry the broken fragment loose. She glanced up at the thatched roof, locating the position of the chimney, then rose and headed into the kitchen.
By now, the moonlight was beginning to bathe the treetops, casting a soft, silvery glow through the wicker-framed window.