This story takes place in a fictional setting. Please don’t scrutinize the historical details. Our sweet, soft, adorable little Yuanbao hopes everyone will add this book to their reading lists, give it a like, and save it to their favorites! Little Yuanbao wishes everyone great wealth, good fortune, and the fulfillment of all their wishes!
Midsummer, 1965.
The nighttime chirping of cicadas mingled with the sweltering heat, rolling through the courtyard surrounded by gray brick walls.
Three-year-old Yuanbao sat on an intricately carved wooden bed, clutching the copper key her grandfather had left behind. Tears still clung to her long, curled eyelashes.
She stared out the window at the household laborers hurriedly packing their belongings and preparing to flee, her little head a complete mess.
She couldn’t remember where she had come from. All she knew was that a high fever had left her unconscious for a long time.
When she opened her eyes again, she had become the little granddaughter of a landlord’s family in the 1960s.
The original owner’s memories poured into her little head, one after another.
The Shen family had once been a wealthy household in Qinghe Village. Their ancestors had held official positions.
Her grandfather, Old Master Shen, had passed the imperial examination to become a licentiate at the age of eighteen. During the Republican era, he established a private school and worked as a teacher.
Although he had been labeled a landlord after Liberation, he had secretly helped many impoverished villagers. Deep down, the villagers still respected him.
Her mother was a hardworking and capable woman. After her husband died young, she hired laborers to cultivate the family’s remaining farmland, planting cotton and grain. As a result, the family had always managed to meet their basic needs.
However, during a night of torrential rain last month, her grandfather had suddenly suffered a heart attack and passed away. Her mother had also fallen gravely ill and died the day before yesterday.
Now, little Yuanbao was the only one left in the Shen family.
Her chubby little fingers fiddled with the copper key.
Her grandfather had placed it in her hand on his deathbed.
She remembered him coughing up blood as he told her, “My little girl, our Shen ancestors accumulated good karma. This key unlocks the family fortune our ancestors left for their descendants! But if the Shen family ever falls into hardship, use it to open the storehouse and distribute the grain and rice to the villagers. That may be what saves your life.”
After what seemed like an eternity, dawn finally arrived, and the outside gradually fell quiet.
Clutching the key, little Yuanbao shuffled to the edge of the bed. With her little bottom sticking up in the air, she clumsily climbed down from the carved wooden bed.
The moment her feet touched the ground, a thunderous voice suddenly rang out from beyond the door.
“The remnants of the Shen family’s bourgeois ideology must be thoroughly eradicated!”
“Everyone, let’s raid the house! Show no mercy!”
Immediately afterward, the village brigade leader led a group of people wearing red armbands into the courtyard.
Their expressions were fierce as they barged into the rooms and rummaged through everything without the slightest courtesy.
Little Yuanbao hurriedly crawled into her mother’s pearwood wardrobe. As she listened to the crashing of shattered porcelain and the angry curses outside, her little heart pounded wildly. Frightened, she covered her mouth with her right hand, not daring to make even the slightest sound.
However, less than two minutes later, the brigade leader pulled open the wardrobe door and stared straight at little Yuanbao with his enormous, round eyes.
She jolted in fright. Her left hand tightened around the copper key, and its toothed edge cut into her tiny palm. Bright red blood trickled down the ridges of the key.
Suddenly, a cold voice rang out inside her little head.
[Double Cashback System Activated! Host Shen Yuanyuan Detected!]
Little Yuanbao blinked her round eyes.
Shen Yuanyuan was her full name. Something was calling her.
The cold voice continued.
[Items gifted to others will generate cashback worth twice their original value.]
[Random rewards may drop after multiple gifts.]
[The initial activation requires binding a core item. Would you like to bind one?]
Little Yuanbao didn’t dare answer. She simply clutched the copper key even tighter.
The system immediately responded.
[Binding successful.]
[Core item: The Shen family’s ancestral copper key.]
[Currently eligible for cashback: All assets in the Shen family storehouse.]
This time, little Yuanbao understood what the system meant. She also realized that if she wanted to survive the house raid, she had to hand over the copper key.
So she wriggled out of the wardrobe, placed the copper key in the brigade leader’s hand, and looked up at him with her little face tilted back.
“Uncle, Grandpa said before he died that this is the key to the granary. He told me to share the food with the villagers so everyone could eat!”
The brigade leader was momentarily stunned. Seeing the little girl’s hair sticking up in every direction and tears still hanging from the corners of her eyes, his heart softened. He no longer spoke harshly to her.
He led everyone to open the granary.
Inside were hundreds of pounds of unhusked rice, more than twenty newly stuffed cotton quilts, thirty pounds of dried medicinal herbs, ten sealed jars of salt, and four smoked hams.
The Red Guards immediately began carrying out all the visible goods.
The brigade leader’s stern face finally broke into a smile. He lowered his head and rubbed little Yuanbao’s hair.
“You voluntarily handed over the key and made a contribution! Actually, I know Old Master Shen wasn’t a bad man. It’s just that the Shen family really can’t keep these things anymore!”
Little Yuanbao grinned, revealing two adorable dimples in her chubby cheeks.
“I understand!”
The system’s voice rang out in her head again.
[Gift of the copper key successful! Cashback received: 800 pounds of unhusked rice, 40 cotton quilts, 60 pounds of medicinal herbs, 20 jars of salt, and 8 smoked hams. All items have been stored in the personal space.]
Little Yuanbao was clever. After learning to speak and walk at one year old, her grandfather had already begun teaching her to read and write.
At three, she had read quite a few books and could even do arithmetic.
She knew the system hadn’t lied to her. It really had rewarded her with double the value!
Before her mother passed away, she had warned her not to become a greedy, deceitful person who valued money above everything else. However, she also mustn’t be foolishly softhearted and give away wealth indiscriminately.
Little Yuanbao knew there were still valuable items hidden in the Shen family’s storeroom. These possessions had been accumulated by her ancestors and earned through business dealings in earlier years. They hadn’t come from exploiting or oppressing the common people.
Her grandfather and mother had preserved these assets so that little Yuanbao could eventually stand on her own feet and live a comfortable life without worrying about food or clothing.
Unfortunately, fate had other plans. Her grandfather and mother could no longer protect her until adulthood. From now on, she would have to rely on herself.
Taking advantage of the chaos, little Yuanbao decided to secretly give away the valuable items in the storeroom.
She crawled beneath a table, opened a small wooden box tucked underneath it, and took out a silver bracelet. Then she stuffed it into the hands of Widow Sun, who often gave her wild berries to eat.
“Auntie Sun! Take this and exchange it for some eggs!”
Widow Sun gratefully accepted the bracelet.
The system immediately returned two silver bracelets, which were stored in her personal space.
Next, little Yuanbao pried up a loose floor brick and retrieved a jade pendant hidden beneath it. She handed it to Grandpa Li, the carpenter who had once made her a little wooden horse.
“Grandpa, you can take this to town and exchange it for money!”
Grandpa Li happily thanked her, and the system immediately rewarded her with two more jade pendants of the same quality.
Then little Yuanbao stuck her chubby bottom into the air and crawled headfirst beneath the stove. She dug through the ashes and retrieved ten silver dollars, which she stuffed into the hands of a young neighbor who had once bought her candied hawthorn skewers.
“Big Sister, take this money and use it to pay your school fees! Mommy said girls must go to school!”
Little Yuanbao’s chubby face was smeared with stove ash, making her look like a tiny kitten.
The system returned twenty silver dollars, which were stored in her personal space.
The villagers praised her as a little bodhisattva, while even the Red Guards said she was a promising young girl.
By sunset, everything in the Shen family’s storeroom had been carried away. Even the beds and cabinets inside the house were removed.
The brigade leader informed little Yuanbao that she could no longer live in the Shen family’s gray-brick residence either.
She watched as a massive iron lock was fastened to the front gate of her home and an official seal was pasted across it.
Standing among the adults, little Yuanbao looked tiny, confused, and helpless. Her heart felt heavy and strange, and she pouted as she gazed pitifully at the grown-ups around her.
“She’s still the little granddaughter of a landlord. Her class background is bad. No matter how kind she is, we wouldn’t dare adopt her!”
“She’s already given away all the valuable things in her home. Besides, Old Master Shen never exploited us when he was alive. Why don’t we take turns looking after her and give her a share of whatever food we have?”
“That’s a good idea. Which family will take her first?”
The adults chattered excitedly until, at that point, their voices suddenly fell silent.
Nobody was willing to step forward and take responsibility. Adopting the little granddaughter of a landlord meant risking a raid by the Red Guards at any moment!
Little Yuanbao understood the dilemma in their voices. Without saying a word, her tiny, round figure quietly disappeared into the crowd.
Night fell.
She slipped into the village ancestral hall and sat on a pile of straw. She was so sleepy that she kept yawning, and her little tummy was growling with hunger.
She rubbed her chubby belly with her little hands and comforted herself.
“If I fall asleep, I won’t feel hungry anymore.”
Just as she was drifting off to sleep, a shadow limped in through the doorway.
Little Yuanbao recognized him!
He was Wang the Lame, who lived at the far end of the village. In the past, he had often lurked suspiciously outside the Shen family’s gate.
Both her grandfather and mother had warned her that he was a man of ill intent.