Time passed quickly.
In the blink of an eye, five years had gone by since the disaster that changed everything.
The tiny baby who had once been trapped inside swaddling clothes, barely able to turn over on her own, was now five years old.
And when it came to those five years of her life, Evelyn Sterling had enough complaints to fill an entire book.
If she weren’t currently stuck with the appearance of a five-year-old child, she honestly wanted to plant her hands on her hips and curse every single person responsible for her miserable situation.
Damn it!
When other people reincarnated into another world, they usually became wealthy princesses or noble ladies, raised in luxury from childhood with servants waiting on them hand and foot.
Food was brought to them.
Clothes were put on for them.
They barely had to lift a finger.
And even those who ended up in ordinary families could at least rely on their own abilities, work their way up from nothing, and slowly build a better life.
What about her?
What kind of ridiculous reincarnation was this?
Did she have status?
Absolutely.
She was a legitimate young lady of the White Tiger Clan, with the blood of the Sterling family flowing through her veins.
Judging by her title alone, anyone who didn’t know the truth would probably imagine her growing up pampered and spoiled, wearing beautiful dresses inside some grand castle, surrounded by servants wherever she went.
They might even think someone would immediately kneel down to wipe the mud off her shoes if she happened to step in a puddle.
But if someone asked whether she had also experienced the life of a poor farm girl—
Yes.
She had.
Every single part of it.
Ever since she had been sent to this enormous, isolated haunted estate at the age of three, Evelyn had officially begun her life of self-reliance.
The estate itself was ridiculously large.
Unfortunately, there was almost nothing useful inside it.
What it did have was an endless amount of abandoned land covered in weeds.
So Evelyn had no choice but to clear the fields little by little.
Pull weeds.
Turn the soil.
Plant whatever she could find that might eventually fill her stomach.
Thankfully, there was a stream behind the mountain where she could catch fish, and the surrounding woods occasionally offered other things she could eat.
If she was lucky, she could even find a way to bring back some small game.
Otherwise, she would probably have gone mad eating the same few vegetables every day.
Planting.
Watering.
Weeding.
Finding something with actual meat whenever possible.
There was always something waiting to be done.
What a wonderfully “peaceful” life.
The thought made Evelyn grind her teeth.
Her little hand tightened around a clump of weeds before she yanked it from the soil by the roots.
Judging by the vicious expression on her face, anyone watching might have thought she was pulling out someone’s hair instead.
Damn it!
Was this really the life a young lady of a great clan was supposed to live?
She was only five!
Children her age probably still had people helping them get dressed in the morning.
Someone combed their hair.
Someone brought them food whenever they were hungry.
Evelyn?
At five years old, she already knew when certain crops should be planted and when they needed watering.
If the weather stayed dry too long, she had to worry about the seedlings drying out.
If it rained too heavily, she had to worry about water collecting in the fields and rotting the roots.
And after finally managing to grow something edible, she still had to keep an eye on it in case some creature from the mountains wandered in and destroyed everything overnight.
What kind of young noble lady was she?
She was a farmer!
And the people who had sent her here had somehow managed to make it sound noble.
This is for your own good.
It’s better if you learn how to take care of yourself early.
The way they said it made it sound as though she had no right to be angry.
As though she should have dropped to her knees and thanked them for giving her such a wonderful opportunity to “grow.”
For her own good?
Evelyn lowered her head and stared at her tiny hands, both completely covered in dirt.
The more she thought about it, the angrier she became.
If they were so fond of self-reliance, why didn’t they try it themselves?
They could move here.
Clear the fields themselves.
Plant their own crops.
Water them.
Pull weeds.
Cook their own meals.
Then, after spending hours crouching until their legs went numb, bending over until their backs ached, and rubbing their fingers raw from work, they could come back and tell her it was all “for her own good.”
They made it sound so easy because none of them had to do it.
If those people got a little mud on the bottom of their shoes, they would probably frown and immediately call someone over to clean it.
“For my own good,” my foot.
Evelyn angrily threw the weeds into the basket beside her and lowered her head to look for the next patch.
Her hands kept moving.
Unfortunately, her irritation didn’t disappear nearly as quickly.
And being disliked by the family wasn’t even the biggest problem she had.
Five years had passed, and Evelyn still hadn’t completely figured out what exactly Selene Veyra’s Core Crystal had done to her.
Sometimes, she couldn’t help thinking about a question that gave her a headache every single time.
Whose child was she supposed to be now?
By blood and body, she was obviously the daughter of the former consort of the Western Realm.
There was no question about that.
But Selene’s Core Crystal had fused with her body.
To say she had absolutely nothing to do with Selene now didn’t seem quite right either.
But calling herself Selene’s child simply because she had absorbed a Core Crystal?
That sounded wrong too.
The whole thing was such a mess that merely thinking about it for too long made her head hurt.
“Forget it.”
Evelyn muttered under her breath and wiped her forehead with the back of her hand.
It had already happened.
It wasn’t as though she could crawl back into her mother’s womb and replay everything from five years ago.
Even if she somehow could— what was she supposed to do?
Jump out before birth and tell Selene, Thanks, but I don’t want your Core Crystal.
Please keep it yourself?
Obviously not.
Since she couldn’t change the past, there was no point in torturing herself over it.
All it did was annoy her.
Besides, compared with questions she couldn’t answer no matter how much she thought about them, there was something else she wanted to do much more urgently.
Kill—
No.
That wasn’t quite right.
She wanted to get rid of every ghost, spirit, and nasty supernatural thing that kept bothering her!
At that thought, Evelyn’s face immediately fell again.
The estate she lived in really was enormous.
There were more rooms than she could count.
But peaceful?
Not even close.
During the day, things were mostly normal.
At least most of those things didn’t openly wander around while the sun was up.
But the moment night fell, the entire estate seemed to become a completely different place.
Restless spirits wandered everywhere.
Occasionally, something far less harmless would slip in among them.
Living people thought this place was unlucky and refused to come anywhere near it.
The dead, on the other hand, apparently found it wonderful.
One after another, they treated the estate like free lodging.
Every time Evelyn thought about it, she felt as though fate had personally decided to make her life difficult.
She had already been thrown into a place like this.
Couldn’t she at least sleep properly?
Was that really too much to ask?
Fortunately, in her previous life, Evelyn had been an occultist.
She had spent years dealing with supernatural phenomena.
She knew old protective incantations, defensive techniques, and ways of setting up wards.
More importantly, she knew how to recognize which things were genuinely dangerous and which ones could simply be driven away.
Otherwise, with her tiny body, forget surviving here for two years— she probably wouldn’t have made it past the first month after being sent here at three years old.
Other people went to bed by climbing under the blankets and closing their eyes.
Evelyn?
Before sleeping, she had to check the estate’s wards.
Was anything loose?
Had anything stopped working?
Had something slipped inside while she wasn’t paying attention?
If she missed even one spot, she wouldn’t dare sleep peacefully.
Thinking about it made Evelyn grind her teeth again.
Naturally, she took the opportunity to curse the Devils in her heart from beginning to end.
No matter how far back she traced the mess, it always seemed to lead back to them.
She had already sworn long ago— one day, she would destroy their nest herself!
Of course…
that was a problem for the future.
For now, she could only say it inside her own head.
Evelyn glanced down at her thin little arms.
Then she looked at the basket beside her, which wasn’t even full of weeds yet.
She fell silent for a moment.
Fine.
Pulling weeds already took this much effort.
Going after the Devils right now wouldn’t be revenge.
It would be delivering herself straight to their doorstep.
She wasn’t stupid enough for that.
So for now, the most important thing was to keep a low profile, survive, and slowly recover what she could of her old abilities.
Once she was truly strong enough to act— she wouldn’t forget a single debt.
If the Devils hadn’t caused all that trouble in the first place, would she really be living like this now?
A noble young lady in name— and some strange combination of abandoned child and farmer in reality?
Just thinking about the people of the White Tiger Clan made her mood worsen all over again.
Plenty of people in the clan feared her.
Even more disliked her.
Some would take a detour the moment they spotted her from a distance, as though she carried some terrible curse.
Others said nothing aloud, but their expressions were clear enough.
They probably wished she would hurry up and die so everyone could finally relax.
But was Evelyn really that easy to kill?
Never mind this life.
Even when it came to her previous one, Evelyn still felt irritated whenever she thought about it.
Because to this day, she still had no idea how she had died.
One moment, she had been perfectly alive in the twenty-first century.
The next time she became conscious, she was already in this world— and she hadn’t even been born yet.
She had died for no apparent reason.
Then reincarnated for no apparent reason.
Whatever had happened between those two moments?
She hadn’t been given so much as a chance to ask.
Of course she had questions.
The problem was— who exactly was she supposed to ask?
So this time around, Evelyn had absolutely no intention of dying without knowing why.
Even if death eventually came for her again someday, she planned to improve this miserable life first and enjoy at least a few comfortable years before then.
It would be far too unfair if she had died mysteriously in her previous life, spent this one being bullied since childhood, and still failed to get even a little satisfaction out of it.
That would be a terrible loss.
If fate had decided to give her this kind of background, then certain people had better not expect her to quietly endure everything forever.
Especially some people in the White Tiger Clan.
Whenever Evelyn remembered how they avoided her as though she were some venomous creature, she felt an almost overwhelming urge to turn the entire territory upside down and make sure none of them had a peaceful day.
They disliked her that much?
Good.
She wasn’t particularly fond of them either.
Especially her so-called father—
Lord Sterling.
From the day she was born until now, that man had almost never truly paid attention to her.
Whether she had enough food.
Whether she was sick.
Whether the roof leaked when it rained.
Whether winter nights were too cold.
Whether a small child living alone in a place like this might be frightened at night.
He didn’t seem to care about any of it.
As though refusing to look at her meant he could pretend he didn’t have a daughter at all.
In the beginning, Evelyn had not been completely unaffected by it.
Even with the memories of her previous life, she was still his daughter in this one.
She wasn’t asking him to spoil her like some doting father who carried his daughter around everywhere.
But coming to see her once in a while?
Asking whether she was doing all right?
Surely that wasn’t too much.
Eventually, though, she stopped expecting anything.
A man who couldn’t even be bothered to look at her— was she really supposed to believe that one day he would suddenly change his mind and decide to love her?
Forget it.
She would rather plant two more rows of vegetables.
At least when she planted seeds in the ground, watered them, pulled the weeds, and took proper care of them, they usually gave her something in return.
As for the woman who later married into the family and became the new consort— her dislike of Evelyn had never been hidden at all.
If there was an opportunity to frame her, she took it.
If there wasn’t one, she found some other excuse to make trouble.
No matter what Evelyn did, the woman could somehow find fault with it.
And even if Evelyn did absolutely nothing and quietly stayed out of the way, that still didn’t guarantee peace.
The woman treated her less like a young child and more like an enemy who had personally destroyed her entire family.
And this haunted estate?
That had been her idea.
The place really was enormous.
It was also unbelievably remote.
How remote?
If something happened in the middle of the night and Evelyn screamed until her throat gave out, there was a good chance no one living nearby would even hear her.
There were countless rooms.
Hardly any living person willingly stepped inside.
Which, of course, made it perfect for wandering ghosts.
Every time Evelyn remembered that she had only been three when they sent her here, those words—
It’s for your own good— became even more ridiculous.
What kind of person claimed to be helping a child by throwing a three-year-old into a place like this?
Forget taking care of herself.
A normal three-year-old probably wouldn’t even understand why she had suddenly been sent away.
She would only sit by the door crying for her parents.
If Evelyn hadn’t carried the memories of her previous life—and if she hadn’t happened to know how to protect herself from supernatural things— whether she would have survived until five years old was a genuine question.
The thought made her chest feel tight again.
Evelyn stopped what she was doing and slowly exhaled.
Only after the feeling eased did she lower her head and continue pulling weeds.
Still— not everyone in the White Tiger Clan treated her badly.
There were at least a few maids and workers who genuinely cared about her.
Whenever she was bullied, they usually didn’t dare defend her openly.
But when no one was watching, they would quietly come check on her.
Sometimes they simply sat with her for a while and spoke a few comforting words.
Other times, they secretly brought her something to eat.
It wasn’t much.
And none of it was particularly expensive.
But to Evelyn, those small gestures meant far more than beautiful words spoken by people who never intended to help.
She understood that they had their own difficulties.
They worked under other people.
How could they casually offend the consort?
If someone discovered that they were secretly helping Evelyn, they might fail to help her at all and end up being punished themselves.
So the fact that they remembered her— that they were even willing to take a small risk to come see her— was already enough.
Evelyn complained about plenty of things, but she had never been the type to blame everyone around her.
She remembered who had hurt her.
But she also remembered who had treated her kindly.
The food secretly slipped into her hands.
The quiet words meant to comfort her when she was upset.
She remembered all of it.
Of course, if there was one person in the Sterling family she was closest to, it was still her father’s younger brother— her uncle.
He was one of the very few people who genuinely dared to argue with the consort because of her.
Whenever other people saw Evelyn being bullied, most lowered their heads and pretended not to notice, afraid they would bring trouble upon themselves.
Her uncle was different.
He couldn’t stand seeing her suffer.
Whenever he learned that she had been wronged, he would step in and protect her.
Even if it meant arguing with the consort, he rarely backed down.
More importantly, his concern for her wasn’t limited to words.
He didn’t casually ask whether she was doing well and then forget about it the moment he turned around.
He genuinely treated Evelyn like a child who deserved to be cared for and protected.
Evelyn wasn’t stupid.
She could tell who truly cared about her and who was merely saying nice things to her face.
So when it came to her uncle— she genuinely liked him.
Whenever she thought of him, at least some of the irritation in her chest faded away.
At the very least, she wasn’t completely without anyone who cared for her in this place.
With that thought, the annoyance on Evelyn’s face finally eased.
Her tightly pursed lips relaxed a little as well.
Unfortunately, the improved mood lasted only a few moments.
Because when she lowered her head again and saw the enormous patch of weeds still waiting in front of her— her little face fell all over again.
She had crouched here thinking for so long.
She had complained about nearly everything under the sun.
And yet the weeds had clearly felt no sympathy whatsoever.
Not a single one had disappeared.
They still needed to be pulled.
With a resigned sigh, Evelyn shifted her legs, which had started to go numb from crouching for too long.
Then she stretched out both muddy hands, grabbed another thick clump of weeds, and pulled with all her strength.
“Hyah—!”
The roots finally came free from the soil.
Several bits of dirt flew up with them and landed squarely on her shoes.
Evelyn lowered her head.
She looked at the weeds in her hands.
Then at her mud-covered shoes.
She remained silent for a long moment.
“Young lady…”
She quietly repeated her own title.
The more she said it, the more ridiculous it sounded.
Finally, the little girl puffed out her cheeks and tossed the weeds into the basket.
“At this point, they might as well call me the Farming Princess.”