November 2, 1975—Jiangcheng Daily.
Inside the hospital ward, Cheng Baozhu stared fixedly at the newspaper in the hands of the patient lying in the bed beside her. She turned her head sideways, craned her neck, even forced her eyelids wider with her fingers to read more clearly, yet no matter how she looked at it, the only words that seemed to leap out from the paper were “transmigration.”
She fell silent, staring blankly at the ceiling. Her left hand trembled as it pressed against her chest, her eyes rolled back, and she fainted once again.
The patient holding the newspaper gave it a shake and called out toward the door with practiced ease, “Hey, kid from Laokeng Village, your wife has fainted again!”
Wife!
Still faintly conscious, Cheng Baozhu stubbornly refused to open her eyes. In her mind she kept repeating the name “Cheng Baozhu” over and over.
The original owner of this body was also called Cheng Baozhu. At this moment, she desperately wished she could call Cheng Baozhu back.
[Stop calling. She already left.] The system spoke helplessly.
It had arrived three hours earlier. When it bound itself to the Cheng Baozhu of this era, it had frightened the young girl badly. In a moment of panic, the girl simply died.
To avoid affecting its performance record, the system had no choice but to send Cheng Baozhu to another world. Once the girl heard that the other world had plenty of food and clothing, she immediately dusted off her hands and left without hesitation.
Just as the system was about to detach from the girl’s body and search for a new target, Cheng Baozhu, the one now lying in the hospital bed—arrived.
The system was furious. Now that the body had a new soul, it could no longer leave and was forced to bind to her.
If this new host had been a capable and sensible person, that would have been fine. But looking at her cowardly state, the system wished it could reload and start over.
Unfortunately, reloading was impossible. Sending the original Cheng Baozhu to another world had already consumed a large amount of its energy. Now the energy it had left was insufficient to unbind from a living organism that possessed a soul.
Nor could it afford to have two consecutive hosts die abnormally under its watch. For systems like it, once a host’s soul left the physical body, that counted as death.
And so it was completely and irrevocably bound to this Cheng Baozhu.
In short, if she lived, it lived. If she died, it died.
System No. 0818 crackled with static in its data stream and could not help but curse.
Cheng Baozhu lay on the hospital bed with her eyes tightly shut, her eyelashes trembling faintly.
She had arrived here about three hours earlier.
Before this, her head had felt heavy and dizzy, and she had been burning with fever, all because she was absorbing memories.
Now that the process was complete, she finally understood the full extent of her situation.
The ward door creaked open, and a man who looked to be in his early twenties walked in with his hands tucked into his pockets.
He was rather tall, probably around one meter eighty or more. His complexion was different from the common sun-darkened skin of the locals, instead pale and fair. One glance was enough to tell that he rarely worked in the fields.
When the patient beside the bed saw him enter, he laughed and said, “Better call the doctor to come check your wife again. She woke up and stared at my newspaper for a long while, then fainted right after reading it. That’s not my fault.”
Xu Chuan nodded. Sitting beside the bed, he watched for a moment before giving Cheng Baozhu a push.
Call a doctor? There was no need. He was very familiar with this sort of thing. Whenever he did not want to work in the fields, he fainted in exactly the same way.
Leaning back with his legs crossed, Xu Chuan said, “Cheng Baozhu, get up. Your fever’s gone. Time to go home.”
Cheng Baozhu kept her eyes closed.
There was an old saying: better to stay still than to make a move.
After a moment, Xu Chuan added, “Hurry up. We don’t have that much money at home to keep you in the hospital.”
Cheng Baozhu’s eyebrows twitched.
What rotten luck. From the memories she had just received, she knew the original owner had married into a poor family.
Grinding his teeth slightly, Xu Chuan leaned closer and said, “If you still won’t get up, then wait for your brothers and sisters-in-law to come take you home.”
The moment those words were spoken, Cheng Baozhu opened her eyes.
Because in the memories she had absorbed, the original owner’s brothers and sisters-in-law were terrible people.
Of course, the brothers and sisters-in-law also believed the original owner was terrible.
Xu Chuan thought to himself that with such poor acting skills she still tried to put on a show in front of him. His young wife really was a little foolish.
Laokeng Village.
Laokeng Village was a good place. Backed by the towering King Mountain, lush green ranges stretched endlessly into the distance. A river also flowed through the village, its waters running without cease and nourishing the flat farmland.
This naturally favorable geography allowed the commune members of Laokeng Village to live somewhat better than those in the surrounding villages, their pockets a little fuller as well.
Of course, that did not include people who refused to work and loafed around all day.
At this moment, a full-blown fight was unfolding in the home of the village’s most notorious loafer.
The house stood near the entrance of the village. Three neat yellow mud houses were built beside a large banyan tree.
The female head of the household, Jiang Yulan, stood there gripping a thick wooden stick as thick as her wrist, glaring fiercely at the group before her.
Her gaze was sharp as knives as she shouted, “You heartless scoundrels from the Cheng family! You took the one hundred and eighty yuan betrothal gift from our family, yet you sent over a daughter-in-law who’s half dead. Aren’t you afraid your parents will come back in the middle of the night and devour you all!”
Beside her, Li Cuifen echoed her mother-in-law’s words. “No wonder people say the Cheng family’s daughter is pitiful. With vicious brothers and sisters-in-law like you, you’re worse than the starving wolves on King Mountain. You won’t stop until you skin your own sister and drink her blood. Today should be a joyous day, yet the girl is still lying in the hospital!”
The courtyard was surrounded by three layers of onlookers, all watching the quarrel with great interest. They eagerly joined in, adding their own comments.
Before long, the three couples being scolded had their faces flushed red.
Were they embarrassed?
No! They were furious.
How were they wicked brothers and sisters-in-law? Cheng Baozhu herself was clearly a malicious little sister.
The three couples were no pushovers either. Rolling up their sleeves, they immediately began shouting back.
If you say our family treats our sister badly, then I’ll say your youngest son is cursed with bad luck.
If your youngest son had good luck, then why did the two fiancées he had before this one end up with one dead and the other running off with someone else?
That remark stabbed straight into Jiang Yulan’s heart.
For a moment the courtyard was filled with flying spittle as insults flew back and forth. If people had not been holding them back, the two sides would have already settled things with their fists.
It was early November, the autumn air crisp and refreshing. The rice in the fields had already been harvested, and with the busy farming season temporarily over, everyone had plenty of free time. This lively scene drew spectators from not only Laokeng Village but also the neighboring Cheng Family Village.
Someone cracked sunflower seeds and asked curiously, “Is it true that the Cheng family’s Old Phoenix eats two eggs every single day?”
“Oh, and tell us this too. Does Cheng Baozhu really get two new outfits every year?”
“And since she was born she’s never washed dishes or worked in the fields?”
People from Cheng Family Village all nodded.
The Cheng family’s Old Phoenix was none other than Cheng Baozhu. Her most famous habit was eating two eggs every day.
As for how the nickname “Old Phoenix” came about, that was a story in itself.
Cheng Baozhu’s third brother, Cheng Sanming, had married a woman named Feng Meihua. She had a temper like a lit firecracker.
Less than half a month after marrying Cheng Sanming, Feng Meihua quarreled with one of the Cheng sisters-in-law. After packing her belongings and storming back to her parents’ home, she went around telling everyone that her in-laws’ house sheltered an Old Phoenix who did nothing but eat and drink.
According to her, the mother-in-law was simply waiting for that Old Phoenix to marry into a rich family.
The news spread like wildfire.
In less than a day it had swept across the entire Jiangmen Commune.
Cheng Baozhu was very pretty, with a round, pleasant face. Her mother often praised her as obedient and filial, and many families had once considered proposing marriage.
But once this rumor spread, everything was ruined. The Old Phoenix became impossible to marry off.
Cheng Baozhu’s mother was so furious that she was hospitalized, and Feng Meihua’s own mother nearly fainted in shock at her daughter’s reckless behavior.
“My foolish child,” she scolded, “only if Cheng Baozhu keeps a good reputation can she marry and leave the house sooner. What you’ve done is incredibly stupid!”
Unfortunately the warning came too late. No matter how much Feng Meihua regretted it afterward, Cheng Baozhu’s reputation was already shattered.
From that day on, Cheng Baozhu’s mother treated Feng Meihua as a mortal enemy. Feeling deeply guilty toward her daughter, she became even more indulgent toward her.
Before this, the eldest grandson had shared equal favor with the daughter. Afterward, the daughter became the undisputed treasure of her heart.
But half a year ago, Cheng Baozhu’s parents passed away.
At that time the county had been digging a reservoir, and both of them had volunteered to help. One day, wild boars charging down from the mountain dislodged two huge boulders that came crashing down.
The rocks smashed Cheng Baozhu’s parents, along with two cadres, leaving the ground soaked in blood.
Four people were struck, but only one survived.
That cadre was fortunate. Cheng Baozhu’s mother had shielded him and taken the impact, and after several days of treatment at the hospital he survived.
But Cheng Baozhu’s parents did not last more than a few minutes. Even before dying, they kept murmuring about their youngest daughter.
Cheng Baozhu’s mother was shrewd. She knew that once the two elders died, their youngest daughter would lose her protection and would inevitably suffer under the subtle hostility of her three sisters-in-law. So she grabbed the sleeve of the clan’s granduncle and begged him to watch over Baozhu. She even told him where the hidden savings were kept and explained how everything should be divided.
She also insisted that she had only been struck by the rock because she was trying to shield the cadre.
As for whether that was the truth, opinions differed.
Some believed that a calculating woman like her would never risk her life to block a falling rock. Others believed that in that moment she truly might have had a chance to escape but chose not to.
In the end, she passed away before her daughter could arrive.
The incident was serious enough to shock the entire county. The surviving cadre personally helped apply for a martyr’s title recognizing her courageous act.
The cadre had some connections, so the martyr’s certificate was processed quickly. Even the compensation payment was delivered in full to the team leader of Cheng Family Village.
The team leader was Cheng Baozhu’s father’s cousin, and his own father had been Cheng Baozhu’s father’s uncle. Having once served in the army, he was widely respected. Entrusting the money to him for distribution was entirely appropriate.
After the couple’s deaths, their four children cried until their voices were hoarse. Even Feng Meihua, who had often clashed with the old couple, wept until her eyes swelled like walnuts. Her wailing was even louder than when her own grandmother had died.
But once the burial was over, the family began to argue.
While Cheng Baozhu continued to mourn at her parents’ graves, her three brothers and their wives were nearly tearing each other apart at home.
In the end, the granduncle arrived leaning on his cane. After giving the three brothers a fierce beating, he personally supervised the division of the money and finally restored order.
Knowing her daughter would still rely on her brothers, Cheng Baozhu’s mother had made an unusual decision before dying. Instead of favoring her daughter, she divided the household savings equally into four shares.
She had been extremely thrifty and had saved quite a bit over the years. Even after marrying off all three sons, nearly four hundred yuan remained. Cheng Baozhu alone received ninety-eight yuan.
Besides that inheritance, there was also the compensation payment.
Villagers had no idea how large the compensation was and assumed each person would receive only a few dozen yuan.
But the family knew the truth.
When the three Cheng brothers learned the compensation totaled two thousand yuan, their eyes turned red with greed.
The savings left by their mother had clear instructions for division, so there was no room to argue.
But when it came to the compensation money, the dispute dragged on for over half a month.
According to the granduncle’s proposal, the four siblings should split it evenly.
The eldest brother’s family, however, insisted they deserved a larger share. After all, they did the most work and would have to take responsibility for arranging their younger sister’s marriage in the future.
The second brother’s family claimed they were always the ones suffering losses because they had the most children, so they were dissatisfied with the amount they would receive.
As for the third brother?
Cheng Sanming was extremely crafty. He argued that his nephews and nieces had at least enjoyed the care and affection of their grandparents, while his own family had only one child and the rest of his future children had not even been born yet.
Therefore he threw a tantrum, insisting that a portion should be reserved for his unborn children, which nearly drove his two older brothers mad.
But who was the granduncle?
He was over seventy years old, the most senior member of the village, and the brothers’ own granduncle.
Once the three brothers finished arguing, he grabbed his cane and arrived with several of his sons, beating them all once more.
A granduncle beating his grandnephews, uncles beating nephews. No one could claim it was unjust.
While the three brothers were still dazed from the blows, he swiftly divided the compensation into four equal shares and also distributed the house foundations, kitchenware, tables, chairs, and stools.
Only then was the Cheng family completely separated.
Before long, Cheng Baozhu—the Old Phoenix became a hot commodity once again.
The Old Phoenix had money in her pocket and had even received a brand new thick quilt. Whoever married her would make a tidy profit.
Mothers with eligible sons in nearby villages were all eager to try their luck.
But the Cheng brothers and their wives did not bother making any effort. Instead, they married Cheng Baozhu off to Xu Chuan, the notorious loafer from Xu Family Village.
Oh my heavens, what a match!
One Old Phoenix from the Cheng family, one precious troublemaker from the Xu family, thrown together at last.