It turned out that after Tang Yuan’s biological father remarried, he and his new wife spent several years working away from home. They managed to save up some money, and after his new wife gave birth to a son, they returned to their hometown.
They bought an old house in the county.
Then, two years ago, they somehow struck it lucky—the old house was demolished as part of a redevelopment project. They received more than one million yuan in compensation, along with another house.
Their son, who was six years younger than Tang Yuan, was later invited by someone to go gambling in Macau.
He lost more than five million yuan.
The entire demolition compensation and all the money the elderly couple had saved over the years went toward filling the hole.
It still wasn’t enough.
They sold their house and car.
Still not enough.
So they tried borrowing money.
But because the villagers back home already had a lot of resentment toward Tang Yuan’s father over what had happened to her, he couldn’t bring himself to go back to the village and ask them for money.
As for his friends, they all knew it was gambling debt, so none of them were willing to lend him anything.
What could they do?
There was still a shortfall of nearly one million yuan.
And that’s when they thought of their “cheap” daughter.
As far as Tang Yuan was concerned, she still hated her biological parents.
Things had already reached this point. Wouldn’t it be better for everyone to live their own lives and leave each other alone?
Yet they had the nerve to come looking for money.
Money?
Not a single cent.
Not even a hair.
After hanging up the video call, Tang Yuan thought about her grandaunt again.
When she was little, that old woman had raised her by herself.
An elderly woman and a little girl—how difficult must their life have been?
Her grandaunt had grown vegetables and worked the land. Every drop of sweat had been earned through hard labor. She had raised Tang Yuan with her own hands and even managed to put her through university.
There was an old saying: When a tree longs for peace, the wind keeps blowing; when a child wants to support their parent, the parent is already gone.
For Tang Yuan, this had always been her greatest regret.
She had never had the chance to properly care for her grandaunt.
When Tang Yuan was poor, she simply didn’t have the ability to support her. And during her free time outside of classes, she was always busy working part-time, so she didn’t have much time either.
Later, when she won the lottery and finally had money, her grandaunt had already passed away.
For Tang Yuan, that was the deepest regret in her heart.
She sat in her chair and spent a long time calming herself down.
Perhaps because she was thinking about her grandaunt, her chest felt heavy, accompanied by a faint ache.
She didn’t dwell on it.
After taking a deep breath, she lowered her head and continued working.
She worked until nearly 1:00 a.m.
At first, Tang Yuan only felt a slight pain in her chest.
It wasn’t particularly severe.
But as time passed, the pain grew increasingly intense.
Soon, she was in such agony that cold sweat soaked through her clothes. Her fingers clawed about wildly, accidentally pulling her laptop off the table and sending it crashing to the floor.
After only two breaths, her entire body slipped to the ground with a thud.
Then there was no movement.
Tang Yuan was awakened by pain.
She was also awakened by noise.
Her head hurt.
Her body hurt.
Her legs hurt.
Every part of her body hurt.
The pain was so intense that she didn’t even have the strength to open her eyes.
Yet the outside world was incredibly noisy.
It sounded as though there were many people outside, and the loudest voice seemed to be that of a woman angrily cursing.
After resting for quite a while, Tang Yuan slowly opened her eyes.
The first thing she saw was a wooden beam above her head.
Wait.
A wooden beam?
Why would there be a wooden beam?
She stared at it for a while before realizing that it was actually one of the main beams supporting the roof.
Something was wrong.
Where was she?
Why was there a roof beam?
Tang Yuan’s heart began pounding.
This wasn’t a hospital.
Enduring the pain, she slowly turned her head and looked around.
The walls were made of blue-gray bricks.
Blue-gray bricks?
Didn’t modern buildings use red bricks?
Then she noticed the window.
It was made of wood.
Inside a square wooden frame were seven or eight vertical wooden bars.
Looking farther to the side, she saw an old-fashioned wooden cabinet.
The red paint on it had peeled off in patches, and it clearly looked very old.
Tang Yuan didn’t need to look any further.
She already knew what had happened.
She had traveled through time.
To confirm her suspicion, she struggled to raise her right hand and held it in front of her eyes.
This wasn’t her hand.
It was a thin, dry, dark hand.
Small, too.
There were even dried bloodstains on it.
Now Tang Yuan was absolutely certain.
She had really traveled through time.
She just didn’t know where—or when—she had ended up.
Ancient times?
Or some particular historical era?
For the moment, she couldn’t tell.
Suddenly, Tang Yuan remembered something.
She quickly closed her eyes and focused her mind.
Sure enough, she could sense her space, still filled with all the supplies she had accumulated.
And inside the space, her motorhome—the Unimog—was still quietly parked there.
Tang Yuan immediately relaxed.
Thank goodness!
My precious treasure came with me!
Otherwise, she really had no idea how she would survive in this new world.
Then she thought about something else.
Since she had arrived here, the original owner of this body was probably already dead.
Otherwise, how could Tang Yuan have ended up here?
And judging from the fact that she was lying here unable to move, something had clearly happened to her.
She didn’t know where this place was or what had happened to the original owner.
If she didn’t have the original owner’s memories, would she have to pretend to have amnesia?
She had already felt around her injuries.
The most serious injury seemed to be on her head.
If she claimed to have lost her memory, probably no one would suspect anything.
The moment Tang Yuan had this thought, she suddenly felt a powerful force rush straight into her brain.
The intense pain was almost unbearable.
It felt as though someone had taken a power drill and drilled directly through her skull.
After the excruciating pain finally subsided, memories suddenly flooded into Tang Yuan’s mind.
The dynasty she now found herself in was both familiar and unfamiliar to her.
It was familiar because this was the Ming Dynasty, established by Zhu Yuanzhang.
It was still the land of the Han Chinese.
But it was unfamiliar because the current emperor was the second emperor of the Ming Dynasty—
Emperor Wu, Zhu Xiongying.
Tang Yuan had always been fairly good at history in school.
Who was Zhu Xiongying?
He was the eldest legitimate grandson of the founding emperor, Zhu Yuanzhang, and the eldest legitimate son of Crown Prince Zhu Biao.
In terms of status, he was even more prestigious than Zhu Yunwen.
But wasn’t Zhu Xiongying supposed to have died when he was very young?
Yet in this timeline, there was no Emperor Wen.
Instead, there was an Emperor Wu.
History had taken a sharp turn here, and everything had become completely different.
During Emperor Wu Zhu Xiongying’s reign, he emphasized military affairs while suppressing the influence of the literary class. He improved the treatment and status of soldiers and dispatched troops on expeditions into the northern deserts, bringing the Ming Dynasty’s power to its peak.
He later launched a major campaign against collusion between officials and the gentry, as well as corrupt officials. He emphasized agriculture and industry while abolishing numerous excessive taxes and levies.
He also abolished the tax exemptions that allowed scholars who had passed the lower and higher civil-service examinations to avoid taxes on farmland.
It was easy to imagine how much this had affected the interests of scholars throughout the empire.
The court had been thrown into turmoil.
According to the memories Tang Yuan had just received, many elderly scholars had even smashed their heads against the palace pillars in protest.
The resulting storm had been enormous.
Later, Emperor Wu opened up maritime trade.
Glass, clocks, porcelain, tea, silk, and even refined perfume developed under his administration were exported overseas in large quantities.
At this point, Tang Yuan finally understood.
This Emperor Wu, Zhu Xiongying, was probably also a time traveler.
He was probably a fellow “countryman” from the modern era.
But Tang Yuan had absolutely no intention of seeking him out for a reunion.
She wasn’t about to stage some dramatic scene of two fellow time travelers meeting and crying tears of joy in each other’s arms.
After all, this emperor had already been on the throne for more than thirty years.
And he was apparently a ruthless ruler.
It was said that the heads of corrupt officials executed under him had once piled up into small mountains.
Meanwhile, Tang Yuan had brought an entire space filled with supplies.
Even if she never went outside, she could live comfortably for the rest of her life without worrying about food or clothing.
Now that she understood what dynasty she was in, Tang Yuan finally felt a little more at ease.
Then she examined the memories of the original owner.
The original owner’s name was Tang Yuan—pronounced exactly the same as her own name, though written with different Chinese characters.
She was fourteen years old.
She lived in a small mountain village in northern China called Lao Bie Gouzi Village.
Why was it called that?
Because the mountain behind the end of the village was called Lao Bie Mountain.
Tang Yuan only knew that the area was somewhere in Northeast China.
But exactly where?
Heilongjiang?
Jilin?
Liaoning?
The Greater Khingan Range?
The Lesser Khingan Range?
She had absolutely no idea.
The original owner was merely an ordinary mountain village girl.
At fourteen, she had barely even visited the nearby town a few times, let alone traveled to a more prosperous prefectural city.
Tang Yuan could only lie there and sigh.
Oh, heavens…
Where on earth have you sent me?
Good grief!
She had originally been from northern Jiangsu.
Who would have thought that she would be sent all the way to Northeast China?