“You two little brats, don’t you dare run!”
A sharp shrill came from behind. Jiang Xingheng, carrying a small bundle on his back, whipped his head around. He saw his mother closely pursuing them, accompanied by two human traffickers, a man and a woman.
Seeing the three of them closing the distance, his heart hammered against his ribs. He gripped his younger brother Jiang Xingci’s hand and sprinted forward with all his might.
Jiang Xingci stumbled as he was pulled along, his voice thick with tears. “Brother, I really can’t run anymore… Is Mama really going to sell us?”
Cold sweat poured down Jiang Xingheng’s forehead as he ran. His lips were bitten pale, and he said in a raspy voice, “Didn’t you hear her? She just made a deal with them. She’s selling us for two hundred yuan each so she can go to the city with that Educated Youth.”
He knew his mother had no good intentions when she suddenly claimed she was taking them to the city to find their father. It turned out she just wanted to sell them!
He gripped his brother’s hand tighter, his voice trembling imperceptibly. “We’re going to find Dad. We don’t want her anymore.”
“But where is Dad?” Jiang Xingci asked, his eyes welling with tears as his pace slowed further.
“In the army.” Jiang Xingheng tightened his grip on his bundle with one hand and dragged his brother forward. “Run! Don’t let her catch us!”
Just as he spoke, a sudden scream of “Ah!” erupted behind them, followed by the heavy thud of someone hitting the ground.
The two brothers spun around to see their mother, who had been chasing them so relentlessly just moments ago, lying motionless on the ground.
“Mama!” The two boys instinctively stopped in their tracks.
The man and woman were also stunned for a moment. The man quickly turned to his partner. “Forget her, catch the kids first!”
Before he even finished speaking, he lunged forward in a few strides and snatched up the two children like he was picking up chicks. “Running, are we? Let’s see where else you can run!”
The two children struggled desperately in his grasp, crying out, “Let go of me! You bad man!”
The old crone ignored the woman on the ground and hurried over, staring at the two boys with a feigned attempt at comfort. “Stop struggling. Once you go to a good family and become their sons, I guarantee you’ll be better off than you were with your mother.”
The man had no patience for delay and barked at the woman, “Hurry up, stop blabbering! Tie them up, the buyer is waiting!”
His gruff roar caused the woman on the ground to tremble, her eyelashes fluttering.
She knitted her brows and struggled to sit up, only to see the man pinning the two small boys down and wrapping ropes around them. Nearby, the crone was grumbling as she pulled a small vial from a cloth bag, poured some liquid onto a piece of cotton, and approached the children.
Looking at the chaotic scene before her, the woman was completely bewildered.
Hadn’t she just been hit by a car? Where the hell had she been sent? A kidnapping scene?
A sharp pain suddenly pierced her head, and then a flood of foreign memories rushed in—
She had transmigrated into a book!
She had entered the novel The 80s Stepmother’s Child-Rearing Diary, becoming the cannon fodder ex-wife, He Xiaoman, who shared her name and eventually met a miserable death after a series of disastrous choices.
The original host was an abandoned infant adopted by the He family from the roadside. Ever since Mother He had her own biological children, He Xiaoman had suffered constant mistreatment. She was desperate to find her biological parents but to no avail, so she eventually decided her only escape from misery was to marry into a good family.
When a group of Educated Youth arrived at their production brigade, she set her sights on Gu Shuyan, a son from a prestigious family.
However, her scheme backfired when she accidentally fell into the water and was rescued by Jiang Yanchuan, a soldier who had returned home to visit his family. Mother He seized upon the physical contact during the rescue as leverage, extorting a three-hundred-yuan bride price from the Jiang family and forcing He Xiaoman onto Jiang Yanchuan.
Because of this, the original host hated Jiang Yanchuan with a passion, believing he had ruined her chances with Gu Shuyan.
Right after their wedding night, Jiang Yanchuan received orders to return to his unit. He asked if she was willing to follow the army to the Northwest, but the original host, still pining for Gu Shuyan, flatly refused.
Even after giving birth to twin sons, she refused to follow the army. She even extended her hatred to the children, physically and verbally abusing them and allowing others to bully them, acting more cruel than any stepmother.
Later, Gu Shuyan wanted to return to the city. The original host was actually instigated by him to go into town and sell her sons to pay for his travel expenses back to the city.
He Xiaoman felt her vision go dark. The original host didn’t know what happened next, but she did.
A few days after selling the two children, Gu Shuyan would turn around and sell her to an old bachelor to be his wife!
When Jiang Yanchuan received the news and rushed home, he met the female lead of the book. The female lead used her protagonist’s halo to help him find the children and even obtained the Jade Pendant Space that originally belonged to the host from the children. In the end, she lived a happy, harmonious life with the father and his two sons.
Meanwhile, after the original host was sold to the old bachelor, she was kept tied up in a cellar every day, abused, humiliated, and forced to bear sons. She managed to escape once with great difficulty, only to be caught and brought back, where she was eventually beaten to death…
He Xiaoman was shivering with cold rage at this tragic ending when she heard the old crone shout at her, “You, He woman! What are you standing there for? Hurry up and help hold your brat down!”
Those words were like a landmine exploding. Without a second thought, He Xiaoman grabbed a wooden stick from the ground and lunged forward, swinging it with all her strength against the crone’s head.
“Ah!”
With a miserable cry, the crone swayed for a moment before falling flat on the ground, unconscious.
“Are you crazy?” The man’s eyes nearly bulged out of his head at the sight. He let go of the children and lunged toward He Xiaoman.
He Xiaoman’s reactions were even faster. she raised her leg and kicked him brutally in the crotch. “You want to sell my sons? Eat shit!”
“Agh! My balls—!”
The man instantly clutched his crotch, his body arching as he fell to his knees. He rolled on the ground, howling in agony.
He Xiaoman was still fuming. She delivered several more vicious kicks to his crotch until he was too exhausted from the pain to struggle anymore.
In her original life, she had also been an abandoned child raised in an orphanage. She was a top-tier fighter. However, she didn’t want to cause further trouble right now, so she quickly picked up the cotton cloth from the crone’s hand and pressed it over their noses and mouths one by one.
Before long, the two people on the ground were completely still.
He Xiaoman knelt down and searched them, actually finding six hundred yuan. It seemed they had more than just this one deal today!
She let out a cold laugh and stuffed the money into her pocket. This would serve as mental compensation for her and the children.
She stood up, brushed off her hands, and looked at the two small boys who were still tied up.
The two children were as thin as bean sprouts, their clothes ragged and thin, hanging loosely on their frames. Their two identical little faces were blackened with dirt, yet their features were as delicate as a painting—beautiful enough to make one’s heart ache.
These were the original host’s twin sons, Jiang Xingheng and Jiang Xingci. From now on, they were her children.
He Xiaoman had always loved children. Now, after transmigrating, she had achieved “motherhood without the labor pains”?
This was great; she didn’t have to give birth herself, she just picked them up!
Now that she was the one who saved the children, the female lead from the book shouldn’t have anything to do with this anymore, right?
However, remembering that the female lead had obtained the jade pendant from the children to open the Spatial Dimension, He Xiaoman quickly knelt down and checked the two boys. But she couldn’t find the jade pendant on them.
She recalled the plot, and her heart skipped a beat. It seemed the original host had given the jade pendant to Gu Shuyan as a token of her love. It should still be in his hands right now.
Her expression shifted. That jade pendant wasn’t just a Spatial Dimension; it was also the only clue to the host’s biological heritage. That thing had to be taken back from that scumbag!
That dog of a man—using the host’s sons for travel money and planning to sell her off too?
She was going to find him right now and settle this debt, with interest!
With that thought, He Xiaoman looked up at the two children—