Winter had only just passed, but after the First Lunar Month, another brutal cold snap struck.
It was now the second month. Despite several spring rains, there was no sign of warmth. Instead, the intermittent drizzle only made the days colder.
The fields remained frozen, the snow unthawed, and the rain kept falling. Though the New Year had passed, the weather remained as harsh as midwinter. The ground was still frozen solid, making farm work impossible.
Everywhere was damp and muddy. The village women, who loved to gossip, found reasons to visit the Zhou family.
One short, plump woman stood under the eaves, whispering to Madam Yu. “Is your daughter-in-law still not awake?”
Madam Yu shook her head with a sigh. “She fell into the water in this freezing cold. She’s lucky to be alive. She’s still running a high fever, delirious and mumbling nonsense…”
The low murmur reached Ye Jia’s ears, and her eyes snapped open.
The room was small and cramped, the air thick with the pungent smell of mold. A biting north wind howled outside, rattling the wooden boards that patched the holes in the window.
The dull thud-thud-thud she had heard in her stupor was the sound of those boards knocking against the window frame. Above her, the ceiling beams were rough-hewn logs. Two tattered baskets hung from them, containing a few sheets of yellow paper. They creaked and swayed in the wind.
Ye Jia clutched the blanket and sat up. Just then, a thin, sinewy woman lifted the door curtain and entered.
The woman walked with a stooped back, wearing a side-fastening cotton jacket made of coarse cloth. Patches covered the elbows and knees, and the fabric had been washed so many times it had faded to a dull white. Her hair was coiled into an old-fashioned bun, a style from some unknown era. She moved slowly, carrying a chipped bowl filled with what looked like thin porridge.
Seeing Ye Jia awake, her face lit up with joy. “Jia-niang, you’re finally awake!”
The accent was strange, carrying a formal, almost literary tone. Ye Jia frowned.
The woman didn’t notice. She set the bowl down and hurried to the bedside, sitting carefully on the edge of the bed. She reached out to touch Ye Jia’s forehead and sighed in relief. “Your fever’s gone. It’s been three days… I thought you wouldn’t make it. Thank goodness you’re awake.”
She reached down to tuck the blanket around Ye Jia’s feet. The backs of the woman’s hands were covered in red, swollen frostbite sores, her fingers as thick as radishes.
“Don’t worry about the money anymore,” she murmured, her voice a soft, endless stream of words. “I found some work in town. I’ll get paid tomorrow, and then we won’t have to worry about getting through this…”
Ye Jia’s eyelids flickered. She glanced at the woman’s hands, then swept her gaze across the room.
This wasn’t the rural guesthouse she had helped build. This was an ancient mud-brick house, its walls crumbling. Dust drifted to the floor with every gust of wind. A square table stood in the center of the room, holding an unlit, blackened oil lamp. A wooden cabinet occupied one corner, and her bed was a simple wooden frame stuffed with straw.
Ye Jia had grown up in the water towns of Jiangnan. Though she had traveled extensively, she had only ever seen mud houses like this in documentaries.
A cold dread settled in her stomach.
The woman noticed her pale face and asked softly, “Jia-niang?”
When Ye Jia remained silent, the woman’s worry grew. She touched Ye Jia’s forehead several times, but it was cool to the touch. Though the fever had left her gaunt, her complexion was far better than it had been the day before.
As the woman started to ask another question, a child’s thin, fragile cough sounded from the doorway. A little girl peeked in, clutching the door curtain. “Grandmother,” she called softly.
The woman turned and pulled the child into her arms. Seeing the girl’s clothes were a mess, she immediately began to undress her to change her into something clean.
Ye Jia stared in silence, her mind a churning sea of turmoil. The little girl obediently let the woman dress her, then turned to look at Ye Jia. She was about three years old, frail and gaunt, her oversized head lolling on a neck as thin as a twig.
Seeing Ye Jia’s gaze, the child held out a piece of crushed malt candy. “Auntie, this is for you.”
Ye Jia tried to move her stiff legs. A prickling sensation, like a thousand needles, crept up her skin. She looked down and turned her fingers over. They were long and slender, the backs of her hands smooth and free of the scars from pen-knife slips.
This isn’t my hand.
A string snapped in her mind, and a flood of unfamiliar memories rushed in.
She—Ye Jia—an engineering corporate slave, a staunch scientific atheist. She had transmigrated into a novel.
She pinched her thigh, and a sharp pain shot through her. She tried to speak, only to find her voice had changed.
Even if she refused to believe such an absurd thing could happen to her, she had to face the truth: she had transmigrated. She hadn’t died from overwork after three all-nighters, nor had she committed suicide over a broken heart, or fallen down a manhole. She had simply closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them, she was here.
This body also bore the name Ye Jia. She was the third daughter of Scholar Ye, a man from a poor village in the Northwest.
The family was large: two older brothers, a younger brother, and two younger sisters.
The two older brothers had already married, and their wives had entered the household one after the other. Though they were poor, the sisters-in-law were remarkably fertile. The eldest sister-in-law had given birth to four sons and a daughter in one fell swoop. The second sister-in-law had also borne three sons and two daughters.
Nearly twenty people now lived under one roof. Though the family owned a few acres of poor-quality farmland and a dozen sheep, providing for so many mouths left them perpetually struggling to make ends meet.
Three months ago, a Persian trade caravan arrived in town to buy furs.
The youngest brother, Ye Qinghe, had always been bold and saw this as an opportunity to make a quick fortune. He grabbed his bow and headed into the mountains, but luck was not on his side. He failed to catch any game and instead suffered a terrible fall. Now, he lay at home, barely clinging to life.
As the saying goes, the eldest child cherishes the youngest. The Ye parents were heartbroken.
The entire family—young and old—had begged and pleaded everywhere they could, trying to raise money. But in this desolate countryside, every household lived hand-to-mouth. Who had any silver to spare? Besides, the youngest son was paralyzed; he was a bottomless pit, and no amount of money would ever be enough to save him.
Could Scholar Ye really stand by and watch his son die? Of course not.
His gaze fell upon his three daughters. In the early years, when the Ye family had been better off, money was no object.
Scholar Ye had occasionally treated himself to wine, and he had even taught his children to read and write. But as the children multiplied, the family’s wealth dwindled, leaving them in their current state of desperation. Now, with the youngest son’s life on the line and the family coffers empty, the third daughter—pretty and educated—had to step forward.
Scholar Ye took charge, selling her into a marriage to the Zhou family, outsiders in Wangjia Village, for a thirty-tael bride price.
The Zhou family was infamous in the region as descendants of a convict—a felon so grave that the punishment was meant to last three generations. They had no land, no money, and were burdened with a useless dependent. No family in the surrounding area would dream of marrying their daughter into such a home.
The original owner of this body had been the most beautiful flower in her district, so many suitors had worn down the Ye family’s threshold. She had harbored dreams of a prestigious marriage, having long admired the second son of the town’s great escort agency. She had been waiting for him to return from his latest mission, so he could formally ask for her hand. But fate had taken a sharp turn, and she found herself married into the Zhou family instead.
Yet, her younger brother’s life couldn’t be forsaken. Her parents had wept and begged her, leaving her no choice but to agree.
Though she had been married into the Zhou family, she despised them from the bottom of her heart. She looked down on the family and even more so on the husband she had never even met. In the Zhou household, she would shirk her duties, constantly slacking off and stealing whatever she could to send back to her parents.
Despite their poverty, Madam Yu, her mother-in-law, was a kind-hearted woman. She never once spoke a harsh word to the girl, even when she behaved this way. Over time, even the most hardened person would develop a sense of shame. The original owner of this body gradually resigned herself to her fate, deciding that since she was married, she should settle down and accept her life.
But fate was cruel. Just as she had resolved to move on, the second son of the Cheng family returned from his latest escort mission. Upon hearing that she had married, he rushed over that very day to demand an explanation.
The two met by the river behind Yejia Village, but their conversation was overheard.
The woman who saw them had long harbored a crush on Cheng Feng. It was no surprise—the Cheng family was powerful and influential. Cheng Feng had been running with his father and older brother since he was fourteen, traveling far and wide. Now nineteen, he was not only handsome but also immensely capable. Every girl in town and the surrounding villages dreamed of him.
The woman who had spied on them thought, I could never compete with Ye Jia when she was an unmarried beauty. Now that she’s a married woman—a used-up shoe—how dare she still cling to Cheng Feng?
Consumed by jealousy, she waited for Cheng Feng to leave before confronting the original owner, demanding she give an explanation. But the original owner was no pushover. What business is it of yours what happens between me and Cheng Feng? she retorted, ruthlessly mocking the woman.
The two women had scuffled, and the original owner of this body had smashed her forehead against a rock. She tumbled down the embankment and rolled into the river, where she was pulled out lifeless.
That was when the soul was swapped, and Ye Jia took her place.
Ye Jia stared blankly. …
The husband the original owner had so despised was named Zhou Jingchen, courtesy name Yun’an. He was the great villain of the novel Ye Jia had read, Empress on Top. Once the Heir Apparent of Prince Jing, he would become the Regent in twenty years. A prodigy of stunning talent, his family had been exiled after his father’s failed rebellion. The trauma warped his mind, turning him into a cunning and ruthless man. After his mother and niece died, he fled this place, eventually rising like a dragon from the water.
In thirteen years, he would end the Three Kingdoms period and reunify the empire. He would crush the barbarians in the south and repel the Xiongnu in the north. He would slaughter hundreds of corrupt officials and establish a new dynasty, exacting revenge on all his enemies. If not for the female lead’s bowl of poisoned wine, he would have probably killed everyone in the book.
Given Zhou Jingchen’s future brutality, he had been remarkably lenient with the original owner. After all, her behavior had been truly detestable. He had never mistreated her; instead, he simply left a letter of divorce after his mother’s funeral.
As for the original owner being sold to a low-class brothel by her own father the day after her divorce—and subsequently beaten to death by a client within six months—that was a different matter entirely.
Comparing the two, the Zhou family was certainly more decent than the Ye family.
Ye Jia rubbed her forehead, flinching as the movement sent a sharp jolt of pain through her. A large, bruised lump still bulged on her brow, the broken skin at its peak still oozing blood. Even the slightest touch was excruciating.
“Jia-niang, Jia-niang, what’s wrong?” Madam Yu asked, seeing she hadn’t spoken for a while. She waved a hand in front of the girl’s face. “Why are you so pale? Does your head hurt that badly?”
Madam Yu glanced at the lump on Ye Jia’s forehead, then stood up to retrieve a bottle of medicated wine. “Let me rub it out for you.”
A drop of ice-cold water fell on Ye Jia’s neck, making her shiver. Then another drop landed on her face, and another on her head. She looked up; the dilapidated roof was actually leaking.
A small, bean-sprout-like child—the one who had been lurking by the door—had somehow managed to slip inside. He was now crouching by the bed, staring at her fixedly.
Ye Jia’s face went deathly pale. As the bruises on her forehead were worked out, a cold sweat broke out all over her body from the pain.
She let out a long sigh and lay back down, her eyes closed.
…Fine. I’ll just try to survive with the Zhou family.