“Has Tao Ya still not woken up?”
“Not yet, Mother. That girl really suffered this time. She should learn her lesson now. How can a young girl act so recklessly? Sigh… I don’t even know who she takes after with that temperament…”
Hearing the voices of an elderly woman and a middle-aged woman gradually fading away, Yang Tao—who had been lying in bed pretending to be dead—finally opened her eyes.
In truth, she had already woken up earlier. She simply didn’t want to accept reality.
Wasn’t it just staying up all night reading a novel? How did she open her eyes and end up here?
From the occasional bits of information she had quietly gathered from the younger girl sharing her room, Yang Tao learned that the current year was 1973.
From her observation, this era seemed largely consistent with the same historical period of her original world in China. But she couldn’t be sure whether she had traveled back in time or entered a parallel world similar to Chinese history. Thinking of this made her want to scream in frustration.
It was now the busy spring planting season, and the entire village was occupied with transplanting rice seedlings. It was around noon. Earlier, her mother and grandmother had just returned from work in the fields and came back to check whether she had woken up.
Looking at the crude room, she could see everything at a glance. It was a small house built of mud bricks. She was lying on a wooden bed against the right wall, covered with a quilt full of patches. Opposite the bed were two large square cabinets placed against the wall, with bedding also stacked on top of them. To the right of the door was a window, and beneath it was a long bench. Various daily necessities filled the rest of the space, leaving barely any room to move in the less-than-30-square-meter room.
Her head still throbbed faintly. Yang Tao really wished she could just close her eyes and return to her small rented apartment in the modern world.
But she had already tried several times. Every time she fell asleep and opened her eyes again, she was still in this desperate mud-brick house.
At first, when she had just woken up, she even thought she had been kidnapped and sold to a rural village. But gradually, she realized she might have become part of the trendy wave of transmigration—just that her luck was not very good.
Others either became daughters of wealthy families, descendants of military households, or children of scientists at the very least, or at least city residents.
But she had become a rural girl in the 1970s.
And that wasn’t even the worst part—she had no cheat abilities at all. No space, no system.
If there was any consolation, she counted three things.
First, she now had a body more than ten years younger.
Second, she inherited slightly more strength than before, likely from years of farm labor.
Third, her appearance had improved. While similar to her original looks, it was now more delicate and pleasant.
She had been unconscious and groggy for three days already. During these days, she intermittently learned from the family members about how the original owner of the body got injured.
It was said that she had jumped into water to save a drowning educated youth. On her way swimming back to shore, she accidentally hit a rock and fell unconscious.
After waking up, something inexplicable happened—and she became the current Yang Tao.
No one knew whether the two had swapped places, whether the original owner had taken her place in the modern world.
Sigh…
She kept sighing inwardly. She didn’t know if she could ever return to the 21st century.
If dying could send her back, she honestly wanted to try—but she didn’t dare. She was afraid she would actually die for real.
At this thought, Yang Tao sighed again.
It seemed she could only survive quietly in this era.
After all, it’s better to live poorly than to die. As long as she stayed alive, there would always be hope.