Qianhua placed the wooden bathing tub in her own room.
At last, she could enjoy a proper bath.
That evening after dinner, knowing her daughter wanted to bathe, Liu Shi took a wooden bucket to the stream to fetch water.
Each time she carried back more than half a bucket and poured it into the pot, while Qianhua stayed in the kitchen tending the fire.
Liu Shi made several trips before finally drawing enough water for a bath.
Watching her mother going back and forth so laboriously, Qianhua thought to herself: Having only one bucket at home is really inconvenient. It looks like tomorrow I’ll need to make another trip to Carpenter Sun’s place and ask him to make us another wooden bucket.
If they had two buckets, her mother could fetch two buckets of water at once and carry them back on a shoulder pole, saving both time and effort.
Not having a water jar was also inconvenient, but for now it wasn’t a necessity.
It would be more convenient to have one, but life could still go on without it, so she decided not to buy one yet.
The copper coins she had left needed to be spent wisely. Anything unnecessary would have to wait. If she happened to come up with a small business opportunity, this bit of money might come in handy.
Once the water was heated, Liu Shi poured it all into the bathing tub.
Qianhua locked the doors and windows, took off her clothes, and sank into the large wooden tub, finally enjoying a long, satisfying bath.
She noticed that although the original owner’s hands and face were dark from sun exposure, the skin on her body was truly fair—smooth and pale, like congealed jade.
Back at the old house, she had only hastily wiped herself down each day and never looked carefully. Seeing this now, she couldn’t help but feel secretly pleased.
As she scrubbed herself, she suddenly noticed a red plum blossom–shaped birthmark on her left arm.
The plum blossom looked so vivid it was almost lifelike. Anyone who didn’t know better might think she had a plum blossom tattooed on her arm.
After bathing, she changed into clean old clothes. Liu Shi helped her carry the tub out and pour away the bathwater. Then Qianhua lay comfortably on her wooden plank bed, ready to sleep.
Back at the Liang family’s old house, because there were so many people, her “bedroom” had actually been partitioned off from her parents’ room with just a wooden board, and the doorway was nothing more than a cloth curtain. There was practically no privacy at all.
She really wasn’t used to living with a married couple.
On top of that, having just arrived in a completely unfamiliar world, she had felt uneasy and fearful, sleeping restlessly every night.
Now, she finally had a bedroom that truly belonged to her. Even though it was only a thatched room, at least she had her own private space.
The newly built thatched house still carried the unique fresh scent of earth mixed with straw. She had thought that having her own room would finally let her sleep soundly—but to her surprise, she still tossed and turned, unable to fall asleep.
In the darkness, she lay on her side with wide-open eyes, gazing at the window propped open by a wooden frame.
Outside, the bright moon hung in the cloudless sky like a silver plate, quietly pouring its light down and painting the small courtyard in silvery white.
The mountain breeze drifted through the night, gently stirring the willow branches beyond the courtyard wall. Yunfeng Village looked so peaceful and beautiful at night—yet all of it felt somehow unrelated to her.
Even though she had inherited all of the original owner’s memories and emotions and was trying her best to integrate into this life, when everything quieted down, her soul felt overwhelmingly lonely, as if she were the only person left in the world.
She had crossed into this unfamiliar time and space for over half a month now, and she still often felt as though she were living in a dream, everything unreal.
Just like at this moment—staring at the bright moon outside her window, she almost believed she was dreaming again. Only when she pinched her thigh and felt the sharp pain did she know that everything was real.
Fortunately, she didn’t have many lingering attachments in her modern life. Her beloved grandmother had already passed away, and her mother had long since rebuilt a happy new family. Even if she were gone, her mother wouldn’t be left alone—at the very least, she still had a husband and a son to keep her company.
Back in modern times, her living environment hadn’t been easy either.
When she was young, her parents constantly argued. Her father was an alcoholic who often beat her mother until she was bruised and battered. For the sake of giving her a “complete” family, her mother endured it all in silence.
Growing up in such an environment made her mature earlier than her peers.
By the age of ten, she was already encouraging her mother to divorce and urging her to bravely pursue her own happiness.
Later, her parents really did divorce, and she was awarded to her mother. At first, she lived with her mother and grandmother in the mountains.
To lighten her mother’s burden, she began working part-time while studying in her early teens. She worked as a restaurant waitress, a clothing shop assistant, handed out flyers, ran street stalls—any job that paid money, no matter how exhausting or dirty, she had done it.
Later, her mother remarried. To avoid disturbing her mother and stepfather’s new life, she chose to live alone with her grandmother. Her mother’s new husband was a decent man. After her mother gave birth to a younger brother, she had little energy left for her, but fortunately, her stepfather funded her college education.
Sadly, before she could truly make something of herself, her grandmother passed away.
She had always pushed herself relentlessly, because a child without an umbrella can only run through the rain alone. A child without anyone to dote on must learn to grow up on her own. If she wasn’t brave, no one would be strong for her.
She pulled her thoughts back and forced herself to break free from the loneliness that clung to her like darkness. She firmly told herself that not only would she live well in this world—she would live brilliantly, beautifully.
Lying on the bed, she began thinking of ways to make money. She came up with many ideas, but in the end realized that most of them required capital. Given her family’s current situation, only businesses costing a few hundred copper coins—or ventures requiring no capital at all—were realistic.
She also thought about many high-profit ideas, like using saltpeter to make ice or refining coarse salt into fine salt. These tricks often appeared in transmigration dramas she had watched, and she had even looked up the methods online out of boredom. Either one could supposedly make a fortune.
But ideals were full; reality was harsh.
Take saltpeter ice-making, for example. Although saltpeter can be reused, the ratio is one-to-one—one jin of saltpeter to make one jin of ice. That meant she would need a huge amount of saltpeter to produce ice for sale.
The problem was that she had neither the manpower nor the money to locate a saltpeter mine.
Their latrine was newly built, so there was no saltpeter residue to scrape off the walls.
She could theoretically scrape saltpeter from other people’s latrines or pigsty walls. Even if she scraped all the latrines of a hundred households in Yunfeng Village, she might only gather ten or so jin.
But then another problem arose: every household’s latrine was inside their courtyard. How was she supposed to enter a hundred homes to scrape saltpeter?
And even if she somehow managed to collect it all, autumn had already arrived. Who would still buy iced drinks?
As for refining coarse salt into fine salt, she would first need a large supply of coarse salt. In this era—just like in historical dynasties—government salt was extremely expensive, and purchases were strictly limited.
One jin of coarse rice cost five copper coins; white rice cost eight.
But one jin of salt cost fifty copper coins—and that was just coarse salt.
Fine salt was even more precious.
The original owner had never eaten fine salt in her life, so she had no idea how much it cost.
There was only a small jar of coarse salt in the old house’s kitchen, probably less than a jin. When the family split, Liang Granny had given them about one liang of salt.
One liang of salt for a family of three—if used at modern consumption levels—would last at most a week. But this was ancient times. Her mother would definitely be reluctant to use much salt when cooking, so it might last a few more days.
Moreover, this dynasty cracked down severely on illegal salt trading. Selling more than five jin of private salt meant execution. If she refined salt and sold it, the authorities might treat her as a salt smuggler and chop her head off.
So making money by refining salt was also impossible.
In the future, once she earned money, she could buy coarse salt and purify it for her family’s own use.
As for selling it—she wouldn’t even consider it. She valued her life too much.
For now, these ideas were far too conspicuous to use.
A common man is innocent, but a treasure invites disaster. Before she had grown strong enough, she had no desire to become a target.
The original owner had never gone to school or learned any special skills. She didn’t want to be seen as a monster, nor did she want to arouse suspicion from her parents.
Even if she came up with a low-profile way to make money, she would first need to find a reasonable explanation to convince her parents before putting it into action.
Singing, dancing, and performing were her strengths, but in ancient times, common folk barely had enough to eat. They worked the fields every day—who would have time to watch singing and dancing? Even free performances would attract little interest, let alone paid ones.
Of course, wealthy families did hire performers, but they hired opera troupes or musicians. And performers were considered a low caste, deeply looked down upon.
She would never lower herself to that.
After thinking it over and over, she still couldn’t come up with a good solution.
In the end, she comforted herself: Forget it for now. When I get the chance, I’ll go to the town and county city to take a look around, study the ancient market. Only by understanding the market can I find a way to make money.
She had overworked her brain that night. Exhausted from thinking, she soon drifted into sleep.