Keluoshi was extremely unwilling and gritted her teeth as she said:
“Fine, I’ll go cook then. But I don’t have three heads and six arms. Sister-in-law, you at least have to wash the clothes for me, right?”
As she spoke, Luo Shi saw Wen Ye glaring at her and felt a surge of fear. She gritted her teeth again and said:
“Worst case, I’ll wash yours tomorrow in return. If we don’t wash them now, we won’t have anything to wear tomorrow.”
Inside the room, Lin Shi and Wen Lan both trembled slightly, just about to step out, when Wen Ye’s fierce voice rang out again:
“Those piled at the foot of your bed? There are even your elder brother’s filthy trousers in there! My mother doesn’t have the habit of washing my uncle’s underwear! You’re so eager to swap laundry with her—what, you want to wash my father’s underwear? What, your husband isn’t even dead yet and you’re already thinking about your younger brother-in-law?”
Luo Shi slipped and fell hard onto the ground, her body shaking uncontrollably, but she was so angry she couldn’t even speak a word.
“Pfft hahahaha!” The villagers passing by at the door laughed. “Good heavens, so the wife of Duocai is trying to seduce her brother-in-law?”
Wen Ye was about to speak again when Wen Laosan rushed over, covering his daughter’s mouth in panic, almost crying:
“Stop talking! Stop talking!”
If this continued, rumors that he and Luo Shi were having an affair would spread.
But he and his sister-in-law were truly innocent! Besides, she was as fat as a pig—he had no interest in her at all.
“You little brat, how dare you slander my innocence! I’ll tear your mouth apart!” Luo Shi screamed and lunged forward.
But before she could reach her, a bloody kitchen knife was suddenly held horizontally in front of Wen Ye’s chest.
Seeing the knife, Luo Shi stopped abruptly and fell to the ground: “Ah…”
“Come on then!” Wen Ye swung the kitchen knife.
Luo Shi, terrified and full of hatred, didn’t dare make another sound.
“Enough already!” A voice came from the north room—Wen Laoda. “You embarrassing thing, hurry up and go cook!”
Only then did Luo Shi, trembling, get up and stomp toward the main room while cursing: “Mei Ya! Mei Ya! Get out here and cook!”
A fifteen-year-old girl came out from the main room—Wen Mei, the eldest daughter of the family.
Her delicate face was tense. She didn’t help Luo Shi at all and stormed straight into the kitchen.
The mother and daughter were both unwilling and bad at cooking.
In the end, they made a pot of coarse rice porridge, and even that was burnt.
They stir-fried cabbage and tofu, and added some pickled vegetables left from noon—this was dinner.
Old Madam Wen was still unconscious on the bed, and Wen Laoda was sulking.
Only Luo Shi and her daughter ate at the table.
Wen Ye didn’t want to eat with the eldest branch in the main room, so she scooped a large bowl of coarse rice porridge, took half of each dish onto a plate, and carried it back to the small hut.
Luo Shi and Wen Mei were so angry their eyes nearly popped out, but they were intimidated by Wen Ye’s outburst today and didn’t dare say a word.
After dinner, the Wen family was exhausted from today’s chaos and had no mood to cause more trouble, so they all blew out the lamps and went to sleep.
In the third branch’s small hut, there were two beds. Wen Ye, her mother, and her two sisters slept together, while Wen Laosan and Wen Chui slept on the other bed, separated only by a curtain.
Lying in bed, Wen Ye felt extremely uncomfortable and itchy all over.
To distract herself, she sank her consciousness into a space.
This space had existed in her previous life—it was something she was born with.
The space was a one-mu grassy field with storage and preservation functions.
In addition, there was a spiritual spring. Long-term consumption could strengthen the body and improve skin and appearance.
There were no so-called trading, farming, or cashback systems at all.
Wen Ye looked at the empty space and sighed deeply.
In her previous life, she had stored half a mu of gold bars and precious jewelry—that was the result of her entire life’s hard work.
When she was about to die, she watched helplessly as everything in the space gradually disappeared, until it became completely empty.
It must have been that the space used up all those things to preserve her soul, allowing her to be reborn here.
……
The next morning, Wen Ye was woken up by Wen Lan.
“Little sister, wake up… something’s happening outside…”
Rubbing her sleepy eyes, Wen Ye got up. Lin Shi and Wen Laosan were already awake, standing outside the hut with pale faces.
When Wen Ye stepped out, she saw Old Madam Wen sitting in the courtyard, slapping her thigh and crying. Beside her were three strangers:
A middle-aged man in blue cloth, a sharp-looking woman in her thirties, and a pretty girl about fourteen or fifteen years old.
They were the second branch of the Wen family.
Wen Lao’er Wen Duoliang, his wife Fang Shi, and their daughter Wen Liyue.
Next to them were two carts of luggage.
They’re here—they’ve arrived!
Wen Ye was excited and carefully reviewed the family relationships.
Old Madam Wen became widowed at a young age and had three sons and one daughter.
The eldest son Wen Duocai, married to Luo Shi.
The second son Wen Duoliang, married to Fang Shi.
The third son Wen Duoshi, married to Lin Shi.
The youngest daughter Wen Fengjuan, already married out.
The second branch was Old Madam Wen’s favorite and the most successful family.
Wen Lao’er worked as a clerk at the Liu family cloth shop in town, and Fang Shi worked there as a cook.
Together they earned about one tael and two qian per month.
Because Wen Lao’er had to keep watch at night, their whole family lived in a small courtyard provided by the cloth shop, basically half townspeople.
Both the eldest and second branch sons studied in town. When they didn’t want to return to the village during breaks, they stayed crowded in the second branch’s courtyard.
There were not many grandchildren in the Wen family—only seven in total.
Eldest branch: Wen Chengwen (19) and Wen Mei (15).
Second branch: Wen Chengwu (18) and Wen Liyue (14).
Third branch: Wen Lan (15), Wen Ye (13), and Wen Chunzi (8).
At this point, something becomes obvious—Wen Liyue!
Among the three girls in the Wen family, eldest Wen Mei, second Wen Lan, fourth Wen Ye—but the third girl is called Wen Liyue!
Same village girls from the same family, yet her name is completely different.
Even if the second branch could read, their education level wasn’t high enough to come up with such an elegant name.
This is the heroine’s aura!
Wen Ye realized she hadn’t just transmigrated—she had entered a novel.
A crude old romance novel called “The Cold Young Master’s Doting Maid”.
And Wen Liyue was the female lead.
The story began with Wen Lan being sent to become a concubine of a sixty-year-old Liu family master.
According to the plot, Wen Lan would be taken to the Liu household that very day as his eighteenth concubine.
After entering the Liu household, she would never see her family again.
Lin Shi cried day and night in worry. Since the second branch worked in the Liu household, she asked Wen Liyue to bring Wen Lan some items.
Because of this delivery, Wen Liyue met the grandson of the Liu master—the male lead.
After learning that the new concubine of his grandfather was the cousin of Wen Liyue, the male lead believed the Wen family had bad intentions and decided to torture her.
He then forcefully made Wen Liyue his maid.
But Wen Liyue was no ordinary person—she couldn’t possibly be oppressed!
She had all the traits of early “Mary Sue” heroines:
Naive and silly, she even named objects:
“My chair is called Beautiful! My table is Little Beauty! Oh, my shoes are called Hu Hu!”
She talked to furniture and shoes every day and spoke sweetly—truly a talent!
More importantly, she was reckless!
At the slightest disagreement, she would splash a basin of foot-washing water all over the male lead’s face.
Perhaps because he had drunk too much of that “foot-washing water,” the male lead actually found her special and became completely infatuated with her.
In the end, he realized what he believed to be a truth:
Being a concubine to his grandfather meant Wen Lan was cheap and immoral—but Wen Liyue was different, even if they were cousins.
So the male and female leads happily became romantic rivals.
As a result, Old Madam Wen and the eldest and second branches also rose to prosperity.
As for the third branch… sorry, but cannon fodder doesn’t deserve wealth.
The book states: Half a year after Wen Lan entered the household, she was falsely accused by the Liu old madam of stealing and beaten to death.
As the female lead, Wen Liyue naturally stepped forward for her cousin, but before she could say much, the male lead domineeringly kissed her, silencing her.
Their feelings escalated rapidly, filled with pink romantic bubbles.
By the time they finished kissing, Wen Lan was already dead.
Wen Liyue continued her flirtatious quarrel with the male lead as if nothing had happened.
A year later, Old Madam Wen casually mentioned that Wen Ye had hanged herself because she refused to marry a butcher.
Wen Liyue comforted her and told her not to be sad.
When the Wen family left the Liu household, the male lead secretly gave them many gifts as consolation.
Wen Liyue became even more fond of him.
Another month later, Wen Laosan’s family was said to have been killed by wolves while cutting firewood in the mountains.
The male lead even personally escorted Wen Liyue back to the village for mourning, giving the Wen family great prestige.
Their relationship deepened further.
Every death in the third branch served as stepping stones for the romance between the male and female leads.
Later, people from the capital arrived, revealing that the male lead was not actually from the Liu family but the lost heir of a duke’s residence.
So the male and female leads went to the capital together.
There, they crushed villains and defeated aristocrats.
After a series of absurd palace intrigues, the male lead became emperor and the female lead became empress, living happily ever after.
Old Madam Wen and the other branches were granted titles and wealth, enjoying immense prosperity.
But the third branch—the cannon fodder family—had already vanished into dust, mentioned only briefly in passing, completely insignificant in the grand romance of the protagonists.