When Li Tingyun slowly woke up, she could still feel the sensation of water having entered her lungs. It hurt faintly.
Before she even opened her eyes, she heard someone beside her nagging nonstop, making her head ache.
“I’m talking to you, Xiaoyun,” the elderly woman said, holding a nursing baby in her arms. She looked at her with disappointment and frustration. “Why would you try to kill yourself? Are you abandoning the children too? Even after something happened to Yiyang, I, his mother, am still staying strong. As his wife, shouldn’t you stay strong too? Third Baby still needs milk. If you die, how will he survive?”
Li Tingyun sat up in confusion and looked around the room, becoming even more bewildered.
She clearly remembered being on the beach, knocked unconscious by the waves. So how had she suddenly woken up in this old-fashioned room?
The bed was made of wooden planks. The mud walls were uneven and cracked. On the bedside table sat only an enamel mug printed with the slogan: “Serve the People.”
The newest-looking object in the room was the wardrobe at the foot of the bed. Even in the dim light, its fresh glossy paint gleamed.
Looking again at the clothes worn by the old woman and the baby—both made from the same dull black fabric—Li Tingyun couldn’t help shuddering.
Too rustic.
Seriously too rustic.
Zhao Sufen naturally noticed the disgust in Li Tingyun’s eyes. But she wasn’t surprised. Ever since Li Tingyun married into the Yi family, she had known this daughter-in-law looked down on them.
But so what?
They already had three children together. Whether she liked the family or not, she still had to continue living here.
The baby in her arms was probably hungry. He sucked on his fingers and whimpered softly.
Zhao Sufen stuffed the child into Li Tingyun’s arms and said, “Third Baby is hungry. Feed him. Don’t do anything foolish again. Eldest and Second still need their mother.”
Before leaving, Zhao Sufen added, “I’ll bring you something nourishing later. If you don’t have milk, Third Baby will go hungry.”
Then she disappeared out the door.
Leaving Li Tingyun alone, holding the soft little baby helplessly.
Seeing Third Baby crying with his eyes shut, she knew he must be starving.
Thinking that she had baby bottles and formula in her space, Li Tingyun planned to prepare some milk for him.
But the moment she laid him on the bed, he burst into earth-shaking cries, flailing his tiny arms and legs so loudly it felt like the roof might collapse.
The crying made Li Tingyun’s scalp go numb. She hurriedly picked him up and soothed him.
Third Baby was probably starving. He kept burying his head into her chest.
She had inherited some of the original owner’s memories and knew the baby wanted breast milk.
But she had never breastfed before. She had no idea what to do.
Seeing the baby growing frantic, Li Tingyun gritted her teeth, lifted her clothes, and tearfully let him nurse.
Finally, Third Baby stopped crying.
Hearing the baby’s satisfied swallowing sounds, Li Tingyun let out a long sigh of relief and sat on the bed to sort through her situation.
The era she had transmigrated into was the year 1975.
The original owner was also named Li Tingyun, an educated youth sent down to the countryside. Through matchmaking, she had married Yi Yang and given birth to three children.
Yesterday, news arrived from the military that Yi Yang had died during a dangerous mission.
The original owner couldn’t accept it and nearly followed him in death.
To outsiders, Li Tingyun appeared deeply devoted to Yi Yang, willing to abandon even her three children to follow him.
But only Li Tingyun herself knew the truth.
When she heard of Yi Yang’s death, she clutched the several thousand yuan left by her parents and planned to abandon her children and elope with Xu Feng, another educated youth who had come to the countryside with her.
But Xu Feng had never truly intended to leave with her. When she refused to hand over the money for him to “keep safe,” he immediately said he wasn’t going anymore.
Furious, the original owner gambled with her life.
She told Xu Feng that if he refused to leave with her, she would jump off the bridge.
Xu Feng walked away without even turning his head.
And Li Tingyun really jumped.
She originally knew how to swim, but unfortunately her leg cramped midway. Half-dead, she crawled to the shore before losing consciousness.
In the end, Zhao Sufen discovered her and asked villagers to help carry her home.
And then the current Li Tingyun arrived.
Thinking of all this, Li Tingyun looked awkwardly at the sleeping Third Baby after feeding him and silently laid him back down.
No matter what the original owner thought, she herself would never abandon three children to run away with a childhood sweetheart.
Since she had come here, she would definitely raise these children properly.
Because the original owner despised the Yi family’s poverty, she had stubbornly insisted on living separately from Yi Yang’s parents. This three-section house had been built using the original owner’s inheritance money and Yi Yang’s salary.
It had both a front and back yard, enough space to grow vegetables and raise chickens.
Most importantly, only the original owner and her three children lived here, without interference from others.
Although the newly built house wasn’t impressive, it was still far better than the Yi family’s old home.
But houses in this era were mostly like this anyway.
After putting Third Baby down, Li Tingyun immediately checked her dimensional space.
The moment she looked inside, she was stunned.
Her space now had an entire sea added to it!
And near the shore lay a toppled vehicle. Looking carefully, wasn’t that her pink electric scooter?
She hadn’t expected both the sea and the scooter to come with her!
Li Tingyun felt thrilled.
The only regret was that she hadn’t managed to buy an old-fashioned bicycle before transmigrating, wasting some money.
Now her space had mountains, water, and endless supplies. Anything she wanted was available.
Just as she was sighing emotionally, she suddenly heard Third Baby’s soft whining again and hurried out of the space.
Sure enough, the baby had woken up and was crying on the bed with his face red from holding his breath.
She quickly picked him up to soothe him and realized his diaper was wet.
After checking, she found he had cried because he had peed.
Third Baby was almost six months old now. Li Tingyun took out a size-M disposable diaper from her space and changed him into it.
Compared to the cloth diapers made from rags in this era, disposable diapers were obviously softer and more breathable.
Once changed, Third Baby stopped crying and looked at her with big round eyes, smiling sweetly.
Her heart nearly melted.
She never expected to skip the whole “having a husband” step and directly become the mother of three children.
It was early autumn now, and the morning sun wasn’t too hot. Holding Third Baby while basking in the sunlight, Li Tingyun curiously watched the villagers working in the distant fields.
Although the era she had transmigrated into resembled the old days from her previous world, the country’s name was different, almost like a parallel world.
People in this era also had to work in the fields to earn work points. It was currently harvest season, and most villagers were out farming. From faint fragments of memory, she even spotted Yi Yang’s parents laboring in the fields.
Suddenly, Li Tingyun saw two tiny figures running quickly down a small path in the distance, each carrying a basket larger than themselves on their backs.
When the two small figures finally arrived before her, panting heavily, she realized they were Eldest and Second Baby.
One was six years old.
The other was four.