Because of Gu Shitou’s actions, discussions broke out again outside. The people of Gu Village once more sighed at how favored Gu Yuan was—Gu Shitou was willing to beat his own daughter half to death for the sake of his younger sister.
As the center of all this talk, Gu Yuan herself was lying unconscious on the bed in the room just beyond the wall.
It was a small room built from mud bricks, so cramped that aside from a single bed, there was barely space for a table. The room faced north to south. Near the window stood a worn table and chair, and a few steps ahead was a wooden bed. At the foot of the bed sat a solid wooden bedside cabinet. Beneath a light blue floral quilt lay a little girl with her forehead wrapped in white cloth, her face pale as paper.
She was Gu Yuan.
Her room could be described as extremely simple. In modern times, countless people would look down on it, yet in Gu Village—where most families crowded together in one room—for a girl like her to have her own room, along with a table, chair, and cabinet, showed just how favored she was.
Gu Village was not wealthy. Thin, sallow-faced children could be seen everywhere. In an era where even having enough to eat was a luxury, Gu Yuan stood in stark contrast to the others. At twelve years old, her face was round and still carried baby fat. Before her injury, her rosy cheeks were the envy of the village. Now, she lay on the bed like a paper doll, her life uncertain—truly a case of fate’s cruel twists.
Mud-brick houses had poor soundproofing, and with the commotion right outside her door, the already aching and uncomfortable Gu Yuan frowned impatiently.
Hiss… it hurts.
Her eyelashes trembled. Before opening her eyes, she instinctively reached up to touch her forehead.
Strange. She hadn’t drunk alcohol last night—why would she have such a headache for no reason?
Thinking this, she tried to sit up. But as soon as she lifted half her body, she sensed something was off. She had always enjoyed comfort. Though not extravagant, her food and clothing were always pleasant, especially her bedding—always soft and comfortable.
But now? The texture beneath her hand was clearly wrong. This kind of coarse, rough cloth—something even elderly villagers wouldn’t use.
Finally, she opened her eyes. At first just a slit, then suddenly wide and round.
The first thing she saw was a small, fair child’s hand. Beneath it was the rough, worn cloth that had felt so uncomfortable. How worn? Even people from the 1950s or 60s would probably find it unacceptable.
If it had any merit, it was that it was clean—no patches at all.
Weird. Too strange. I need a moment.
Carefully sitting up, Gu Yuan looked around. There was no one else in the room. Only then did she let out a breath and raised her hands before her eyes.
These were indeed a child’s hands—fair, smooth, without a trace of calluses. Clearly, the owner had lived well. But that only made things more confusing—if life was good, why were the bedding and surroundings so shabby?
She bit her lip hard. The pain told her this wasn’t a dream. Turning her hands over again and again, she confirmed they were indeed her own.
At that moment, a word flashed through her mind.
Transmigration.
Gu Yuan curled her lips in self-mockery. “Didn’t expect I’d catch up with the trend too.”
Thinking this, she relaxed a little. It didn’t matter. In her original world, she didn’t have much family to begin with. There wasn’t much to miss. Only her newly built three-story villa felt like a pity—she had lived in it for just half a year. Who knew who would end up benefiting from it now?
Shaking her head, she stopped dwelling on it. She had always been pragmatic. If she had really transmigrated, thinking too much was useless. The priority now was to understand her situation.
The room was simple and clear at a glance. She couldn’t find any mirror to check her appearance. The noise outside continued, and whether from irritation or her earlier movements, her headache grew worse.
Left with no choice, she gave up searching and clutched her head, hoping to ease the pain.
But the more she focused on it, the worse it became. Unable to bear it, she let out a cry before collapsing back onto the bed.
Just before losing consciousness, fragments of memory flashed through her mind like fleeting images.
After an unknown amount of time, Gu Yuan slowly opened her eyes. Her head still throbbed painfully. As she instinctively reached up, a pair of rough hands stopped her.
The old woman’s choked voice sounded, “My precious girl, you’re finally awake.”
Without waiting for her reply, the old woman continued hoarsely, “That jinx Er Ya—her mother already punished her. And your eldest sister-in-law, hmph, don’t think I don’t know, Er Ya was instigated by her. Just you wait—this matter isn’t over. Let’s see how I deal with her.”
The old woman rambled on about her plans, completely missing the complexity in Gu Yuan’s lowered eyes.
After accepting the fact that she had transmigrated, discovering that she had transmigrated into a novel didn’t seem so hard to accept.
Just before she fainted, she had received fragments of the original owner’s memories—and realized they matched exactly the novel she had stayed up late reading the night before.
Not just similar—identical.
Like many transmigration novels, the story’s female lead was also a transmigrator, and her family was the oppressed one in a large household. In farming novels, there was almost always a vicious aunt of similar age to the heroine.
And Gu Yuan had become exactly that role.
She was a posthumous child. Her father died before she was born, so her mother felt deeply guilty and doted on her excessively, even demanding that her sons do the same. Gu Yuan had four older brothers. Perhaps due to the age gap, despite the unreasonable demands, they all complied.
Any good food was first brought to Gu Yuan and the old woman. Whenever someone went out or into the mountains, they would bring something back for her—sometimes a meat bun, sometimes wild fruit or bird eggs.
They never returned empty-handed.
Compared to her, the other girls in the Gu family not only received no such treatment but even got the worst portions of food. They also had to work, and any laziness resulted in beatings or scolding.
Over time, such treatment inevitably bred resentment. Recently, Gu Yuan had secretly eaten osmanthus cakes sent by her younger brother. Whether from hunger or jealousy, Er Ya suddenly rushed out, snatched the cakes, and pushed Gu Yuan to the ground.
Being delicate and the old woman’s favorite, Gu Yuan naturally wouldn’t be wronged. That very night, the old woman beat Er Ya.
No one expected that this beating would result in Er Ya being replaced by another soul.
The village girl Gu Er Ya was gone—replaced by Gu Liu, a vengeful female agent from the modern world.
In Gu Liu’s eyes, Er Ya’s death was caused by Gu Yuan and the old woman. If Gu Yuan had shared, Er Ya wouldn’t have snatched; if she hadn’t snatched, she wouldn’t have been beaten to death. Now that she had taken over the body, she would avenge her.
As for the fact that stealing was wrong, she conveniently ignored it, firmly believing Gu Yuan and the old woman were at fault.
Already blaming them, when she once again saw Gu Yuan eating alone while she worked herself to exhaustion, she exploded—snatching the watermelon and pushing Gu Yuan onto the stone stool.
In the original story, Gu Yuan survived but was left disfigured.
Girls loved beauty—being injured like that, Gu Yuan would never let it go. Later, mother and daughter were crushed by the transmigrated heroine and eventually reduced to cannon fodder.
Now, something had changed. Gu Yuan, also from the modern world, had transmigrated here. Thinking of what was to come, she grabbed the old woman’s hand and asked in a trembling voice:
“Mother… where is Er Ya?”
Her trembling wasn’t from fear. So what if the other was an agent? Both were transmigrators starting from scratch—who would win was yet to be seen. The trembling came from the pain in her head.
She asked about Er Ya not out of concern or forgiveness. She remembered that Gu Liu had a golden finger—and that it had been stolen from her.
Yes, stolen.
This was precisely why she had disliked the heroine when reading the novel.
The bracelet on her wrist—revealed when she fell—was originally hers. Made of a strange material, neither wood nor metal, it had been part of her grandmother’s dowry.
Gu Liu had noticed it immediately and snatched it during the fall, hiding it on her body.
The bracelet turned out to be a trading system. With it, Gu Liu rose rapidly in the Great Xia Dynasty.
Now that Gu Yuan knew the plot, she had no intention of letting Gu Liu grow stronger.
In the original story, that very night, the old woman beat Gu Liu again. This time, she was covered in wounds, and her blood activated the bracelet.
What Gu Yuan wanted to know now was—
Had the system already been activated?