Accept reality
Just when Yu Ying was distracted, Fu An suddenly rushed towards her.
Although Yu Ying had an injury on her foot, she was still agile enough to dodge Fu An who almost hit her.
The original owner fell down the hillside, and although he was not seriously injured, he sprained his ankle.
After Yu Ying steadied herself with a lingering fear, she frowned and looked at the pale and thin boy in front of her who was staring at her fiercely.
Yu Yingyuan explained that she did not bully his grandmother, but then she remembered that in the original owner's memory, the original owner had a bad temper and was domineering to everyone in the Fu family, treating them like servants.
If the personality was too different from the original owner, it might arouse suspicion, so there was no explanation.
It’s just that the original owner’s temperament was too strong, and Yu Ying, who was gentle in nature, couldn’t learn it at all, so she had no intention of acting according to the original owner’s temperament.
She glanced coldly at Fu An, who was as ferocious as a wolf cub, and then turned to look at another little girl with a pale face and thin body.
When the little girl saw Shangyu Ying's gaze, her face immediately turned pale with fright, and her neck shrank in fear. It was obvious that she was extremely afraid of the original owner.
Yu Ying knew from the original owner's memory that the original owner often beat and scolded the two children, so it was no wonder that the two children had such an attitude.
Yu Ying said nothing, but turned around with a cold face and walked towards the thatched hut where she had lived for a few days.
Fu An, who originally thought he would be beaten, was stunned when he saw Yu Ying's back as she left.
Luo reached out randomly, relying on her blurred vision to grab her grandson's hand, and hurriedly scolded him, "Why are you showing off? Grandma doesn't need you to protect her!"
When Yu Ying heard this as she walked to the thatched house, she sighed secretly and felt a little sad.
When I first read the novel, I was not too moved by the difficult characters in it. Even when I saw the separation of life and death, I could only sigh a few words about the impermanence of life, and there was no big ripple in my heart. But when I was in it, I knew the various feelings it had.
She lifted the cattail curtain and entered the dim thatched hut.
The Fu family had two thatched houses in total. Hers was the smaller one and should have been the one where Luo Shi lived before.
The larger room is where the eldest son of the Fu family and his wife live with their children, and there are still four people living there now.
Mrs. Luo, her two children, and the male protagonist whom she had never met.
The three generations of the Luo family were all afraid of the original owner, fearing that she would murder them, so it was naturally impossible for them to stay in the same room with her.
But she didn't quite understand. There were only two thatched huts. Where did the real young man who was taken away by mistake live before?
Yu Ying didn't think about it too much. After entering the dim house, she took a quick look and saw that it was just a thatched house of six or seven square meters.
In the dim light, one could vaguely see a pile of firewood that filled half the room, and in the corner, the only piece of furniture made of straw that could barely be called a "bed."
Yu Ying carefully checked the straw stalks. Fortunately, they were dry and free of insects and ants. Only then did she feel at ease to lie on them.
But she was afraid of snakes, insects, rats and ants, so she picked a lot of mugwort outside yesterday, burned half and kept the other half, so there was a faint scent of mugwort in the house.
But the thatched hut was dark, damp and hot, which was really stuffy and made people feel upset.
Yu Ying picked up the broken cattail leaf fan that Luo had used earlier, fanned herself, and sat on the bed.
After sitting quietly for a while, thinking about the skinny brother and sister opposite her, she suddenly remembered the plot of the novel.
The male protagonist turned evil because all his relatives passed away one after another. The first person to pass away was not Luo, but his elder brother whom he had never even met.
Fu Zhen, the eldest son of the Fu family, is now doing hard labor in a quarry.
Although there was an amnesty a few days ago and the Fuji family was also included in the amnesty, there was a shortage of people in the quarry and it was impossible to release everyone at once.
Furthermore, the officials in charge were corrupt, so he had to use silver to redeem the remaining term of his service in order to be free.
The eldest son of the Fu family and his wife still had three years of service left to serve. They had no money and were powerless, so they could only continue to do hard labor.
Three months after the protagonist returned to his ancestral home, the eldest son of the Fu family was killed by a rock while quarrying. Not long after, Luo Shi also died of grief.
In order to seek justice, the sister-in-law was beaten by those unreasonable officers. After returning home, she was sick and had to deal with the funeral affairs of her husband and mother-in-law. She also had to support two children and her disabled uncle. She passed away due to overwork.
The male protagonist, who had originally lost the will to live, looked at his two half-grown children and could only work as an aide to the magistrate of Yu County, Cangwu County, where he suffered humiliation.
But even so, the two children could not be saved.
The nephew was kidnapped, and the niece died soon after due to long-term hunger in her early years.
Thinking of this, Yu Ying's expression suddenly became solemn.
Although it is not good to be a saintly person, it is okay if she does not know the plot. If she knows the plot but does not take any measures, she will not be able to live with herself.
The thought of watching these living people turn into cold corpses made it impossible for her to sit idly by, so Yu Ying decided to do what she could.
It is now the first month of the male lead's release, and she still has two months to prepare for the change in the plot development.
Do your best and save the person if you can. If you can't save him, she has already tried her best. As long as she can get over it, it will be fine.
As the sky gradually darkened, Yu Ying put her thoughts aside, went out of the house, fetched some water and went back in to wash her body.
It is already extremely hot and humid in Lingnan in June. Even if you don't go out, you will still sweat a lot and feel sticky and uncomfortable all over.
Yu Ying walked out of the thatched hut, went to the water tank beside her, and looked at the only wooden basin in the Fu family.
A wooden basin whose wood has begun to turn black and is almost unusable.
The current conditions no longer allow Yu Ying to be picky.
Restraining the discomfort in her heart, Yu Ying took half a basin of water and brought the water into the house under Fu An's vigilant gaze.
She lowered the curtain, propped it up with a few thick branches, then took off her clothes in the dark and took a cloth from the original owner's luggage to wipe them.
Although there was no food left, fortunately the original owner's luggage was returned.
The luggage consisted of only seven coins, a change of coarse cloth skirt, two thorny hairpins, a cloth towel, and finally some herbs and small black fruits wrapped in rags.
Yu Ying checked carefully and found that these herbs were more or less poisonous. The wild fruits were half-fresh and the juice was black. If it got on the skin, it would turn black and purple and it would take four or five days to wash off.
When she first came here, she saw from her reflection in the water that there were five black spots of varying sizes on the original owner's cheeks.
There is a black spot the size of half a leaf on the side of his right eye, and there is also one on the bridge of his nose and on his left cheekbone. The other two black spots make him look much smaller.
At first, Yu Ying thought the original owner was ugly and felt a little desperate, but when she carefully recalled the original owner's memory, she found that the black marks on her face were not black spots, but were stained by the juice of this black wild fruit.
Lingnan is a wild and dangerous place. A pretty woman who cannot protect herself will only bring disaster upon herself.
After understanding the original owner's purpose of dressing up as an ugly person, Yu Ying reapplied the juice of the black fruit every two days. She also planned to look for it in the next few days to see if she could find these wild fruits.
In addition to the wild fruits, Yu Ying did not throw away the poisonous herbs, but kept them for self-defense in the future.
The original owner had these luggages because the chief officer who was escorting the Yu family had received favors from the Yu family, so he also took some care of the Yu family during the escort period.
He also turned a blind eye and allowed the Yu family to keep some simple clothes and some silver money.
Thanks to the protection of the chief official, the women of the Yu family were spared from being raped.
The original owner was born beautiful, with fair and delicate skin. If she hadn't been protected by this chief official, she probably wouldn't have been able to reach Lingnan safely.
The Yu family members were skilled in medicine. Before arriving in Lingnan, the women smeared the juice of wild fruits on their faces, saying that they were taking poison to destroy their appearance to avoid being ruined.
The juice of the fruit is black and difficult to clean with water.
The Lingnan region is densely forested. In addition to ferocious wild beasts, various herbs are also scattered throughout the mountains, and poisonous weeds can be seen everywhere. People with medical skills can easily find various herbs.
If the original owner had been peaceful, her life wouldn't have been too difficult. However, she chose to act like a spoiled child. When she arrived in Lingnan, she continued to act arrogant and domineering. After an argument with someone, she directly poisoned the person. That's why she was forced to marry the male protagonist who had lame legs.
The original owner was favored since childhood, so when she was forced to marry the male protagonist, the Yu family could not give her much, but they still made her a coarse cloth skirt without any patches and two thorn hairpins, besides that, there was also... silver!
As Yu Ying was simply washing her body with cold water, the original owner's memory suddenly emerged in her mind. She quickly put on clean clothes and picked up the belt that had just been placed on the mat.
She felt it carefully and finally found a slightly hard spot. She looked around and picked up a dry branch in the dim room.
He folded his hands, broke the branch, and then used the sharp part of the branch to cut open his belt with great effort.
After a while, he took out a small object wrapped in cloth from his belt.
When the rag was opened, what caught the eye were two silver pieces. The silver pieces were leaf-shaped, as if they were taken off jewelry. They were about half the length and width of a little finger and slightly thin.
Yu Ying, who grew up in a traditional Chinese medicine clinic, is very sensitive to weight. She can roughly tell how heavy the two silver leaves are just by weighing them.
After weighing them, I found that the two small silver pieces were less than one penny.
When Yu Ying was reading the article, she probably had some understanding of silver and money. If one penny of silver was converted into copper coins, it could be exchanged for about one hundred coins.
But these two small silver pieces, worth less than one penny, cannot be exchanged for less than one hundred coins!
After the conversion, the originally excited mood was instantly like being poured with a bucket of cold water.
But then I thought again, being penniless is even scarier than this, so I didn’t feel so lost anymore.
Yu Ying calmed down, hid the silver piece, and then looked at her red and swollen feet again.
I was too depressed in the past few days and didn't care about my sprained ankle. Now that I have figured it all out, I am thinking of going to the nearby area tomorrow morning to see if there are any herbs that can reduce swelling and remove blood stasis.
He withdrew his gaze, limped out of the house holding the basin.
As soon as I went out, I smelled the strong smell of wild vegetable soup, which was not a very pleasant smell.
On the other side of the fire rack, the wild vegetable soup was already cooked. Fu An took down the pottery pot on the fire rack with great effort, and used a simple wooden spoon to divide the wild vegetable soup into several rough wooden bowls.
After dividing it, he raised his head and looked at Yu Ying with a fierce look.
Yu Ying ignored his fierce gaze and lowered her eyes to look at the five bowls of wild vegetable soup on the ground.
There are only four people in the Fu family, including the three generations of grandparents and the male protagonist whom she has never met, and there are five people including her, so one of the five bowls of wild vegetable soup is hers.
For the past few days, Yu Ying had been eating wild vegetables without oil or salt, and without any taste at all. It felt like chewing grass.
After eating for a few days, even though she was very hungry, Yu Ying had no appetite.
But if you want to survive, you have to fill your stomach, no matter whether you chew wild vegetables or grass, as long as you can fill your stomach, it's fine.
But perhaps the Fu family has been eating like this for a long time, so the brother and sister are very thin, with a sallow complexion and very little flesh on their cheeks.
Luo's eyes were probably almost blind due to malnutrition, excessive fatigue, and the miasma in Lingnan.
Yu Ying poured the water, put down the wooden basin and walked straight over. After picking up a bowl of wild vegetable soup, she turned around and went back to the house without saying a word.
After watching Yu Ying leave, Fu An let out a tense breath. He looked at his grandmother beside him and asked curiously, "Grandma, why didn't she curse anymore?"
Luo's expression was numb, and she just said, "Don't worry about it."
Then he added, "Bring the soup in for my uncle."
After saying that, Luo turned around and looked at another thatched hut. Although she couldn't see it clearly, she could vaguely see the shadow of the thatched hut.
It has been a month since she brought her biological son back home, but Mrs. Luo still feels complicated and doesn't know how to get along with her son.
After Yu Ying entered the house and sat down, she looked at the wild vegetable soup for a long time, but she really had no appetite.
But he was so hungry that he scooped a spoonful of wild vegetables with a rough wooden spoon and put it into his mouth.
Although natural wild vegetables are very popular in modern times, not all wild vegetables are delicious.
Boiled in water without any seasoning, this wild vegetable is really hard to swallow.
Yu Ying swallowed the wild vegetables without much chewing.
Only after finishing the bowl of wild vegetable soup did I feel full.
After eating, it was already dark and Yu Ying lay down on the bed.
Outside the house, there were intermittent sounds of dogs barking and wild beasts roaring.
Hearing this sound, Yu Ying was terrified every night, fearing that wild animals would come down the mountain and break into the Fu family. With only two thatched huts, without even a proper door, they were no match for any ferocious beasts.
Yu Ying originally did not cover herself with the quilt because it was worn out, but when she heard the roar of the beast, she was so scared that she didn't care about anything else. She pulled the quilt over and wrapped it tightly around herself, hoping to find some sense of security.
The roars of the wild beasts seemed to be far away, yet also very close, making Yu Ying feel uneasy.
As the night deepened, intermittent coughing sounds were heard from next door, just like in the past few days.
First, Mrs. Luo coughed, and then the two children coughed intermittently.
Amidst the coughs of the three generations of grandparents and grandchildren, she seemed to hear a few low, muffled coughs from adult men.
Yu Ying was stunned for a moment.
There was no need to make any other guesses, she was not mistaken, the person who coughed was the male protagonist she had never seen before - Fu Wei.
Although the protagonist's name was strange, she vaguely remembered that there was an explanation of the protagonist's name in the text.
——“Wei” means sitting upright, having the meaning of being upright and correct.
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