Chapter 1 Chapter 1 Traveling Through Time - Column Preview "The Whole Family Travels Through Time..."
"You ungrateful thing, you're already nineteen, and I found the wrong husband for you?"
"You're going to jump into the lake? Why don't you jump off a cliff and smash yourself to pieces and be done with it!"
"You have to marry this family whether you want to or not!"
Lin Chuntao slowly opened her eyes. Mottled sunlight sprinkled through the swaying willow leaves. The scent of irises wafted through the breeze. She turned her head with difficulty and saw the blue-purple flowers swaying in the breeze.
She remembered that the irises bloomed in April and May.
Her grandma passed away in the cold winter, and when she was sorting out her grandma's belongings, she lost her balance and fell off the chair. Could it be that she fell for two seasons?
My vision was a little blurry, and I felt like there were several blurry faces swaying above me.
Her head was swollen and painful, as if countless things were bursting out.
Lin Chuntao rubbed her forehead vigorously, and countless unfamiliar memories flooded into her mind.
She fell back into ancient times.
She was reborn as a peasant girl with the same name and surname. Her mother died early and her father had just remarried. She had three younger sisters: the second oldest was Lin Chunxing, the third was Lin Chunhe, and the youngest was Lin Duoer.
My father and grandparents were extremely patriarchal. After having four daughters and not even a son, they became obsessed and married a widow who had given birth to three sons at all costs.
The widow didn't like having four children, so one of her conditions was that Lin Chuntao get married off and she be the one who made the decisions in this small household.
The biological father agreed readily, and the stepmother and grandmother began to arrange the original owner's marriage.
She was found an old widower who was about the same age as her biological father. He was willing to pay her a betrothal gift of twenty taels of silver. However, the original owner refused to marry her and begged all the elders in her family, but no one said a word to help her. The original owner was so angry that she jumped into the lake.
After it was fished out, the core had been replaced by Lin Chuntao.
She pinched her eyebrows and slowly sat up. A gust of wind blew past her, and she shivered, completely waking up.
Her three younger sisters were squatting in front of her, looking at her anxiously.
"Sister...are you awake? But do you have a headache?"
“A little.”
"Go back to the house and change clothes first." Lin Chunxing said as she reached out to support her. The third brother beside her also hurried forward, "That's right, don't catch a cold."
Lin Chuntao was carried into the house by her two younger sisters. She was feeling wet and uncomfortable, and she didn't bother to look at the onlookers from the Lin family.
"I thought he was dead, but he's not dead yet. Let the Zhang family come and propose marriage tomorrow!"
Lin Chuntao slowly looked over in the direction of the voice. It was her stepmother who had just married in. She was thin and had a slightly bulging belly.
She held the arm of the old lady Tian next to her, looking like a smug person.
The old lady looked at Lin Chuntao's sinister eyes and scolded her harshly, "Why are you glaring at me? Men should get married when they are old enough, and women should get married when they are old enough. Your mother is so kind to arrange this for you, but you still don't know what's good for you!"
Lin Chuntao stared at the old lady and snorted coldly, then said quietly: "My mother is dead, I don't have a mother, you like her to be your mother."
After she finished speaking, she followed her two sisters into the house, and heard Uncle Lin's furious voice behind them.
"Lin Chuntao, you are so outrageous!"
Lin Chunxing closed the door and bolted it. She could faintly hear Uncle Lin's voice scolding Lin Chuntao's father from outside: "Lin Changhe, look at the daughter you raised!"
"Whatever she said before was what it was. How could I have known why she suddenly became like this?"
"That's right, Chuntao never talked back before, but now she's jumping into the lake and scolding the old man all of a sudden."
This thatched house has two floors inside, separated by wooden boards in the middle.
Lin Chuntao followed her two sisters up the wooden stairs. The upper floor was not high enough and there were no windows. Only a thin ray of light came through the gaps along the edges. It was dim and cramped, making people feel stuffy and uncomfortable.
Lin Chunhe quickly took off her clothes and handed them to her: "Sister, this is for you."
Lin Chuntao was stunned. She saw Lin Chunhe getting into the bed naked in just her panties. Her movements were so swift as if she had done it countless times.
Lin Chunxing saw Lin Chuntao in a daze, took the third brother's clothes and stuffed them into her hands.
"Hurry up and change. Take off your wet clothes and let me wash them and hang them out to dry. The sun is shining brightly, so they will be dry in no time."
Lin Chuntao held the clothes that still had her sister's body temperature, and looked down at her own clothes. The trouser legs only reached her calves, and the threads on the edges were washed white. The same was true for Lin Chunxing's clothes.
Thinking of her memory of how her sisters were not treated well, Lin Chuntao finally understood that children without a mother had no money, so they had to do all the work, but it was not their turn to eat delicious food or make clothes.
Each of the sisters had a set of clothes that they had worn for several years and had no clothes to change into.
She quickly changed her clothes and handed them to Lin Chunxing, then thanked her: "Thank you, second sister."
Lin Chunxing hurried away with her clothes, leaving only her and her third sister Lin Chunhe in the room.
"Sister, come in quickly."
Lin Chuntao did feel a little cold, so she crawled into bed and squeezed together with Lin Chunhe. Their bed was not actually a bed, but just straw spread on the floor with a layer of cloth on top of the straw. No one knew what the filling of the quilt was, but it was so hard that it didn't even fit their bodies.
She sorted out her original body's memories.
This is Shuangzizhai, Daping Township, Xuanhe County, Yizhou County, located in the southwest.
It was originally called Tianxing State. Two years ago, it was taken over by the neighboring Yongsheng State and renamed Yizhou.
After the name was changed, the emperor issued an order to move people from the Central Plains to Yizhou.
The original body was a native of Yizhou and the eldest daughter of the third branch of the Lin family in Shuangzizhai. She had four uncles and an aunt. The aunt was two years younger than the original body and was a treasure in the old lady's heart.
As for the granddaughters, they are all weeds.
It’s just that the other cousins have their mother around, so they don’t have to worry about not having even a change of clothes.
But the original body and her three sisters were different. Their biological father was a good-for-nothing who only knew how to bully others at home. He would not say anything if the old lady didn't give him money to make clothes. The original body was afraid of the old lady and didn't dare to go to her. The sisters were like little bitter gourds on a dead vine.
She couldn't make ends meet these days and had to find a way to make money.
But the most urgent thing right now is how to avoid being 'sold'.
That definitely doesn't make sense. The family hasn't split up yet, and her betrothal gift will benefit everyone. No one will help her.
She is too weak to win in a fight, and if the other party offers a betrothal gift, she may be forced to take him away, which would be even worse.
It would be great if there was a man of similar age to act as a shield at this time.
But time is running out, where is she going to find this person?
Lin Chunhe glanced at her dazed sister and felt worried.
"Sister, what are you thinking about?"
"Still thinking about getting married?"
Lin Chuntao turned her head when she heard the voice, looked at the thin girl beside her, and said softly, "I'm thinking about how not to marry that old widower."
Lin Chunhe was a little depressed, and her dark eyes were fixed on Lin Chuntao.
"Sister, please don't jump into the lake again. I was scared and cried today."
She concealed the fact that she and her second sister were also scared and crying. She never wanted to see her sister lying motionless on the ground again.
Lin Chuntao felt a little sorry for him and tried to comfort him, "No, I won't do anything stupid again. I will lead a good life with you and my sisters in the future."
After hearing Lin Chuntao's assurance, Lin Chunhe breathed a sigh of relief. She bit her lip and whispered to Lin Chuntao, "Sister, do you know that Grandpa Muramasa and our grandfather said that every household must have one person marry an outsider. Grandpa doesn't like outsiders."
Lin Chuntao's eyes lit up, and she quickly asked in a low voice, "What else did you hear?"
"Grandma wanted to find an outsider for my aunt to marry into our family. After she told Grandpa about it, Grandpa was very conflicted."
In the original body's memory, many people from the Central Plains have moved to Yizhou.
The locals in Yizhou called them outsiders.
The imperial court ordered the immigrants to marry locals. Lin Chuntao felt that it might be because of the large-scale migration. The imperial court was afraid that too many people would come in and that the two groups would have conflicts and chaos, so it issued a policy to allow people to marry each other so that it would be easier for them to integrate into each other.
Thinking of this, Lin Chuntao had an idea in her mind.
After waiting for Lin Chunxing to come back after hanging the clothes, Lin Chuntao asked her, "Are they still in the yard?"
Lin Chunxing said, "Grandma took my aunt and the Black Widow to the city to buy cloth for clothes. My second uncle went to inform the Zhang family to come and propose marriage tomorrow afternoon. Grandpa took my uncle and aunt to the fields. My aunt just said there won't be enough grass for tomorrow's pigs, so she asked us to go cut it."
"And collecting firewood."
"Let's not do it for now. Come with me to Grandpa Muramasa's house."
Lin Chunxing was a little confused, "What are you going to do?"
Lin Chuntao didn't say it clearly, but just asked Lin Chunxing to follow her. When she walked out of the house, she saw two cousins from her fourth uncle's and younger uncle's families carrying baskets on their backs and preparing to cut grass for pigs.
"Big sister, second sister, where are you going to cut grass for the pigs today?"
"I don't know where to cut the best harvest yet. I'll have to go out and look around later." After answering, Lin Chunxing asked them, "What about you? Where are you going?"
"Let's go to the sandy area on the back hill."
"Well, you guys go ahead, we'll be there in a bit."
With that, the two sisters walked towards Muramasa's house.
It is now the beginning of May, and the crops in the fields need to be taken care of, weeded and loosened, and every household is busy working in the fields. There are relatively few people in the village. When Lin Chuntao and her friends went to Cun Zheng's house, only Cun Zheng's wife, Old Lady Sun, was at home.
The two sisters called out sweetly, "Grandma, isn't Grandpa home?"
Sun looked at the two sisters and asked, "What's going on? Your great-grandfather has gone to the county town with the village head. He should be back soon."
Lin Chuntao nodded, and Sun asked again, "Chuntao, the court requires every household to send one person to marry someone who has moved here. You are the oldest unmarried person in your family. Did your grandmother tell you about this?"
"I heard Grandpa Muramasa say that. My grandfather is a little unhappy."
After Lin Chuntao finished speaking, Sun's face darkened slightly. Lin Chuntao looked at her expression and smiled and said, "Grandma, my mother is gone and there's no one to help me find a marriage. I have to do it myself, so I'd like to trouble you to help me find someone suitable."
Sun raised her eyebrows and looked at her, with a hint of surprise in her eyes.
The locals don't like people moving in from outside, saying that every household needs to send someone out, but every household is vague and hesitant. If other villages have finished the project but theirs hasn't, the old man will be ashamed.
Now that Sun saw Lin Chuntao coming to her house on her own initiative, she quickly said, "Come on, I'll take you to the village head's house."
"Now?"
"Yes, now!"
As Sun spoke, she quickly locked the door and was about to leave with Lin Chuntao.
Lin Chunxing was stunned, and Lin Chuntao hurriedly said to her, "Go home and take care of your third sister first."
"Okay, sister, go ahead and don't worry."
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