"Grandma, Siya has had a fever for two days and is just talking nonsense. She looks worse. Should we take her to the clinic?"
"What are you looking at? Sending her to the clinic is free? Is a worthless little girl really worth spending so much money on? If she survives, she's lucky; if she doesn't, it's her own fault for being so cheap!"
"Grandma, but Siya—"
"What do you mean, 'she'? When have you ever had a say in this house? Get yourselves to work right now! If you're late and get your work points deducted, I'll skin you alive!"
...
The cold, coupled with the pain that emanated from the very bones, made one shiver uncontrollably.
Xu Ningyan felt dizzy and hot, her body burning with fever and her throat parched.
Upon hearing these words from outside, Xu Ningyan's mind jolted, a sharp pain struck her, and she fainted.
When she slowly woke up, she had to accept a reality.
She, Xu Ningyan, transmigrated into a period novel about a beloved family that she had only skimmed through before.
Unfortunately, she wasn't the beloved female lead in the story, but rather cannon fodder Xu Siya.
The beloved female lead is Xu Siya's aunt, Xu Zhenzhu.
Xu Zhenzhu is the youngest daughter of the Xu family in Tuanjie Brigade, a rural village in central Jing Province. Just like her name suggests, she is the apple of the Xu family's eye and has been pampered. She has never suffered any hardship since she was a child.
When she turned eighteen or nineteen, she accidentally saved a man named Lu Kai, and her life became like a dream come true.
Lu Kai is the male protagonist in the book. He is a renowned technician in a machinery factory in the city. He is not interested in women, but he falls in love with Xu Zhenzhu at first sight. Not long after he recovers from his injury, he takes the initiative to propose to Xu Zhenzhu.
Lu Kai comes from a distinguished family, but his parents are very understanding and do not look down on Xu Zhenzhu because she is from the countryside. On the contrary, they love her very much because of the life-saving grace she received.
After the two got married, the Lu family doted on Xu Zhenzhu and took great care of her.
Later, Lu Kai seized the opportunity to go into business and became the richest man in the provincial capital, and the Xu family also began to live a good life.
Not only that, Xu Zhenzhu never had children, but Lu Kai still loved her to the bone and was willing to grow old with her even without offspring.
What a touching and moving love story!
As for Xu Siya, this cannon fodder, although she is Xu Zhenzhu's niece, she is a pitiful little girl who is neither loved by her father nor her mother.
Xu Siya's father was the second son in the Xu family. Although both he and his wife had jobs in the county town, they left her to grow up in the countryside and ignored her completely.
After accidentally falling into the water at the age of sixteen, she developed a high fever and became mentally disabled. She is over twenty years old and still unmarried, and is disliked by her family in various ways.
Later, through Xu Zhenzhu's introduction, and with the help of Xu's matriarch Miao Cuihua, she married an old man from the next village who had lost his wife and had a child, becoming his stepmother.
Because she was mentally challenged, after she married into the family, not only did the old man beat her when he was drunk, but his child also bullied her.
She had been pregnant twice. Once, she miscarried after being beaten by a drunk old man. Later, she finally got pregnant again, but was pushed down by the man's previous child. Her stomach hit a rock, and she bled heavily, dying along with her unborn child.
After the original owner died, no one sought justice for her; she was buried hastily, thus ending her role as cannon fodder.
Xu Ningyan has now traveled to the point in time when Xu Siya fell into the water and developed a high fever.
It was this high fever that turned the original owner into an idiot, and it was also the beginning of the original owner's tragic life.
Xu Ningyan also received the original owner's memories. It turned out that it was not an accidental fall into the water at all. Xu Siya was pushed into the river by Xu Zhenzhu!
In Xu Siya's last memory, there was Xu Zhenzhu's狰狞 (zhengning - ferocious/hideous) face, and a mumbled sentence: "...You're dead...you're mine now..."
Xu Siya probably never understood why her own aunt would do such a terrible thing to her until her death.
However, Xu Ningyan, being an outsider, immediately realized the problem.
Xu Zhenzhu's ambiguous statement contained a great deal of meaning.
Regardless of other factors, at the very least, Xu Zhenzhu harbored malice towards Xu Siya and wished her dead.
If it really was Xu Siya herself, a little girl who was neither loved by her father nor her mother and had no status in the Xu family, she probably wouldn't dare to say anything, let alone speak out, even if she knew that Xu Zhenzhu pushed her into the water.
Thinking about it this way, did Xu Siya in the book really become mentally impaired due to a high fever? Could it be that the little girl knew that Xu Zhenzhu wanted to harm her, and since she was all alone, she could only choose to pretend to be mentally impaired in order to survive?
Xu Ningyan felt a headache coming on; this Yue outfit wasn't actually necessary!
Thankfully, after raising her hand, she saw a familiar red mole the size of a grain of rice on her wrist. When she touched it, she sensed that her own space and the things in it had traveled through time, and she breathed a sigh of relief.
With space in your hands, you won't panic!
After taking the fever reducer and water from the space, his vision went black in waves, and he knew nothing more.
When she woke up again, it was already afternoon.
During this period, the brigade's task was to reclaim new wasteland at the foot of the mountain. Since it was far away, the Xu family and most of the villagers would bring dry food and water to the fields and would not go home at noon to avoid wasting time.
So the courtyard remained quiet.
Xu Ningyan was covered in sweat, looking as if she had been pulled out of the water, but she felt much more relaxed.
I boiled a pot of water, washed myself, changed into clean clothes, and felt a sharp, throbbing pain in my stomach from hunger.
It's been several days since I fell into a coma. Apart from taking the medicine, I haven't eaten or drunk anything, and my stomach has been protesting for a long time.
Xu Ningyan pulled out a bowl of white porridge from her spatial storage to fill her stomach before she felt less anxious.
The Xu family's food rations were kept in the room of the Xu family's matriarch, Miao Cuihua. She would scoop out as much food as needed and cook it for them.
A padlock hung on the door, and no one was allowed to enter without her permission.
The kitchen was completely empty except for pots, pans, oil, and salt; it was even cleaner than her face.
Xu Ningyan didn't care about anything else. He picked up the wood-chopping axe and went to Miao Cuihua's house in front. He broke the lock in two strokes and pushed the door open to go inside.
In the corner of the house were two large vats containing the family's food rations, and on the ground were several burlap sacks containing sweet potatoes.
In the small bamboo basket inside the rice jar were twenty or thirty eggs that he had saved up over the years.
Two pieces of cured pork and half a cured chicken were hanging on the roof beam.
Xu Ningyan scooped up half a ladle of rice and then picked up four or five eggs. If this body hadn't been starving for so long and hadn't just recovered from a serious illness, she definitely wouldn't have let go of those two pieces of cured meat and half a cured chicken.
I went to the kitchen and steamed some rice for myself, and also made a tender steamed egg custard.
I devoured it all in one go, sweating profusely from my nose, feeling completely refreshed.
After eating and drinking my fill, I felt energetic again.
Having been bedridden for several days due to a fever, Xu Ningyan looked at the calendar hanging in the main room. April 8, 1973, was the worst time of that catastrophe.
With a sigh, he decided to leave the Xu family's house and take a walk around the village to stretch his muscles and think about his next move.
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