Chapter One: The Bride with the Memorial Tablet
Winter of the ninth year of the Zhenguan era, Chang'an.
Consciousness rose from a thick darkness and the pungent smell of blood.
Liu Bao—the soul that once pounded on keyboards and battled with billions of dollars in Shanghai's Lujiazui Financial Center—felt enveloped in extreme weakness and constraint. She tried to move her fingers, but only managed an uncontrollable spasm; she tried to ask a question, but what escaped her throat was a weak, kitten-like cry that even shocked herself.
"Ee-ya-"
"Another money-loser!"
A dry, bark-like voice rang in my ears, filled with undisguised disdain.
Liu Bao suddenly opened her eyes. Her vision was blurry; she could only barely make out the dim candlelight and a few swaying figures. She struggled to focus and made out that the person speaking was a midwife whose face was so wrinkled it could trap a mosquito.
I've traveled through time.
Moreover, the game starts on hellish difficulty—you're immediately reduced to a helpless infant.
Modern memories belonging to Liu Bao flooded in like a tidal wave, colliding violently with the frail body and blank memory of this infant named "Liu Bao'er." Her head throbbed with pain, and her stomach, though empty, churned violently.
The next two years passed slowly in poverty and oppression.
The father in this body was a taciturn coppersmith, spending his days with the furnace and copper filings, always carrying the mixed smell of metal and smoke. The mother, on the other hand, was like a wound-up loom, sitting before its creaking machine from dawn till dusk, the sound of the shuttle becoming the constant background noise in this dilapidated home. Life was as impoverished as faded linen, but they managed to barely make ends meet.
Liu Bao'er's soul lay dormant anxiously within this young body, absorbing all the information of this era with an insatiable thirst—language, environment, interpersonal relationships. She learned to walk and to express her needs with simple words, but her overly calm eyes remained ever-observant of this unfamiliar world.
The turning point occurred on a rainy spring morning in the twelfth year of the Zhenguan era.
The tranquility of the neighborhood was shattered by the rapid and violent banging on the door. A group of fierce-looking constables kicked open the already flimsy wooden door, splashing mud and water all over the damp ground.
"Liu the coppersmith! You've been caught! You've been illegally minting copper coins. Come with us!"
Father's usually silent face turned deathly pale in that instant. He didn't argue, perhaps knowing it was futile. He simply glanced deeply at Liu Bao'er, who was curled up in her mother's arms and had just learned to run and jump, before the officers roughly put shackles on her and dragged her away.
The mother's cries were so shrill they were inhuman. She lunged forward to grab her husband's clothes, but the officer shoved her away. Her forehead hit the doorframe, and blood mingled with the rain, trickling down her face.
The scene that unfolded a few days later became an indelible nightmare for Liu Bao'er. She was being held and squeezed into the bustling crowd on Zhuque Street. The cold rain fell on her tender face. She saw that familiar yet unfamiliar figure kneeling on the execution platform, and she also saw the guillotine gleaming with a cold light.
The knife fell.
Blood spurted out.
A buzz of excitement or fear rose from the crowd. The soul of a modern person trembled violently at that moment; her stomach was empty, yet she couldn't help but gag violently. Then, she saw her mother being dragged from the crowd by the iron grip of the officials, like a tattered piece of luggage, towards the cannibalistic brothel.
The mother struggled to turn around, and in the chaotic crowd, her gaze locked onto her precisely. That one look was filled with despair, resentment, and heart-wrenching reluctance.
In that instant, Liu Bao'er—who had merged with two souls—made the most vicious vow to herself in her heart:
"Survive. We need to make lots and lots of money. We must redeem Mother from that hellhole!"
But what could a three-year-old child, who was too weak to even kill a chicken, possibly do?
She was handed over to her aunt, who rushed over upon hearing the news and had a harsh expression on her face. The woman pinched her nose, as if she had received something filthy. Less than a month later, Liu Bao'er heard her aunt and uncle arguing in hushed tones in the inner room.
"...another mouth to feed...a money-losing business...better to sell it cleanly..."
So, on a gloomy morning, my aunt forced a fake smile and pushed her into the arms of a strange old woman, in exchange for a small string of heavy Kaiyuan Tongbao coins.
"Bao'er, behave yourself. Your aunt has found you a good family to live a life of comfort!" The aunt's voice was sickeningly sweet.
It wasn't until she was forced to wear that garish, oversized, and ill-fitting bright red wedding dress, and a cold, heavy memorial tablet inscribed with "Deceased Husband Dou Xiaobao" was shoved into her arms, that Liu Bao'er finally understood—
Enjoying happiness? What a load of rubbish! This is forcing her into a ghost marriage with a dead man, making her a child bride living a life of widowhood!
That year, she had just turned three years old.
Beneath the bright red veil, no one could see the almost distorted anger and mockery on the three-year-old girl's face. She clutched the heavy memorial tablet, her little hands digging into the cold inscriptions as if she wanted to crush them.
'Dou Xiaobao...I heard he died at the age of eight?'
Liu Bao'er cursed inwardly, 'In my past life, when I was typing on a keyboard at the Shanghai Stock Exchange, the amount of money I handled could buy half of Chang'an! And now I have to hold a dead son's memorial tablet for a wedding ceremony?!'
The ceremony was lengthy and eerie. The guests' gazes held pity, curiosity, and mostly a numb, spectator's indifference. She could sense an elderly woman sitting at the head of the table, her gaze occasionally falling on her with the detached calmness of assessing merchandise; this must be the true head of the Dou family, the matriarch.
Finally, they were moved into the so-called "new house," a secluded little hut that was barely better than a woodshed. Red candles flickered, illuminating the empty room and the brand-new, lifeless bedding on the bed.
The servant left, the door was gently closed, and the sound of the lock clicking shut was clearly audible.
Liu Bao'er ripped off the cumbersome veil and threw the damned memorial tablet onto the bed with a thud. She took short strides and rushed to the only bronze mirror in the room.
In the mirror was a small, lovely face, yet etched with a gloom that belied its age. The large eyes held no childlike innocence, only a burning rage and a trace of… the cold calculation of a quantitative trader from a past life.
"A disastrous start?" She said through gritted teeth to her reflection in the mirror, "Quantitative analysis can outperform the market, I refuse to believe that I can't make money in this Tang Dynasty that prioritizes agriculture over commerce!"
She walked back to the bedside, stood on tiptoe, and laboriously carried the memorial tablet back. Made of nanmu wood, it felt slightly heavy in her hand, and besides the three characters "Dou Xiaobao," it was also engraved with some fine patterns. Her small hand unconsciously caressed the bottom of the tablet, and suddenly, her fingertips felt an extremely subtle seam, different from the grain of the wood.
'Um? '
A thought struck her, and she leaned closer to examine it under the candlelight. Sure enough, near the bottom edge of the memorial tablet, there was a delicately intricate seam that blended almost seamlessly with the wood grain. Had she not been so perceptive, she would have missed it entirely.
'Is this memorial tablet... hollow? Or is there something hidden inside?'
The idea gave her a jolt. She tried to pry open the seam with her fingernails, but it was too tight and she couldn't get it right.
'Melt it? No, burning the camphor wood would be a waste, and it would make too much noise…'
Her bright black eyes darted around. 'Looks like I'll have to find a suitable tool to pry it open and take a look. It's made of nanmu wood, after all; even if it's hollow inside, the wood itself should still be worth something, right?'
This discovery lessened her aversion to the cold memorial tablet and increased her interest in exploring it. It was perhaps the first asset she found worthy of "study" in this desperate situation.
She held the memorial tablet tightly in her arms, as if it were not a symbol of her deceased husband, but the first "blind box" she could hold in this cold world, perhaps containing a secret, and her only "ally" at this moment.
Outside the window, the evening drums of Chang'an City sounded one after another, deep and long, like a footnote to this era.
Liu Bao'er climbed onto the bed and wrapped herself tightly in the bright red quilt, leaving only her eyes shining brightly in the darkness.
“Ten thousand strings of cash…” she murmured to herself, setting her first clear goal for this era: “Before I come of age, I must save at least ten thousand strings of cash.”
With money, she could redeem her mother, kill her heartless aunt, and escape the damned identity of "Dou Liu Shi," so she could live a proper life in her own way.
That night, in the backyard of Doujia Pawnshop outside Yanxing Gate, a three-year-old bride, holding a memorial tablet, completed her spiritual transformation from a time traveler to a future financial tycoon in the darkness unknown to anyone.
Are you ready, you leeks of the Tang Dynasty?
Your future "God of Wealth" has arrived.
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