The biting wind made the house creak and groan, as if it were about to collapse at any moment.
Gu Nanjiao felt a continuous bitter taste in her mouth and finally woke up, unable to bear it any longer.
"She's awake, she's awake, thank God. She's finally awake." Mrs. Lu was very happy to see Gu Nanjiao awake and said to the man beside her.
"Poor child, you mustn't do anything foolish again." Mrs. Lu sighed, still unable to resist advising Gu Nanjiao, who was in a daze.
"Pretending, it's always the same." An extremely impatient male voice came: "Since you're not dead, I'm leaving."
*Bang!* Then came the sound of the door slamming shut.
"This child..."
Lu's mother seemed helpless as she waved her hand toward the closed door.
Before Gu Nanjiao stood a woman around forty years old. Her skin wasn't very fair, but you could tell from her eyes and brows that she had been a beauty in her youth. She was dressed in coarse linen clothes, which couldn't hide her gentle temperament.
Gu Nanjiao felt weak all over. She opened her mouth, but her throat hurt so much that she couldn't speak.
"Nan Jiao, what do you want to say?" Lu's mother was very worried when she saw Gu Nan Jiao like this.
"Water...I want to drink water." Gu Nanjiao managed to utter a few words, as if she had exhausted all her strength.
Hearing that she wanted water, Lu's mother quickly poured a glass of water and handed it to Gu Nanjiao.
Gu Nanjiao endured the excruciating pain and drank a cup, only then did she feel a little better. Her throat didn't hurt as much either.
Only then did her thoughts slowly come together. She remembered that she had been working overtime late into the night for almost a month. When she was driving home, due to fatigue, her two cars collided. Before she could even react, she was killed.
She transmigrated into the body of someone with the same name as herself. The original owner was also named Gu Nanjiao, the daughter of a teacher at Nanfeng Academy. She fell in love at first sight with Lu Yanzhao, who was studying at Nanfeng Academy, and vowed to marry no one but him.
Unfortunately, she was willing, but he was indifferent. After being rejected many times, the original owner of this body invited Lu Yanzhao to her home under the pretense that her father wanted to check her studies. She tore her clothes and bumped into Lu Yanzhao, which was witnessed by the students who came later. The incident became known to everyone, forcing Lu Yanzhao to marry the original owner of this body.
Because of the original owner's actions, Lu Yanzhao's reputation at the academy was ruined, and he was disqualified from the prefectural examination.
After passing the imperial examination and becoming a Xiucai (a scholar who passed the lowest level of the imperial examinations), the imperial court would provide a subsidy of more than ten taels of silver per year, seventy catties of rice per month, and a portion of taxes would be exempted.
The Lu family was very poor and had no source of income. Lu Yanzhao was still a student in the lowest level of the imperial examinations and had been hoping to pass the county-level examinations to become a scholar and alleviate the family's financial burden.
Who knew that it would be destroyed by the original owner of the body.
Lu Yanzhao hated the original owner of the body. After the original owner married into the family, the two never consummated their marriage and always lived in separate rooms.
In order to get Lu Yanzhao's attention, the original owner would put on a show every now and then, either crying, making a scene, or threatening to hang herself.
This time, she was even more ashamed because she stripped naked and climbed into Lu Yanzhao's bed in the middle of the night, only to be thrown out by him. The original owner was filled with shame and indignation and wanted to hang herself to scare him, but she slipped on a stool, which fell over, and that's how she died.
"Jiaojiao, are you hungry? I'll get you some food."
Mother Lu cautiously questioned Gu Nanjiao, feeling a little intimidated by this daughter-in-law, afraid of accidentally offending her.
Gu Nanjiao rubbed her stomach; she was indeed a little hungry, so she nodded and hummed in agreement.
When Lu's mother saw Gu Nanjiao nod, she happily brought over a bowl of noodles. The noodles were cooked until very soft, so much so that it could be called noodle porridge.
However, Gu Nanjiao, who was starving, didn't care about being picky and started eating bite by bite.
Watching Gu Nanjiao finish a large bowl of noodles, Lu's mother smiled with satisfaction. "Jiaojiao, go take a nap. I'll wake you up for dinner."
Watching Lu's mother leave, Gu Nanjiao fell into deep thought.
It feels like a dream; who could have imagined that an older, single, workaholic could come to another world?
She pinched her fingers; it really hurt. This feeling made her feel at ease.
Now that she was here, Gu Nanjiao didn't mince words. What's done is done. After all, it's better to live a miserable life than to die. One must always look forward.
After thinking it through, I felt a bit tired and drifted off to sleep.
Gu Nanjiao was woken up by the urge to urinate, and by the time she woke up, it was already dark.
After hurriedly finding the toilet, she was dumbfounded. After a struggle with her thoughts, Gu Nanjiao resigned herself to her fate, lifted her long coat, hugged it with both hands, and then squatted down.
When she saw the bamboo sticks (toilet paper) in the corner, she felt a sense of great social death.
In ancient times, only wealthy families could afford toilet paper, while ordinary people mostly used toilet sticks, bricks, or clods of earth to wipe themselves.
When her legs were completely numb, Gu Nanjiao gritted her teeth, closed her eyes, steeled her resolve, and picked up a bamboo strip from the corner to scrape.
The Lu family's house was built with thatch and adobe bricks, and it was on the verge of collapse. There were four rooms in total: a main room for receiving guests and eating, three bedrooms, and the east side of the main room was where Lu's mother and Lu's younger sister lived. The west side was originally the bridal chamber of Gu Nanjiao and Lu Yanzhao, but Lu Yanzhao did not want to live with Gu Nanjiao, so he forcibly partitioned off a room in the middle. The north side was the kitchen.
The dining area was on the north side. When Gu Nanjiao arrived, Lu's mother was cooking.
There was a small square table in the kitchen, and a little girl of about seven or eight years old was sitting next to it. She had her hair in two buns and was wearing a drab gray outfit, which was obviously made from Lu Yanzhao's clothes when he was a child.
Lu's mother had a son and a daughter. The son was Lu Yanzhao, and the daughter was Lu Wanning, whom the family called Lu Xiaomei. Lu's father passed away when Lu Xiaomei was just one year old, leaving the Lu family with an orphan and a widow, and life was very difficult.
At that time, Lu Yanzhao was not yet nine years old, and at such a young age he had to shoulder the heavy responsibility of taking care of his widowed mother and younger sister.
Lu Yanzhao passed the imperial examination at the age of eight, showing great promise. However, due to family changes and the passing of his father, his studies were delayed, and he remains a student to this day.
The well-behaved little girl sitting there was Lu Xiaomei. When she saw Gu Nanjiao coming over, she quickly got up and hid in her mother's arms.
Lu's mother smiled awkwardly, picked up a bowl of noodles and placed it in front of Gu Nanjiao: "Jiaojiao, eat!"
Mother Gu was meticulous; she cooked the noodles until they were very soft and melted in your mouth, and she even placed an egg at the bottom of the noodles.
Eggs were a rare treat for poor families; they were usually too precious to eat.
Looking at the white and tender eggs in the bowl, Lu Xiaomei swallowed hard, clearly wanting to eat them but not daring to say so.
Out of the corner of her eye, Gu Nanjiao noticed that only hers had plain noodles and eggs, while everyone else had a thick, mushy paste in front of them.
Gu Nanjiao couldn't eat anymore, so she shoveled the eggs from her bowl into Lu Xiaomei's bowl.
Lu's mother quickly stopped her, saying, "Jiaojiao, eat more. You haven't fully recovered yet."
Gu Nanjiao said, "I'm full, give it to my little sister."
Upon hearing this, Lu Xiaomei looked at her mother and, after receiving a nod from her mother, quickly picked up an egg and began to eat it in large bites.
"Where's Lu Yanzhao?" Gu Nanjiao noticed that everyone in the family was there except for Lu Yanzhao, and assumed that he was deliberately avoiding her.
"Ah Zhao went into the mountains with the hunters from the village." Mother Lu glanced at Gu Nanjiao, noticing no displeasure on her face, sighed, and said leisurely.
It's currently the dead of winter, and most of the animals in the mountains are hibernating. With so many people venturing into the mountains during the day, it's nearly impossible to hunt anything. Those who venture out at night are probably just hoping for a lucky break.
After dinner, Gu Nanjiao cleared away the dishes and prepared to wash them, but Lu's mother wouldn't allow it.
It was already very late at night, and Lu Yanzhao still hadn't returned. Lu's mother looked back and forth at the door several times, very anxious.
Lu Xiaomei sat to the side, dozing off. Gu Nanjiao walked to Lu's mother's side and said, "Take Xiaomei to sleep. I'll go check on things at the door."
Lu's mother was very worried about Gu Nanjiao's health and wouldn't let her go no matter what.
After Gu Nanjiao repeatedly assured that she was fine, Lu's mother took Lu Xiaomei to rest.
Gu Nanjiao grabbed a thick coat, wrapped herself up tightly, and then went out.
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