Cicadas were chirping endlessly on the tops of the tung trees.
Under the big tung tree at the east end of the village, a group of men and women, young and old, were waving small bamboo fans in their hands and chatting with great interest about the hottest gossip in Panshi Village recently.
The noisy sound waves ruthlessly crushed the cicadas' clamour.
"Did you go check it out yesterday?" A short and fat middle-aged woman glanced towards the west end of the village with complicated eyes.
"Look, her neck is almost broken. The girl from the Shen family looked listless and silent, but I didn't expect her to have such a fierce temper. What's the big deal about breaking off the engagement? Why would she commit suicide?"
"Su Changhe and his wife are not afraid that Li the Butcher will crawl out from underground to settle accounts with them!"
"As long as he can flatter Accountant Xu's family and marry Accountant Xu's most precious daughter, Xu Jiaojiao, he doesn't care whether Butcher Li's coffin can hold it down or not."
"In fact, you can't blame Wang Chunmei for being snobbish. One is the daughter of a wealthy accountant, and the other is a widow whose father has died. There are only orphans and children left at home. There is not even a strong laborer. They are extremely poor and have a sickly younger brother who needs to be taken care of. Even a fool would know which choice to make."
As everyone was chatting animatedly, a gnashing voice was heard from behind them on the left.
"Su Changhe and Wang Chunmei, you two are bastards who deserve to be struck by lightning. I will fight you today..."
Without waiting for everyone to react, the woman who was speaking had already rushed into a nearby courtyard gate holding a shiny butcher knife.
After a while, a scream was heard from the courtyard wall, followed by a commotion. The thatched roof with spider webs hanging on it, the earthen walls made of yellow mud mixed with straw, the old-fashioned yellowed cotton mosquito net, the simple and crudely made bunk bed...
Shen Zhihuan looked at everything in front of him and was completely confused.
She was not at the Huaguoshan Resort left to her by her grandparents...
Shen Zhihuan walked over as if possessed as he glanced at the mirror whose edges had begun to oxidize and turn black due to its age.
The girl in the mirror looked about thirteen or fourteen years old. Her cheeks were deeply sunken and fleshless, as if a layer of yellowish-brown human skin was covering her skull. Her two long braids were dry and yellow, just like the straw in the fields during the autumn harvest.
After looking the person in the mirror up and down, Shen Zhihuan frowned in an indescribable manner.
This is definitely a walking human skeleton.
Seeing the person in the mirror also frowning in an indescribable way, Shen Zhihuan's empty head buzzed as if something exploded, catching her off guard.
She raised her right hand stiffly, and the person in the mirror also raised his...
Hand??? Shen Zhihuan stared at his raised right hand as if he had seen a ghost...
Skin and bones is fine, but this one is so dark...
How can this be a hand? It's clearly a chicken claw.
It's a black chicken! After being stunned for a moment, Shen Zhihuan tentatively pinched his thigh.
It hurts! This isn’t a dream!!! Before she could figure out what was happening, a flood of memories that didn’t belong to her flooded into her mind.
Shen Zhihuan!!! The original owner of this body was also called Shen Zhihuan.
The original owner's father, Shen Jianguo, fled to Panshi Village. Somehow he fell in love with Li the Butcher's youngest daughter, Li Qiuhua.
Later, there were four siblings: Shen Zhimei, Shen Zhilan, Shen Zhihuan and Shen Weidong.
It seemed that the family of Li the butcher, which was once considered to be a family with no descendants in the surrounding area, began to prosper.
Who knew a natural disaster...
The butcher Li and his wife, Shen Jianguo, and the villagers from the neighboring village who went to the city to attend the market together are all gone.
According to villagers living near the landslide, they heard a loud noise that day, followed by an earth-shaking earthquake. By the time the half-asleep villagers ran out of their houses, the two large mountains to the north of the village leading to the county town had collapsed beyond recognition.
A few years ago, Shen Zhilan, the only one who could lend a hand, also got married.
As a result, the Shen family was left with only two women who couldn't carry anything and a boy who could only do some supporting work.
A man earns nine to ten work points for a day's work, or at least eight points at worst, but a woman can only earn six or seven work points at best after working herself to death all day.
The original owner was a premature baby and had been weak since childhood, so Shen Jianguo, Li Qiuhua and Li the butcher loved her especially.
Girls of her age all went to the fields to help their families earn work points, so she and Accountant Xu's daughter Xu Jiaojiao carried their schoolbags and studied and learned to read in school with a group of young boys.
Although the original owner was a bit dull, he was also a competitive person. He ranked first in the exams every year, and the award certificates at home almost covered one wall.
If there had not been this movement, if the three pillars of the family, Li the Butcher and his wife, and Shen Jianguo, were still there, the original owner might have been able to continue studying until high school, or even college.
Without strong labor, the original owner was weak and couldn't do much work, so the family of three relied on Li Qiuhua's seven work points working in wind and rain.
Families with many strong laborers can spend money to buy food if they don't have enough rations. However, the few bills the original owner got were not enough to cover daily expenses and interpersonal relationships, so how could they have any extra money to buy food?
This also indirectly led to the situation where those who were a little better off would avoid the original owner's family when they saw them, for fear that the original owner's family would find an excuse to take food from them.
Even a fool would know to avoid such an obvious trap, let alone Su Changhe and Wang Chunmei's family, who are more cunning than monkeys.
Shen Zhihuan tentatively touched the neck lightly.
"hiss……"
The intense pain made Shen Zhihuan gasp.
The original owner was really a ruthless person!
For the sake of such a family of treacherous scum, he was so cruel to himself.
"Third sister! You're awake!"
There is no wrong version in the 1619 book forum!
Xiao Weidong carefully entered the room carrying a bowl of medicine and found Shen Zhihuan sitting on the bed in a daze. He quickly walked to the bedside with his short legs, and looked up at Shen Zhihuan happily with his thin little face.
"Third sister, please don't do stupid things for that bastard Su Zijie anymore. Xiaopang said that he will marry you when he grows up." Xiao Weidong said as he handed the perfectly cooled medicine to Shen Zhihuan.
If siblings couldn't get married, he wouldn't have let Xiaopang get away with it.
A White Rabbit candy...
Just thinking about it makes me feel so lost!
I must ask Xiaopang to give him another one some other day.
His third sister is the smartest and most beautiful girl in the area.
“…”
Shen Zhihuan, who had just swallowed a mouthful of medicine, almost spit out the remaining medicine in his mouth.
Are all kids this age so mature?
If the original owner's memory is correct, the fat guy mentioned by this kid seems to be the same age as him, right? !
"Third sister, don't worry! I have already agreed with Xiaopang that the betrothal gift must be 800 yuan, not a penny less." Without waiting for Shen Zhihuan to speak, Xiao Weidong continued.
Shen Zhihuan held his breath and drank the last sip of the medicine, then stuffed the empty bowl back to Xiao Weidong and lay back down.
"Are you sure you want to call a fat little guy who is two months younger than you your third brother-in-law?"
Also pay 800 yuan as a betrothal gift.
Have these two brats ever seen eight hundred yuan?
A family that can't even afford ten yuan is asking for eight hundred yuan as a betrothal gift...
One dares to speak, the other dares to respond.
Su Changhe's elder brother, Su Changjiang, the village party secretary of Panshi Village, married his daughter off a few years ago. The betrothal gift of 300 yuan was already considered the highest amount possible. It was said that the groom was a cadre in a machinery factory and ate commercial grain.
“…”
Xiao Weidong was stunned, and then he felt unwell.
Shen Zhihuan raised an eyebrow and looked at Xiao Weidong's cute and troubled face, and he was already very happy in his heart.
Although she didn't know how she ended up here, since she had taken over the original owner's body, she would take good care of her widowed mother and younger brother for the original owner.
"Where's mom? Has she gone to work?"
Thinking of this, Shen Zhihuan glanced at the empty door.
According to the original owner's mother's character of a loving mother, shouldn't she be standing by her bed with tears in her eyes, not leaving her side? She had been awake for at least an hour, but the loving mother in the original owner's memory hadn't even shown up, which was obviously a bit unreasonable.
"Mom made the medicine for you and asked me to watch the fire while she went out." Xiao Weidong said truthfully.
(End of this chapter)