Chapter 1

    In the remote village of the Lu clan, over a thousand li from the capital...

    'Sob!! Am I... out of my body?'

    'Huh?... No, it still hurts.'

    'Ow!... My head is pounding, and I'm so dizzy I could explode. What's going on? What happened to me?'

    'Voices... So many voices... Why? What? What’s happening?'

    Zhao Ying muttered inwardly, struggling to open her heavy eyelids, which felt as though they didn’t belong to her. The first thing she saw was a young boy’s face. He was crying with red, tear-streaked eyes, sniffling as he wiped away his tears and snot.

    Upon seeing his face, Zhao Ying’s initial reaction was a stabbing pain in her chest—a sadness that quickly came and went.

    'This... isn’t my feeling. I don’t know this child.'

    After taking a few deep breaths, Zhao Ying became aware of her surroundings and finally understood what was going on with her body and emotions.

    A woman’s spirit, plump and with a face covered in acne and red spots, was reaching out towards Zhao Ying's body but could not touch her. She was crying as she floated to Zhao Ying’s left. Instinctively, Zhao Ying realized that this spirit was “Zhao Yingying.”

    She knew this woman not because of any spiritual insight, but because her memories were merging with those of the body she now occupied. Zhao Ying could indeed see the supernatural—a gift that had accompanied her soul into this new world.

    “Mother… sob…”

    The child continued to call out, shaking her gently. His slight strength caused Zhao Ying, who was feeling weak and dizzy, to cough up the water still trapped in her throat and stomach.

    “Cough, cough.”

    After retching up the water, Zhao Ying forced herself to speak, barely managing a few words.

    “Xiao Bao, p-please… take Mother home.”

    She struggled to get the words out. She wanted nothing more than to lose consciousness; the world was spinning so violently that she felt nauseous. Her head throbbed with memories flooding in uncontrollably. But she knew that fainting here would only make things worse.

    As Zhao Ying fought to keep herself conscious, more villagers began to gather around, but instead of helping her, the onlookers came with curses and scorn.

    Even if they wouldn’t help her, Zhao Ying didn’t care. All she wanted was to go home and rest for a while, hoping that this intense headache would eventually pass.

    As Zhao Ying struggled to stand up, her young son tried to help, though his small size made it a clumsy attempt. She herself was quite large, and not a single villager watching stepped forward to assist.

    Finally, the sound of approaching footsteps caught her attention. Zhao Ying squinted and recognized the elderly couple approaching—they were the grandparents of this body’s husband.

    “Great-grandfather, great-grandmother, help my mother, please! She fell into the water… sob… sob…” Xiao Bao continued crying uncontrollably, his face tear-streaked and smeared. Seeing familiar faces, he cried out for help, but the old couple didn’t respond. Instead, the murmuring crowd erupted in waves of gossip, and Zhao Ying caught fragments of what was being said.

    'Ah, Xiao Bao is such a good child. Pity he has a mother like that.'

    'A shame indeed. He’d be better off with no mother at all.'

    Zhao Ying looked up at her husband’s grandparents and saw only indifference in their eyes, tinged with regret. She laughed bitterly to herself. They were disappointed she hadn’t died. They were only here to see if she’d actually survived.

    The memories flooding her mind hinted at the cause. The previous owner of this body had been so cruel that it was no wonder she had become so despised. Now, this former Zhao Yingying had passed away and become a ghost. It was left to Zhao Ying to live out her fate and try to repair the life she had left behind.

    Unable to resist, Zhao Ying glanced over at the spirit of Zhao Yingying, who was still trailing her with an angry expression, unaware that her karmic time in this world was over and she was now a wandering spirit.

    Taking a deep breath, Zhao Ying forced herself to fight the dizziness that threatened to overwhelm her. She turned to Xiao Bao and, with a faint voice, said, “Let’s go home now. Mother is all right.”

    Xiao Bao, still clutching her arm, looked up at her with a slightly surprised expression, then nodded in agreement.

    With no one else willing to help, Zhao Ying resigned herself to doing it alone. She took Xiao Bao’s hand and began to walk, staggering back toward home along the route that had surfaced in her new memories, without glancing back at her husband’s grandparents.

    This indifference, however, angered Madam Si, the husband’s grandmother, who could no longer contain her resentment. Her voice rose as she shouted after them.

    “Xiao Bao! Come stay with your great-grandmother. When your father returns, I’ll see to it that he divorces that wicked woman so you won’t have to suffer under her any longer!”

    Madam Si’s words were punctuated by a pointed finger aimed directly at Zhao Ying.

    With Madam Si’s declaration, murmurs rippled through the crowd, sparking even more gossip among the villagers.

    Zhao Ying halted her steps as well, but she didn’t have the strength to say anything more. This body was heavy and had just been through a near-drowning. The headache from merging memories made her too weak to argue with anyone right now. She managed to say in a raspy voice, “Let’s wait until my husband returns. If he wishes to divorce me, I won’t resist.”

    Then she turned back to her son. “Come on, Xiao Bao, let’s go home.”

    Xiao Bao looked up at her with a warmth he couldn’t quite understand. His mother had never spoken his name so gently before. Gripping her hand tightly, he walked alongside her. Before leaving, though, he turned to say to his great-grandparents, “Great-grandmother, I’m going with my mother. Goodbye.”

    And so, the mother and son walked away, never looking back at the crowd.

    As they left, the gossip continued to fly. “It serves her right, acting so shamelessly. Trying to seduce her husband’s uncle—where could she even get such an idea? Honestly, sparing her from being drowned is merciful enough.”

    An older woman in the group spoke up. “Aunt Hua, don’t go around spreading baseless gossip. You don’t want Zhao Yingying herself to come here screaming at you, do you? All there is to it is what Lu Gao said—that’s hardly evidence!”

    The one speaking was Madam Yu, the eldest daughter-in-law of the village head’s family.

    Aunt Hua, though she disliked Zhao Yingying, didn’t dare challenge Madam Yu directly, especially in front of so many villagers. Remembering Zhao Yingying’s infamous temper and her strong, large frame, Aunt Hua felt a twinge of fear—she could never match her physically. Still, unwilling to lose face in front of everyone, she kept her composure and said with a huff, “Hmph! Haven’t you heard that where there’s smoke, there’s fire? Just look at how she managed to marry Lu Wenyao in the first place.”

    Hearing this, Madam Si, who had yet to leave, grew even more sullen, her face darkening further. She turned and shouted at Aunt Hua, “Shut up! If you don’t know the truth, don’t spread rumors, or I’ll be the one shouting you down!”

    With that, Madam Si stormed off toward her house, not caring for the gathering villagers or Zhao Yingying, and not even calling Xiao Bao to come back with her.

    But Lu Hai, known in the village as Third Elder, began walking in the same direction as the mother and child. He was heading toward his third son’s house but kept his distance and said nothing, following quietly from afar.

    Though he didn’t much care for this granddaughter-in-law, he acknowledged that she had borne a son for the Lu family and hadn’t committed any grievous wrongs, so he couldn’t support the idea of divorcing her. Still, he felt sympathy for his third son’s family, who had often suffered unfair treatment because of Madam Si, his wife. She blatantly favored their eldest and youngest sons, leaving the third son at a disadvantage.

    When his grandson unexpectedly married Zhao Yingying, a troublesome woman, it coincided with a period when his third son had been injured in a hunting accident, requiring a lengthy recovery. His leg could only heal properly if treated with an expensive medicine that would cost dozens of taels of silver. But Madam Si refused to provide the funds, arguing that Lu Pao, the youngest son, needed the money for his studies. If they used the funds on the third son’s injury, she claimed, it would jeopardize his younger brother’s future. The Situation escalated into a major conflict, and eventually, the third son couldn’t bear it any longer and requested to separate from the family.

    He had immediately supported his son’s decision, even providing ten taels of silver and giving him an old house at the edge of the village, near the forest, along with a few acres of land. He didn’t wait for his wife’s objections; he wanted his third son to break free from the hard labor he’d been forced into within their household. He hoped his son would understand it was an act of goodwill, not an abandonment in his time of need.

    Since that separation, he hadn’t visited his third son again. This was the first time in a year that he’d come all the way to the house at the far edge of the village...