Chapter 2 : Book Travel

The evening breeze brushed across her cheeks, bringing a hint of freshness to the hot summer, but Liang Qingqing only felt eerie and horrified. Her voice carried a subtle hint of fear and trembling, “Hey, hey, hey, don’t go, tell me how to get back first?”

A hero can bend and stretch. Face is of no use. The most important thing is to figure out what is going on first!

Feeling the force pressing down on her waist, Fan Yanxing closed his eyes in annoyance and was about to explode, but his mind couldn’t help but recall how she almost cried because he “yelled” at her. After hesitating for two seconds, he finally took two deep breaths, tried his best to suppress his impatience, pointed at the wooden house not far away, and spoke in a softer tone.

“Your home is right here, and you ask me how to get back? Is that…” You must be crazy.

Before he finished the second sentence, Fan Yanxing frowned slightly, a hint of suspicion and weirdness flashing in his eyes. This Liang Qingqing seemed a little strange. It was not that he was narcissistic. Logically speaking, he was good friends with her brother. Even if she didn’t know his name, she should be familiar with him. Why did it seem like she didn’t know him at all now?

Her behavior was somewhat different from what he had seen in the village in the past and from what he had heard from her brother. Although she was still unruly and unreasonable, she was different. Fan Yanxing couldn’t tell exactly where the difference lay, but it was definitely different.

Most importantly, she didn’t even know where her own home was! She even said that the cornfield in the village was her friend’s yard! Isn’t this a joke?

Yet her face was unmistakably Liang Qingqing’s…

After thinking for two seconds, Fan Yanxing rubbed his forehead and smiled self-deprecatingly. He figured he must have drunk too much, otherwise, how could he have such an absurd thought that “Liang Qingqing is not Liang Qingqing.”

There couldn’t possibly be two people in the world who look exactly the same and happen to have the same name.

“What?”

Liang Qingqing followed the direction Fan Yanxing’s finger was pointing and saw a very shabby, simple wooden house. Whether it was because the lights were off or only a candle was lit, the overall lighting was very dim, making it almost unnoticeable unless one looked closely.

Her home in the beautiful country was a spacious flat in the city center; how could it possibly be like this?

“You’re lying through your teeth, aren’t you? This is not my home at all…” Before she could finish, Liang Qingqing suddenly blacked out and completely fainted. In the last second before she lost consciousness, she felt a pair of strong arms firmly catch her around the waist.

Liang Qingqing had a long dream. When she opened her eyes again, she found herself lying in a room that was both unfamiliar and familiar. After taking in the surroundings, she almost fainted again.

The room had poor lighting and was somewhat dim. There was only a small, half-open window by the bedside, with a double happiness character pasted on it. The room was small, with only a few pieces of furniture that could be seen at a glance.

Above her was a mosquito net that had turned yellow from washing, and she was covered with a bright red quilt printed with large flowers. The walls were decorated with old, curled-up newspapers, and she was wearing a coarse, worn-out jacket.

In the future, a room like this posted online could easily raise hundreds of thousands in donations within minutes, but in this era, such rooms were everywhere, almost every household looked like this.

Heavens! There was no need to play such a joke on her! Although Liang Qingqing always wanted to stay at the forefront of trends, joining this tiresome and thankless book transmigration group was really unnecessary!

Yes, that’s right, she had transmigrated into a book, into a melodramatic story set in the past, becoming a cannon fodder character with the same name as hers. She was neither the protagonist nor a supporting character, just a vase tool person who only appeared for a few chapters to highlight the protagonist’s kindness and competence.

The original character was lazy, selfish, and had no skills, yet she prided herself on her pretty face. Although she was a rural person, she looked down on rural people and was determined to become a city dweller.

But one’s birth decides their status. After living like this for more than ten years, she thought she could change her fate by getting married, but she would only marry someone handsome, not someone ugly.

In this way, the handsome and refined young intellectual who had just arrived in the village, who also happened to be the male protagonist of the story, became her first choice.

She followed him around for half a year, using all sorts of tactics. Last night, she tried to get him drunk during her second brother’s wedding banquet, which had invited the entire village, hoping to take advantage of the situation and make things happen.

However, the male protagonist, worried about the female protagonist who was ill, left early. The original character, to muster her courage, drank several glasses of white wine and ended up getting so drunk that she rolled in the haystack with a village hooligan. The next day, they were caught in the act by the villagers.

The original character was stubborn and refused to marry the hooligan, preferring to die instead. Ultimately, both were arrested for hooliganism and died in despair, ending their tragic lives.

Thinking about this dismal ending, Liang Qingqing couldn’t help but curse. At the same time, she felt immensely relieved that she had entered this world at just the right moment—right when the original character went to find the male protagonist. Perhaps because she had just transmigrated and her body hadn’t adapted yet, she accidentally stumbled and fell on someone.

Moreover, her drunken antics and quarrel with the less-than-gentlemanly man took up a lot of time, causing her to miss the hooligan who was lurking nearby.

However, changing the plot might trigger a butterfly effect, leading to even more terrible outcomes.

But Liang Qingqing didn’t want to know or care about that now. She just wanted to sleep and then return to her wonderful life, instead of staying in this backwater and scheming against the male and female protagonists. Who could ever outdo the world’s chosen ones? She was well aware of her limitations.

Besides, in her opinion, the original character’s actions in the book were too baffling and dumb, more like a character deliberately created by the author to promote the protagonists’ relationship. She really didn’t want to continue this nonsensical story.

But clearly, the more she tried to do something, the less she could accomplish. She had been lying in bed for at least two days since she fainted, and still hadn’t managed to return!

Fine, fine, if that’s how it’s going to be, then NPCs have their tempers too!

In a fit of anger, she… only got angry for a moment, but what else could she do?

Besides accepting reality, she couldn’t really go through with dying. The textbooks from her childhood always emphasized how precious life is, and even if she had eight hundred more lives, she wouldn’t dare commit suicide.

She didn’t even know what was happening to her real-world self now—whether she had swapped places with the original character or if she had lost her life entirely. If she closed her eyes and couldn’t return, that would be even more of a loss.

Being alive was certainly better than being dead, Liang Qingqing comforted herself this way, but understanding this principle didn’t mean she could accept it calmly.

After a few seconds of silence, Liang Qingqing kicked off the covers, screamed, rolled around, and crawled in the dark…

“Qingqing, you’re awake? What happened??[(．)]???@?@??()?()”

The door to the room was suddenly pushed open from the outside, and a worried, urgent female voice filled her ears.

Thus, in her awkward position, Liang Qingqing found herself face-to-face with the two people at the door.()?()

“Little sister, what’s this…” Wang Xiaomei’s mouth fell open slightly, not yet reacting, when the person beside her rushed over and pulled the still-dazed Liang Qingqing into her arms, urging Wang Xiaomei, “Quick, go get Doctor Yang to come take a look again. Don’t let it be something wrong with her head.”

“I’m going now.” Wang Xiaomei, knowing how much her mother-in-law doted on this little daughter, didn’t dare delay. She responded while heading out.

“Hey, hey, hey, no need, I’m fine.” Liang Qingqing had regained her senses by now and, feeling somewhat awkward, withdrew her raised legs, chuckling dryly to ease the atmosphere. She looked at Ma Xiuzhi and then at Wang Xiaomei, not knowing how to face the original character’s mother and sister-in-law.

The Liang family’s parents were considered “oddities” for their time. Although historically, there was often a preference for sons over daughters, Liang’s parents were an exception.

When Liang’s mother gave birth to the original character, she had a difficult labor and had to be rushed from the village to the city hospital overnight to save both mother and daughter.

Having a daughter saved by half of his wife’s life, Liang’s father adored her more and more. Adding to this, since the previous two children were boys, the couple cherished this delicate daughter even more.

But the most important reason was that Liang’s mother had grown up in an environment that favored boys over girls. Her life had been one of hardship, always having to make way for her younger brother, living a tough and painful existence with many tears. So, she was determined from a young age that her future daughter would not live the same hard life.

Thus, the couple pampered the original character, treating her as precious. Any good thing that came their way would be in her hands the next second, while their sons were sidelined.

The person who held the family’s power naturally set the example, and others followed suit. Even Wang Xiaomei, who married into the Liang family later, was “brainwashed” to treat the original character as a priority and to avoid offending her at all costs.

As a result, the original character grew up spoiled and accustomed to having her way at home, believing everyone should make way for her. She was also obsessed with the belief that her unfavorable birth was due to her parents’ “faults” and that if they hadn’t had her, she might be living a better life in the city.

She treated her family members with disdain, like servants, and had no regard for them.

While the original character could behave this way, Liang Qingqing could not. Not only did they treat the original character as a rare treasure without any faults, but they were also elders who were much older than her. Being disrespectful to them would be harmful!

Moreover, if she didn’t act according to the original character’s usual temper, what if the Liang family noticed something was off? Although many people were afraid to openly discuss “monsters and ghosts” due to the campaign against the Four Olds, who could know what people thought privately?

She didn’t want to be seen as something strange and then discreetly dealt with.

It seemed she needed to come up with a permanent solution to make them think the changes in “Liang Qingqing’s” character and behavior were normal and not a sudden mutation.

Liang Qingqing’s mind raced as an idea gradually took shape.

“Still, we should have a doctor take another look. Better safe than sorry. Qingqing, you really scared me.” Ma Xiuzhi held Liang Qingqing’s face with both hands, examining it several times from left to right. After confirming there was no abnormality, she finally felt somewhat relieved.

Feeling Ma Xiuzhi’s touch, Liang Qingqing shifted uncomfortably, moving away slightly. “I’m fine, no need for a doctor.”

Fortunately, the original character had also disliked much physical contact with others, so Ma Xiuzhi didn’t suspect anything in this regard. Besides, her focus was entirely on her daughter’s safety, so she couldn’t detect any oddities.

“It’s all your second brother’s fault. Getting a wife is such a big deal! He even forgot to look after his own sister. If it weren’t for Young Master Fan coming to inform us, who would have known my Qingqing was drunk in the cornfield? What if something had happened? Oh, I can’t even bear to think about it.”

Huang Shumin, who had just entered, was momentarily stunned by this comment.