Chapter 1: The Labor-Centric Sixties

Lin Muqing has been married for six years and has been trying to conceive for five. After three IVF pregnancies, she miscarried each time before reaching three months.

Her body, exhausted from the upheavals, is weak, her hair is falling out, and her fair, beautiful face looks much older.

At twenty-eight, she seems like she is thirty-eight.

During her graduation, she shed tears as she proposed to her husband, hoping to grow old together.

After her third miscarriage, she sat in the hospital for several months, and he used work-related excuses to avoid her.

The records of their conversations during that time are shocking.

In a moment, she broke down.

She heard the man’s voice message: “If you don’t want a divorce, it’s fine. I can find someone else. If I find someone else, at least someone can give us children.”

What broke her was the realization that he had been talking about another woman!

This was the reason that Xu Zhe was so intimate with her; he was haunted by the shadows of past harassment, which prompted him to withdraw, making them uncomfortable with anything beyond a simple touch or two. He often suppressed his anger.

He invited her to go mountain climbing.

The news reported that the couple fell off a cliff together.

Lin Muqing was on the verge of death, left in a vegetative state, bound to a system.

The system informed her.

The male protagonist of this world is destined to remain single and childless due to his personal history or character flaws, thus unable to continue his bloodline.

The impact of this male protagonist’s situation causes the world to collapse.

Someone needs to become the wife of this male protagonist to continue his lineage.

Simply put, it’s about preventing the collapse of this world by helping to ensure the continuation of the male protagonist’s bloodline.

The original host of the body she possesses had been favored by the male protagonist; seeing her savior grow old alone was too much for her, so with a flicker of her soul, she made a deal with the system. She hoped to find someone to accompany the male protagonist so he wouldn’t feel so lonely.

Originally, the system required a host to maintain the stability of the world, necessitating a physical body to fulfill this duty.

Her mission included traveling to various worlds, possessing the bodies of prematurely deceased original hosts, and nurturing male protagonists to create a new, outstanding generation.

This would prevent the world from collapsing.

The original host’s body was still present in this world.

When it was due for her to pass naturally, she would go back to her world for a while and continue her tasks in other worlds.

This was quite fitting for her; she was an orphan, and now there was someone in the world with whom she shared a blood connection and whom she could take care of.

There was indeed a thread of this world that connected her, and because she had exhausted her previous means, she was destined to choose.

Xu Zhe was indeed a person she loved; she was not angry. Plus, she was probably experiencing a bit of postpartum depression, which made her act foolhardily.

She now had relatives, friends, and good friends.

Lin Muqing asked herself whether she was willing to carry on this mission, and after careful consideration, she agreed, thinking that if the vegetative state could be reversed, she wouldn’t have to die.

[Host announcement: There is a nurturing fund subsidy group within the system, and there will be various discount links from different worlds.]

[Includes future world restoration elixirs, ancient world delicacies, cultivation pills, and weaponry to help alleviate the burdens of upbringing.]

—

Lin Muqing found herself in a body, feeling weak and drained as the sensation spread throughout her body. Her mind was foggy, and the sounds of a fierce man’s voice mixed with the noise of wooden sticks hitting.

Pleas for mercy, curses, and angry roars filled her ears.

“You dare to touch my house, try me, get lost!”

“If you come again, I’ll kill you!”

“Don’t hit… don’t hit!”

“I won’t dare again…”

“We’ll apologize to you!”

“Argh!”

The sickening sound of bones breaking.

“Lin Qing, be careful, don’t get hurt,” she heard the voice of Gu’s father.

Gu’s father was using a hatchet to help his son.

Once everything settled down, the group of men ran away.

Lin Muqing was assisted by someone and slowly opened her eyes. The man in her line of sight was drenched in sweat, with a bare upper body, tall and strong. His back was broad, waist slim, and legs long, with a wheat-colored complexion. His face was angular and sharply handsome, with a frighteningly cold demeanor. A faint smell of blood wafted in the air, but he tried to speak to her gently.

He was nothing like the cold, iron-willed man from just moments ago.

“Are you okay, Qing? Where did they hit you?”

His deep, rough voice was filled with concern, a mix of harshness and tenderness, and there were already visible injuries on his face.

The system introduced her: [This is the male protagonist, Gu Yu. The original host is his newlywed wife. Originally, she was supposed to die from a head injury and blood loss during this chaos. Gu Yu had been on guard, but the system altered the timeline, allowing him to return in time.]

This I understood.

“I’m fine. I was just hungry after not having breakfast. My right leg is bleeding, I need to sit down,” Lin Muqing replied with some reluctance.

In the short time since her awakening, the system had already transmitted the memories from the original host to her.

The original host had been married to Gu Yu for only seven days.

Old Gu was the sole heir in the family for three generations, and unlike other families in the village with many siblings and cousins, they were merely a small unit of five, with four elderly people, feeling quite isolated in Gu Village.

In this era, labor was the essence of productivity, and everything was divided based on headcount. The Gu family’s labor led to a small share of food. They often had to do the dirty and heavy work; if they refused, they faced pressure from relatives who grouped together to watch them closely, making their lives difficult.

Prior to this event, Gu Yu had been a rugged and formidable man. He was twenty years old and had just completed military service, earning a small monthly stipend of six or seven yuan and some food vouchers, although he was somewhat less generous with the villagers. They avoided bullying him after his military service.

Before this incident, he had just married, but little did he know he would soon go missing.

Some people claimed to have seen him roll down the hillside. While Gu’s father was busy earning labor points, he ran up the mountain searching for him. After several attempts with no luck, he suspected his son had been eaten by a bear, leading Gu’s mother to fall ill overnight.

Elder Gu and Elder Gu were already old and melancholic; the loss of their only descendant was a devastating blow.

The original host’s family had faced humiliation and harassment from a local bully, who had long desired the original host and had thought that with Gu Yu missing, he might take over the Gu’s house, driving away the elderly.

Just as this was happening, Gu Yu, in a disheveled state, was returning home with a chicken in hand.

The two groups clashed, but fortunately, Gu Yu’s military training allowed him to fight better, and he managed to take down several attackers, sparing them from further disaster.

The original host had been in the middle of breakfast when the chaos caused her to faint.

Lin Muqing was helped into the house, where she saw a mud-brick room that, although modest, was relatively new, having been recently built. It wasn’t rundown; to the left of the courtyard was the kitchen.

“I’ll rest for a bit, you prepare the meal,” she said.

Gu Yu supported her, and they both entered the kitchen. He opened the pot, revealing three steamed buns.

“There are steamed buns; would you like one?”

“Yes,” Lin Muqing replied, taking one and having a bite.

While tending to his injuries, the man took the wild chicken he had brought in from the doorway, boiled it after washing it in warm water, chopped it, and started preparing chicken soup.

Gu Yu realized that he wasn’t really familiar with this girl, and although she was already his wife, he still felt the need to protect her.