Chapter 2: Before Transmigration, She Couldn’t Bear Children; After Transmigration, She Has Two Adorable Babies

Li Hua’s husband immediately chimed in, “That’s right, you’re the laziest one in the family. Since you married into this family, what have you done? You’re always complaining about this ache and that pain. Get up and cook! Do you expect me to cook for you?”

Li Hua couldn’t stand Su Yuanyuan’s affected demeanor, so she went over to pull her.

Of course, she had another purpose: to see if Su Yuanyuan had been touched by a man.

She pulled Su Yuanyuan’s arm. Her skin was incredibly white and soft, clean and unmarked.

Su Yuanyuan glanced at Li Hua, then immediately coughed and fell back onto the kang (a heated brick bed), gasping for breath as if she were about to pass out.

Li Hua was startled by her appearance and stepped back, covering her nose.  She didn’t want to catch whatever illness this sickly woman had!

After feigning for a while, Su Yuanyuan stopped, glanced at everyone in the room, and weakly lay on her side on the kang.

“Dad, Mom, it’s not that I don’t want to work, but my body… cough… there’s nothing I can do. Once I’ve recovered, I promise to get up early to cook and work in the fields.”

She then gasped for breath on the kang, making it look like she could die if anyone touched her.

Li Hua rolled her eyes.  They should have stopped Lu Zhengan from marrying this sickly woman.

The matchmaker had said Su Yuanyuan was in poor health, but they hadn’t imagined it would be this bad.

Besides being unable to do much work, she had also given birth to two girls, a financial burden. The three of them ate and lived off the family!

“Don’t give me that! You only say that. Since you married here, haven’t you been lying in bed every day?  If you try to work for half a day, you either get dizzy or have blurry vision. How much money have we spent on your medicine? I think you’ll only be satisfied when you’ve spent all the family’s money.”

Wang Chunhua, Lu Zhengning’s wife, returned from outside and scolded upon hearing this.

Lu Zhenggang’s wife followed behind, her expression equally grim.

However, she didn’t say anything directly but went to the kitchen, grabbed a handful of rice husks, and fed the chickens, muttering, “Eat up, you’re always opening your mouths waiting to be fed. If only I were as lucky as you.”

While ostensibly talking about the chickens, she was indirectly criticizing Su Yuanyuan for doing nothing but waiting to be fed.

Here it comes, the familiar scene.

When Su Yuanyuan read the original book, this part made her sick to her stomach.

These people were incredibly shrewd and greedy.  Currently, everything the family ate and used came from Lu Zhengan’s remitted salary.

Anyone could speak, but none had the face or position to criticize her.

If it weren’t for the fear of being held accountable for the original owner’s death, they would have let the original owner starve to death.

Su Yuanyuan kept her eyes downcast and didn’t speak, appearing unwell and weak.

Having failed to catch her in adultery, there was no point in staying. Besides, Su Yuanyuan was unwell; they didn’t want to be infected.

Everyone felt unlucky and grumbled as they left.

The rickety door closed, and the room darkened.

Su Yuanyuan sneered, lay down straight, and stared at the ceiling, recalling the plot of the original book.

She had read this book with great interest, so she remembered it clearly.

The original book’s setting was the early 1980s.

In the book, Li Hua and her husband had always favored their elder and second sons, treating Lu Zhengan poorly.

Five years ago, Lu Zhengan was injured during a mission and was diagnosed with difficulty having children.

Upon hearing this, women from miles around refused to marry him, no matter how much the matchmaker pleaded.

Only the original owner, Su Yuanyuan, who had been sickly since childhood, was willing to marry Lu Zhengan.

Not long after their marriage, Lu Zhengan returned to his unit. Believing he and Su Yuanyuan couldn’t have children, he worked tirelessly to achieve success, so that even if they didn’t have children, Su Yuanyuan wouldn’t have to suffer or worry about old-age support.

Little did Lu Zhengan know that not long after he left home, Su Yuanyuan discovered she was pregnant.

However, after returning to his unit, Lu Zhengan embarked on a long-term mission and never returned.

His allowance was sent regularly every month, directly to Su Yuanyuan.

That was one hundred and twenty yuan! The old Lu family was incredibly envious and had their eyes on the allowance.

Su Yuanyuan was illiterate and couldn’t write letters, so the old Lu head wrote to Lu Zhengan, concealing the fact that Su Yuanyuan was pregnant, telling him that they wouldn’t have children.

Su Yuanyuan was in poor health and needed the family’s care.

When they grew old, their elder and second sons’ children would take care of them. The whole family would contribute their efforts, and his salary should be given partly to the family, leaving the rest for Su Yuanyuan.

Less than half a month after the letter was sent, Lu Zhengan sent back a letter with fifty yuan, borrowed from his comrades.

Lu Zhengan agreed with the old Lu head that he could give his salary to the family, but they had to take good care of Su Yuanyuan.

The old Lu head and Li Hua readily agreed in their reply, but then only gave Su Yuanyuan ten yuan each month.

Su Yuanyuan initially endured it, but when her children were born, seeing them getting thinner year by year due to hunger, and shorter than other children of the same age, the original owner, though weak, realized that this was unsustainable.

If she didn’t resist, she and her children would starve to death.

Unable to write, she took the little money she had hidden and went to the supply and marketing cooperative at the head of the village, hoping to find someone to write a letter to Lu Zhengan.

Unexpectedly, she was intercepted by Wang Chunhua halfway.

The original owner’s intentions were written all over her face. Wang Chunhua, noticing something was amiss, pulled her back.

The old Lu family guessed what she was trying to do, scolded her severely, and locked her in the room without food or water for two days.

The original owner, already in poor health, fell ill.

This wasn’t sustainable. The neighbors were watching; they couldn’t keep her locked up forever, and it would be even worse to explain to Lu Zhengan when he returned.

After some deliberation, the family came up with a vicious plan.

They would frame Su Yuanyuan for adultery!

They would find someone to ruin Su Yuanyuan’s reputation, then pretend to catch her in the act, cover up the incident, and use it to threaten her into handing over her money, ensuring she wouldn’t receive any of the remitted allowance in the future.

Su Yuanyuan, unprepared for such a thing, was terrified and afraid of the scandal, so she could only comply.

In the end, the mother and her two daughters froze to death on a stormy night, lacking money and food.

That was the end of the original owner and her two children.

Su Yuanyuan took a deep breath; what a sickening plot.

She had a spatial inventory (a storage device), which she could use to start a small business, provided she didn’t live under the same roof as the Lu family.

Otherwise, she would only be exploited.

Fighting these people wasn’t impossible, but it was exhausting and time-consuming.  Instead of getting bogged down in the mud, it would be better to take her two children and start a new life far away.

After some thought, Su Yuanyuan decided to leave the Lu family.

She couldn’t stay in this place any longer.

Before leaving, however, she had to get back the money, cloth coupons, and food coupons that her in-laws had taken.

Although she had a spatial inventory, she didn’t have money from this era. She had to leave with her two children; how could she manage without money?

Li Hua guarded her money fiercely, hiding it in her own room and never letting Su Yuanyuan get near.

There were always people at home, and even when going to the fields, Li Hua would take the money with her.

To retrieve the money, she needed to do it while Li Hua was at home, which wasn’t easy. She had to think of a way.

Her only resource was her spatial inventory. Perhaps…

Just as Su Yuanyuan thought of a plan, two soft knocks came from outside the door.

“Mom, are you awake?”

“Mom might still be resting. Maybe we shouldn’t bother her.”

Two childish voices came from outside the door.

Su Yuanyuan was stunned, realizing belatedly that they were the original owner’s two children.

“Kids, Mom’s awake. Come in.”

The book described the original owner’s two children as incredibly cute, perfectly inheriting their parents’ best features. The original owner loved them dearly.

Suddenly becoming a mother without the experience was a little unsettling for Su Yuanyuan.

As soon as she finished speaking, the door opened, and two small children, barely reaching her knees, ran in.

“Mom! You’re awake!”

“How are you feeling today? Is your chest still tight?”

“Does your head still hurt? I’ll rub it for you.”

The two children chattered, the daughter taking off her shoes and climbing onto the kang to massage Su Yuanyuan’s head.

The son massaged her legs.

One nestled against her cheek, the other tilted their head up to look at her. Their skin was tanned, but their eyes were bright and shiny, like obsidian.

Looking at the two little ones clinging to her, Su Yuanyuan’s heart melted.

The two children were cute and pretty, but too thin, their hair somewhat dry and yellow from malnutrition.

The Lu family were truly despicable.

Their treatment of the original owner was bad enough, but they completely neglected the two children.

They took the salary sent by the children’s father but never thought of giving the children a decent meal.

Su Yuanyuan hugged the two children, heartbroken, and kissed their cheeks.

In her previous life, she had been kidnapped as a child. The kidnappers had intended to kill her and stabbed her several times in the stomach.

She survived and was rescued, but her uterus was ruptured, and she could never have children again.

She was young at the time and had accepted it, never having a strong desire for children.

Lack of desire didn’t mean she disliked children.

She had felt some regret before, planning to adopt a child once her work was stable. Unexpectedly, a twist of fate led her to this book, giving her two biologically related adorable babies a blessing in disguise.