Chapter 1: Survival from a Desperate Situation

December 8th. Snow.

Su Wanwan was jolted awake by a searing pain in her throat.

“Cough, cough”

She curled up on the frozen mud ground, hacking violently, lungs burning as if on fire. A strange bitter taste lingered in her mouth but to her relief, she realized she could still breathe. She was alive!

Just then, a crisp mechanical voice suddenly rang in her ears.

【Survival countdown: 1 hour 09 minutes】

A buzzing filled her head. She had just regained life, only to be told she had one hour left? What kind of sick joke was this!

Forcing herself off the icy ground, she quickly checked her own condition, medical instincts kicking in. The results made her blood run cold this body was skin and bones, much shorter, cheeks cracked, fingers covered in purplish-red frostbite.

And the mortal wound that had once been on her neck… was gone.

“This… isn’t my body…” she murmured.

Even stranger, her fingernails were caked with white powdery crumbs. She sniffed them dried mushroom.

She looked around. The walls were nothing but mud bricks with wind whistling through the cracks. A yellowed calendar hung crookedly, the red words “1975” stabbing her eyes.

“I’ve transmigrated?” Su Wanwan sucked in a sharp breath.

【Survival countdown: 1 hour 08 minutes】
【If the host fails to act, the system will erase your soul】

The mechanical voice struck again, like an invisible blade hanging above her head.

Her gaze swept the shabby room.

A long kang bed took up most of the space, but it was cold.

Four children huddled together like frightened quail, wrapped in two threadbare patched quilts.

As she stepped closer, a little girl of about three immediately caught her eye.

Her face was sallow yet flushed an unnatural red, her breathing ragged like a broken bellows.

The other three a girl and two boys stared at her with dark, hostile eyes full of wariness.

Her doctor’s instincts screamed danger.

Without hesitation, she pulled open the little girl’s patched cotton jacket. The sight made her pupils contract sharply red blotches along the neck, pupils abnormally dilated. This wasn’t a simple fever. It was muscarine poisoning!

“Your sister’s been poisoned, she needs gastric lavage immediately!” Su Wanwan scooped the child into her arms without a second thought and rushed for the door.

“Stop!”

A roar came from behind.

The eldest boy leapt from the kang, clutching a rusty pair of scissors with trembling hands, the tip pointed at her.

“Put my sister down!” His voice shook with fear. “Last time you tried to smother her with a pillow… now you want to hurt her again? Stay away from her!”

Su Wanwan froze. At once, unfamiliar memories surged into her mind.

Su Wan youngest daughter of the Su family in the provincial city had been fostered to a poor peasant family to escape political persecution. Eleven years later, she married into Red Flag Commune as an adopted daughter. Half a year ago, her husband Chen Dayong died in a mining accident, leaving her alone with four children.

Just days ago, she’d cheerfully carried home a clay jar full of grayish-white mushrooms she’d picked that autumn, convinced they had beauty benefits. She treasured them.

But they were deadly Amanita mushrooms.

Today, to curry favor with the educated youth Zhou Weidong hoping to marry back into the city the original Su Wan had cooked a soup from the mushrooms. Since there wasn’t enough, only the youngest, Chen Xiaoxue, got a bowl.

“Red cap, white stem…” Su Wanwan murmured the old rhyme, her heart turning cold. The woman had courted her own death but dragged a child with her.

“She’s so little… how could you do this to her?” Chen Dongsheng’s eyes reddened, voice trembling. “If you want to kill, kill me instead!”

There was no time to explain. Su Wanwan held Xiaoxue tightly and pressed forward.

But then she remembered there was no hospital here. Only a crude village clinic, and the barefoot doctor had gone back to his hometown.

【Survival countdown: 1 hour 06 minutes】

“Waaah”

Xiaoxue suddenly vomited a mouthful of dark red blood onto Su Wanwan’s chest.

“Do you have soap at home?” Su Wanwan asked quickly.

Soap water could be used for an enema to help detoxify.

Chen Dongsheng narrowed his eyes, still guarded. “No. You used up the last bar. What bad thing are you planning now?”

Su Wanwan gently laid Xiaoxue back on the kang. “I’ll check the kitchen!”

In a rural kitchen… there had to be substitutes. She knelt by the stove, frantically digging through the ashes with a fire stick.

There charred wood mixed with grass ash!

“Activated charcoal can absorb toxins!” Her eyes lit up. She scooped out the fragments, poured them into a bowl, added hot water, and stirred rapidly.

It was primitive, but it might save the girl.

“Xiaoxue, drink this!”

She pinched the child’s jaw and tried to feed her the black liquid.

“Don’t you dare!” Chen Dongsheng lunged with the scissors. “I won’t let you hurt her!”

Su Wanwan blocked him with a pillow. “Listen! She’s poisoned by mushrooms. I’m saving her!”

Just hours ago, she had still been an ER attending physician at the city hospital.

That morning, a man had carried in his unconscious wife too late. White lung syndrome had consumed 80% of her alveoli. Despite the team’s desperate fight, they couldn’t save her.

“She was walking this morning… just the flu, a cold how could she die?” The man collapsed, weeping. “It’s you it’s your fault she’s dead!”

Out of pity, Su Wanwan had approached to comfort him. She hadn’t expected him to pull out a knife.

Her carotid artery was slit open. She died on the spot.

That same tragedy she would never allow it to happen again.

Chen Dongsheng froze, torn with doubt. Could this cruel woman… really heal?

“If she dies…” His little face twisted, fierce as a wolf pup. “I’ll kill you!”

“Fine! If Xiaoxue dies, I’ll be buried with her!” Su Wanwan snapped back.

Carefully, she forced the charcoal mixture into Xiaoxue’s mouth, watching closely.

Moments later, the child suddenly sat up, scrambled to the edge of the kang, and vomited violently.

“There, there… let it out…” Su Wanwan stroked her back, her eyes flicking to the mess on the floor. Sure enough, it contained fragments of mushrooms.

Afterward, Xiaoxue’s face brightened, breathing easing at last.

Chen Dongsheng’s taut frame slackened, though his eyes still glinted with suspicion.

【Successfully treated poisoned child. Points earned: +5】
【Congratulations, host! Bound to the “Era Child-Raising Survival System.” From this day forward, raise Chen Dongsheng, Chen Xiaxia, Chen Qiushi, and Chen Xiaoxue with care. Neglect or serious mistakes will result in soul erasure.】
【Available exchange item: 1972 Special Supply Infant Formula (5 points/can)】

The flood of information overwhelmed her. But all she could see were four pale, undernourished faces.

Without an adult to care for them, the three youngest would never survive this winter.

“Exchange immediately!” she blurted.

At once, a metal can dropped from the air, smacking her squarely on the head.

Clang!

The four children jumped back in shock.

Rubbing her forehead, Su Wanwan cursed the unreliable system. Then she saw seven-year-old Chen Xiaxia pounce on the can like a starving wolf.

“It smells so good!” Her eyes sparkled. “Is this food?” She was about to bite the lid open with her teeth.

“Stop!” Chen Dongsheng yanked her back. “That woman’s things you dare eat them? Do you want to end up like Xiaoxue?”

Looking at the four hungry faces, Su Wanwan’s heart ached.

And the winter… had only just begun.