Chapter 1

A woman lay in a low corner of the wall.

Her eyes were closed, her forehead had a gash, and thick blood streamed from her brow down to her chin. Her fingers, lying powerlessly in the muddy ground, twitched slightly. As she gradually regained consciousness, the pain from her wound pierced her brain through her nerves.

Jiang Nian woke up from the excruciating pain.

She opened her eyes, but her vision was obscured by her disheveled hair. The left side of her bangs, sticky with blood, clung to her eyelids. She squinted her other eye to take in her surroundings.

It was pitch black and her vision was poor. She could only make out the outline of the yard from a faint light source. The ground was uneven and muddy. To the east was a row of old-fashioned earthen houses, their age evident. The doors were wooden, and leaning against them were a shovel, a hoe, and a single-wheeled cart. Clotheslines in the yard held a gray, dirt-stained shirt and a floral-printed vest typically worn by elderly women, evoking a strong sense of the past era.

Jiang Nian was momentarily stunned.

She had just gone to sleep after finishing a book. How did she wake up here?

Before she could think further, she heard two people talking nearby.

“Is she dead?”

“Is she really dead?!”

The speaker was Li Niu from the village. He looked at the blood-covered woman, swallowing nervously. His companion, Liu Fu, pushed him. “If you don’t believe me, go check yourself to see if she’s really dead.”

Li Niu looked at the motionless woman on the ground, especially her blood-soaked face. He is trembling with fear. Summoning his courage, he walked over and reached out to feel for Jiang Nian’s breath. As his hand approached, Jiang Nian quickly held her breath, fearing they would discover she wasn’t dead and would torment her further.

“Dead, dead, dead! She’s really dead!”

Li Niu didn’t feel any breath. Terrified, he stood up and stepped back repeatedly, his face turning pale. He looked at Liu Fu in fear. “If I had known this widow had such a fierce temper, she would rather hit her head against the wall rather than let us touch her, I wouldn’t have come even if I were beaten to death. Now someone’s dead. What do we do?”

“Then why are you still standing there like an idiot? Run!”

Liu Fu dragged Li Niu towards the wall, saying as he ran, “Xu Cheng died a few days ago. Now that there’s no one left in the Xu family, no one will know that we climbed the wall and caused Jiang Nian’s death. If we run now, no one will know we were here. Even if Lu Lao’er returns from the army, he won’t find out it was us.”

Li Niu finally coming to his senses, nodded in agreement, “Yes, yes, you’re right.”

After listening to their conversation, Jiang Nian finally realized what was wrong.

She had transmigrated into a book.

She had transmigrated into the period novel she had been reading the past few days. The male lead, Lu Yu, and the original owner’s husband, Xu Cheng, grew up together as close friends and comrades in the army. When the male lead was ten, his father died, and his mother sent him to the Xu family, promising to pick him up in ten years. Since then, the male lead had been living with the Xu family, treating Xu Cheng like a brother.

By a stroke of unfortunate luck, she had become Xu Cheng’s wife and the male lead’s cannon fodder sister-in-law. The original owner only appeared briefly at the beginning of the book, but her fate had distressed Jiang Nian for a long time. Not only did they share the same name, Jiang Nian, but her tragic experience also tugged at Jiang Nian’s heart.

To facilitate the meeting of the male and female leads, the author deliberately killed Xu Cheng.

After Xu Cheng’s death, the original owner was the only one left in the family. The village hooligans, Li Niu and Liu Fu, noticed her beauty and plotted to defile her. They assumed she was a helpless widow and would not dare to speak out if they succeeded.

However, they did not anticipate that the original owner had a fierce spirit. To avoid being defiled, she had resolutely smashed her head against the wall and died.

Now, Jiang Nian has taken over the original owner’s body. Memories belonging to the original owner flooded her mind, the pain from the wound on her forehead and the intense flow of memories making her head spin. As she struggled to stay conscious, she heard Li Niu and Liu Fu yelping as they climbed over the wall, sounding as if they were being beaten.

“Lu, Lu Lao’er? Why are you back?!”

“Aren’t you supposed to be… ouch, it hurts… in, in the army?”

Jiang Nian was momentarily stunned upon hearing Lu Lao’er’s name, only then realizing he was the male lead, Lu Yu.

In the story, Lu Yu had left home with Xu Cheng to join the army. Later, Xu Cheng had an accident that left him paralyzed from the waist down, prompting his father to bring him home. Xu Cheng’s father had arranged a marriage for him, hoping to find a wife who could take care of him.

The original owner came from a poor family. Her father was lame and unable to do heavy work, her mother was in poor health, and her younger brother was lazy. The household chores fell entirely on her shoulders. When her brother wanted to get married, the family had no money. Jiang’s mother, upon learning that the Xu family wanted a wife for their paralyzed son, approached Xu Cheng’s father. With a thick skin, she secured a bride price of three hundred yuan and married the original owner off to Xu Cheng.

Xu Cheng was paralyzed from the waist down, rendering him impotent. At night, his back pain would cause him to cry out, and to avoid disturbing his wife, he would send her to sleep in the male lead’s room. The male lead was always stationed in the army, so the room was empty. Two years ago, when Xu Cheng’s father passed away, the male lead returned from the army. After handling the old man’s funeral with the original owner, he left with a parting remark to the original owner: “Sister-in-law, this home is now in your hands.”

That was the original owner’s first and last meeting with the male lead.

According to the plot, the male lead was supposed to return five days after the original owner’s death. Why had he come back tonight?

Could her transmigration have changed the plot?

Jiang Nian’s head throbbed as if it were about to explode. She pushed herself off the ground, dragging her weak body upright. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a shadowy figure climb over the wall. It was now completely dark, and she couldn’t make out the person’s features, only the man’s sharp, tense jaw line in the dim light. As she struggled to lift her upper body but collapsed from exhaustion, the man stepped forward and supported her shoulders.

His arms were strong, his grip precise, holding only her shoulders.

“Sister-in-law, I’m sorry I’m late.”

Just before fainting, Jiang Nian thought how fitting it was for him to be the male lead—his voice was cold, solemn, and incredibly pleasant to hear.

Jiang Nian felt as if she had slept for a long time, waking up with a sore back and a throbbing forehead wound. The pain was so intense that she didn’t dare to frown, as every movement pulled at the injury, making it unbearable.

When she opened her eyes, the first thing she saw was the wooden beam of the ceiling. Unlike modern ceilings, the structure was visible, with mud walls mixed with straw. Some parts were patched with old newspapers, one of which had the year 1970 written on it, like a branding iron searing into Jiang Nian’s consciousness, forcing her to accept that she had indeed transmigrated into this era.

She was now in the male lead’s room, which he must have prepared after seeing the original owner’s husband’s room was clean and unused. The male lead’s room still had the original owner’s washstand and clothes, indicating she had lived there.

It must have been the male lead who brought her in.

The room was simple, with a hard wooden bed against an old window, a table and a round wooden stool beside the bed, and a wooden chest at the foot of the bed containing the original character’s clothes. Near the door was a washstand, and the red floral washbasin was the original character’s only dowry.

Jiang Nian felt sorry for the original character. In order to help her younger brother get married, her mother didn’t even prepare a decent quilt or new clothes, only a porcelain basin.

There were footsteps approached from outside. Jiang Nian sat up on the bed, expecting the male lead. As she turned, ready to speak, she saw a middle-aged woman in her forties. The woman wore a mustard-yellow outfit, loose pants, and old cloth shoes, with her hair in a braid down her back—typical attire for a rural woman in the 1970s.

“Xu’s daughter-in-law, you’re finally awake.”

Aunt Zhao placed a bowl of food on the bedside table and handed it to Jiang Nian, glancing at the bandage on her head. “You really are something. When a thief broke in, you didn’t even shout. Our houses are close; if you had shouted, I would have sent my husband and Gangzi over. You wouldn’t have had to suffer this injury.”

Aunt Zhao was a neighbor who had often helped the original Jiang Nian after she got married.

Jiang Nian felt a sense of warmth toward her and took the bowl she handed over. “I was really scared at the time, I couldn’t even make a sound.”

Aunt Zhao replied, “You’re lucky. Just so happened that Lu Lao’er came back for a funeral visit and caught those two brats, Li Niu and Liu Fu, red-handed. Early this morning, Lu Lao’er asked me to look after you while he and the team leader took them to the county police station.”

Aunt Zhao spat in disgust. “Those two good-for-nothings, taking advantage of you just after your husband died, wanting to steal the subsidy Lu Lao’er sent home. They deserve to be thrown in jail, to be properly reformed.”

From Aunt Zhao’s words, Jiang Nian found out that the male lead had reported Li Niu and Liu Fu’s attempted assault as a burglary, thus preserving the original owner’s reputation.

A widow was often surrounded by gossip, especially in the 1970s. If it were known that Li Niu and Liu Fu had broken in to assault her, the original owner would have been drowned in the village’s scorn.

Jiang Nian had woken up in the afternoon, and her stomach was growling with hunger.

Aunt Zhao had brought her some pickled vegetables and a steamed bun. The bun was hard and unpalatable. After a few bites, she couldn’t eat any more.

In the 1970s, every household in the countryside relied on working for the production team to earn work points, which were calculated annually. Households with more laborers earned more work points and thus more grain at the end of the year. The Jiang family only had Jiang Nian and her mother working, so their grain allocation was pitifully small. It was common for them to go hungry. Aunt Zhao’s family, with her husband and son Zhao Gang working, earned enough to feed themselves, though not abundantly.

Seeing that Jiang Nian had stopped eating after a few bites, Aunt Zhao frowned and asked, “Why aren’t you eating?”

Jiang Nian smiled. “My head hurts, feeling a bit nauseous, I can’t eat much.”

Aunt Zhao was taken aback by Jiang Nian’s smile. This little wife was indeed very pretty, with fair skin and dimples that made her look even more charming.

Jiang Nian noticed Aunt Zhao’s surprise, so she lowered her head and pursed her lips.

The original owner had been oppressed by her parents, who favored boys over girls, forcing her to work hard from a young age. She had a quiet and introverted personality, rarely smiling or speaking. After marrying into the Xu family, she had little interaction with neighbors, and if it weren’t for Aunt Zhao being such a chatterbox, many would have thought the Xu family had married a mute.

After Aunt Zhao left, Jiang Nian lay on the bed for a while longer. As dusk settled in, she got up, put on her cloth shoes, and held onto the wall for support as she walked out.He heard footsteps outside the room. The sound was different from that of Aunt Zhao’s footsteps. The footsteps had a firm, confident stride and quickly reached the door.

The doorway was low, and the man had to duck to enter.

He was tall and wore an army-green uniform. As described in the book, he was coldly handsome, with brows as imposing as mountain ranges. Seeing Jiang Nian struggling to walk while holding onto the wall, the man hesitated for a moment before stepping forward to support her slender arm.

“Sister-in-law, where are you going? Let me help you.”

Jiang Nian: …

She needed to use the bathroom.

**