"Mom, mommy." A child, barely three years old, leaned over the bedside, calling out to the woman lying on the bed, her eyes tightly shut.
Nanzhi awoke, her eyes meeting the little grimy face.
Seeing a glistening droplet of snot hanging in front of her, Nanzhi jerked back instantly. However, the snot didn't fall off as anticipated, but instead, the child sniffed it back up.
...
Seeing that Nanzhi was awake, the child's eyes lit up, "Mommy, mommy, you're awake!"
Upon hearing the child's words, Nanzhi was filled with shock and fear. Whose child was this?
Why was he calling her mommy? She was clearly still an unmarried maiden.
Before she could voice her confusion, her vision turned black and she fainted once more.
Leaving the child looking on in bewilderment.
Remembering that his mother hadn't eaten properly for three days, the child turned and ran.
He headed for the mountains; Brother Shi Tou had found bird eggs there the day before. He decided to go and look for some too, to bring back for his mother to eat.
When Nanzhi awoke again, she felt disoriented. Had she transmigrated?
Was the scruffy child just now really her son?
Recalling the dozen or so farming novels on her phone's reading app, she didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
Although she was an avid reader of farming novels, she didn't expect the heavens to really send her to such a place.
She had just pulled an all-nighter; it shouldn't have been enough to kill her, right?
Nanzhi curled up, trying to sort out the events in her mind. She subconsciously reached to touch her head, but seeing the dirt caked under her fingernails, she quickly withdrew her hand.
After she had fainted, the memories of the original owner had gradually emerged in her mind.
She had transmigrated to a nonexistent dynasty in history.
The original owner was a native village girl from the next village. Her family consisted of her parents and two older brothers. She was married off to Lihua Village, where she gave birth to that child and became a mother. Her husband was a hunter and the only son in the family. Her in-laws were kind and affectionate. The life of their family of five was happy.
Unfortunately, things hadn't gone as planned. Three years ago, her husband went to the mountains to hunt for her, promising to bring back nourishment to replenish her body, but he never returned. The men from the village went looking for him for three days, but they only brought back a piece of tattered clothing.
The clothing was torn and bloody. Even without finding a body, everyone knew that the Shen family's young man was most likely gone.
After that, her life turned difficult. Her mother-in-law fell ill after losing her only child, and her father-in-law had an accident while working in the fields.
The original owner had to take care of two elderly people and a baby on her own. Without the manpower to work, and needing to fund the in-laws' medical expenses, they ended up selling their land to others.
After struggling for more than a year, when they could no longer afford to buy medicine for the elderly couple, they both passed away. In the end, the original owner had to borrow a tael of silver from her parents to arrange for their funeral.
Living with her child, they survived off wild fruits and vegetables from the mountain. There were some villagers who felt sorry for their plight and would send them some food, but it had been half a year since the last rainfall, the crops in the fields withered, and everyone was having a hard time getting by.
When Nanzhi took over the original owner's body, the family had already run out of grain for three days.
She rubbed her empty stomach, feeling like she was being made fun of by the heavens.
Other transmigrators would have a system or some sort of cheat at least, if not, they would have family members to consult with.
As for her, on her arrival, she had been starving for three days. Not only did she receive a scruffy child, but she had also been promoted from an unmarried maiden to a widow with a "little oil bottle".
After sorting out the original owner's memories, Nanzhi slowly got out of bed.
She had to find Gougou.
Gougou was the original owner's son's nickname. There was a saying in the countryside here that giving a child a humble name would help them lead a long life. With the original owner's husband passing early and the days following spent caring for the elderly at home, they didn't even think about giving the child a proper name.
So they just kept calling him Gougou.
Even now, shout Gougou at the village entrance and five or six children would respond.
As Nanzhi stepped out of the courtyard, she sized up her future base. A square courtyard, walled with stacked stone bricks. There were two rooms on the left as you entered the gate, used as a storage room, separated from the dry toilet. In front of the courtyard was the living room, on the left was the room of her in-laws, which was now vacant. On the right was her room, and at the back of the yard was the kitchen and a well, as well as a small vegetable patch, now all lying fallow.
It looked like the original owner's family once had a decent life. What a pity it was now.
Nanzhi shook her head, scooped out a ladle of water from the kitchen vat, and guzzled it down without waiting for it to boil.
Even filling her stomach with some water was better than the hollow feeling inside.
As soon as she stepped out of the courtyard to find Gougou, she saw an older woman rushing towards her.
Thinking for a moment, Nanzhi was just about to greet the woman when the woman pulled her and started running towards the back mountain.
"Oh my, Lin girl, you must hurry and check on your Gougou. He is up on the mountain arguing with Wu's Shi Tou."
Having heard that, Nanzhi swallowed whatever she was going to say and just followed the older Liu towards the upland.
The cold water in Nanzhi's stomach sloshed as she ran, causing her stomach to cramp. When she finally got to the upland, she was so overwhelmed by the scene that she nearly fainted.
Gougou, already grubby, was now covered in mud, his little face tightened and nose bleeding. Nanzhi's eyes reddened at the sight.
"Gougou!" Nanzhi called out and scrambled forward to see if Gougou was injured.
"Mother." Seeing his mother, Gougou, who had been keeping a stiff upper lip, let his guard down. A three-year-old couldn't keep it in, he bawled, making everyone's noses sting with pungency.
As Nanzhi soothed Gougou, she gave Shi Tou a cold look.
Shi Tou, who was seven years old this year, was the son from Old Li's family next door. Because he was four years older than Gougou, he looked big and strong. He was trying to hide something behind his back.
"Gougou, don't cry. Tell mother, what happened? Who hit you?" Nanzhi wiped her affordable son's face.
"It's him! Gougou stole from me!" Shi Tou yelled louder seeing several adults staring at him, his hand hiding more behind him.
Nanzhi looked at Shi Tou who was pretending to be calm and asked, "Then tell me, what did my Gougou steal from you? You are four years older than him, what can he steal from you?"
Shi Tou instinctively shrank his neck and blushed, unable to utter a word.
No matter how much of a tyrant he was among the children, he was still afraid of adults.
Seeing him like this, Nanzhi didn't need any more confirmation. She simply didn't bother to ask Shi Tou and looked down at her own son.
"Gougou, tell mother, what happened?"
"Mother, mother has fallen. Gougou, Gougou came to the mountain to look, to look for food, for mother." Gougou's eyes filled with tears, two trails of clean lines ran down his dirt-caked face.
"I found some wild chicken eggs. Shi Tou, Brother Shi Tou wanted to take them. I didn't give it, so he hit me."
Hearing this, Shi Tou's face reddened further, and the complexions of the surrounding women, including Aunt Liu, all changed.
They had originally formed a group to go up the mountain to dig wild vegetables. Seeing the two children arguing, they just thought it was a childish fight. It was only when the fight escalated that Aunt Liu hurried to fetch Nanzhi.
Who would have known it would be Shi Tou trying to steal from Gougou?