Lu Yun buried her head in her mother's bosom and said coyly, "Mom, if you have a sister, will you love her more and not love me anymore?"
Lu Yun despised her own selfishness in the depths of her heart, even if it was only in a dream, she still wanted to be her parents' only daughter in this life. Moreover, with the family planning policy now in effect, she also hoped her mother would have a boy, otherwise, given her mother's character, she would probably feel that she had let the Lu Family down.
"Silly girl, whether your mom has a brother or a sister is not for her to decide. But don't worry, no matter if your mom has a brother or a sister in the future, we will always love you the most," Lu Hongzhen replied.
Lu Aiguo burst into hearty laughter and reached out to tousle Lu Yun's head.
She wasn't really a child, of course, she knew that. But this was her wish, after all, didn't she have the right to fantasize about it in her heart?
Lu Yun stuck her head out and made a funny face at Lu Aiguo, which made everyone laugh again.
Xia Yuan hugged Lu Yun tighter and whispered against her cheek, "Xiaoyun, rest assured, no matter if we have a brother or sister in the future, Dad and Mom will always love you very much."
"Mhm."
Lu Yun hugged her back, "I will also always love you all very much. And the brother, too."
"The little girl is still thinking about having a brother, so let's have your mom hurry up and give birth to one. Your dad is not getting any younger, having a son would mean having both sons and daughters," Lu Hongzhen teased half-jokingly, half-seriously. Seeing her nephew finally complete his family with Xia Yuan filled her with joy more than anyone else.
It was because this cousin of hers was so stubborn, having set his heart only on Xia Yuan. Lu Hongzhen had really been worried that if he had no chance with Xia Yuan this time, he might end up alone for the rest of his life.
"Alright."
Lu Yun nodded in agreement. She wondered if her space had come with her, it would make taking care of her mother's health much more convenient. Even if it hadn't, that was alright; she remembered most of the traditional prescriptions by heart, although gathering the herbs might be a bit troublesome.
After so many years of hard work, her mother's health certainly needed to be properly taken care of.
Indeed, in her previous life, what ultimately enabled Lu Yun to earn such a large fortune was her space, an inherited space of medicinal herbs.
It was the massive number of ancient prescriptions and lost herbs within that space that allowed her to transform a small health product factory into a multinational conglomerate spanning various fields in just a few short years, making her a legend in the industry.
Unfortunately, her space had appeared too late, too late for Uncle Lu, who wouldn't have had to die if only she had had it earlier.
It was her fault they had been a laughing stock all their lives, and later, pitied as ones without good fortune.
Thankfully, this time it would be different.
The tractor chugged along, and as Lu Aiguo watched the mother and daughter held together, he suddenly felt his heart brimming with fullness, filling him with boundless anticipation for the future.
...
Today was her third day since being reborn.
Lu Yun ran to a shady spot under the grapevine in the yard and spaced out while resting her chin in her hands.
Because her parents were worried, she stayed in the health clinic in town for observation for a day, and it wasn't until yesterday afternoon that the family of three returned to the village, directly to their new home.
When she got home, her father's elder uncle and second uncle's families had all come to visit them. Her and her mother's belongings had already been neatly arranged inside the new house. What was left in the old house were mostly the old items they planned to discard.
The experience of the past day and night, along with this morning's events, had fully confirmed for her that she was not dreaming, but had indeed been reborn.
Although she couldn't figure out why she had suddenly been reborn from an airplane to the age of six, novels about time-travel and rebirth had been very popular in her previous life, and those were her favorite.
She had fantasized countless times about being reborn herself.
She did believe in reincarnation, after all, in her previous life, she even had a space for herbal legacy, so having another rebirth wasn't really a big deal, right?
The new home was a mudbrick house of five and a half rooms, and the yard was more than twice as large as the small courtyard with two straw rooms where she and her mother originally lived, in the Su Family's house.
Uncle Lu, who she would now call Dad,
was known for his abilities far and wide, but his family's poverty and thin foundations were equally famous.
He lost his father at the age of twelve or thirteen and lived with his weak-willed and indecisive widowed mother. At a very young age, he assumed the role of the family pillar, struggling to keep the household afloat. His widowed mother passed away when he was nineteen, leaving him alone, with enough food for only himself.
No matter how capable a man is, being too poor also meant he had no prospects.
Moreover, Dad's face bore a scar from an injury he suffered in his youth, a hideous and terrifying mark. Apart from Mom, who had never shown any aversion to his face from the beginning, other girls either felt frightened or showed disdain upon seeing it.
So even though he was capable and had no in-laws bearing down on him, not having to deal with sisters-in-law, he was considered one of the "best son-in-law candidates" in the eyes of those "far-sighted" mothers-in-law. A pity that the girls just didn't fancy him at all.
The five-and-a-half-room mudbrick house of the Lu Family had only been renovated and extended last year.
In the middle was the main hall, used for daily meals and receiving guests; there were two bedrooms, one for Dad and Mom and one for her; two more rooms, one was the kitchen, the other was a storeroom; and the remaining half-room was the lavatory with a bathtub and shower.
The year was now 1979.
At that time, let alone ten years later, almost no one in the mountain villages would have a specially built half-room for a toilet in their home. The toilet was something Dad had thoughtfully built for Mom, and it was Lu Yun's favorite part of the entire house.
Having used the clean toilets of her previous life, now the thought of using those outdoor, fly-infested, filthy and odious pit latrines was downright torture!
Thinking about her previous life, she didn't have much to miss.
Even though back then, she had more money than troubles—most of the business was run by a professional team and managers, and she only personally handled the core "health product" formulas, letting go of oversight over the rest.
However, her life then really wasn't very comfortable.
Being reborn was better, and what made Lu Yun even more grateful was that her space had come with her.
Not only was it a legacy space, but her storage room was not just extremely large, it also had a preservation function. Although not infinitely large, by estimation, it was at least two to three times the size of a small country.
What made her want to laugh even more was that, due to her habit of using the space as a storage room combined with childhood experiences that led to a deep-seated lack of security, she had developed a tendency to hoard all kinds of things.
And with the apocalyptic rumors circulating at one point, adopting a better-safe-than-sorry attitude, she traveled all over the world collecting almost anything she could find. The materials she had amassed were either scattered around or packed in containers, stacked in the space in a way that could make those with claustrophobia faint several times over.