That night, the air was cool as water, and shadows slanted sparsely.
In an inconspicuous house in the Capital of the Zhou Dynasty, a woman with disheveled hair lay sprawled on the bed in the shape of a "big character," motionless for a long time.
Time seemed to stand still, with silence all around.
Just when everyone thought she would stay like this, until the end of time, she suddenly moved.
Her right hand slowly moved to her waist and felt around.
Then, with a bizarre angle, she looked up at the sky and slowly raised her left hand.
With force, she raised her middle finger...
"Dammit, Heavenly Father, you're so not cool. You could smuggle over my scalpel and silver needles, but why didn't you bring my Lotus sports car? It was Grandpa's birthday gift for my twenty-ninth birthday, and I liked it a lot!"
No one answered her...
Gu Changsheng dejectedly withdrew her hand, covering her face with both hands.
She had been screwed over by Heavenly Father; all she did was give Chief of Staff Liu's precious son a little trimming, not harming heaven nor reason, so how did she end up banished to this ancient time where the land was barren and no birds would even poop?
Sorrowfully turning her face, she surveyed her surroundings: the dilapidated house, the mud plaster on the walls peeling and mottled, scattered with a couple of wooden benches, one even with a lame leg...
With a melancholic sigh, Gu Changsheng had to face a few facts:
First, she had traveled through time, to an unknown dynasty.
Second, she had a son, about to be four.
Third, she had been divorced, swept out the door as an Abandoned Wife.
Fourth, she was very poor.
The fact that she had traveled through time was indisputable. She could barely accept the first three facts; having a son meant having someone for old age, and not having to engage in cut-throat palace intrigue was also a lucky thing. But it was the last fact that nearly drove her mad.
Who was Gu Changsheng? Born under the Red Flag, raised in the military, a red third-generation through and through! Had she ever experienced poverty? Not once! She was destined from birth to stand at the pinnacle of the Pyramid, enjoying unparalleled honor and luxury.
She behaved capriciously without parallel in this world, imperious and unrivaled!
The only hardships she ever experienced were the relentless training of the long military journey and the brutal killings on the battlefield.
She was the youngest Major General of the Celestial Empire, the sole female military doctor from the elite special forces unit 791 Brigade, proving by her own strength that she had the capital to be imperious and willful.
She had a grandpa who loved and spoiled her to the extreme, evoking both admiration and envy from others!
But now, all of these were no longer.
After causing trouble, she fled, and on her way across the Capital's overpass she encountered a road collapse, and then she ended up here, impoverished and driven out of her home with her son as a Divorced Woman!
Fate is so miraculous, and Heavenly Father is such a troll!
It must have been her awakening posture that was incorrect; otherwise, how could time travel be such a scam when so many people flock to it?
Where was the promised protagonist's halo? The luxurious clothes, the countless handsome men?
Aren't those how time-travel scripts are supposed to go? Why did it all become so discordant when it came to her?
Instead of turning into a beauty, she turned into a child's mother; arriving not only without a husband but also getting divorced, and on top of that, she was so poor she had nothing but her flesh—this was just... too much of a troll!
"Creak..."
The sound of the door opening interrupted Gu Changsheng's self-pity. She turned her head to look at the rickety pair of door panels, vaguely noticing several large holes leaking light, wondering if they might collapse.
"Miss, you really should eat something." A maid dressed in a coarse linen skirt wobbled toward the bedside with a pitch-black porcelain bowl, her face filled with worry.
"Cui Hua?" Such an eternally old-fashioned name almost made Gu Changsheng want to shout: "Cui Hua, bring on the pickled vegetables!"
The maid named Cui Hua nodded, her slightly emaciated figure dragging a lame leg, then knelt down before Gu Changsheng with a face full of misery and tear-filled eyes, "Miss, I know you feel wronged, but think of the late Old Grand Master. He always hoped for your well-being, how can you keep torturing yourself like this..."
Gu Changsheng, feeling a headache coming on, rubbed her forehead. The slave mentality education of ancient times was great, wasn't it? They were always quick to kneel; it really made her worry about Cui Hua's knees.
"Get up, I'll eat, just get up." Gu Changsheng conceded, pulling on an oversized coarse robe as she got down from the bed and pulled Cui Hua to her feet.
She took the bowl, and immediately jumped as it burned her, hastily setting it down on the stool at the side of the bed, blowing on her hands and scratching her ears, "Cui Hua, it's so hot, why didn't you wait for it to cool before bringing it over?"
"It's my fault, I'm to blame, my legs are not good, and I was afraid it would cool down if I delayed." Cui Hua, who had just risen, looked terrified and was about to kneel again.