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Chapter 2: Is this a refugee camp?\nBailian felt that she had been gently carried into a room and laid onto a rather hard and stiff bed. Although there were no longer any harsh or clamorous noises, she could vaguely hear that the heavy din of conversation had been instead replaced with the sound of several children’s voices.\n
“Older Sister, what’s wrong?” A little boy tearfully asked and lightly shook her arm, looking extremely concerned for his sister. \n
“Older Sister…blood” This time an even younger and childish voice spoke near her ear, sounding deeply frightened, but this little boy seemed a bit slow when he spoke, only directly looking at the red blood on Bailian’s face. \n
A trembling jaded voice belonging to that of an elder cried out, “Fifth Girl….what exactly happened?” the voice seeming to choke up with a sudden burst of emotion.\n
The Third Branch’s Master who had only hurriedly brought Bailian back and left her on the bed without so much as an explanation finally elaborated, “Concubine Mother, Lian’ er fainted and her head hit the edge of the table. I’m going to the next village over and find a physician to treat her!” And just as quickly as he had entered the residence, he also quickly hurried away.\n
At this time, the heavily pregnant Madam Zhao who had finally stumbled home, crying as she shouted to remind her husband who had just left, a mere small speck in the distance on the road by now, “The father of my children, quickly…”\n
“I understand!” an urgent voice sounded faintly in the distance in response.\n
“Mother, just exactly what’s wrong with Older Sister?”\n
Yuhang, with an extremely fearful expression and heavy heart, looked gently at his sister, his eyes wet with big swirling, salty tears. He wanted to touch his sister but was afraid that his older sister would feel pain from his touch, so he just let his small hands hang feebly at his side.\n
The current Bailian’s appearance was truly frightening as her brows and forehead were still bleeding quite heavily. Thanks to the constant shuffling between her mother and father when they were carrying her, as well as Madam Zhao constantly wiping the blood away, her face was completely camouflaged by the blood from her wound.\n
Looking at her from a distance, it seemed that her injuries were not light. It seemed like she was just barely holding on.\n
“This blood….what has happened to you?”\n
The trembling, jaded voice once again hoarsely whispered. A trembling and frail yet rough hand that seemed to be riddled with wrinkles held Bailian’s hands gently. Despite the coarse and rugged feeling of the hands, Bailian could feel that this person truly loved and deeply cared for her.\n
Bailian just couldn’t understand, she didn’t even personally know them, but why did they care for and worry over her so much?\n
Madam Zhao’s face was a ghastly pale, devoid of any color as she softly sniffled into her hands “Lian’ er, she hit the edge of a table…”\n
“When Fifth heard that other family’s daughters had already gotten married or engaged, she must have gotten upset in her heart.”\n
“Why did you get so upset ah, poor child!” sadly croaked the worried old voice.\n
Bailian felt that she must open her eyes to see these people who were worried for her and reassure them that she was alright! No matter how hard she tried, her eyelids wouldn’t open and still felt incredibly heavy and hard to do so. She didn’t want to cause trouble ah! Although she didn’t know them personally, she had long felt that she owed it to these warmhearted people who cared about her personal wellbeing more then she did!\n
She tried to open her eyes again, but every time Bailian attempted this, numbing pain shot down her spine and head, making her scalp sting from her efforts\n
“This lowly wench can also be treated by a physician? Bah, you shameless thing, you better scram. I don’t have any free taels to give out here!” \n
A petty and high-pitched old woman’s voice from outside traveled into the room, which was immediately accompanied by the pleading voice of the Third Master, but no matter how he begged, the Matriarch would refuse to capitulate to his pleas with another round of scolding and miserly excuses. \n
The Third Master, getting on his knees with a bang, implored the Matriarch to listen to his requests, “Old Madam, I don’t want the money anymore, can you just let me pass into the room to see my family?”\n
“No way, I’m not budging! If a physician looks at a patient, won’t you still have to pay money for the visitation fees? It’s a waste to use the family funds on that distasteful little girl who is about to die anyway!” screamed Matriarch Wang, her spittle flying everywhere. “If it was me, while she’s still breathing, we can put her to some use and sell her to a slave broker and earn some money while we’re at it!” Matriarch Wang huffed and puffed looking quite pleased with her own suggestion.\n
Hearing the crazy old woman’s suggestion, Bailian’s extreme rage pushed her to attempt opening her eyes one last time before all hell broke loose. As she desperately fought against the heavy feeling crushing her head and temples, her listless eyelids finally opened a fraction and fluttered open\n
“Fifth!”\n
“Older Sister!”\n
Seeing that Bailian had suddenly awoken, the people in the room were pleasantly surprised and exclaimed in joyous cries and yelps of happiness. Bailian felt that her own hand was gripping her arm with an iron-fist grip, as if her own body was afraid that Bailian would somehow run off somewhere.\n
From first glance, Bailian saw four faces looking at her with warmth and concern in the dimly-lit room. The first face belonged to an elderly woman whose face was filled with wrinkles and seemed to have suffered a life riddled with hardship. The second face belonged to that of a gaunt, yet pretty woman who lovingly gazed at her while stroking her big belly. The two faces beside the elderly woman and pregnant woman were two scrawny boys with bright twinkling eyes and innocent smiles. \n
Every single person in the room seemed to be wearing traditional clothing that people in ancient times would have worn. However, it wasn’t the luxuriously made, carefully stitched costumes that one typically saw in TV series or dramas. Instead, they were clothing typical to those of commoners or farmers in ancient times. The clothes were clean, but tattered and threadbare, littered with places that had been mended and patched up, indicating that it had been many years since the owner had gotten new clothes. When one looked at this rag-tag bunch, it made one’s heartbreak and feel sad for them.\n
As the group of people looked pleasantly surprised and relieved at the sight of Bailian waking up, Bailian was confused, and thought, “Was I taken to a refugee camp or something? Was there a camp like this in Beijing?”\n
Before she could ask why and how she arrived at this camp, suddenly, her brow ached fiercely with an intense, all-consuming pain, causing her vision to go dark as she fainted for what seemed like the millionth time today. \n
“Older Sister!”\n
“Fifth!”\n
The people in the room panicked and repeatedly called out to Bailian in hopes of reviving her to a conscious state.\n
“Has Fifth woken up yet?”\n
The Third Branch Master, who had attempted to invite the village physician over, hurriedly barreled into the clamorous room after being held up by the petty Matriarch outside. He absolutely could not make a move on her earlier, so taking advantage of the erupting chaos, he snuck past her sight and into the room.\n
“You…probably couldn’t get the physician over right?” The elderly woman in the room sighed, her red-rimmed eyes pooling with her frustrated tears upon seeing her hard-working, pitiful son return from his failed attempts.\n
It was all her fault, she was merely Patriarch Li’s second wife, a mere concubine with no status or power to contest with the main wife, Matriarch Wang. She couldn’t even support her honest and filial son after all these years, only to see him end up living so humbly and lowly that she couldn’t even protect her own grandchildren and instead got them implicated.\n
“Concubine Mother….Lian’er…is she awake?”\n
The Third Master’s eyes were also red, and the two little boys choked up and despondently told their father what had happened while he was gone.\n
“Sister woke up just now, but we don’t know why, but she fainted again.”\n
The old woman discreetly wiped away her tears and her heart became more complicated. Twisting her handkerchief tightly, she remarked that every time she heard her son call her “Concubine Mother”, her heart broke every time and felt incredibly sad.\n
However, there was nothing she could do, she was only the second wife of Patriarch Li, and she was firmly suppressed by that Matriarch Wang hovering viciously outside the door.\n
“Sister!”\n
Yuhang had discovered that his sister was awake again and shouted in happiness at seeing her conscious again.\n
Bailian did a quick sweep of the room and glanced at the people in the room. She had already awoken a bit before Yuhang had discovered anything. Her heart violently skipped a beat and as if a light bulb had suddenly lit up, she realized something.\n
She had been transmigrated!\n
Just now when Bailian had fainted, memories of the original owner’s life came flooding back into her body. These memories were all horrible as the original owner only knew her immediate family and was constantly mistreated and suppressed by the other branches of the Li Family, who constantly said nasty and demeaning comments towards the Third Branch. \n
Since the original owner never got the chance to travel outside of the Wuming Village and didn’t possess any special skills, the most the original owner remembered were of hard times and the appalling conditions in which her family was maltreated and abused at every turn. They were mistreated with their food, clothing, and supply apportionment and were treated as slaves that did hard labor like washing, farming, hunting, and even cooking. The owner’s memories were like a horror film constantly on replay, only gruesome or appalling scenes of devastation appeared, which only went to illustrate the cruelty of humanity when one could take advantage of others.\n
“Child, how are you feeling? Does it hurt?”\n
Li Ciying worriedly asked her granddaughter, reaching out her wrinkled and frail hand to gently pat her wound, but stopped in fear that she would hurt Bailian.\n
“Fifth, you really scared mother!”\n
The big-bellied Madam Zhao wept and cried out in relief, her voice cracking from the stress of today. Li Ciying helped to support his heavily pregnant wife, his eyes starting to become speckled with hot, salty tears that hummed with unspoken emotions of helplessness and resignation. \n
“I’m…alright, just a little tired.”\n
Baillian felt a little uncomfortable since it had been many years since she had felt the warmth of a family or the care of others. This attention was a little burdensome and overwhelming, but it truly tickled her heart and made her think of them in a fond light. \n
“You should rest a bit more! I’ll find you some food to eat, you need to replenish your strength as your body is still weak after losing so much blood! I’ll find a way to get some nutritious, blood-replenishing ingredients to take!”\n
Li Ciying kept periodically holding and stroking Bailian’s hand with gentle strokes, her wrinkled and withered face one of pure love and grandmotherly affection.\n
Bailian sighed quietly, her heart twisting in pity for the frail, warmhearted grandmother in front of her. This woman was the original grandmother of the original owner of this body. One day, when Li Ciying was drowning, Patriarch Li saved her and married her into the Li Family as a concubine, which is why she fell into this impoverished and desolate state for many years.\n
At that time the Patriarch Li already had a wife, but if he did not marry Li Ciying, she would have never been able to marry again in her lifetime. Her reputation had been sullied and tarnished the moment she had been saved by Patriarch Li, her fate sealed.\n
That year, since the widowed father of Li Ciying only had this one precious daughter, he gave away all his property and assets to be part of her dowry, hoping that these gifts could support her in the Li Family and convince Madam Wang, who had been the legal wife at the time, to accept her as a concubine with open arms so she could live the rest of her life in comfort and happiness.\n
Both the past and present Matriarch Wang was very greedy for money, so she reluctantly allowed Li Ciying to become a concubine of the Li Family. This is why the Li Family has two Old Matriarchs.\n
However, as the years went by, Madam Wang became more and more unbridled and unreasonable in her actions. She validated her unfair actions by stating that her actions were justified as the Third Master was of concubine birth, and even more so for the rest of the family who were also of lowly status. Although the villagers never cared much for things like status, Matriarch Wang’s actions already unknowingly labeled the Third Branch as those who are lowly and as such, even villagers looked down upon the Li Family’s Third Branch.\n
With Li Ciying’s amiable and kindhearted temperament, she could only endure years after years of abuse and name-calling as she was the one that squeezed in between the Li couple’s marriage. After all these years, the degree of bullying had finally reached this high degree. \n
Bailian looked carefully at the people in this room. They were all so skinny, bony and had haggard complexions that spoke volumes for the hardship they had endured, even this original owner was skinny to the point of becoming a chopstick! The pressure of having to care for this poor family and her rage at the Li Family mixed together into a boiling rage.\n
If one wants to live well in this era, one must be able to take what’s rightfully theirs in the first place!\n
“Child, are you sure you’re really fine now?”\n
Grandmother Li Ciying asked nervously, cold sweat dripping off her back after seeing that Bailian had been in a dull stupor since she woke up and worried that her precious granddaughter had been injured to the point of becoming stupid!\n
“Ah? I’m fine.”\n
Balian lightly shook her head to reassure her lovely grandmother, wincing as her head throbbed painfully again, so she stopped because she really didn’t want to faint again!\n
“Is everyone in the Third Branch lame ah?! They are all so lazy and slacking off already! The clothes haven’t even been washed yet! You really think you are the Matriarch of this household?!”\n
A vicious and unforgiving voice squawked into the small room, causing everyone to noticeably stiffen and shrink, including Li Ciying’s hand which had been tightly Bailian’s hand. \n
“Child, you take all your time to rest, Grandmother…i will venture outside to find some good food for you” Li Ciying lightly comforted as she tenderly tucked Bailian’s small hands into the depths of the warm blanket and swaddled the blanket around her beloved granddaughter.\n