Chapter 1

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So hungry... Can one still feel hunger after death?
A fleeting thought passed through Sang Luo’s drifting mind. After some unknown length of time, the unbearable hunger that felt like her chest was pressed against her back finally roused her.
Moonlight, like silver frost, filtered into the room. She was groggy, her mind blank for a moment before recalling that she seemed to be dead? But the underworld didn’t look like this, did it?
Though it was night, the moonlight allowed her to clearly see that she was in a completely unfamiliar house.
She moved her fingertips slightly, taking stock of her body’s condition. Though weak, she felt no pain like in illness. Gathering some strength, she raised her hand to her chest; the skin was warm, her heart’s beat faint but real.
She was still alive?
As this thought crossed her mind, something else inexplicably surfaced in her head—a sudden, intense stabbing pain. Sang Luo doubled over, instinctively clutching her head. Memories belonging to another person intertwined and churned with her own. When she finally grasped these memories and realized she had transmigrated through time, cold sweat poured from her in waves of agony.
Supporting herself on the bed, she forced herself upright and, under the moonlight, examined the hut from the memories. Every detail matched perfectly.
She had transmigrated—into a dynasty called the Great Qian. The body she now inhabited once belonged to a fifteen-year-old girl also named Sang Luo, born to a commoner family. Due to floods in her hometown, her original parents and siblings had all perished; only she had miraculously survived, fleeing with her clan.
By the time they reached Qiyang County, most of her clan had exhausted their food and money, forced to beg while traveling southward, foraging wild fruits and vegetables in mountain villages to stave off hunger.
But after months of wandering, most could not endure physically. Selling children became common—both to give the kids a chance at life and to provide some hope for the family.
Though the original Sang Luo had no relatives left, she met Madam Li in Qingpu Township, who wished to buy a bride for her nephew.
The nephew, Shen Lie, was tall and strong, neither a gambler nor a brute, but currently serving in the military and yet to return.
Marrying a farmer, despite the risk of him never returning from service, was better than being sold into slavery or servitude. Moreover, the original Sang Luo had nowhere else to go. When her aunt, who had shown her care, fell gravely ill, Sang Luo bit the bullet and approached Madam Li, offering herself for half a sack of grain—not as a slave, but as a wife to the Shen family.
She gave that grain to her uncle and aunt and followed Madam Li back to Ten Li Village.
Madam Li was far more pragmatic than Sang Luo. Though the girl was not purchased and no deed was held over her, the expense was minimal—only half a sack of grain, nothing more.
Upon returning, Madam Li had a man fetch the village head to transfer Sang Luo’s household registration to the Shen family and swiftly arranged the marriage contract between Sang Luo and Shen Lie.
Only then did Sang Luo learn that her so-called husband had been serving for over two years and three months without returning, rumored to have died in battle.
In other words, she had just married and was already a widow.
Though fearful and confused, she had no other choice. It was better than wandering and begging or being sold into slavery—at least she had a “home.”
Her doubts as to why Madam Li would marry off Shen Lie after his death were resolved half a month after moving into the Shen household.

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The Shen family split, and as the eldest daughter-in-law of the main branch, Sang Luo, along with Shen Lie’s nine-year-old twin siblings, was separated out.
Only then did she understand the purpose behind Madam Li’s transaction of half a sack of grain.
To openly discard a burden.
The Great Qian Dynasty had seen continuous wars and, over the past decade, floods, droughts, and various disasters one after another. Life for common folk was harsh. The Shen family had fled here nine years ago, with half of their large clan dying en route—either protecting their young or succumbing to illness and hunger.
In the Shen family’s three branches, only the eldest branch had surviving members: Shen Lie, who was nine at the time, and his mother Zhang, who had given birth to the twins on the journey and died shortly after. The second branch was wiped out entirely. The third branch was a young couple newly married, with no children; they survived, conserving their limited food and water.
The three children of the eldest branch then lived with their uncle and aunt in the third branch.
At first, life was manageable. But after settling in Ten Li Village, Madam Li bore two children in three years and four more in seven—three sons and a daughter. Naturally, her own offspring were prioritized, and after the first child of the third branch was born, the eldest branch’s three children began to suffer.
Fortunately, though young, Shen Lie was somewhat capable of caring for his siblings. Their parents had been tall and strong, and Shen Lie inherited this stature, growing taller than his peers. By twelve or thirteen, he was the main labor force at home. Madam Li and her husband counted on this and begrudgingly raised the two younger children.
Two years ago, when the government called for conscription, the head of the household, Shen San, was the most suitable candidate. But Shen San was terrified of the battlefield and refused.
Without much struggle, he set his eyes on his sixteen-year-old nephew Shen Lie instead. Secretly, he went to the village head to arrange for Shen Lie’s name to be submitted.
Because the eldest and third branches were not divided, as head of the household, Shen San had the final say.
Before Shen Lie could grasp what was happening, conscription officers forcibly took him away.
Once Shen Lie was gone, life became harder for the twins. At first, there was guilt and consideration for Shen Lie, but a few months ago, some conscripts returned from the front lines with dire news: a crushing defeat, with only a fraction of the vanguard surviving. The company Shen Lie belonged to was said to have been annihilated.
With Shen Lie dead, Madam Li no longer wished to raise the twins. The court provided no compensation, further fueling her anger. At first, she doubted the reports, but as more soldiers returned and Shen Lie remained missing, her resolve hardened, and her intentions turned crooked.
The Shen family had only been settled here for nine years. Though they had cleared some fields, most land was leased. After taxes and rent, life was difficult.
Madam Li had four children of her own—six mouths to feed—all supported by Shen San. Feeding the twins meant even fewer resources for her own children.
Though her heart wavered, Shen Lie had been conscripted at sixteen by his own uncle and now lay dead on the battlefield...
Neither she nor her husband dared openly reject the twins, fearing village gossip or Shen San’s remorse before his deceased elder brother.
The twins could not be abandoned; to do so meant certain death.
Reluctantly raising them, but unwilling to fully accept them, the issue weighed heavily on Madam Li’s mind until the arrival of a group of refugees in the village provided an opportunity. Thus, half a sack of grain was exchanged for a wife for Shen Lie.
Madam Li thought herself clever: without the eldest son, bring in an eldest daughter-in-law; an eldest daughter-in-law was like a mother, after all.

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Only the two younger ones could not be separated out. Marry in an elder sibling, then divide the family—wouldn’t that solve the problem?
Rushing home to share the idea with Shen San, the couple immediately agreed. Swiftly, they arranged everything. After the new eldest daughter-in-law lived with them for half a month, the family division was set in motion.
The division included only simple possessions: the thatched hut they had built upon arriving in Ten Li Village, a few homemade benches, some bed boards, one quilt, some old clothes, a sack of grain, a clay pot, three sets of bowls and chopsticks, some farming tools, and a little salt.
The most valuable was the patch of uncultivated mountain land beneath the hut.
Shen San considered himself generous—after all, it was land. Half the fields he now farmed were leased from a wealthy landlord.
Having raised three nephews all these years, he felt dividing the family and giving them a mountain was generous enough.
Of course, this mountain land was one of two free plots granted by the government to refugees for clearing and firewood gathering—Shen Lie should have received his share, but Shen San conveniently forgot this.
As for pushing Shen Lie to the battlefield where he died and promising to raise the twins, Shen San and Madam Li rationalized that by spending half a sack of grain to get Shen Lie a wife, who would then raise the children, they were not breaking their promise.
The two younger ones had no power to resist, and the original occupant—just brought in through half a sack of grain and widowed at the door—dared not speak up.
The Shen family were refugees here, with no clan or elders to restrain them. Even if the villagers thought poorly of Shen San and his wife, they had no standing to intervene.
Thus, the family division was ultimately accepted.
The original Sang Luo, a fifteen-year-old girl unable to shoulder burdens or lift heavy things, lived on the mountain with her nine-year-old youngest uncle and aunt for three months, with their grain nearly depleted.
The twins, starving, begged Shen San in the village for food, to which he would sometimes nod. Yet Madam Li’s provisions were limited. She would throw out complaints about the family’s hardships and how, now that they were separated, it was improper to keep asking for food. Out of five requests, two might be met—barely enough to keep the twins from starving, just filling their stomachs halfway.
The twins were thoughtful. Though an inexplicably new eldest sister-in-law, they relied on each other. Every morsel they got, they would share with Sang Luo, eating together twice a day—two mouthfuls of rice and boiled wild vegetables as a meal.
Before Sang Luo’s transmigration, the family had been in a near-starvation state for over ten days.
The original Sang Luo had been weakened by the escape and malnutrition, her body failing. Two days of dizziness and faintness led to her collapse. Amid hunger and illness, she died in the middle of the night. The one who woke was Sang Luo, with a new soul.
Even now, Sang Luo could hardly believe it. Her trembling hand moved to her chest, feeling her heartbeat, then shakily to her thigh, pinching the tender flesh with all her strength.
Indeed, the heartbeat was real, the body temperature real, the pain from the pinch real, and the burning hunger and weakness real.
She... was truly alive!

Author’s Note:
A lighthearted farming story set in a fictional late dynasty, depicting the daily survival of common folk in chaotic times.