Chapter 1
Get the Hell Out
“Why isn’t she moving?”
“Could it be that she’s dead?”
“She deserves to die. Nobody will hit us anymore once she’s dead!”
Lu Jiao heard those boastful whispers before she could get her eyes to open.
She slowly opened her eyes and saw the little fellas who spoke beside her. These young boys appeared jaundiced and skinny without an inch of fat on their bodies. They almost looked like baby chickens.
Before Lu Jiao could speak, the four little brats realized that she had awakened and their expressions changed. The four of them snapped their bodies around and ran away. As they dashed, they screamed.
“She’s awake!”
“She’s going to hit me!”
“Daddy, help!”
“We didn’t steal her eggs!”
Confused, Lu Jiao watched the boys run away. She then glanced at her surroundings.
She found herself in a dilapidated and mottled courtyard. In the center of the courtyard were three cracked-up mudbrick shacks. Hay was used to cover up these rooms and acted as roofs. To the east of the main building were two more cracked-up clay buildings. Other than these few rooms, there was nothing else in the courtyard. Its barren state made it appear especially desolated.
Where was she? Shouldn’t she be dead?
As a female military doctor from the 21st century, she was on her way to rescue a team of soldiers when she was struck by the enemy’s grenade. Matter of factly, there was no way she could still be alive.
As Lu Jiao searched her brain, a flood of memories overwhelmed her head. Very quickly, she realized what had happened to her.
She had transmigrated. She had transmigrated to the Xie Village, Qili Town within the Qinghe District in the Great Zhou Empire. She was the scholar, Xie Yunjin’s wife, Lu Jiao.
This person, Lu Jiao, was quite a character. Not only was she vile in the way she spoke, but she was also very violent. She hit people and cursed at people – even her own quadruplet boys could not escape her viciousness. The four little boys were frequently beaten up by her and thus were terrified of her.
This morning, Lu Jiao got up and boiled two eggs. Since they were too hot, she didn’t get to eat them. Instead, she went to the washroom and when she returned, the eggs were gone.
She was certain that her sons had stolen her eggs so she picked up a stick and started to strike the boys. However, she applied too much strength, lost her balance, and slipped. When she fell, her head hit a rock and she died – this allowed the transmigration to happen.
Lu Jiao was speechless as she raised an eyebrow. Then, she struggled to pick herself off of the ground. The fat on her body quivered. The simple movement of getting off the ground somehow managed to tire her out and make her sweat.
With a dark face, Lu Jiao looked down at her chubby self. She felt a wave of pity compared to those four skeleton boys who didn’t have the slightest fat on them.
Due to the blood loss, she felt dizzy and decided to go back to her room to rest up first.
Just as she stepped into the old and broken mudbrick home, she heard voices croak from the east bedroom.
“Daddy, we didn’t eat her eggs.”
“Yeah, I didn’t steal anything. Daddy, you taught us that if we take something without informing the owner, we’d be thieves. We don’t want to be thieves.”
“But she didn’t believe us and blamed us for taking her eggs. She picked up a stick and hit us.”
The noises in the east room intensified. These cries weren’t like regular children’s loud cries. They sounded more like suppressed and wronged squawks. The sound of it was hard to bear for anyone who heard it.
Lu Jiao subconsciously walked towards the east bedroom. The moment she peeked in, however, the four little boys silenced themselves. Their jaundiced faces turned pale as they ducked toward the head of the bed. It appeared that they wanted to somehow crawl into the wall.
Lu Jiao was about to speak when someone on the bed opened their mouth, “Lu Jiao, you think that because I am now paralyzed, I can no longer deal with you? Is that why your old habits came back?”
Lu Jiao looked over to the bed and lost herself as she stared at the man.
There was a slender man on the old and broken bed. Though slender, his features were delicately beautiful. His hair was dark like ink and his skin was smooth like jade. The coldness he carried on his brows was threateningly handsome.
Though he was gravely injured, he didn’t appear at all depleted.
The only issue was the bone-deep bitterness that reflected out of his deep and dark pupils. He stared at Lu Jiao with such coldness.
If he was able to move, Lu Jiao had no doubt in her mind that he would snap her neck.
On the bed, Xie Yunjin noticed that Lu Jiao hadn’t moved. Exasperated and disgusted, he spoke again, “I had demanded that you stop beating them. Didn’t you hear me?”
Lu Jiao heard him and automatically wanted to explain herself, “I..?”
Before she could speak, however, there was the sound of footsteps at the door. Before the person entered, a caring voice was heard first.
“Third little brother, how are you feeling today? Are you better?”
Everyone in the room looked over at the person who just entered. He was dark and thin, with a hunchback. Though he wasn’t yet 30, he looked as old as someone in their 40s.
This was Xie Yunjin’s second eldest brother, Xie Erzhu.
Three days ago, Xie Yunjin got injured after he was stomped on by a horse carriage while in town. His parents, Xie Laogen and Xie Laotai, reacted fast and hired a doctor from Baohe Tang to look after Xie Junjie.
The initial prognosis was that due to the graveness of the injury, a lot of money was required to treat Xie Junjie. However, even after treatment, he may become disabled and would have to spend the rest of his life paralyzed in bed.
Xie Laogen and Xie Laotai’s faces dropped upon those words. They then started to discuss whether or not they should pay for treatment. Was there a point to treatment? Plus, with Xie Junjie paralyzed, who would take care of him and his family?
Xie Laogen and Xie Laotai birthed four sons and one daughter. Xie Yunjin was their third child. Xie Laogen liked his eldest son the best while Xia Laotai favored the youngest pair of twins.
Xie Yunjin and his second brother were never their parents’ favorites.
However, when Xie Yunjin was eight, his tutor hired from town discovered him to be extremely intelligent. The tutor went to his family and managed to convince Xie Laogen and Xie Laotai to send Xie Yunjin to school.
He performed shockingly well at school. First, he was chosen as the top pupil, then later, the scholar.
He was the only educated member of the Xie family over the last several decades. The village where the Xie family lived was extremely proud of him. Xie Laogen and Xie Laotai became respected because of him and therefore started to treat him well. Who knew that the sudden accident and grave injury would once again knock him into the abyss.
In the end, the Xie family discussed and decided to move Xie Yunjin’s family out. They gave Xie Yunjin five taels of silver for treatment. Whether the treatment would turn out to be a success or failure, they would accept that as his fate.
Xie Yunjin’s wife didn’t agree to this. However, the Xie family didn’t care about her opinion. They moved them into the old house anyway.
She was angry and refused to spend any money on Xie Yunjin’s treatment. In the end, it was Xie Erzhu who took out the money Xie Yunjin gave him as support from before. He bought medicine from Baohe Tang and snuck into the mountains to brew it. Only after he fed Xie Yunjin that medicine, did Xie Yunjin manage to survive.
On the bed, Xie Yunjin heard Xie Erzhu’s words, and his brows softened somewhat.
“Second brother, I am much better.”
Xie Erzhu sighed in relief and rushed to his bedside, “Third little brother, drink up the medicine. Later, I will change the medicinal gel on you.”
Lu Jiao was tempted to ask if they needed help.
Before she could ask, however, Xie Yunjin snapped his head around. The look in his eyes was cold like icicles that formed over nine different winters, “Get the hell out.”