1 – Past Life Memories

A bout of autumn rain; a bout of autumn chill.^[1]

Yan Qixun leaned against the door frame of the main room of the thatched earthen house, looking at the drizzling autumn rain outside, feeling extremely melancholy.

Last night, there was a house fire and she was choked by the thick smoke. When she woke up, she inexplicably awakened memories of her past life.

Looking at her own thatched house that seemed to be from the fifties or sixties of her previous life, Qixun felt that she had died hastily.

She tossed and turned all night, not knowing whether to be happy or upset. She just... felt complicated.

After thinking about it all night, she could only sigh that even Mengpo soup^[2] cut corners these days. If not, then why did she think of her past life again eight or nine years after she had happily reincarnated in this ancient mountain village?

Couldn’t she be a happy and carefree little peasant girl in ancient times?

However, one shouldn’t think only of the bad side of things. Perhaps there was nothing wrong with the Mengpo soup. It was just that in her previous life, she was the youngest and most talented academician of the two academies in China at thirty-eight years old.^[3] She had made outstanding contributions to the development of science and technology in the motherland and had great merits. Despite that, she was reincarnated as a poor peasant girl and the dynasty she now lived in was not so friendly to women, so God compensated her with extra rewards. Therefore, he let her cheat and awaken her memories of her previous life?

Did she feel better if she thought about it that way?

Yan Qixun actually had no regrets about her untimely death in her previous life. She had died to save people, which could be regarded as a glorious sacrifice. Both her parents had passed away, her uncle had his own family, and she was still a single dog.^[4] The experimental project she was responsible for happened to be successful. And the country she lived in had become the most powerful country in the world more than ten years prior.

She died without regrets.

What made her sad was that her current home was burned to ashes by a fire yesterday. Nothing was rescued from the house except two boxes of books.

Of course, fortunately, she was fine.

Now her family was temporarily living in the house where her maternal grandfather lived when he was alive, which was only ten meters away from her family’s burnt-down courtyard.

After her grandfather passed away, the house was left empty. It was originally a house with mud walls and a thatched roof. No one had lived in it for several years and it had become dilapidated. Fortunately, there were three rooms and her parents repaired the roof once a year. At least it didn’t leak and could still be lived in.

But “living” wasn’t only about having a house.

Yan Qixun shrank her shoulders.

She only had the inner shirt^[5] she wore when she slept yesterday. It was very thin and there was ash stuck to it. However, she had no change of clothing.

It was now the beginning of September in the lunar calendar. Winter was about to come and the weather was getting colder and colder. The family had no food, no clothes, and no bedding. From the burned house, they only salvaged less than five taels of silver and just over two hundred copper coins, which were all the family’s savings.

She couldn't enter the portable space^[6] from her previous life. Now she didn't know whether the space disappeared or she just couldn't enter it temporarily, so she had to plan for the worst.

But her eldest brother had gone to the capital with their father to take the imperial examinations, and they wouldn’t be back until April next year at the earliest. Her mother was a lady from a wealthy family and was proficient in the four scholarly arts,^[7] but she couldn’t be relied on to support the family. Her second brother and third sister were triplets with her eldest brother and were only twelve years old. She and her fifth sister were twins and were only eight years old. They weren’t old enough to support the family. It would be difficult for them to spend this winter safely; at least, she found the cold unbearable now.

Looking at the rain outside, Yan Qixun wiped her face and sighed again, but she really didn’t want to lie in the house and rely on the straw bedding and a tattered quilt to keep warm.

In these damn ancient times, transportation basically depended on walking, communication basically depended on shouting, heating basically depended on shivering, and entertainment basically depended on... Ugh, what was she thinking!

The poor genius hunched her shoulders in the cold, put aside the complaints in her heart, and began to think about how to use her brain to make money to support her family. Just as she was thinking, she heard the creaking sound of the bamboo fence door being pushed open.

The one who came was a woman in her fifties. In this era, she was considered elderly and could call herself an old woman.

But she was one of her only neighbors, the granny from the Zuo family.

The Zuo family only had an old couple and a son. Because they were hunters, they didn’t live in the village. In order to conveniently go up the mountain, they lived at the edge of the village at the foot of the mountain. It was about two hundred meters away from the rest of the village settlement.

Yan Qixun’s father, Yan Yongwu, was born in the capital. He lost his parents when he was young and was raised by his grandparents. When he was fifteen, his grandparents who worked in the Hanlin Academy^[8] in the capital passed away. From the capital, he escorted their remains back to their hometown^[9] and settled in his ancestral home. After getting married, he became neighbors with the Zuo family.

Qixun saw Granny Zuo^[10] coming in the rain and asked hurriedly, “Granny, why did you come here now?”

Granny Zuo was wearing a straw raincoat and carrying a bamboo basket wrapped in oilcloth. No one knew what was inside the basket.

Upon hearing the question, she closed the fence gate and walked quickly to the door in the mud. While picking the mud off her shoes and entering the house, she said, “You guys had a disaster last night and I figured you probably have nothing at home. We can’t help you in much else, but we can spare some rice and flour. We were worried that you’d have nothing to eat for breakfast, so we’re sending you some food. Why are you the only one at home? Where are your mother and the others?”

Before Qixun could answer, Granny Zuo put down the basket, took Qixun’s hand and said in surprise, “Oh, my little darling, why are you standing there in just this little? The weather is cold now. What if you get sick again? Go and lie down on the bed quickly. We still have to think of a way to find some thicker clothes.”

Granny Zuo knew that nothing was salvaged from the house fire except a few taels of silver, a few copper coins, and two boxes of books.

The tattered quilt they slept on last night was sent by Granny Zuo. This tattered quilt belonged to the young uncle of the Zuo family. He said that he was an adult and it was okay for him to stay up all night, so he lent it to her family temporarily.

Qixun’s mother saw that Qixun had a low fever yesterday, so she borrowed it once. She had to return it to the owner today.

It was also because she fainted yesterday and ran a low fever that this morning, when her mother took her brother and sisters out to solve to their predicament, she stayed at home.

Qixun saw that Granny Zuo looked worried and hurriedly said, “My mother took my brother to the town to buy bedding and cloth, and my big sister and little sister went to our great-grand-uncle’s house to borrow food.”

Pappy Zuo was in poor health and had been taking medicine. Therefore, although he was a hunter, his life was actually difficult. His family only had three acres of dry land and they had to buy their own food to eat. How could Qixun's family have the nerve to borrow food from him?

So third sister and little sister went to their great-grand-uncle’s house to borrow food. This great-grand-uncle wasn’t an outsider, but her paternal great-grandfather’s legitimate younger brother.^[11] The two families were blood relatives within the fifth degree of mourning.^[12]

Because they were far away from the village, the fire last night did not alarm their clansmen.^[13] After all, it had already finished burning down at the time. Why should they frighten the villagers in the middle of the night?

But by now, the clansmen probably knew about it.

After all, her home was at the front end of the village, and one had to pass by here when entering and leaving the village. The reason why no one from the clan came here at this time was probably because her older and younger sisters went to the village.

Granny Zuo chased her to bed, wrapped her in a thin, torn quilt, and said, “Although the harvest was poor this autumn, your great-grand-uncle still has thirty acres of paddy fields. Add to that the ten acres of paddy fields rented from your family, and they can make ends meet. They can help you a little. Besides, your great-grand-uncle is still alive and loves you great-grandchildren. He won't watch you suffer. I’m only giving you a few pounds of flour and two pounds of rice, enough for you to eat for a few days.”

Since her parents weren’t home, Qixun didn't dare to accept anything from them, so she declined.

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