Autumn, the fifteenth year of Dazhao.
Shiwa Village, Jiangyin County, Xuzhou City.
Following a heavy downpour, Mount Daqing was lush and verdant. Now and then, a little rabbit would hop out from the undergrowth. With casual precision, Gu Qingyun flicked a pebble from her left hand, striking the rabbit square between the eyes.
In a few swift motions, she twisted a length of straw rope, tied up the rabbit, and tossed it into her wicker basket.
Peering through the towering canopy, Gu Qingyun checked the sky. She ventured a bit deeper into the woods, bagged a pheasant, and only then turned to head back down the mountain.
She did not rush, appearing completely at ease as she walked with an unbothered expression, utterly unfazed by her surroundings.
“Little Qing, hurry home! Your father is back!” Aunt Lin called out, hurrying over as soon as she spotted Gu Qingyun coming down the mountain, an edge of poorly concealed anxiety in her voice.
Holding a woodchopping knife in one hand with the basket strapped to her back, Gu Qingyun’s eyes lit up at the news. She took off at a sprint toward home, calling back over her shoulder, “Thank you for letting me know, Aunt Lin! I’ll head home right now!”
Watching the girl’s joyful display, Aunt Lin’s eyes reddened. The words she wanted to say choked in her throat like a wad of cotton, finally emerging no louder than a mosquito’s hum: “Your father was carried back...”
Gu Qingyun was already too far away to hear. Her thoughts were entirely on her father.
Her father served as a Constable in the county seat. He usually slept in the duty barracks and only returned home once a month.
The family had not divided the household. Every time her father returned, he would bring candy and white rice, making it a day all the siblings eagerly anticipated.
There would not only be food, but hair flowers, and sometimes even fabric to tailor new clothes. It was always the happiest day of the month for the entire household.
Thanks to this position of his, they were considered relatively well-off compared to the other villagers.
It might sound ridiculous, but in her previous life, Gu Qingyun would never have craved such meager treats. Life after reincarnation was simply too harsh.
Every time she recalled the comfortable days of her past life, she felt a pang of sorrow. If she had known she would end up as an ancient peasant child in this life, she never would have dieted to lose weight back then. Now, even if she wanted to eat, there was nothing to be had—a regret that made her green with remorse.
In her previous life, Gu Qingyun had died after being struck by a car while looking at her phone—she could hardly blame anyone else for such a death. By the time her consciousness awakened, she was already inside her mother’s womb, though at the time she had no idea she would be reborn into some unknown dynasty.
Back then, an orb of light had burrowed into her soul. Once she realized what it was, she was beside herself with joy—contained within the orb were cultivation techniques.
From the moment she settled in her mother’s womb, she began following the instructions etched into her mind, absorbing the innate qi of the womb to temper her foundation, completely oblivious to the world outside.
She had been thrilled for days upon discovering the 《Shangqing Blazing Sun Qi Transformation Treatise》, the 《Star Body Tempering Technique》, and a weapon stored within her mind.
She had assumed this must be an immortal cultivation world, where she, a transmigrator reborn with her past memories, would surely sweep across the lands and become an unstoppable heroine.
But she soon realized that was not the case at all. Her family was composed of dirt-poor farmers toiling with their faces to the yellow earth and backs to the sky, and no immortal had ever emerged from their lineage.
Even so, having someone serve as a Constable in the county seat brought in decent monthly wages. Compared to families who scraped by solely on what they could dig out of their meager plots, they were much better off.
Still, the meals at home were hardly bountiful. Her grandmother was accustomed to pinching pennies, and they typically ate only until they were sixty or seventy percent full.
The daily fare was endlessly steamed cornbread and greens; their diet improved only when the family member serving as a Constable returned from the county seat once a month.
Her aunts and older cousins worked the fields every single day. With over a dozen mouths to feed and money needed to arrange marriages for the older male cousins, every copper had to be counted.
Her grandparents had five children in total—three sons and two daughters. Both daughters were already married off, while her grandfather, eldest uncle, second uncle, and eldest male cousin had all perished.
Indeed, in the eleven years since her birth, three men in the family had died.
Aside from her grandfather, who had died long before, her eldest uncle, second uncle, and eldest male cousin had all passed away during the eleven years since her birth.
Yet giving up this official post was out of the question. The entire extended family depended on the income to survive; their few meager mu of land could never support so many people.
Strange as it seemed, incidents had been multiplying in many areas over recent years, and the number of Constables dying in the line of duty climbed alongside them. Successive replacements cycling through the ranks had long ceased to be novel news.
Every time Gu Qingyun’s father left for duty, the family spent the days on edge, but over the past three years, he had returned safe and sound every time. So when she heard he was back today, she was thrilled, never imagining the worst.
Her family was indeed a large one: her eldest aunt had borne three sons and one daughter; her second aunt, one son and three daughters; and her mother, one son and two daughters. It was quite a flourishing household. With these thoughts in mind, her steps grew faster and faster.
But the moment Gu Qingyun reached the gate, she saw white mourning cloth hanging from the trees outside, as well as over the doorway. From within the house came the wailing of her mother, her two aunts, and her siblings and cousins.
She froze at the courtyard entrance, unable to take another step. Biting her lip, tears welled in her eyes.
What met her eyes was an improvised bier pieced together from wooden benches. Her father, Gu He, lay upon it motionless. His face was deathly pale, one arm twisted at an unnatural angle, and the fabric over his chest was soaked in blood.
Her lips twitched faintly, unable to accept what she saw. How could a living, breathing person suddenly be gone?
It felt as if a gaping hole had been torn through Gu Qingyun's chest. With devastating clarity, she realized that she no longer had a father.
Numbly casting aside her basket, she walked over and dropped to her knees beside her father. Memories flooded her mind of how he used to guide her in martial arts practice and take her hunting in the mountains every time he returned home.
Her grandmother had originally opposed her learning martial arts, claiming that as a girl, she would eventually belong to another family, and had wanted her to work the fields instead.
It was her father who saw her great strength and genuine talent in martial arts, pushing past all objections to let her train alongside her male cousins and brother.
She had not disappointed him. Since venturing into the mountains at age six, she had never once returned empty-handed. Neither her grandmother nor her eldest aunt ever mentioned sending her into the fields again.
After all, the game she brought back could not only feed the family, but also be sold for money.
Several of her female cousins had watched with envy and tried learning for a few days, but they had started too late to show much progress and soon gave up entirely. She was the only one who persevered.
Yet now, the father who cherished her most lay before her. He would never stroke her head again, never praise her talent, and never bring treats home for her ever again.
In the eleven years she had lived in the Gu family, the memories of her past life had remained hidden in the depths of her heart. When she first realized she had ended up in an ancient era where even a bowl of white rice was a luxury, she had rejected the reality.
But thinking about how low the birth rate had fallen back home, she figured that even if she died and went back, she probably would not get reincarnated into her home country anyway, so she had gradually come to terms with it.
It was just a pity for her past-life parents, who had to suffer the tragedy of burying their own child. Fortunately, she had an older brother and a younger sister back then to look after them, which brought her some peace of mind.
“Father...” Coming back to herself and taking in the gruesome state of her father’s body, Gu Qingyun could hold back her tears no longer.
Her mother, Lady Su, had fainted from the grief of losing the pillar of the household, and Gu Qingyun’s older sister was tending to her inside the room.
Old Lady Zhang sat in a chair nearby, staring blankly at her last surviving son. In her lifetime, not long after her eldest son married and became a father, she had lost her husband.
Then she had lost her eldest son, her second son, and her eldest grandson. And now, even her youngest son was gone. His youngest daughter was only eleven years old. Leaving behind a house full of widows and orphans, how were they supposed to carry on?
Her life had been so bitter. All three of her sons were dead, yet someone in the family still had to take up this official post—it was their only livelihood.
Now, all she had left were four grandsons and a few granddaughters. She had to hold this family together; otherwise, when her time came, how could she face her husband and three sons in the netherworld?
Why had the heavens been so cruel? The family would have to send another man to fill her third son's vacancy. Could the Gu family truly not preserve a single bloodline? Why did disaster strike them time and time again? At this moment, she truly despised this wretched world.
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