Baozi Xishi's Struggle

The night was very quiet. The wind blew through the treetops, rustling, just like Shen Yu's current mood, fragmented yet restless.

This was the first night Shen Yu woke up in this strange world.

The night before, 25-year-old white-collar worker Shen Yu finally moved into his new home after a long wait and renovation.

I finally have a home where I can call myself home. It’s such a happy thing and I must celebrate it.

I cooked a few dishes I liked, opened a cold beer, and drank by myself. I was having a great time, but then, the story was interrupted...

"Sister, sister, wake up"

"Second sister, eldest sister has slept for two whole days..."

Shen Yu woke up with a splitting headache. She could hear voices constantly in her ears, and a hand kept pushing her body.

"My head hurts, don't push me, let me sleep a little longer..."

"Big sister, big sister..."

Shen Yu closed his eyes, moved impatiently, and muttered to himself.

"wrong……"

Startled, Shen Yu tried hard to open his eyes.

In the blurry and dim vision, there are two children standing in front of me.

The two men were wearing patched grey cloth clothes, their faces were pale and thin, with messy buns on their heads, their eyes were full of anxiety and worry, and one of them was gently shaking her shoulders.

"You, who are you?"

Shen Yu saw the person next to him clearly, sat up in horror, and shrank back into the bed.

But he did not lean against the soft head of her bed, but instead leaned against a dirt wall, causing the dirt on the wall to fall off and raising a cloud of dust.

"Cough cough..."

Shen Yu started coughing due to being choked. His head hurt even more and he became a little more awake. He then narrowed his eyes and carefully looked at the surrounding environment.

In the dim room, there were a few clumsy wooden tables and stools, two large wooden boxes stacked against the corner, and the bed under me, covered with a patched quilt.

"Sister, sister!"

Shen Yu felt another gentle push.

"Sister, does your head still hurt?"

Another voice that was clearly that of a boy was filled with concern.

Shen Yu shrank his shoulders, raised his body and tried to get out of bed, but his vision went dark and he passed out again.

When she woke up again, she felt someone sitting next to her. She had no choice but to close her eyes and pretend to be asleep, eavesdropping on the movements around her.

"Mom, I hope my sister is okay. She woke up for a moment this morning and then passed out again."

"Don't talk nonsense. Your sister just hit her head. Doctor Sun said that as long as she wakes up, she'll be fine. Didn't she wake up this morning? I think she just doesn't want to go to work, so she's pretending to sleep!"

A slightly sharp female voice spoke angrily, and then Shen Yu felt someone pressing towards her face.

She was so frightened that she no longer dared to pretend to be asleep. She suddenly opened her eyes, suppressed the confusion in her heart, and carefully looked at the strange woman sitting beside the bed.

The woman was in her thirties or forties, wearing a coarse cloth jacket and trousers, with slightly disheveled hair, a wooden hairpin stuck in her simply tied-up hair. She had a pale and thin complexion, and looked exhausted. She was looking at Shen Yu with an impatient look.

"Sister, sister, are you awake?"

The child I saw in the morning rushed to the bed in surprise, and spoke with a clear voice. It turned out to be a girl.

"Sister, are you hungry? Does your head still hurt? Do you want to eat some porridge?"

The girl asked repeatedly and raised her hand to touch Shen Yu's head.

Shen Yu instinctively stepped back, only glancing at the two strangers, one big and one small, in front of him with a vigilant look.

"Yuzhi, you're awake. If you're awake, get up and eat. See if you can follow me down to the fields. At least you can give me a hand."

"Mom, my sister has been in a coma for two days. She has no teeth to eat or drink. She has a head injury and is bleeding so much. How can she have the strength to go out with you?"

The girl said this and turned and left the house.

"Yuzhi, you are too delicate. You just fell down accidentally and hit your head on a rock. You have been sleeping for two days. Your injury should have healed. Get up quickly."

As the woman spoke, she started to pull Shen Yu.

"Mom, what are you doing? My sister is still weak. Doctor Sun said that it's good enough to save her life. Whether she wakes up or not depends on God's will. My sister is lucky to wake up."

The girl was walking in carefully with a large coarse porcelain bowl in her hand. When she saw this scene, she quickly put the bowl on the wooden table and came over to pull the woman.

The woman snorted, turned around and sat down on the wooden stool beside the table, and remained silent.

The girl came over, helped Shen Yu lie down, tucked the corner of the quilt for her, and said, "Sister, are you dizzy? Are you hungry? Can you get up and have some porridge?"

"Yutao, don't worry about her. Even if she starves to death, I can still save some food!"

"Mom, please stop saying those angry words. Who is the one who worked all day and came home without eating and sat by my sister's bed wiping tears? Now that my sister has woken up, you are saying that again."

“I, I just felt that no one was doing work for me.”

"Mom, I didn't fall on purpose. It was those gossiping aunts and ladies who made fun of me. I was walking in a hurry and slipped and hit my head on a rock."

"Alas, it's my fate that's so miserable. Your father passed away due to an illness. It's a relief now that he's gone, but now we're the only ones left. How are we going to survive?

As the woman spoke, she wiped the corners of her eyes with her sleeve and started scolding again.

"Hu Youren's family is really a bunch of bastards. Once they saw your father was gone, the marriage they had arranged back then was no longer valid."

"I sent Liu the matchmaker to come and bother her. She said that she should just find a fortune teller. Yuzhi has a strong fate. Even though she killed your father, she will also kill her husband and children in the future. She is the only child, and she doesn't have the blessing to enjoy it. She doesn't dare to accept this marriage. She asked me to be kind and return the engagement letter."

The woman was even more angry when she thought of the time when Liu the matchmaker came to cancel the engagement: "Liu the matchmaker told me everything that the woman from the Hu family said, and she was very generous and said that the two pieces of cloth, two jars of wine, a goose, and a load of snacks that his family had given me that year should not be returned, and that they should be considered as gifts to my family. All I had to do was return the engagement letter and cancel the engagement."

"She also complained that she shouldn't have saved those few dollars when proposing marriage, and asked Blind Wang to match her horoscope. This time, the fortune teller she invited was called Li Tiezui, and people in the surrounding area said that he was very accurate. For this fortune telling, she spent eighty dollars."

As she said this, the woman said "Pah" in hatred: "Humph, the wife of the Hu family watched your father go, and the promised dowry is gone. I heard that the new marriage is with the daughter of the carpenter Qi in her natal village, and the dowry is 20 taels of silver, and there are five acres of top-quality sloping land. "

The woman sneered as she spoke, "That woman from the Hu family is obsessed with money. The daughter of the Qi family is a cripple and walks with a limp. Everyone in the surrounding area knows about it, otherwise how could they be willing to give such a generous dowry. Humph, our beautiful girl is no match for a cripple..."

The woman became more and more excited as she spoke. She stopped crying and had a look of anger on her face.

The girl called Yutao walked over to the woman and sat down. She took her hand and smiled, comforting her: "Mom, don't be angry. Although Daddy is gone, we still have our siblings."

Yu Tao looked at Shen Yu, who was lying on the bed with a pale face. "Sister is a soft-hearted person. She must be sad because her engagement was broken off and she was laughed at by others. Yu Cheng and I are young, but we can still help mother with work. Sister hit her head and bled so much, how can she get up and go to the fields right now? When sister gets better, we brothers and sisters will go to the fields together to help mother with work. Mother, what do you think?"