I died

Summer, cicadas, wheat fields, sickles.

Meng Yuan looked at his surroundings. In a daze, he suddenly felt his head splitting with pain, and fragmented memories flooded his mind.

"Same name and surname, born a poor peasant, lost his mother at two, still unmarried at eighteen, lived with his father and elder brother."

"I transmigrated?"

"Since I've transmigrated, then... Deep Blue, give me points!"

"Ding!"

Meng Yuan called for his plug-in, but there was no response.

Just then, an old man walked over and sighed. "You dimwit, what are you dinging for? Have you gotten even stupider? I told you to show some restraint, but you wouldn't listen. You spent every scrap of strength on a woman's belly. You can't even reap wheat as fast as an old man like me. Feeling dizzy, are you? I was just like you when I first got myself a wife..."

Restraint? I can't even find a wife. What woman's belly... huh?

His memories returned in full. Only then did Meng Yuan remember that his predecessor had been unwilling to stay home listening to his sister-in-law scrape the bottom of the pot, so he had followed Old Yang from his village to the Cheng Household as a hired reaper, to get a few days of solid meals.

As it happened, summer's heat had already arrived, and Master Cheng and his wife were staying in a cave dwelling several li away to escape it. Since their eldest son had died young, household affairs had temporarily been left to their widowed daughter-in-law, Pan Shi.

Pan Shi had married into the Cheng Household eight years ago and been a widow for seven of them, yet she was only twenty-three or twenty-four, right at her prettiest.

Seeing that his predecessor ate well and worked hard, dark and lean but strong, Pan Shi had ordered him to carry water a few times and found several chances to speak to him alone.

One was a pretty widow who had long kept an empty bed; the other, a mud-legged peasant who had never touched a woman. With the slightest teasing from Pan Shi, the peasant stepped straight into the trap, and the fire caught.

Thus, only five days after arriving at the Cheng Household as a reaper, his predecessor had sneaked into the rear courtyard at night, entered the young mistress's room, and found immense pleasure.

Another two days had passed like this. His predecessor worked for his employer by day and worked his employer by night. With all this toil day and night, Old Yang, who ate and slept alongside him, had noticed something amiss.

"So I've barely transmigrated, and I already have a lover? And someone's found out?" Meng Yuan's head ached. He thought that relieving a widow's troubles counted as helping others, but if Master Cheng discovered it, he would be finished.

I can't keep carrying on with this loose woman!

"What an honest, hardworking lad you used to be!" Old Yang sighed again and again.

"Don't worry, Old Yang. We'll finish reaping today. Tonight, I'll go make a clean break. From now on, I'll live respectably!" Meng Yuan felt that bedding a landlord's widowed daughter-in-law was nothing to boast of. Since he had transmigrated, he ought to aspire to make an empress dowager his concubine!

"You should've done that long ago. Go home, borrow some money, and at least get yourself a proper wife!" Old Yang offered this advice, then actually began suggesting more. "But remember, make sure the young mistress takes her medicine. She's a widow-if she gets pregnant, there'll be no hiding it! Ah, back then, Master Cheng's father took the donkey your grandfather raised. Your grandfather lost his donkey to ride, but now you've ridden your way back into the bargain!"

Once they finished working, Meng Yuan ate, did not bother washing, and rested only a little. When the night grew late, he sneaked into the rear courtyard and entered the young mistress's room, reeking of sweat and covered in wheat awns.

"What took you so long? Auntie just loves that sweaty smell of yours. That's what makes a man!" Pan Shi seized Meng Yuan and took two deep, fierce sniffs, her voice soft and alluring as a thoroughly watered wheat field.

Meng Yuan had not expected that leaving himself unwashed would excite this woman even more.

Still, the risk of adultery was too great. Meng Yuan only wanted to end things quickly, so he said, "Auntie, I'm leaving tomorrow. There's something I want to tell you."

"Auntie knows what you want to say." Pan Shi pulled Meng Yuan down to sit beside the bed. "You want Auntie to elope with you, don't you? That won't do. You're a hired reaper, and your family are tenant farmers. You can't even feed yourself. Am I supposed to eat chaff and swallow greens with you? Ah, if I could sleep at your place at night and eat at the Cheng Household during the day, that would be living!"

Meng Yuan had meant to say a few words about parting peacefully, then borrow some money to start a small business. But hearing her talk of eating in one house and sleeping in another, he hardened his resolve.

"Auntie, I just want to spend my whole life with you. Come away with me! Master Cheng is kindhearted. If we go and beg him, he'll surely let us be together!" Meng Yuan said at once.

"Are you mad?" Sure enough, Pan Shi was badly startled. "If that old thing finds out, neither of us will live! He's trained in martial arts, well used to wielding sabers and spears!"

"Then what can we do? I just want to live with you, Auntie. I want to marry you! If you won't live with me, I won't go on living!" Meng Yuan said indignantly.

This dark fellow is full of strength, but who'd have thought he was such a lovesick fool? Pan Shi felt disdain, but still soothed him gently. "There are plenty of women better than Auntie in this world! I'm a widow nobody wants. I'm not worthy of you. How about this? I've saved a little private money over the years. Take it home, find a virgin to marry, start a little business, and live a good life! Just forget Auntie. Let's pretend we never met, and don't come back as a reaper next year."

"All right, then." Having achieved his goal, Meng Yuan sighed and agreed with a helpless expression.

Pan Shi took a small wooden box from beneath her pillow and made to hand it to Meng Yuan. When he reached for it, she abruptly pulled it back, her eyes brimming with desire. "Be good to Auntie one more time."

Oh well. I'm already here.

It's earning money. If I have to do it once, I'll do it once. Nothing happened these last few days. Surely something won't happen tonight of all nights?

Besides, as a reaper, Meng Yuan understood better than anyone the principle of trading effort for money. If he wanted money, he had to exert himself. Where he exerted himself was another matter.

"Darkie, why'd you stop? Worn out from reaping all day?" Another quarter of an hour later, Pan Shi asked with concern.

Meng Yuan was at his most vigorous age. Reaping eight or ten mu of wheat was nothing to him. Naturally, he was not exhausted; rather, he had discovered something strange.

He had just closed his eyes and focused inward, intending to distract himself a little so as not to disgrace the reapers' tradition of enduring hard labor. Who knew that the moment he focused inward, he would see a revolving stone disc in his mind?

The revolving stone disc turned extremely, extremely slowly, but he had no idea what wondrous use it might have.

Could my system need a widow to activate it? Or is it actually an adultery system? As Meng Yuan thought this, the revolving stone disc showed no change and continued turning slowly.

"Auntie simply doesn't believe you're some inexperienced boy!" Meng Yuan had found no benefit, but he had certainly given Pan Shi pleasure.

After experimenting for over an hour, Meng Yuan was tired too, so he hurriedly finished.

He put on his ragged clothes and worn shoes, picked up the little wooden box, and opened it. Inside were eight silver ingots and two gold hairpins.

"A man has to know when to bend and when to stand tall!" On his first day after transmigrating here, Meng Yuan had easily earned his first pot of gold through his ability to exert himself.

He wanted to leave, but the young mistress remained unsatisfied and clung to him for a while. Meng Yuan refused her, pleading exhaustion. "You had so many tricks tonight. I really am a little reluctant to let you go. Ah, before you leave, take the dates out of the chamber pot and put them in the teacup. You were so rough that I've no strength left. I can't get up."

"Dates? Does eating those soaked dates help? Who are they for?" Recalling what soaked dates were used for, Meng Yuan asked curiously.

"Help, my ass!" Pan Shi was utterly scornful. "I've been married into the Cheng Household for eight years, and all of it wasn't as pleasurable as one night with you!"

"Slut!" The instant Pan Shi finished speaking, the door was kicked open. Night wind swept inside, and an old man in his fifties or sixties stormed in. It was Master Cheng.

Master Cheng wore a single layer of clothing and held a saber in his left hand, his eyes bloodshot. He glanced at Meng Yuan, then strode to the bed.

"If the cave hadn't collapsed tonight, I'd never have known you were taking a lover behind my back! Have you done right by your dead husband? By my son?" Master Cheng cursed incessantly, his face alternating red and white with rage. "Pan Shi, I've treated you well! I buried your mother, found your father another wife, and got your younger brother a bride. Taking a lover was bad enough, but you even dared make up slander about people!"

The pretty widow was already terrified. She hurriedly knelt and pointed at Meng Yuan. "Darkie seduced me! Master, I've been wronged!"

"Slut!" Master Cheng would hear no explanation. He raised his right hand and struck Pan Shi on the head with his palm.

There was a dull thud, and Meng Yuan saw an utterly outrageous sight. Blood ran from Pan Shi's seven orifices, and her head actually caved in. Her body slumped limply to the floor, even limper than it had been on the bed earlier.

He caved in her skull with one palm strike? Meng Yuan had known that Master Cheng practiced martial arts. He had assumed it merely meant wielding weapons and having great strength, never expecting a palm strike of such power!

This was no ordinary martial artist! How terrifying!

"What have you to say for yourself, reaper?" Master Cheng looked at Meng Yuan.

There were people guarding the door, and Master Cheng stood inside with a saber. Meng Yuan had no road to heaven and no gate into the earth.

Accept the loss when you gamble; once a move is played, have no regrets.

Pan Shi had been greedy for her cup, and he himself had been greedy for money and beauty. Since he had dallied by the river, getting his worn shoes wet was only natural.

With the adulteress dead, the adulterer would surely find it hard to survive alone. Kowtowing and begging for mercy would be utterly useless.

At this thought, Meng Yuan straightened and said, "Your daughter-in-law was very moist."

"You bastard! I'll slice you to pieces!" Master Cheng went mad with rage and swung his saber at him.

Amid pain and delirium, scenes from his past flooded Meng Yuan's mind. He suddenly sensed inscriptions appearing on the revolving stone disc, which slowly began turning backward.

[Hundred-Life Reincarnation]

[First life: lifespan, eighteen years]

[Inscription: arrogance clouded his heart; greedy for wealth and lustful for beauty. A brief spell of passion, nothing gained.]

[Available talents: none]

In his haze, Meng Yuan seemed to hear Pan Shi calling to him.