...Cold, so cold...
That was the first thing Shen Moxi felt when she regained consciousness. Her head was still groggy, and she felt awful.
She wanted to reach for her phone and call her assistant, but a moment later, something occurred to her. She immediately opened her eyes, took in her surroundings, and sat bolt upright in shock.
An adobe house, wooden windows, and beneath her, the sort of earthen kang bed from the old days she had seen on TV. A patched quilt covered her, and there were a few pieces of worn furniture.
Shen Moxi looked around the room in disbelief and frowned. "Didn't I die? Where am I?"
"Binding countdown: ten, nine, eight... two, one. Starting up." A sudden mechanical voice startled her.
"Who..." Shen Moxi pressed a hand to her chest to calm her pounding heart, flung back the quilt, and quickly jumped down.
"Congratulations, host. Binding successful. I am Xiao Tao, and I will be serving you from now on," came a playful yet mechanical voice.
"Xiao Tao? What the hell are you? Where are you?" Shen Moxi looked around warily but saw absolutely nothing. Surely she couldn't be seeing ghosts in broad daylight.
"Host, you don't need to be nervous or afraid. I am inside your brain. I am a transmigration system. I detected a soul compatibility rate of 99.9% with you, which is why I bound myself to your soul," Xiao Tao reassured her in a gentle yet mechanical voice.
"A transmigration system? What's going on? You mean I've transmigrated and been reborn?" Shen Moxi frowned.
"Yes, host. Our interstellar civilization is researching a spacetime project. They created this system, Xiao Tao, to find a highly compatible soul, bind to it, send that person through a spatial rift, and then have them cooperate with our interstellar civilization," Xiao Tao explained.
After hearing this, Shen Moxi pondered in silence.
In her previous life, she had been her family's only daughter and had studied all sorts of things since childhood for the sake of the family's development. After growing up and taking over the family company, she had been exhausted and under enormous pressure from managing its many businesses. To relieve the stress, she would sometimes secretly read novels or play little games. She had read some transmigration novels and watched TV dramas about it too.
She had found them very interesting before, but she had never expected it to happen to her.
At the thought of how she had died, her heart ached again, and her head hurt terribly too. Holding her head, she dizzily lay back down and curled up.
Images suddenly appeared in her mind, flashing past scene by scene like a movie.
After an unknown amount of time, Shen Moxi's head felt a little better. She rubbed her temples, let out a breath, and opened her eyes again.
She sighed inwardly. It seemed this Xiao Tao was telling the truth. She really had transmigrated. She had suddenly received the original owner's memories just now, and she was now in the 1980s.
This body's name was also Shen Moxi. Her family lived in the neighboring village, Lower River Village, while the village she was currently in was called Shanghe Village. The two villages weren't far apart, and because they shared a large river, they had been given those two names, Shanghe Village and Lower River Village.
Shen Moxi was nineteen this year. She had always done well in school and was clever, skipping grades in both primary and junior high school. After the college entrance examination resumed in 1977, she had taken it and gotten into university. This year, at nineteen, she had already graduated.
University graduates were especially sought after in this era. Their rural household registration immediately became urban registration, and employers competed to hire them. Having produced such a university graduate was also an immense honor for Lower River Village.
Shen Moxi had majored in accounting. Having just graduated, she wanted to travel and relax for a few days before choosing a suitable workplace. Unexpectedly, her parents suddenly called her home, leaving her completely bewildered, hastily got her ready, and married her off to the neighboring village, saying it was to bring auspicious luck to an ill person.
Her parents tearfully explained the reason for the marriage, but Shen Moxi wasn't one of those village girls who had never seen the world and couldn't read a single word. She was educated and knowledgeable. Of course she didn't want an arranged marriage to someone she had never met, let alone one meant to bring luck to an ill person.
So she was furious. Even knowing that they owed a life-saving debt, she didn't want to repay it by marrying. She could help them in other ways, but sacrificing herself was out of the question.
Thus, on her second day there, she slipped away before dawn while everyone was still asleep. But she couldn't see the path clearly and fell into the river.
She couldn't swim. After struggling for a long time, her leg cramped, and she drowned. Just then, Uncle Zhang, who had gotten up early to gather firewood in the mountains, spotted her and immediately jumped in to pull her out.
He carried her and hurried back to his house, had his wife change her clothes, and went to fetch the village's barefoot doctor to examine her. He also sent his daughter to notify Song Yongjun's family.
In fact, while Uncle Zhang was running home after pulling Shen Moxi from the river, the original owner had already died. The one now inhabiting the body was "Shen Moxi" from a later era.
The barefoot doctor drained the water she had inhaled and prescribed some herbal medicine. Song Yongjun's family rushed over, paid the medical fees first, and thanked Uncle Zhang's family before carrying Shen Moxi home on someone's back.
Speaking of this family, Shen Moxi's feelings were complicated and difficult to put into words.
The whole family got along very well, full of familial affection. Her eldest brother and sister-in-law treated her very well too. Her sister-in-law was kind and easy to get along with, unlike the members of her family in her later life, each full of schemes behind a smiling face.
Her parents were good, kind people too, but in Shen Moxi's eyes, they weren't very good parents and fell far short. Their thinking was far too feudal and stubborn. They had actually sent their daughter off to marry for auspicious luck like this. They should never have done that.
Shen Moxi's family also included two older brothers. Her eldest brother, Shen Tao, was twenty-five this year, married, and had a son a little over three years old. Her second brother, Shen Yuan, was twenty-two and didn't have a girlfriend yet.
Shen Moxi's parents had moved here from elsewhere and put down roots. They had been fairly well-off at the time, so all their children had attended school for a few years. The eldest two weren't cut out for studying and had barely finished junior high before leaving school, but the third child, Shen Moxi, loved studying and had gone on to enter university and graduate.
Shen Tao and Shen Yuan now worked at the county supply and marketing cooperative. Back then, the family had used connections and spent quite a lot of money to get them in. They had worked there for years now and had long since become permanent employees, earning over sixty yuan a month in wages and bonuses.
Thanks to these two sons and the university graduate Shen Moxi, the Shen family was one of the best-off households in Lower River Village.
The Shen family had married Shen Moxi off to bring auspicious luck because of something involving her mother, Ye Yunjuan, years earlier. A debt of gratitude was the hardest kind to repay, especially when a life was involved.
When the marriage was first proposed, both brothers objected, and her parents felt the same. Ye Yunjuan cried all night. They very much wanted to break the agreement too, not knowing what their daughter might face after marrying over there. But the other family had already come to their door to plead. If they went back on their word now, their daughter would be looked down on, and their family would be condemned behind their backs. Far too many of the village elders held feudal views.
Father Shen was torn as well. He would let his daughter go over and see how things were. If that boy truly never woke up for the rest of his life, he would bring his daughter home. He wouldn't simply watch her fall into a pit of fire. The next day, Father and Mother Shen, their eyes swollen like walnuts, watched her two brothers escort Shen Moxi away.
How had they incurred this debt of gratitude?
It had happened when Ye Yunjuan was nine months pregnant. Her stomach felt a little uncomfortable, so she wanted to go to the county hospital for a checkup. Her husband had taken their two young sons to work in the fields, leaving no one at home. She thought it wasn't very far, and there was an ox cart at the village entrance, so she could just ride that.
Back then, the two villages weren't far apart either, so they shared an ox cart. Halfway there, before Ye Yunjuan reached the boarding spot, her stomach began hurting unbearably, and she lay on the ground, her face pale.
Just then, Song Qi's father, Song Yongjun, and his mother, Huang Yushan, happened to be heading to the county town with Song Qi. Seeing Ye Yunjuan beside the road, they hurried over to ask what had happened.
Seeing that her condition was rather serious, Huang Yushan told Song Yongjun to carry Ye Yunjuan to the ox cart and explain the situation to its driver, Uncle He. They needed to get her to the hospital immediately.
When they reached the ox cart, they explained the situation to Uncle He. Seeing how serious it was, he set off without another word, taking them and the few passengers who had already arrived to the county hospital.
One young man volunteered to get off and wait there to explain the situation to the other people coming to catch the ox cart. Uncle He nodded approvingly at him.
An elderly man on the ox cart knew a little traditional Chinese medicine. He examined her and pressed several acupuncture points, stabilizing her condition a little. Uncle He took her to the hospital entrance, and Song Yongjun carried Ye Yunjuan inside at a run. Huang Yushan followed close behind, carrying her two-year-old son, Song Qi.
Only after half a day was Ye Yunjuan wheeled out of the emergency room. Huang Yushan stayed beside her to look after her. Once she woke up, they asked about her family, and Song Yongjun borrowed a bicycle and went to Ye Yunjuan's home to find Father Shen.
Father Shen was weeding in the fields with his two sons. After hearing the news, he hurried home with the children, then rode the bicycle to the hospital with both sons.
Learning that Ye Yunjuan's condition was stable, Father Shen was deeply grateful and gave them some thank-you gifts. After she was discharged, he invited them over for a meal, and the two families had a very pleasant conversation.
Father Shen also told Song Yongjun, "If Ye Yunjuan gives birth to a son, we'll have him take you as his godfather and become brothers with Song Qi. If she gives birth to a daughter, we'll become in-laws."