Chapter Summaries

After transmigrating into the mute five-year-old Zhou Wanwan, she faced being sold to Pockmarked Liu by Old Madam Zhou, who believed Wanwan had doomed the family in a previous life. Zhou Fusheng and Liu Su'e refused to surrender their daughter and left the Zhou family, only to find their assigned old house nearly uninhabitable.

• Zhou Wanwan learned that Old Madam Zhou planned to sell her for ten sacks of grain, claiming she was a calamity star.
• Pockmarked Liu arrived to take Zhou Wanwan, but she bit his hand when he tried to grab her.
• Liu Su'e and Zhou Fusheng refused to sell their daughter and demanded a family separation.
• Old Madam Zhou warned that Zhou Wanwan would bring disaster and said their family would die because of her in a previous life.
• Old Man Zhou told Zhou Fusheng's family to leave the next day with only a dilapidated old house and no grain.
• Zhou Wanwan overheard Old Madam Zhou say she had been reborn and planned to hoard grain, then saw the ruined house her family had been given.

After Old Madam Zhou drove Zhou Fusheng's family out and turned the village against them, Zhou Wanwan discovered her ability to communicate with plants still worked. She caught a pheasant and found its eggs, giving her family food and hope as they faced an uncertain future.

• Zhou Fusheng and Liu Su'e moved into a weed-choked house with their children, while Daniu and Erniu's wives helped clear the entrance and gave them grain.
• Zhou Wanwan called Liu Su'e “Mother” for the first time, and Liu Su'e embraced her.
• Zhou Fusheng and Zhou Qingyan returned from the Zhou family home with slap marks after Old Madam Zhou refused them cooking supplies and told them to die; villagers also barred the family from entering the village.
• As Liu Su'e worried that they could not leave without travel permits, Zhou Wanwan tested her ability to communicate with plants and learned of a nearby pheasant and its eggs.
• Zhou Wanwan caught the pheasant and gathered ten eggs, and Zhou Qinghe praised her as their family's lucky star.

Zhou Wanwan went out with her brothers to search the reeds and found wild ducks, duck eggs, and a hidden money pouch. The pouch held copper coins and a gold ring, while the family was left amazed by their haul.

• Zhou Fusheng decided to sell the pheasant Zhou Wanwan had caught to buy household items, and Zhou Wanwan’s parents reassured her that they would keep their family together.
• Zhou Qingyan, Zhou Qinghe, and Zhou Qingchen followed Zhou Wanwan into the fields at night, where she led them to the reeds to look for wild duck eggs.
• Zhou Wanwan overheard the reeds talking and learned that one had hidden a money pouch dropped by a scholar.
• Zhou Wanwan dug up the pouch and asked the reeds where to find wild ducks and eggs, and her brothers gathered five ducks while she collected more than twenty eggs.
• Liu Su'e and Zhou Fusheng were stunned when the children returned with their haul, and Zhou Wanwan found copper coins and a gold ring inside the pouch.

After finding a gold ring, Zhou Wanwan took charge of her family and planned to buy grain and build a new house instead of repairing the ancestral home. When Zhou Fusheng asked the village chief for land, the chief and villagers rejected the family and told them to leave Zhou Family Village.

• Zhou Wanwan told her family they would keep the gold ring and that everyone should listen to her.
• Zhou Wanwan said the family should buy cheap grain, abandon the roofless ancestral house, and build a new home.
• Zhou Fusheng took Zhou Wanwan and the others to ask the village chief for land to build on.
• Villagers blocked Zhou Fusheng's family from entering the village, calling Zhou Wanwan a jinx because of the spirit medium's warning.
• The village chief refused to give the family land and told them they could transfer their household registration elsewhere, but could not stay in Zhou Family Village.

Zhou Wanwan's family left Zhou Family Village and, with Lin Shouyi's help, registered their household in Wild Field Village and bought a schoolmaster's house. After selling a gold ring and their game, Zhou Wanwan went to buy clothes and bedding for the family.

• Zhou the Fourth refused to let Zhou Wanwan's family ride his ox cart, but Lin Shouyi invited them aboard Wild Field Village's cart for free.
• Lin Shouyi recognized Zhou Fusheng as the man who had once helped him and offered to arrange their household registration in Wild Field Village.
• Zhou Fusheng's family transferred their registration and viewed a blue-brick house with a study that Zhou Wanwan wanted to buy.
• Zhou Wanwan exchanged her gold ring for three taels of silver, and Zhou Fusheng bought the house with Lin Shouyi's help.
• Zhou Wanwan sold the family's pheasant and wild ducks for 180 copper coins, then asked a cloth shopkeeper to price clothes and cotton quilts for all six family members.

Zhou Wanwan and her family bought clothes, quilts, an iron wok, fine grain, and fine salt after splitting from the Zhou family. When Zhou Family Village residents mocked them and called them calamity stars, Lin Shouyi declared that they now belonged to Wild Field Village.

• Liu Su'e bargained with the cloth shopkeeper and agreed to pay 820 wen for clothes and quilts for the family.
• Lin Shouyi took the family to buy an iron wok, and Zhou Wanwan bargained its price down from 500 wen to 350 wen.
• Zhou Wanwan spent the rest of their money on rice, white flour, and fine salt despite Liu Su'e's willingness to eat coarse grain.
• The Zhou Family Village residents sneered at the family's purchases and threatened them after Zhou Wanwan answered back.
• Lin Shouyi said the family were now people of Wild Field Village, while Zhang Guilan and the other villagers insulted them and warned against returning.

After settling in Wild Field Village, Zhou Wanwan learned that Old Madam Zhou was secretly preparing for a locust plague and drought. She warned Lin Shouyi that a severe drought was coming and urged him to stock grain discreetly, leaving him stunned and unsure whether to believe her.

• Lin Shouyi welcomed Zhou Fusheng's family to Wild Field Village, where they celebrated having a home, food, and new clothes.
• Zhou Fusheng told his family that his birth parents had entrusted him to the Zhou family before they were hunted down and died.
• Zhang Guilan reported that Zhou Fusheng's family had moved and bought supplies, while Old Madam Zhou revealed she was stockpiling grain and water for a locust plague and drought.
• Zhou Family Village residents began buying grain, and people from neighboring villages mocked them for it.
• Zhou Wanwan told Lin Shouyi that Old Madam Zhou had predicted a severe drought and advised him to buy grain secretly.

Zhou Wanwan and Zhou Qingyan went up the mountain to gather medicinal herbs and found a valuable piece of agarwood. They brought their finds to town, where Zhou Wanwan entered a medicine shop to ask if it bought herbs.

• Zhou Wanwan set out for the mountain with Zhou Qingyan, hoping to earn money to buy grain ahead of the expected drought.
• Zhou Wanwan dug up a twenty-year-old fleeceflower root and discovered that the dead log she had sat on was agarwood.
• Zhou Qingyan dug until evening, and the siblings carried their baskets and the agarwood back down the mountain.
• Liu Su'e and Zhou Fusheng found the siblings and worriedly took them home, while Zhou Wanwan explained what they had gathered.
• Zhou Wanwan persuaded her family to go to town that evening and entered a medicine shop to ask whether it bought medicinal herbs.

Zhou Wanwan sold fleeceflower roots for six taels of silver and agarwood for one tael, then took her family to buy grain. The chapter left them at the grain shop as the assistant described the available kinds of rice.

• Zhou Wanwan rejected the first pharmacy's offers for her fleeceflower roots and took them to another shop.
• The old physician bought the fleeceflower roots for six taels of silver and the agarwood for one tael.
• Zhou Wanwan told Liu Su'e, Zhou Fusheng, and Zhou Qingyan she planned to spend the silver on rice and flour and store the grain in a hidden cellar.
• Zhou Wanwan and her family arrived at the grain shop, where the assistant described its two kinds of polished rice.

Zhou Wanwan bought rice, flour, beans, spices, and unwanted pig offal, then brought everything home. After arranging for a cellar to be dug, she cleaned the offal with Zhou Fusheng and began cooking it with Liu Su'e.

• Zhou Wanwan bought polished rice, flour, soybeans, mung beans, seasonings, and the pork seller's leftover offal and bones for five wen.
• Zhou Wanwan bought a herb hoe, paid Lin Shouyi for the trip, and asked him to have his father and brother dig a cellar for her family.
• Zhou Wanwan told Liu Su'e and Zhou Fusheng that she would cook the pig offal, then took it to the river with Zhou Fusheng to clean it using plant ash.
• Zhou Wanwan directed Zhou Fusheng to scrub the intestines, lungs, and stomach until they no longer smelled.
• Zhou Wanwan and Liu Su'e stir-fried the cleaned large intestine with soybean oil, ginger, and spices, filling the courtyard with a rich aroma.

Zhou Wanwan settled into her new home, shared a meal of pig intestines, and began teaching her brothers to read. That night, she hid when Pockmarked Liu broke in and stabbed him in the neck.

• Zhou Qinghe and Zhou Qingyan traded insults with the next-door auntie and her grandson after they mocked the family for eating pig intestines.
• Zhou Wanwan ate dinner with her family and settled into the study that would be her room.
• Zhou Wanwan showed her brothers she could read the books and offered to teach them, beginning with the Hundred Family Surnames.
• A potted spider plant warned Zhou Wanwan that someone had entered, and she hid with her dagger as Pockmarked Liu approached her bed.
• Pockmarked Liu mistook Zhou Wanwan's quilt for her and spoke about taking her as his wife, so Zhou Wanwan stabbed him in the neck and covered his mouth with a rag.

After Pockmarked Liu tried to sneak into Zhou Wanwan’s room, she killed him, and her family helped dispose of his body in a remote mountain pool. While gathering medicinal herbs afterward, Zhou Wanwan meditated and began absorbing the forest’s Spiritual Qi.

• Zhou Wanwan found money on Pockmarked Liu’s body, then told her brothers to wake Liu Su'e and Zhou Fusheng and help move him.
• Liu Su'e and the others carried Pockmarked Liu into the mountains, where Zhou Wanwan used a wild chrysanthemum’s directions to guide them around wolves and a bear to a deep pool.
• Liu Su'e threw Pockmarked Liu into the pool, and Zhou Wanwan burned the bloodied quilt.
• Zhou Wanwan heard nearby herbs speak, identified a clump of Chinese goldthread, and explained her knowledge by claiming an immortal had taught her in a dream.
• Zhou Qingyan began digging up the herbs while Zhou Wanwan meditated and absorbed Spiritual Qi from the forest.

Zhou Wanwan and her family gathered mushrooms, wild greens, and rabbits on the mountain, then returned home and made a savory rib soup together. As the family enjoyed the meal, Zhou Fusheng reflected on how poorly the Zhou family had treated them.

• Zhou Wanwan cultivated her Qi, gathered nonpoisonous mushrooms, and caught two fat hares with Zhou Qingchen.
• After the wild greens revealed a nearby rabbit warren, Zhou Qinghe pulled twelve more rabbits from it, and the family collected mountain bracken before going home.
• Liu Su'e wondered whether their neighbors, old Madam Shen and old Madam Wang, seemed suspicious, while Zhou Fusheng showed Zhou Wanwan the cleaned study and a new quilt.
• Zhou Wanwan taught Liu Su'e to prepare rib soup with ginger, rice wine, and the gathered mushrooms.
• Zhou Qingyan, Zhou Qinghe, and Zhou Qingchen praised the soup and recalled how little meat they had received at the Zhou family home, while Zhou Fusheng said they had been treated as outsiders.

Zhou Wanwan and her family arranged for Lin Fugui and the Lin family to dig a cellar, then concealed its entrance beneath a bluestone slab. After the work was finished, Zhou Wanwan told Zhou Fusheng they should dig another cellar in a hidden spot in the mountains.

• Zhou Wanwan asked Lin Fugui to help dig a shallow, round cellar beside the trees and described how they wanted it built.
• Zhou Fusheng built a hutch for the rabbits while the family agreed to say they had never seen Pockmarked Liu.
• Lin Fugui led the family and the Lin workers in digging and finishing the cellar overnight, with Zhou Wanwan helping.
• Lin Fugui showed them how to hide the entrance under a bluestone slab, dry grass, leaves, soil, and wild grass.
• After everyone left, Zhou Wanwan told Zhou Fusheng they needed another cellar in the mountains, and he asked why they needed so many.

Zhou Wanwan bought grain and warned Lin Shouyi to prepare for a drought and locust plague, then planned to store water and dig a secret cellar with her family. The chapter ended when the Zhou Family Village chief and Pockmarked Liu’s father arrived, accusing Zhou Fusheng of knowing what happened to Liu.

• Zhou Wanwan bought fresh rice, flour, and seasonings with Lin Shouyi, who also stocked up on grain.
• Zhou Wanwan warned Lin Shouyi about a possible locust plague, and he hurried back to urge villagers to prepare and avoid selling their fields.
• Zhou Wanwan told her family to collect more water, buy buckets, and dig a secret cellar, while planning another trip into the mountains to earn money.
• The Zhou Family Village chief arrived at Zhou Fusheng’s home with two men and asked whether he had seen Pockmarked Liu.
• Pockmarked Liu’s father claimed Liu had gone to Zhou Fusheng’s home and accused him of killing his son.

Zhou Wanwan’s family drove off the Zhou Family Village men, and Lin Shouyi warned Wild Field Village to stop buying farmland and stock up on supplies. The next day, Zhou Wanwan led her brothers into the mountains and found a dead wild boar after two boars fought.

• Zhou Wanwan denied knowing where Pockmarked Liu was, and Lin Shouyi chased the men from Zhou Family Village away.
• Lin Shouyi urged the villagers to stop buying Zhou Family Village farmland and stock up on grain and water, though some refused.
• Zhou Wanwan took her family up the mountain, where Zhou Fusheng and Liu Su'e began digging for licorice.
• Zhou Wanwan followed clues from nearby plants and led her brothers deeper into the mountains despite their concerns about wild beasts.
• Zhou Wanwan and her brothers found two exhausted wild boars, one dead and the other retreating, and she told them to fetch their parents so they could carry the carcass down.

Zhou Wanwan’s family sold a wild boar for two taels and two hundred wen, then spent their money on grain and containers to store supplies. After hearing that two neighboring families were troublesome, Zhou Wanwan urged her family to prepare urgently for the coming disaster, and they went to dig a cellar and search the mountains.

• Zhou Wanwan’s family hid the wild boar, then asked Lin Shouyi to help transport it to town.
• Steward Feng offered two taels and two hundred wen for the boar, and Zhou Wanwan gave the extra two hundred wen to Lin Shouyi.
• Zhou Wanwan bought refined grain, ten wooden basins, and twenty-five earthenware jars.
• Old Madam Shen and Old Madam Wang criticized Zhou Wanwan’s family, and Lin Shouyi explained that their families had driven the schoolmaster out of the village.
• Zhou Wanwan told her family to store water and grain in their cellar and prepare another cellar on the mountain.
• After dinner, Liu Su'e and Lin Shouyi dug the cellar while Zhou Wanwan and her brothers searched farther into the mountains.

Zhou Wanwan and her brothers discovered the Zhou family’s hidden stockpile of grain and water, then moved it into their own cellar with their parents. As the family prepared for the coming locust plague, Zhou Wanwan heard a sound from across the wall.

• Zhou Wanwan followed the wild grass’s directions and found a hidden cave where Zhou Fu'an, Zhou Fukang, and Zhou Fuyu stored grain and water.
• Zhou Wanwan overheard the three men discussing Old Madam Zhou’s plans to profit from the disaster and force Fourth Brother’s family back under her control.
• After Zhou Fuyu checked the area repeatedly and finally left, Zhou Wanwan and Zhou Qingchen entered the cave and found more than ten sacks of grain and over thirty containers of water.
• Zhou Wanwan had Liu Su'e and Zhou Fusheng move the supplies to their cellar, which the family finished digging and filling overnight.
• The next morning, Zhou Wanwan urged her parents to stock water and said she would search the mountains again and buy chicks and piglets at the market.
• As Zhou Wanwan was about to continue speaking, she heard a sound from across the wall.

Zhou Wanwan took her brothers into the mountains, where they escaped a wolf pack, collected venom from a snake, and found wild goats. After learning that thieves had stolen the family’s rabbits, she planned to sell the goats and set traps and sharpened stakes to protect their home.

• Zhou Wanwan confronted Old Madam Shen and the Shen family’s eldest son for eavesdropping and threatening Zhou Qingyan.
• Zhou Wanwan led her brothers into the mountains, and they climbed a tree to escape a pack of wolves.
• Zhou Wanwan killed a short-tailed pit viper, collected its venom, and reassured her frightened brothers that she could prepare herbs to counter the poison.
• Zhou Wanwan listened to the foxtail grass and found an injured wild goat hiding in a tree hollow with its two kids; her brothers helped bring them home.
• Liu Su'e told Zhou Wanwan that thieves had stolen all the rabbits, and Zhou Wanwan proposed selling the adult goats and keeping the kids.
• Zhou Wanwan told Zhou Fusheng to build a goat shed and proposed using mousetraps and sharpened stakes to guard against thieves.

Zhou Wanwan sold a live wild goat and bought traps and herb hoes while looking for a weapon to defend herself. Lin Shouyi brought her to a dusty storeroom at the county yamen to search through old bows and crossbows.

• Zhou Wanwan learned from nearby plants that Shen Dalu and his wife had been involved in the rabbit incident and that Shen Dalu had hidden things beneath the pomegranate tree.
• Zhou Wanwan sold the live wild goat at the restaurant for one tael and five hundred wen and gave Lin Shouyi an extra hundred wen for the ride.
• Zhou Wanwan bought twelve small animal traps for sixty wen each and two herb hoes from the general store.
• The shopkeeper sent Zhou Wanwan to the military equipment shop for bows and arrows, but Lin Shouyi explained that old weapons at the county yamen could be bought cheaply and repaired.
• Lin Shouyi took Zhou Wanwan and Zhou Qingyan to a storeroom at the county yamen, where Zhou Wanwan began searching through dusty old equipment.