"Mom, why not just send Wen Ran to the hospital?"
Minmin looked at the frail girl on the bed, as pale as paper, with a mix of hatred and jealousy, thinking how even in this half-dead state, she looked so beautiful.
But now was not the time to focus on that. She trembled as she held onto Yuan Mei, "I haven't secured Wen Ran's job yet; she can't just die now."
Yuan Mei panicked, checked for Wen Ran's breath, and confirmed she was still breathing, then rolled her eyes, "Her life is both wretched and stubborn, she won't die. Just let her lie there, as long as she doesn't miss the train the day after tomorrow."
Minmin sighed in relief; as long as Wen Ran didn't die, everything was fine. Then, her anxiety rose again,
"Mom, didn't we agree from the start? Just send her to the countryside, why promise her to someone? If the fool's family comes demanding her, we can't give her to them.
How could they possibly let it go so easily!"
Afterward, Minmin specifically emphasized, "Five hundred bucks is no small amount!"
"Tsk, such a coward, like a mouse. When the time comes, just say she didn't want to get married and ran away with the family's money. Who would chase someone a thousand miles away?"
Yuan Mei hummed a tune, "By that time, both the job and the money will be ours."
"Mom, you're so clever..."
The mother and daughter's voices faded away. The girl sleeping in the room slowly opened her eyes.
Her delicate, small heart-shaped face had big, bright almond-shaped eyes, radiant and lively, a pretty little girl, but her face was haggard.
She reached out to touch the wound on her forehead, grimacing in pain, "Damn, where did they kick me to?"
Before she could gather herself, waves of information surged into her mind, overwhelming her. Wen Ran felt so much that her vision darkened.
When she opened her eyes again, they were filled with complexity.
She had transmigrated into a book, becoming a minor character in the sweet romance "Sweet Wife of the '80s, Pampered Nonstop by Her Rugged Husband." She hadn't even survived to the start of the book.
Just now, Li Minmin, who had been so boastful in front of her, actually had a slightly better role than hers.
She was the malicious side character, destined to die quickly.
Appearing in just three chapters, she got caught for plotting to harm her stepsister and was quickly written out as a villain.
The Wen family was a blended one. When Wen Ran was seven, her biological mother died. Within two months, her father brought home a widow, also with a daughter.
Thus began the daily battles of wit and courage among the women of the Wen family.
Though young, the original Wen Ran was naturally strong, often holding her own.
That is until the issue of being sent to the countryside arose, Wen Ran became remarkable, using her knowledge to secure an accountant job at a steel factory.
Minmin was both jealous and angry that Wen Ran had a job allowing her to stay.
Meanwhile, her countryside assignment was set, but leaving Wen Ran to enjoy city life, Minmin couldn't stand it.
Yuan Mei also didn't want such a disaster nearby, so the mother and daughter decided to send Wen Ran to the countryside, keeping the position for themselves. But when it came time, Yuan Mei eyed Wen Ran's face and hatched another scheme.
For five hundred bucks, she sold her to a fool.
According to the fragmented storyline, Wen Ran painstakingly extracted some useful information.
The original, with a wounded forehead, bore the stigma of running away from marriage and theft, confusedly boarding a train, and then endured poverty and hunger in the countryside.
Even molested by a homeless man, she fainted and woke up to jeers and insults of being parched and wanton.
Already despairing, the original received a letter from her stepsister along with a family photo.
In it, they were living well, the stepsister had taken her job and found a suitable suitor.
Even their father, who hadn't moved for years, used the five hundred bucks to grease some wheels, becoming a team leader, with a happy family.
Driven to the brink, the original drowned herself, a flower-like girl dying in the countryside's reed marshes, sinking into the rotting, foul sludge.
It was this information the heroine discovered when Minmin tried to provoke her, a revelation so shocking that it ruined Minmin's reputation.
But, what about it?
The original's bones were likely long decayed.
Wen Ran smirked sarcastically, but that was all in the past.
She glanced at the vermilion mole on her wrist that was identical to her previous life, and a bold idea surfaced in her mind.
Could it be that the space from her previous life came along too?
She silently thought, enter.
Wen Ran's figure flickered and disappeared from the bed.
Her space was a two-story bamboo house, plus a grass field.
The field couldn't be planted with anything, only housed tiny animals. When she first acquired it, while going through a middle school fantasy phase, she was nervous for a while, believing an apocalypse was imminent.
She used cards to hoard supplies maniacally, stuffing the two-story bamboo house full. But, her doomsday never came, proving her paranoia pointless.
With a blink, she found herself transported.
Wen Ran was a bit speechless, but her growling stomach reminded her.
Following her memories, she expertly retrieved a sausage from a stainless steel rack and devoured it in a hurry, then wiped her mouth before leaving the space.
There's no choice; she had to leave early the day after tomorrow, leaving her with little time to work and forcing her to act fast.
Before leaving, she glanced at the spring in front of the bamboo house.
That spring water, while it couldn't resurrect the dead, could heal severe injuries as long as there was still a breath left.
She thought of drinking it to improve her constitution, but the wound on her forehead was too conspicuous, suddenly disappearing like that...
Forget it, best not to leave any evidence, besides, the wound could be used to trick the Wen family if played right.
Exiting the space, Wen Ran got up, swaggered out of the communal apartment, and headed to Pigeon Market from memory.
Everything inside was dazzling. Wen Ran didn't lack food and drink, but she needed the essentials.
These were distinct imprints of this era.
First, exchanging chickens, ducks, geese, and rabbits from the space's grass field for money and ration tickets, then using these to acquire enamel basins, thermoses, and flawed fabrics...
After all this, her supplies were about complete. Wen Ran breathed a sigh of relief, contemplating how to perform at the Young Pioneers' office tomorrow, but...
She acutely noticed a trailing presence behind her.
Wen Ran's lips curled into a slight smile, oh~
It seemed that even her previously low-key, cautious demeanor couldn't escape the sharp eyes of some people.
Such a tail, if brought back to the communal apartment, would certainly cause some trouble.
So, Wen Ran pivoted and headed down another alley.
About ten minutes later, the footsteps behind her grew more disorderly and noisy, indicating they had become less inclined to mask their glaring malice.