She quickly lifted her hands to look at them. 'Are these chicken-claw hands really mine?' In disbelief, she wiggled her index finger and thumb. They really were under her brain's control. 'What the hell is this?'
"Seventh Wife, stop looking around. Save your strength for the road ahead," a weak voice murmured beside her.
She miraculously understood the strange, rustic dialect.
"Where are we?" The words that tumbled from her lips were in the same tongue. She could tell it was a regional dialect, and the fact that she could speak it was deeply unsettling.
"I don't know where we are either. We just walk for as long as we can. When we can't go on, we just collapse by the roadside. Whether we live or die is up to the heavens."
After saying this, the person—perhaps to conserve energy—didn't utter another word, no matter how many more questions Jin Qianqian asked.
Suddenly, Jin Qianqian felt a throbbing pain in her head as a flood of memories that didn't belong to her poured into her mind.
She was now in a dynasty she had never heard of. It had an Emperor and a government; it was feudal and backward, and all the common folk depended on the heavens for their food.
In her new life, she was a refugee. Years of continuous drought had made her hometown uninhabitable, forcing her to flee with her entire clan.
'But what's this about being married?' She'd never even been in a relationship, and now she was saddled with a husband.
In a dynasty like this, where divorce wasn't a woman's right, the only ways to leave her husband's family were to be cast out or to mutually agree to a separation.
Jin Qianqian's husband's family was the Gu family. In their village, the Gu family was a relatively large clan, with some twenty households belonging to the same lineage.
The original owner of this body had a husband who had studied for a few years and passed the examination to become a child student. Their life was slightly better than that of the other villagers, but when faced with a catastrophe of this scale, even their family could not withstand it.
Jin Qianqian's mother-in-law was prolific, having given birth to seven sons and one daughter.
Her father-in-law, Gu Dashishi, was an honest and dutiful man. Though just over fifty, he looked like a man in his sixties or seventies, already in his twilight years. Years of hard labor had left him unable to straighten his back, and he walked with a permanent stoop.
This time, he had wanted to stay behind in the village with the other elders, unwilling to burden such a large family. But to everyone's surprise, Mrs. Gu Li, whose maiden name was Li Cuicui, had adamantly refused. She declared that the family had to stay together, whole and complete. If they were to split up, she, an old woman, would just kill herself by bashing her head on the ground in front of everyone.
Li Cuicui was not someone to be trifled with. It wasn't just the people of Kao Mountain Village who feared her; even throughout the entire Bainiao region, people knew to give way to her.
Though she was notoriously fierce, what truly made people's hearts tremble was her seven tall and strapping sons.
With her grandsons also growing up in recent years, no one dared to provoke the family whenever their able-bodied men went out together.
That's right. All the Gu family sons inherited Li Cuicui's large frame, making every one of them tall and brawny. On top of that, since the first and second sons knew how to hunt, the family's nutrition was adequate. Among the common folk, their family's height was truly exceptional.
There was another trait of the Gu Family that made everyone even more wary: no matter how much they bickered among themselves, when it came to outsiders, their fists didn't believe in reasoning.
The eldest son, Gu Yuanjin, married Xie Ruyi. They had three sons: Gu Letian, sixteen; Gu Le Di, fifteen; and Gu Lejia, fourteen.
The second son, Gu Yuanmu, married Wang Caiyue. They had two sons: Gu Lehuan, fourteen, and Gu Lexi, thirteen.
The third son, Gu Yuanhuo, married Li Xiaohua. They had two sons: Gu Le Ping, twelve, and Gu Le'an, ten.
The fourth son, Gu Yuanshui, married Liu Liu. They had one son and one daughter: Gu Le Kai, nine, and Gu Lehua, six.
The fifth son, Gu Yuantu, married Hong Daya. They had one son: Gule Shun, four.
The sixth child, Gu Yuanfeng, was the old couple's only daughter. She married He Tiping from the same village and had a daughter: He Chuncao, three.
The seventh son, Gu Yuan Yu, was married to a woman of the Jin Family—that is, Jin Qianqian herself. They had no children yet.
The eighth son, Gu Yuanlei, would have also been married by now if not for this disaster.
With such a large family, the old man and woman naturally couldn't shoulder the entire burden themselves. As soon as a son got married, his new family would be established as a separate household.
There's a saying that growing boys can eat their fathers into poverty. The old couple had struggled for so many years; after raising their sons, they couldn't be expected to raise their grandsons as well.
Though the matriarch was somewhat domineering, she was also calculating. By establishing separate households for her married sons, she and her husband could continue to scrape by with the remaining children, eventually raising every last one of the little whelps to adulthood.
It seemed that good times were finally on the horizon, but who would have thought the heavens would be so cruel.
Jin Qianqian pushed aside thoughts of her newly acquired husband, focusing instead on sorting through the people and events in her new memories. She silently reminded herself, 'I absolutely cannot show any cracks in my facade. Given the ignorance of these ancient people, a raging pyre could be waiting for me if I do.'
She also recalled the person who had just spoken to her—it was her eldest sister-in-law. Her relationships with the other wives of the Gu brothers, whose families had long since become separate households, were mediocre at best. After all, they had no direct conflicts of interest.
Lying on the ground, Jin Qianqian felt her throat was so dry it could have been smoking. She found herself desperately craving the various drinks she had collected before all this.
The moment she thought of an ice-cold Coke, her hand involuntarily clenched. She quickly turned onto her side, using her clothes to hide the bottle that had suddenly materialized in her hand. The bone-chilling coolness of it sent a wave of joy through her. 'My space! I can open it again!'
Stroking the bottle regretfully, Jin Qianqian ultimately didn't dare make a sound. She understood the principle that possessing a treasure invites disaster.
But fleeing with such a large group, it was impossible to sneak a private meal for herself.
With people all around, she couldn't guarantee she wouldn't be discovered.
Furthermore, she couldn't act alone. Not only did she lack a road permit, but even if she had one, she wasn't brave enough to test the darker side of human nature in these desperate times.
"Everyone, get up," Gu Dashishi called out to the family from where he lay at the edge of their group. "The eldest and the others are back. Hurry up and pack your things. Don't hold the men back."
Jin Qianqian was finally starting to understand. The people lying about in disarray were all members of the greater Gu family.
However, each household was in charge of its own food. To prevent others from making excuses to borrow rations, each family unit kept to its own small patch of ground.
Jin Qianqian's husband had gone out with his brothers and nephews to search for food and water, which was why she was lying here all alone.
With rustling sounds, the people around her began to stir and get up. Not wanting to stand out by staying on the ground, Jin Qianqian put the Coke back into her space and pushed herself into a sitting position.
Casting a glance at her parents-in-law not far away, Jin Qianqian lowered her gaze. Among all the brothers, she and her husband had married quite recently and thus had very few possessions. A few quick motions were all it took to pack up.
Her parents-in-law, on the other hand, were traveling with their youngest son. Thanks to the filial support they had received from their older sons over the years, they had the most belongings of anyone in the group.