Transmigration: A Farm Girl’s Brocade

Lian Chuchu escaped from the temple on the second night of her stay, taking advantage of the moment when the servants were fast asleep. She made her way down the mountain, hiding as she went. Although she had rarely left her own home and was born into an official’s family, she was not really a privileged daughter. Often working on embroidery, she sometimes took on private jobs and had the servants sell them for her, and she was keen to listen to the servants discuss various affairs of the common folk. Moreover, holding the belief that it was better to die trying to escape than to be killed outright, which would only please that wicked woman, she managed to run down the mountain and evade capture by the Lian family.

Three days later, when she was about to faint from hunger, she encountered a woman she had seen at the temple. The woman had been praying to the Bodhisattva for a child and offering incense in the temple.

After eating the pastries Madam Wu gave her, Lian Chuchu tearfully told her life story. She dared not reveal that she came from an official’s family, so instead she said her father was a merchant who had killed her mother to marry his cousin. Her stepmother wanted to marry her off to a mad nephew, and that was why she had run away.

Madam Wu felt very sorry for the girl after hearing her story. She and her husband, Graduate Wu, were middle-aged with no children, so she entertained the idea of adopting Lian Chuchu as her foster daughter. Thinking that saving one life is greater than building a seven-tiered pagoda, she hoped that saving this child might move the Bodhisattva to grant her a son or a daughter. Besides, even if she did not bear children, she would still have a daughter.

Lian Chuchu was smart. Upon sensing her intent, she immediately knelt down to kowtow, saying, "Mother above, please accept your daughter’s bow."

The Wu family lived in Xijin County. Because Graduate Wu had twice failed to pass the imperial examination and lacked the finances for an official position, he started a school and taught for a living. Graduate Wu and Madam Wu were cousins and childhood sweethearts; even without any children, Graduate Wu had never considered divorcing her to remarry or take a concubine.