Chapter 1: Transmigrated as a Young Widow
Kao Village, as the name suggests, is built against the mountains. Apart from a few fields a few miles away from the village, the main source of livelihood comes from this mountain.
By noon, the village is enveloped in a haze of cooking smoke. In a small courtyard at the east end of the village, smoke rises as well. Shortly, a middle-aged woman in a blue-gray coarse cloth jacket walks out, holding a basin in one hand and supporting herself with the door in the other. She carefully steps over the threshold, splashes water on the west side of the courtyard, her eyebrows showing a hint of irritation, and shouts back inside the house.
"Stop causing trouble, isn’t tormenting people enough for you?"
"Mom, don’t blame sister. She’s sick." A youthful voice comes from inside.
"Sick? She deserves it!" The middle-aged woman snorts coldly and, supporting herself on the wall, slowly walks inside while shouting, "Don’t mind her, go herd the sheep quickly, before it gets dark!"
"Okay, I know."
As he speaks, a four or five-year-old boy lifts the door curtain and runs out. The boy is all skin and bones, malnourished, and opens the sheep pen enclosed by wooden fences on the west side of the courtyard, herding five sheep out with a small whip.
On the kang in the west room, a sallow and emaciated woman lies in bed, listening to the shouting outside and the sound of a boy driving sheep. She sighs.
Her name is Beisitian, that’s the name she has here, derived from "recalling hardship to appreciate sweetness." The one angrily scolding outside is her mother-in-law, Mrs. Qin. The boy herding sheep is her brother-in-law, Luo Anping. In the east room, lying paralyzed for years, is her father-in-law, Luo Anguo, whom she heard came here during a relocation policy.
The term "relocation," Beisitian took a long time to understand. It was a policy implemented years ago that changed later, leaving her father-in-law here because of her mother-in-law.
Regarding the naming order of her brother-in-law and father-in-law, Beisitian initially thought it was a local custom.
Oh, by the way, she also has a deceased husband, which is why she became a widow when she came here!