"Vivienne, get up now. The food's gone cold." A woman’s slightly hoarse voice came from beside the bed.
So annoying. Vivienne Shelton frowned a little, irritated, and turned over toward the wall. She tugged the quilt up with one hand and buried her head under it.
Mrs. Norwood called her several times. Seeing that this daughter-in-law only rolled over and didn’t even bother to open her eyes, she couldn’t help letting out a sigh.
She set the bowl and chopsticks in her hands on the little stool by the bed, then stepped closer and patted Vivienne lightly on the shoulder.
"Vivienne, the meal’s already set out. Hurry up and eat."
After being urged twice in a row, Vivienne’s morning temper shot up on the spot.
She flung the quilt aside and sat up all at once, wanting to see which fool had no sense at all.
Vivienne forced her heavy eyelids open, her gaze still loose and unfocused.
The first thing she saw was a dingy old quilt, gray and ugly, with two or three patches sewn onto the cover. It looked shabby beyond words.
At the foot of the bed stood an old wooden wardrobe. Against the wall on the right was a desk, and on it sat a few yellowed books and a kerosene lamp. The more she looked, the more wrong it all felt.
What really made her scalp tighten was the strange woman standing by the bed, around fifty years old, dressed in a dark blue old-style jacket and trousers, staring straight at her.
In an instant, all of Vivienne’s sleepiness vanished. She clearly remembered falling asleep last night on a soft six-foot bed, so how had she opened her eyes and ended up here?
"This has to be a dream." Vivienne raised a hand and slapped her own cheek, trying to wake herself up.
Right after that, she reached down and pinched her thigh hard. A sharp pain shot through her. "Ow... that hurts."
Seeing her second daughter-in-law sit there looking dazed and foolish, Mrs. Norwood couldn’t help thinking to herself: Don’t tell me that fall yesterday knocked something loose in her head?
She felt a little uneasy, and even her tone turned careful. "Vivienne, I left your food for you. Remember to eat it while it’s hot. I’ve got to head out to work first."
Only then did Vivienne come back to herself a bit. She hurriedly nodded at her, taking it as an answer.
So her brain probably wasn’t broken after all. Once Mrs. Norwood saw the second daughter-in-law respond, the worry hanging in her chest finally eased. She turned and walked out of the room, pulling the door shut on her way out.
It was the busy farming season now. If she got there late, work points would be deducted. Mrs. Norwood didn’t dare delay and hurried off toward the rice fields.
The moment Mrs. Norwood left, Vivienne sat there dumbly on the edge of the bed, her mind in a complete mess.
She had only gone to sleep for a bit, so how had things turned out like this the moment she opened her eyes? Everything around her was strange, not one thing familiar.
She lifted a hand and thumped her head hard a few times. There was only one thought in her mind: what on earth was going on?
A sharp, drilling pain suddenly ripped through her skull. Right after that, pieces of memory that clearly did not belong to her came flooding into her head in waves, fast and unstoppable.
The pain dragged on for a full ten minutes. By the time it finally eased, Vivienne Shelton had more or less sorted out what had happened.
She had transmigrated, straight into the year 1970 in a parallel world.
This place was called Ningjia Village. The original owner of this body had exactly the same name as hers, Vivienne Shelton, and this year she was twenty-two.
But their fates were nothing alike. The original Vivienne had long since married and even had a son, Leo Norwood, just two years and eight months old.
Thinking of that, Vivienne Shelton could not help pressing a hand to her forehead and letting out a long sigh. Fine, if she had transmigrated, then so be it. But one husband and one child dropped on her head like this? That truly was beyond anything she had expected.
The original owner had been the Shen family’s first daughter, and the only one at that. She had been born pretty as a doll, and her family had doted on her, spoiled her, guarded her like the apple of their eye.
Randall Shelton and Mrs. Shelton had even gritted their teeth and supported her all the way through high school. In all the nearby villages, that was no common thing. Among girls, very few had managed to get a high school diploma.
On top of that, she was good-looking. Once she came of age, so many families came asking for her hand that they had nearly worn down the Shen family’s doorstep.
After weighing things carefully, her parents finally settled on the second son of old Mr. Norwood’s family in Ningjia Village, Adrian Norwood.
The reason was not complicated. First, the Norwood family lived better than most. They had plenty of working hands in the house, and there was not much messy family trouble to worry about.
Second, Adrian Norwood was in the army. Back when Randall Shelton was young, he had failed to enlist because his health was poor, so he had always carried a certain respect and fondness for soldiers. Adrian sent home a decent allowance every month, so if their daughter married into that family, her life surely would not be bad.
But the original owner thought differently. In her eyes, she had at least finished high school. She was an educated woman. How could she possibly fancy a farmer who had not even finished middle school?
What kind of man had she wanted in her heart? A white shirt, gold-rimmed glasses, a head full of learning, the sort of city intellectual who could talk poetry and books with her.
If her parents had not pushed and pressed her, she probably would still have stayed at home clinging to that dream, imagining that one day she would marry into the city and never have to deal with a few acres of farmland again.
During the two years of marriage, the time she and Adrian Norwood had actually lived together added up to no more than a month.
And in just that one month, they had made quite a racket. A small quarrel every three days, a big blowup every five. Before the wedding leave was even over, Adrian had already packed up and gone back to the army ahead of time.
After that, the two of them might as well have been strangers. The only time the original Vivienne remembered she even had a husband was when the money he sent home arrived each month.
After she got married, the original Vivienne Shelton was young, hot-headed, and once she had a little money in her pocket, she got more and more unruly. The way she talked, the way she acted—everything was sharp and reckless.
Just two days ago, she got into it with her third younger brother-in-law’s wife over at the old family yard. The two of them argued, shoved, and neither one would back down. In the middle of the scuffle, the original owner lost her footing, slammed her head against something hard, and that was that—she died on the spot. And that was how Vivienne Shelton ended up dropping into this body, confused and without warning.
After sorting through the whole mess in her mind, Vivienne Shelton realized she did not feel all that resistant to this so-called transmigration.
She had grown up in an orphanage. No parents. No brothers or sisters. Back in her old world, aside from the head matron, there really was not a second person who truly cared about her. There was not much there she could not let go of.
What gave her a bit of a headache instead was this husband and son who had appeared out of nowhere. But after thinking it over, she felt it was only because her mind had not caught up yet. It was awkward, sure, but not some impossible problem.
All her life, the deepest wish hidden in Vivienne Shelton’s heart had been simple: a home of her own, and a child who would call her Mom. If she had that, then through all the long years ahead, she would not have to carry everything by herself anymore.
And now, after taking the long way around, heaven had handed her another chance. From this day on, she was the Norwood family’s daughter-in-law, and she was Leo Norwood’s mother.
As for Adrian Norwood, Vivienne Shelton had not yet figured out how she should face him. Asking her to suddenly accept a man she had never even met as her husband—well, that was going to take time.
Luckily, Adrian Norwood stayed with the army year-round, and that gave her plenty of room to slowly settle her mind.
Before she knew it, the sun had climbed high. Outside the window, the cicadas screamed themselves hoarse, one after another, loud and irritating, as if they would never stop.
"Grrr—"
Her stomach picked that moment to protest.
Vivienne Shelton lowered her head and patted her belly. Then she looked around the room and finally noticed there was a bowl of breakfast sitting by the bed—a steaming bowl of rice and sweet potato porridge, with a small plate of dried radish on the side. In the bowl, the rice and sweet potato were split about half and half.
This had to be the sick meal Mrs. Norwood specially made for her. Vivienne Shelton knew very well that for an ordinary farming family, polished rice counted as fine grain. Being able to eat it a few times a year was already something.
The memories flooding into her mind told her that this mother-in-law was known for having a hard mouth and a soft heart. In front of people, she often scolded her daughter-in-law for being troublesome and never letting anyone rest easy. But behind the scenes, she took care of her in every possible way.
These days, what most families put on the table was nothing more than cornmeal, sorghum, and sweet potatoes—coarse food that could barely fill a person halfway. It was not good eating, but at least people were not starving.
The old house did not have much fine grain to begin with, yet they still let her eat it first. Vivienne Shelton felt her nose sting a little, and a warm feeling she could not quite put into words rose in her chest.
To be thought of, to be looked after—this feeling... really was nice.
She drew in a slow breath, picked up the clean clothes folded neatly by the bedside, and changed into them. Then, relying on the scattered bits of memory in her head, she felt her way into the yard and found the well, ready to wash up.