Zheng Wenlan opened her eyes and found herself back in the body she had inhabited in her previous life.
Her mother-in-law was pounding the table and forcing her to sign the divorce papers. She refused to sign and instead made her former husband leave with nothing. But the county office ruled that the jewelry had to stay with the Liu family, so she had no choice but to accept it.
She planned to sell the house to repay her debts, but her creditor was secretly blocking the sale, and no one dared buy it. Though loath to part with it, she could only sell for 150 taels.
In this world, a divorced woman had very few ways to make a living.
Fortunately, the little black cat she had kept at the seed shop came with her. The kitten told her it had brought all the seeds along.
She sold the house to pay her debts, then set off for the capital with her daughter Ling'er, Auntie Zhang, and the others.
They rented two acres of poor farmland and three thatched huts on the hillside behind a temple. A stream ran past the fields. She planted the grain and vegetable seeds she had brought from the future, hoping to trade the harvest for some silver one day.
Two elderly eunuchs who had retired from the palace often wandered up the hill and squatted by the vegetable shed to admire the plants. Before long, they grew familiar with one another.
There was still a while before the crops could be harvested, and people had to eat in the meantime. So she went to the market and set up a stall selling youtiao and tofu pudding.
The green shoots in the fields changed by the day, and more and more customers kept coming back to her stall. Little by little, life began to flourish...
