Lin Xiaoman transmigrated into a TV drama she had never finished watching.
The transmigrators in the show were all chosen by fate: they built restaurants, opened escort agencies, made sugar and paper, and enjoyed the support of powerful clans and lives of endless splendor.
When it was her turn, she found herself in a home with bare walls, a frail grandmother, a five-year-old younger brother, and an almost empty rice jar.
She rolled up her sleeves. No worries, she had studied agriculture in her previous life.
A handful of soil was all it took for her to tell its acidity, alkalinity, and fertility. With this golden finger, she joined the Jiang family, one of the Five Great Clans.
At a gathering of transmigrators, she uncovered a shocking truth: the show had only ever aired their triumphant moments, but transmigrators actually had short lives.
In thirty-one years, there had been thirty-one transmigrators. Now only sixteen remained, most of them white-haired elders. Yet the first heads of the Five Great Clans were the youngest of all.
And six months later, just as the crops were about to ripen, a drought lasting two years would strike.
The great clans sealed their granaries. Debt notes devoured the poor, and a bowl of porridge bought a deed of servitude.
She bred better crops, taught farmers to read, and snuck out at night to dig wells and divert mountain springs.
If the sky would not give them rain, the people would find water themselves. If the clans would not save them, they would save one another.
But with every person she saved, the ashen mark on her palm spread another inch. Only then did she understand: every "gift" in this world had its price marked from the very beginning.
*
Everyone said Shen Shubai, the Jiang family's guest retainer, was handsome. Lin Xiaoman had never believed them, until he stood with his sword before a prison cart, his blue robe dust-stained, his features striking and refined, his eyes like cold stars. Her heart skipped a beat.
After that, he kept appearing "by coincidence," even risking his life to protect her when she was attacked. She thought it was his duty, until she caught him one night cutting open his palm and letting his blood drip before a black stone statue. Every time she had "recovered," this was how it had happened.
At the victory banquet, she entered with witnesses and evidence in hand, exposed the clans' deception, then demanded of everyone, "To the heads of the clans: where are the other fifteen transmigrators?"
The hall was full of raised cups and clashing swords. The man who never explained himself simply tightened his grip on his sword and stood at her side.
[Reading Notes]
1. One-on-one romance, happy ending. The conclusion has both sorrow and joy, and every lingering regret is resolved.
2. Lin Xiaoman x Shen Shubai: an agriculture-minded heroine who flirts without realizing it x a cold-faced retainer who falls for her without realizing it. Mutual pining.
3. The heroine's mission to save the world takes center stage, with an ensemble cast and power struggles among the great clans. Read with care if that is not your preference.
Theme: Surviving adversity
