Daily Life of Farming and Raising Kids in an Ancient Mountain Home

[Signed for simplified-Chinese publication. Follow the author’s Weibo, @Jinjiang Sui Yunxi, for updates.] [New novel Han Family opens March 13. Please add it to your favorites.] This novel is also known as Transmigrating to the End of a Dynasty and The Daily Struggle of Ordinary People in a Troubled Era. It leans toward realism, with a touch of ensemble cast. Sang Luo transmigrates, from the start with a ramshackle thatched hut and two children so emaciated from hunger they’re barely recognizable. Being poor isn’t scary, and being a widow doesn’t matter. What could be a better bargain than getting a second chance at life? As for having no food at home, she has two good hands and mountains stretching as far as the eye can see. Why should she be afraid of starving? Sang Luo isn’t backing down. She rolls up her sleeves and gets to work! ~ Shen Lie was forced by his third uncle to serve in the army in his place. After more than two years in the military, he returns to the village, where people look at him as if they’ve seen a ghost. When he asks around, he learns that he was not only “dead,” but also has a wife he’s never met. His wife and younger brother and sister were all packed off by his third uncle and aunt to live in the thatched hut the Shen family had thrown together in the mountains when they first fled here. That rickety old hut could get someone killed in weather like this! He can’t even go home to demand answers. Suppressing his anger, he hurries into the mountains. When he reaches the hut through the snowstorm, he can barely recognize the place he once lived. This isn’t quite what he expected… The hut has clearly been repaired and no longer looks dilapidated. Outside, a high wall of packed earth surrounds the yard, and a separate kitchen has been built inside. It’s dinnertime. A young woman steps out of the kitchen carrying a steaming bowl of food, followed by two children with rice and bowls and chopsticks in their hands. The moment they see each other, the children’s eyes widen. Then they yelp, leap up, and run toward him, shouting, “Big Brother!” Sang Luo: “???” What do you do when a husband drops out of the sky? Asking online. It’s urgent. This novel is also known as Transmigrating to the End of a Dynasty and Transmigrating: The Daily Struggle of Ordinary People in a Troubled Era. The blurb only covers the beginning. There’s a troubled era, so it’s not entirely lighthearted. Reader’s guide: This is a fictional setting, with details mixed in from various dynasties. Also, mountain life takes up most of the early story, which is why it’s reflected in the title. Later, the story moves into the city and explores other settings. Key point: When the heroine first transmigrates, there is no famine in the southern region where she lives. No famine. Only her family is poor enough to starve; everyone else is doing all right, aside from heavy military and labor service. Life is otherwise quite normal. The war comes later. The drought was nine years ago, when the hero’s family fled. The floods are in the north, not at the time or place where the heroine transmigrates. P.S. A note on place names: this is a fictional setting, so don’t connect it to real life. I named the county where the protagonists live Qiyang because, after searching dozens of place names online, I found they all existed in real life, either with the same pronunciation or the same characters. In the end, I had to lie flat and give up. Later prefecture names will probably also be historical names. They won’t be too far off, but please don’t draw too many parallels between the places in the novel and real ones. This is fiction, fiction, fiction, with plenty of author-created details. For example, the mountain behind Shili Village won’t match reality no matter how hard you try. Theme: Good fortune comes to those who work hard.